#edward 'accidentally good with children' teach

[izzyspussy]

Read any good fics lately? Looking for recommendations

You bet! Here's the last ten most recent fics I bookmarked on AO3.

To All The Better Places by @asteria-argo Five years after Jamie Tartt quits man city and disappears off the face of the earth, some of the players at AFC Richmond participate in an outreach program where they visit some local school, and mentor some of the children. These two events are a lot more connected than they first seem.

The Hound of Nelson Road by @pghumfort Chelsea legend, Roy Kent, disappeared without a trace 1 year ago. Rupert Mannion’s ex-wife, Rebecca Welton, took possession of AFC Richmond 1 week ago. Manchester City loanee, Jamie Tartt, will learn about the feral Staffordshire Bull Terrier in the basement of Nelson Road in about 10 minutes.

Can't Promise Forever by @sky-fire-forever Edward Teach is as part of Izzy Hands as Izzy himself is. But Izzy wants him gone.

Making a Statement by SugMak Roy Kent and Jamie Tartt understood Colin pretty well. He didn't want to be a spokesperson - he just didn't want to have to hide. They'd hoped any attention from that big kiss after their final match last season would have died down by the start of the season. Keeley could have told them it wouldn't.

Call-Up by straydog733 Roy, Keeley and Jamie are having a quiet night in when Jamie gets some troubling news from an old friend.

AD NAUSEAM by providing_leverage Isaac McAdoo learns that his best mate is gay in the worst way possible. Then he wakes up and does it again. Over and over.

Conversations by BRobilliard Missing scene between S2 E04 & E05: What happened after Stede brought Ed back to the ship?

but the past is a minefield (and right now is a prison break) by flibbertygigget The semi-captaincy of one Izzy Hands, one-legged bastard and damn good pirate.

Two Truths And… by MissHazelA Frenchie and Izzy make a bet, fall in love, and accidentally start a ship-wide lying contest.

Credit for Experience by Vee (Vera_DragonMuse) Izzy had no interest in being a 'nontraditional student'. He preferred tradition and flipping off most institutions on principle. Too bad it was the only way to qualify for certification as a C.P.A. and his first career choice smoldered in ruins behind him. He'd get through it. Even if it meant rolling his eyes through an art class to fill a pointless requirement.

[starry-night-rose]

“I know not who you are or how I got here but may I just say.....Hi.. how ya doin’”

Character Playlist / Character Inspirations

Full Name: Fabian Edwards Nacht

Nicknames: Monsieur Voleur (Rook) Mimic Octopus (Floyd) Bibi (Juvia belongs to @windbornearchon ) Fabi (Ellis) A charming employee/ a pain in the neck (Azul) Mr. Nacht (Livius and Radcliff belongs to @terrovaniadorm )

V/A: Ryohei Kimura (Japanese) Johnny Young Bosch (English)

!Twisted From Flynn Rider from Tangled!

Age: 18

Birthday: July 24th

Horoscope: Leo

Species: Human

Gender: Male

Pronouns: He/him

Height: 182 cm (or 6’0)

Hair Color: Brown with a touch of lighter brown

Eye Color: Brown

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Homeland: Port o’Bliss

Family: Unnamed “Nana” ,Unnamed Biological Mother (Deceased) ,Unnamed Biological Father (Deceased)

Dominant Hand: Ambidextrous

Dormitory: Octanivelle

School Year: 3rd Year

Class: 3-C (No. 14)

Best Class: Practical Magic

Worst Class: Art

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Favorite Food(s): Strudels, Cupcakes, Lollipops

Least Favorite Food: Anything Rotten

Hobbies: Rapping, Scheming, Making lanterns

Dislikes: Horses, The Police, Loneliness

Talent(s): Pickpocketing, Fencing, Playing the Violin, Charming others

Sexuality: Demisexual Biromantic

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Personality: A true charmer through and through! Fabian is a sly individual, always managing to get on everyone’s good side with his charm and wit. Most people can’t help but listen to everything he has to say! Fabian knows how to use his words to get what he needs from others. Always seen with a smug grin on, he always has a sardonic comment to make about almost any situation he’s in! He’s excellent at getting out of sticky situations using just his words and “charming personality” as he would put. Fabian is however unaware of the effect he has on others, causing him to be known as a “heartthrob” around campus for his accidentally romantic comments and actions. At his core, Fabian is a man who just wants to get by life while simultaneously living life to the fullest.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

TW: Childe Abuse

Backstory: Fabian was born in a poverty stricken area of the Port o’Bliss to two loving parents. Tragically, they passed away when Fabian was around four years old and left him to fend for himself on the streets. Fabian learned to trust his gut and to do anything he could to survive such as pickpocketing to eating food straight out of the trash. It was on one of those pickpocketing runs when he was 13 that he was caught by the police who hit him relentlessly and sent him into the local orphanage. Fabian didn’t mind the orphanage that much, it had okay food, other children to talk to, and a roof over his head. It was in this orphanage that he learned he had a knack for storytelling, sharing stories with the other kids long into the night to help them all sleep. Unfortunately he didn’t stay there long til he was fostered by a wealthy couple. The couple was nothing but cruel to young Fabian, forcing him to sleep in the basement, beating him up, forcing him to eat rotten leftovers if he misbehaved, and so much more. Fabian knew he had to get out of this house so one night, he fled the house and wound up back at the orphanage. He begged and pleaded to be let back in. Thankfully, the begging and pleading worked and he was released from his foster parent’s care. Fabian stayed just a little bit more at the orphanage until he was adopted by a sweet older woman who he affectionately calls “Nana.” She was like an angel to him, teaching him life skills and magic. Later on, he was accepted into NRC and was sorted into Octanivelle

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Trivia!

Fabian hates horses due to getting into a fight with one once! It didn’t end well for him....

He has a scar on his eyebrow! He typically covers it up with his hair

Fabian has dimples when he smiles!

He hates art class as he can never seem to draw the nose right

Fabian is oddly good at massages (He has no idea where he picked up this talent)

Fabian’s skill at the violin started when he was first taken in by his “Nana.” She had one laying around and asked if he could play. When he responded with a no, she took it upon herself to teach him

Fabian doesn’t remember much about his parents other than his mother made strudels, his father loved violin, and they both loved him dearly

The earrings he wears are extremely precious to him, the stud being from his “Nana” and the other being from his mother

[wastheheart]

Okay, so Esme's relationship with womanhood has been complicated and confusing her entire life. As a child, she was very much tom-boyish; she worked on the farm and cares little for her appearance beyond looking respectable for school or church. After all, it's not like farming was a clean, clinical life. As a kid, it didn't matter so much that she was often found in wellies with mud caked clothes.

As she got into her teen years, her mother started pressuring her to dress and behave more lady-like so to attract potential suitors, but Esme wasn't interested.

She had made up her mind— to go west and become a teacher. If it was one thing she loved as equally as the outdoors, it was knowledge. Accidentally rebellious, not deliberately so. This theme would follow her into her marriage with Charles.

Keeping a home didn't come unnaturally to her. After all, she'd been helping her mother do such her entire childhood, but being a homemaker and wife did not come as easily to her as manual labour and reading books. It also didn't help that her presentation of womanhood, despite her mother's coaching, was not adequate for Charles; he made sure she knew that. Esme's instinct to bite back was gradually beaten out of her. The role of subservient wife sculpted by Charles' hands.

Falling pregnant with her son came unexpectedly, both physically and mentally. As much as she wished to teach, Esme hadn't considered herself a mother, at least in these circumstances. In fact, motherhood hadn't really been on her cards at all. Just another way she felt as if she was being a woman all wrong.

Once away from Charles and able to process the situation, Esme gradually became more excited about the prospect of becoming a mother whilst simultaneously doing the job she loved. In fact, teaching really helped nurture her maternal instinct. After losing her baby, Esme's womanhood once again came under scrutiny. Was there something wrong with her? Was she not good enough to be able to do what everyone assumes women should be able to?

The loss in identity and capabilities accompanied by grief is what tipped her over the edge.

Awakening as a vampire, Esme felt a freedom she had never known— freedom from expectation. Perceived "womanness" was a human trait and unimportant to their kind, although her coven's lifestyle choices meant still adhering to these unspoken rules when around humans.

The only moment her sense of womanhood was abruptly questioned was the events of Bella's pregnancy. Despite grieving her human child and wishing she could have something similar with Carlisle, she had made peace with the fact their bodies as a species became infertile. Learning that the infertility was one-sided really began to mess with Esme's head, especially since the ability to bear children as a human ended in tragedy too.

This basic ability women (of most species) were supposed to have, started causing her to reflect heavily on her self worth, especially in Carlisle's eyes. Did he think less of her because she couldn't give him what Bella had given Edward?

Despite having always believed women are more than their bodily functions, Esme clearly hadn't applied it to herself which only became obvious during the events of Breaking Dawn. Whatever her mother and Charles had drilled into her had been done to such an extent that, even a century and a transformation later, it remained deep-rooted in her.

However, it's another reason that she is so vehemently against the question "what is a w.oman?" and the idea that women are definable by b.iological essentialism.

Esme may look like a "woman", but for those who define womanhood by the ability to bear children, then what does that inability make her? She may outwardly appear as a "woman", but when Carlisle changed her, he altered her DNA too (presuming her c.hromosomes were even XX to begin with). So what is she, then? Is it an aesthetic? Even then, as a human she never truly lived up to lady-like behaviour. Everything people use to define womanhood isn't relevant nor applicable to her.

So while she identifies as a woman, she does so in protest for those who think womanhood has clear cut edges. She does so in defiance. Because it has taken her a century and eternity to see her worth and her strength in an identity so many people try to control and dictate. And she will rip the throat out of anyone who believes they can define and control for other people trying to simply live their truth.

[yorkshire-rockchick]

Please can we know about your OCs, I've seen the odd mention to them in your fics on AO3

Oh, I love my OCs and can say so much about them.

THE PLAYERS;

Harry Winters - Goal keeper who moves up from the academy team at 16. Good frieds with Noah and Drew, boyfriend of Chloe.

Ezekiel Noah Gordon - Goes by Noah because he hates his first name. Came up from the academy. Plays as a right back defender. Good friends with Harry and Drew

Andrew "Drew" Cameron - A Scottish trans player who also went to the AFC Richmond academy. Plays as a striker and looks up to Jamie and Dani. Unofficially adopted by Paul and Tom.

THE FAMILY MEMBERS

Isabella "Izzy" Rosenfeldt - Anders girlfriend, later wife. They've been together since they were 15. You know the woman who hugs Anders at the end of the last episode when Richmond wins? This is her, I just made her interesting. She's half Spanish, half American. Her dad works for the US Government which is how she ended up in London.

Erin Reynolds - Paul Reynolds wife. They met at church and are the only Richmond couple to get married in a church due to both of them having a Catholic upbringing. Erin speaks Irish as a first language and didn't learn English until she was 16 when she decided she wanted to go to law school.

Olivia Catherine "Liv" Reynolds - Paul and Erin's eldest child. Named after her godparents. She is smarter than most children her age, likes hanging out with the team and calls them all her uncles. Based on the line "You told my daughter..." in series 2 when everyone has a go at Jamie

Emily Grace Reynolds -Erin and Paul's youngest daughter. Based on the line "What about sonograms?" when everyone has to delete photos off their phones.

Sophie O'Brien - Tom O'Briens wife. They met when Tom accidentally crashed his car into Sophie's. They get married after 6 months because they both like each other and they think it is a good idea. Sophie has a masters degree in chemistry and teaches at a private all girls school. She eventually gives up her job to focus on her PhD.

Pippa Kukoč (nee Edwards) - Sasha Kukoč's girlfriend, later wife. She is a nursing student who has a placement in the local Accident and Emergency department which means she sees a lot of the Richmond players. She is Jeff Goodmans cousin so he disapproved of her relationship at times.

Elizabeth - the fabulous creation of @orbitalpirate, she is a curvy goddess who is loved by Thierry Zoreaux.

Chloe Morgan - Harry's girlfriend. Knows nothing about football beyond what colours Richmond play in. Grew up in care so had a rough start in life. Rebecca offers her a job working for Richmond as a means to support herself and she loves it.

THE PETS

Spagetti the Corgi - Arlo Dixon's corgi. Occasionally looked after by Olivia Reynolds. Spagetti is a rescue dog, so everyone jokes Arlo is a rescue human after he moved in with Jeff.

Alfred Bumbercatch - Moe's cat. Alfred turned up one day and that was that. He is a Sphynx cat so Moe knits him a lot of jumpers.

Arthur the Rabbit - Tommy Winchester's rabbit. Arthur is spoiled and has free run of the house. Decan claims not to like him, this is a lie. Jamie laughs every time he hears the name.

Marshamallow McAdoo-Bumbercatch - Isaac and Moe's Pomeranian puppy that they get when they get married. Pretends not to like Alfred. Isaac treats her like a princess and it shows at times.

Cleo the cat - Jamie and Colin's maine coon cat. She is stubborn and only likes Jamie and Colin. She has been known to poop in the shoes of people she does not like.

Rocky the horse - Izzy's horse, brought for her by Anders after they found out they couldn't have children. Izzy swaps horse tips with Rebecca after Rebecca also gets a horse.

There are more OCs to be added, both human and pets but they are still in development.

[our-flag-means-death-ao3feed]

three, four

by emmett

If you had asked Edward Teach at, oh, literally any time in his life prior to this exact moment, whether or not he’d ever willingly allow himself to be shuffled out of the room with the children so that the adults could talk, he would have told you to go fuck yourself with whatever uncomfortable utensil was closest to hand. He'd had discovered however, in the last few moments, that discretion is in fact the better part of not having to be in the middle of that domestic and had nicked off out the back door with Stede and Mary’s equally judicious children.

in which Ed meets the parents kids family, Stede gets the telling off he deserves, Doug is Doug, and Louis and Alma gain a parent or two.

Words: 3240, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Our Flag Means Death (TV)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: Gen, M/M

Characters: Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Stede Bonnet, Doug (Our Flag Means Death), Mary Allamby Bonnet

Relationships: Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet, Blackbeard | Edward Teach & Doug (Our Flag Means Death), Mary Allamby Bonnet/Stede Bonnet

Additional Tags: Meet the Family, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff, Edward 'Accidentally Good With Children' Teach, Doug 'It's Free Children (and I plan to love them like my own)' OFMD

source https://archiveofourown.org/works/44340133

[pascalispunkhq-saved]

Pedro: please bare with me. I went to the Renaissance World Tour last night and DID NOT survive.

Pedro: I still haven’t made it past episode 1 of Daisy Jones so I’m the worst kind of friend. It’s next on my list though 💜 I read the book and adored it

Pedro: An aristocrat called Stede Bonnet is bored with life and longs to be at sea and be a pirate. He abandons his wife (it was an arranged marriage so they don’t fit very well, and children) He isn’t a very good pirate, he doesn’t like the idea of killing people, he’s a bit soft, he’s got an entire library on the ship and a secret closet full of fine garments. One day he gets the attention of Blackbeard (Edward Teach), who is bored of being a pirate and wants more out of life. Blackbeard’s right hand man, Izzy Hands insists on killing Stede but Ed has other ideas so he comes up with a pact with Stede that he will teach him how to be a bloodthirsty pirate if Stede teaches him how to be more of a gentleman. They fall in love 🥹

Pedro: At the end of the series they get captured by the British Navy and Ed uses an act of grace to save Stede from death and they end up being drafted instead. Later Ed comes up with a plan for them to run away and start a new life together in China. While on his way to meet Ed, Stede gets accosted by a naval officer and things go awry and the man dies accidentally. Ed thinks he’s been abandoned, so Stede goes back home only to find out his wife has been telling everyone he was dead and has started a new life for herself. Ed’s heart is broken and Izzy taunts him until he is back to his old self and he orders Izzy to get rid of anything that reminds him of Stede (including marooning his old crew mates on an island). Stede is getting in the way of Mary so she tries to kill him but he wakes up and they realize they’ve both fully moved on - she’s in love with her painting instructor and he’s in love with Edward - so he gets a little boat and sets sail to find Blackbeards ship but finds his old crew on the deserted island first. And now we’re waiting for season 2!

Pedro: WATCH IT!! Pedro: I would love nothing more than to be a queer pirate. I've been a queer cowboy, a queer prince, I feel like it's a natural progression into gay piracy right? Pedro: It's okay. I only ask for loyalty and I get lies in return 🙃 Pedro: I'm kidding, if you don't want to watch it I could literally summarize the whole thing 😂

[queerspacepunk]

Would love a fic where instead of running away, Stede explains to Ed why he needs to go back to his family and he brings Ed with him. It's probably a massive story idea I realize, but any tidbit would be amazing if it sounds interesting <3

ask and ye shall receive!! or something like that. it is indeed a Massive Story Idea and not one I'm super invested in exploring in too much detail as a whole thing (i love the angst too much!!!) but a tidbit? a lil snippet??? something a lil light and a lil silly? fuck yes!!

ofmd drabble #02 - three 1651 words | meeting the parents kids family?

If you had asked Edward Teach at, oh, literally any time in his life prior to this exact moment, whether or not he'd ever willingly allow himself to be shuffled out of the room with the children so that the adults could talk, he would have told you to go fuck yourself with whatever uncomfortable utensil was closest to hand.

Ed had discovered however, in the last few moments, that discretion is in fact the better part of not having to be in the middle of that domestic. Fuck, he would have crawled inside his own bloody beard and hidden in it, had he still had the damn thing, just to get away.

Alas, he doesn't have a beard, but Stede (legally speaking at least) still does, and her name is Mary. Ed's always thought of 'Mary' as a sort of humble, unassuming name, but the woman in front of him is a hell of a lot closer to the formidable end of the scale than Ed had been expecting. She may well be the only person he's ever met who's ballsier than Stede himself, with a touch more common sense and rather a lot more follow-through.

He's pretty sure the only reason she hasn't stabbed a hat pin or something right through his ear hole and into Stede's squishy little brain is that she wants him to be able to hear what has got to be the most severe and well-deserved bollocking of the poor sod's life.

And so, Ed had assessed the situation, and his options, and decided; fuck this all the way to church, actually, and had nicked off out the back door with Stede and Mary's equally judicious children.

He'd figured that they would, you know, entertain themselves, once they got out of there. Ed would had, when he was a kid, and there'd only been the one of him! Even if they didn't they surely wouldn't be bothering him.

Ed's back in his own clothes, mostly. He needed the knee brace for the walk, and it doesn't fit right over normal trousers so he put his leather ones back on too. Sure, he's left the jacket off and pulled his hair back into a bun in an attempt to look slightly less obviously a notoriously escaped pirate, but even with the beard gone, and a normal amount of weapons on his person, he still looks like a pirate.

(He'd put the cravat back on too, and no it hadn't escaped his notice that Mary was wearing one as well. He'd found himself wondering if she'd stolen it from Stede's wardrobe too, or if black cravats were just something all rich people owned. Then he'd wondered if it was weird that he's hoping it's the first option.)

The point is, he looks like the pirate he is. A cool one. An intimidating one. The friend of Mary's who'd passed him on her way out had certainly gone an awfully funny colour at the sight of him, which means that the kids would surely leave him alone to indulge in his favourite and most lucrative hobby – being a nosy little shit.

Not much to the immediate garden – some tidy but not perfectly kept flowerbeds, neat lawn worn down into desire paths in places that Ed suspects the children are responsible for, a small collection of sticks staked perfectly upright in a circle near the back of the shed in a way that would give Frenchie the absolute shits, you know, normal kid stuff.

"How good a pirate are you?" a voice asks from behind him, as he turns away from what he's assuming is (at least) attempted witchcraft, and he doesn't jump, but he does suddenly have a lot more sympathy for Frenchie.

"What?" Ed asks, turning to look at her – one of the kids, Alma? Because he'd processed 'pirate' and 'creepy child' and not a lot else.

"How good of a pirate are you?" she repeats, and he's not sure how someone half his height can stare him down, but damn if she isn't giving it a go.

"Very," Ed says with a shrug.

Her face scrunches up, like she's thinking, in a way that is familiar and oddly endearing. "You're Blackbeard."

"What the fu- no I'm no- how the hell do you know that?" Hell's not a curse word. It's fine. They say it in church all the time. Or, so he's been told, "I don't even have a beard."

"You're running away. It would be silly not to shave it off."

Well, yeah. Okay, fair.

"Lots of pirates have beards," Ed points out, "how'd you know I was Blackbeard."

Alma shrugs and kicks at the dirt, "my dad has a crush on you."

Ed laughs, a genuine one, a happy one, because yeah, she's not wrong.

"Wait," he says after a moment, "how do you know that? He hasn't seen you since we met."

A child should not be able to pull off such a scathing eyeroll, "he used to read us stories."

Ed’s chest feels tighter at that and not in a good way, at the idea of Stede daydreaming over the idea of him, even though he knows that no one's ever seen him as truly as Stede has, that Stede was giving him those delighted looks even before he realised that Ed was Blackbeard.

"He had a crush on the Beast from Beauty and the Beast, too," Alma adds.

"Uh…" Ed says, because he's honestly not sure how he feels about that.

"and King Arthur," she continues, turning and wandering away, "and Shakespeare."

That's something, Ed supposes, as he watches her goes, before turning his sights on the… barn? Shed? It definitely isn't housing animals, he can tell that even before he gets to the wide open doors and steps inside to find himself surrounded by… paintings? Cool ones.

They're not like the hoity-toity, fancy-ass (boring-ass) paintings he often sees in the fancy ships he's raiding, nah, these ones are interesting. There's some that seem to be all lines and shapes – siblings to the lighthouse painting of Stede's still sitting back in his cabin on the Revenge, while others are more… anatomically suggestive?

(Well, if he's honest, they're vaginas. Floral vaginas, but definitely vaginas. A few botanical penises and the odd probable ballsack too, but they're definitely Mary's work, and she is both terrifying and a lady so Ed's going to try and keep his own non-implied balls right where they are and not mention that to anyone. Ever.)

"Er, hello?"

Ed spins on his heel, doing his best to put his back to something resembling a wall as he turns to face the intruder– or well, since Ed's kind of the intruder in this situation – the newcomer, and tries to keep his stance as outwardly casual as he can.

The man, he notes, doesn't look like he's much of a threat to anyone, and seems more perplexed than concerned with the stranger in what may well be his painting shed – if the smears on his fingers and the fact that the smaller kid – Luciu- no, Louis – is just about clinging to his leg, is anything to go by.

"Who're you?" Ed asks, because he gets the feeling that this guy is daft enough and wholesome enough that he might just answer despite it definitely not being Ed who should be asking that question.

"Doug."

Called it.

"Ed," Ed says, because it only seems fair, really, and steps forward to shake the guy's hand. No need to not be polite. "who are you. In er, context?"

"Mary's painting instructor," Doug says, at the exact same moment as Louis says "my dad."

Ed looks at Doug, who's now blushing bright pink, and then to Louis who (fortunately? Unfortunately? Hard to say) takes quite strongly after both Mary and Stede, and then across the lawn to the window of the house where, thanks to the sheer curtains Ed can the silhouette of Mary brandishing what looks concerningly like a lamp while she yells something that Ed can't quite catch but has the distinct cadence of someone articulating just what they're planning to do to your favourite organ (which, knowing Stede is probably his bloody heart, but which Ed's hoping Mary will assume to be his balls because that at least they can recover from), and then looks back to Doug. Doug who looks like either a real estate agent's idea of a painter or possibly a painter's idea of a real estate agent (Ed's sadly not familiar enough with either profession to determine which).

"Nice."

Doug's face goes all… funny, all wibbly in a way that takes Ed far too long a moment to realise is him being all gooey-eyed and in love, and is weirdly, a rather familiar expression (and oh fuck no he cannot be realising that that's what Stede's face means when he does that. Not while he's in Stede's wife's painting shed talking to Stede's wife's mister-ess. Only apparently, he can), before Doug laughs awkwardly and asks, "and who are you? In, uh, context?"

"I, uh-" oh fuck it, it's not like he can get any deeper, "I'm the other man. The, er, other man's other man."

Doug mouths that silently to himself a couple of times before it seems to click, and then he's giving Ed a once-over before letting out a rather appreciative whistle, "good for him."

"Doug," Louis asks reaching up to tug on his wrist, "what does 'other man' mean?"

"I think, kiddo," Doug says, hoisting the boy up onto his hip (and he's too big for it, really, but it makes Ed's heart do something funny to see it, all the same), "that it means that you and Alma are about to be the first kids in town with three whole dads."

He glances up at Ed, who is absolutely not freaking out, "want a drink?"

[breeeliss]

.a delightful prison

stede bonnet x edward teach

wc: 900

//

“so is married bliss all that it’s cracked up to be?” 

ed asks the question after he digs through stede’s obscenely extensive collection of stockings and accidentally comes upon a handkerchief meticulously embroidered with initials he doesn’t recognize. after chortling over it and prancing around the room with it tied around his neck like a cravat -- “it’s mental how much you lot love putting lace on everything you wear, you’re like a flock of birds, absolutely hilarious!” -- , he hears stede quietly admit that it belonged to his wife, mary. 

stede doesn’t talk about his wife much, which ed doesn’t find all that strange considering how fickle and downright bitchy polite folk are. it seems like they just barely manage to pretend to like one another, and ed still can’t shake off how insane that is. but stede doesn’t remind him of that crowd. never did. especially not when he looks so profoundly saddened and pained as he answers. 

“well, it’s a...a complicated question, isn’t it?” stede leans against his desk, tormenting one of the buttons on his shirtsleeve while ed watches from his spot on the couch. “i suppose it entirely depends on what one is looking for in a marriage.”

“i should hope at least a good fuck every once in a while.” 

it doesn’t make stede laugh like ed hoped it would, but he does get a smile. “emphasis on ‘every once in a while’” 

ed’s mouth drops. “stop it. seriously? you’re havin’ a laugh.” 

“it wasn’t really the point, if i’m being honest. mary wanted children, and, well...i thought maybe the children would bright things up a bit. otherwise, she wasn’t particularly interested and i didn’t particularly care.” 

“i gotta say, mate, i’d be pretty offended if you talked about fucking me with this much enthusiasm.” 

another smile, almost there. “i doubt any dalliance with you would be anything short of memorable.” 

“ahhhh, you’re flirting!” ed winks. “and dodging the question, which isn’t boding well.” 

stede walks over and gently adjusts the handkerchief around ed’s neck, rearranging it so that it was properly tied and poking delicately from the hem of his leather top. “marriage is compromise. and you have to be alright with not always getting what you want.” 

ed doesn’t let stede pull his hand away, and he grabs it instead to keep it pressed close to his chest. “that’s awfully depressing, mate.” 

“do you disagree?” 

“i don’t much like compromising, but i also never heard of a marriage that didn’t end with someone getting run through or thrown overboard. always seemed a bit too messy to bother with.” 

stede’s brows scrunch in that adorable way they tend to do when he’s heard something peculiarly charming. “i've heard that when you’re in love, it tends to sweeten the experience. otherwise it just feels like...” 

ed thinks of his mother suddenly, and finishes the sentence before there’s the space for a breath. “a prison.” 

“is that what you think marriage is cracked up to be?” 

ed sighs, leaning his back against the arm of the couch and taking stede’s hand with him. stede has no choice but to sit right on the edge, and ed revels in the feeling of their hips pressed together. “i think marriage is something miserable people do to trick themselves into thinking they’re happy. apparently it’s the same for the rich folk too.” 

“well, come now, just because it didn’t work for me doesn’t mean it’s all hopeless.” stede’s thumb rubs across ed’s chest. “i imagine the scenario alters entirely when both parties actually care for one another. if love is there, that’s all that truly matters.” 

“if love is all that matters, then why bother with it at all?” 

he’s stumped him, ed is sure, because stede doesn’t say anything for a long moment, too fascinated by the sound of his skin scratching against worn leather. ed tries to school his features when ed’s fingers dip under the handkerchief-turned-cravat and find warm skin waiting. his gaze hangs in the hope that stede will turn to him and show him precisely what thoughts are burning in his eyes, but in the meantime he holds back a shiver when fingers on his chest become an entire hand. 

“haven’t you ever wanted to meet someone who you’d be delighted to be imprisoned with forever?” 

ed can’t help but laugh. “a delightful prison? who ever heard of such a thing?” 

and finally -- finally! -- ed gets the soft laughter he was waiting for. the one that makes stede’s eyes crinkle in the corners and softens his face into something ed had always been too guilty to hope too hard for. “gentleman pirates, delightful prisons. surely anything’s possible at this point.” 

there’s a thought to pull stede closer and admit without words what he’s sure has been filling his chest for quite some time now. but there’s something quite nice about being stuck like this -- with stede’s hand steady against him and his eyes finally brushing up ed’s face to meet his eyes, gaze steady and strong. nice in that he might be happy to die here, or like he might want to bottle the moment up to peer at it later. it’s the first time being static has ever felt nice. a delightful prison indeed. 

“you’re a funny one, stede,” ed whispers. “i like it.” 

[sweatergirlsposts]

Imagine Being Part of The Wolf Pack and Imprinting on Carlisle (Oneshot)

(A/N: Back by demand here is a longgggg oneshot of this imagine. I’m a little rusty, but I hope you all like it)

Ever since you turned, life had gotten lonelier for you. Living the pack life meant separating yourself from your closest friends and finding only solace in your brothers and sister in the pack, but it wasn’t always enough. No one could know your secret, especially your mother. 

Your mother thought all the stories about turning into wolves was entertaining for children, but to ponder on them as adults was a waste of time. Your father was a Quileute while your mother was a resident of Forks. Your father never turned or imprinted but he did fall in love with your mother and stayed on the La Push reservoir until he died. 

You turned when you found out the news of your father’s mysterious death. The police described it as an accidental fall off a cliff, but you knew your father wouldn’t even be near a cliff, for he had an intense fear of heights. According to a police report, that you stole, they found long wavy auburn strands on his body. Your mother’s first thoughts were that your father probably had an affair, but you also knew that your father wouldn’t even dream about being with any women other than your mother. Least to say, your hypothesis was that your father was murdered.  

Still living in La Push, you come up with excuses to your mother of why you’re always out late and how your friends with everyone in the pack. She thinks it’s weird but tells you that if it gets out of hand then she will ban you from leaving the house. You didn’t see the point seeing as were an adult, but you let her say whatever made her feel comfortable.

Currently, everyone in the pack were getting ready to go train with the vamps, or more formally known as the Cullens. 

You only knew/heard of their family and individual names in passing, whenever Sam or Jacob would rely a thought through the pack connection. One name that you heard all time was Bella Swan, the human girl whom you’ve briefly met, that was involved with them. Everyone in the pack would always recoil at the thought of Bella and Edward, her Vampire significant other, being together. You could give less of a care in the world. The only thing you cared about was if they were to kill another human or if they passed into your land.

“Get ready to head out,” Sam yelled who stripped down to his skimmies like everyone else. To say that you go through a lot of undergarments in a week was an understatement. 

“(Y/N), you take behind the pack,” Sam ordered. Sam trusted you to keep the pack safe from behind, seeing that you were just as strong as himself and Paul. 

“Yes Sam,” you responded with compliance waiting for everyone else to turn before you did. 

You changed thinking of the only thing that could make you enraged, the death of your father. Bursting from your human form, came forth your wolf form. You were covered in thick dark grey fur with highlights of white that reflected when the sun hit it just right.  

‘Let’s go’  is all Sam said through the connection as Jacob howled to let the Cullens know that you all were coming.

Apparently according to Sam and Jacob, the Cullens had offered an olive branch because they need your help to take down a common enemy, rouge vampires. These vampires were coming after Bella and therefore were breaking the treaty of harming humans and would get the punishment the tribe saw fit for this conflict; to be put to death. One of the vampires of their coven, Jasper you believed his name was, said that they could train you to fight against these vampires, for his prior experience with some.

‘What is the point in meeting up with those bloodsuckers! What can they teach us that we don’t already about killing their kind.’ Paul sneered through the connection as you ran as a pack to the meeting spot.

‘It’s not about what they can teach us, it’s about keeping treaty and protecting our people, even if it means working with them for short amount of time’ Sam growled with his hackles raising to assert his dominance. 

Sam was the first to make it over the hill to the clearing the Cullens agreed to meet up at. Still in a protective approach, one by one the pack emerged from the brush. Since you were last, Sam expected that you would circle the perimeter to make sure that there were no unexpected guests.

“They don’t trust us enough to be in their human forms,” you heard from a soft masculine, almost throaty voice, as you soon finished your circle around the area. 

“They came. That’s what matters” said another voice that sounded silky and comforting. You shake the ghost chill that ran through your fur giving you goosebumps as you made your way up the hill.

“Will you translate?” asked the second voice before the first protested.

“Hold on there’s another one coming up the hill,” the voice sensed your approach making it’s way atop of the hill. Finally showing yourself, you observed the clearing in which everyone would practice in.

Your eyes came across each Cullen and Bella. One by one, you surveyed how each one looked with what you assumed to be their companion, until your eyes stopped on who you assumed was their leader that stood in front of your group. 

And in that moment you could feel you heart almost drop out of your body. Your head became overwhelmed and dizzy as if you had rolled down a hill and you were trying to find your equilibrium to stand. Something flowed through your veins, stronger than hormones and more numbingly intoxicating than morphine. As soon as the feeling came hitting you like you ran into a brick wall, it disappeared. 

You knew what you did and oh boy did you regret it. You imprinted on the angelic blond vampire in front of your whole pack and they felt it through the connection.

The vampire with Bella turned his head towards you with a taken aback look but also one of understanding. It was like he was reading your mind. He looked back and forth between you and ‘him’    

‘Oh fuck’ is all you thought after imprinting on the vampire.

“Carlisle we might have a situation,” informed ‘Bella’s’ vampire to ‘him’ while still staring at you before letting him say anything. 

Before you knew what was happening, Sam jumped atop of you knocking you onto your back.

‘YOU IMPRINTED ON ONE OF THEM!!’  Sam ferociously barked in your face, ready to attack in case you resisted.

‘Disgusting!’ yelled another through the connection.   

‘I can’t control it Sam, you of all people know that’ you whimpered meekly. Considering that you usually had a strong demeanor, you’ve never felt so vulnerable and powerless within your time being in the pack. 

“Hey!” called Bella’s vampire, “Let them go, they can’t control it”

You took advantage of this distraction and pushed Sam off of you. Once freed, for a mere moment, Sam caught you by the leg and punctured it with his massive teeth. 

Letting out a yelp at the sudden pain to your hind leg, you donkey kicked Sam in the face with your other leg and ran away limping. You couldn’t believe what Sam just did to you. You needed air, you needed space from your pack, and from him.

All your instincts told you to turn around to be near your imprint, to protect the bewitchingly good looking vampire from your pack in case, but you couldn’t be near him. The shame that your stupid wolfy senses put upon your shoulders was too much to bare right now. All you wanted right now was be alone with your thoughts and to go get help for your leg.

Meanwhile in the clearing, all but one vampire was very confused at what went down.  

“What just happened?” Bella asked being the first one to verbalize everyone else’s thoughts

“They imprinted on Carlisle,” Edward stated confound, “The one that Sam attacked”  

No one was more surprised than Carlisle. He didn’t really know how to take it, especially if the feelings were coming from one of the people they had a treaty with. One thing he knew for sure was he needed to check on you, if that bite got infected while your out in the forest it was going to cause you a lot damage to your human self. 

Reading Carlisle’s mind, Edward knew that he was coming along to track and translate once you were found. 

Carlisle turned to Jasper, “You continue you to show them how to take care of the newborns, Edward and I will be back soon.”

Leaving the clearing, Carlisle followed Edward so he could track your mind to find you. 

You laid on the river bank, still in your wolf form and bleeding from your back left leg. This river was the one that your father would take you to go fly fishing in when you were a kid. It was the river in between the land of both the Cullen’s and the Quileute’s, but the part you were at was far enough down that the pack wouldn’t hear your thoughts from there. 

The pain from your leg hurt like a bitch. You were so livid with not only Sam and the pack, but yourself. 

‘How could you be so stupid to imprint on one of them?!’ you thought to yourself, ‘Of all people and creatures, it had to be the people that your people were sworn enemies to! The pack will never want me back’ 

Trying to distract yourself from your mind, you tried ‘cleaning’ your wound with your tongue as disgusting as it sounds. 

Edward could hear your thoughts of pain as you tried ‘cleaning’ the bite. Werewolf blood was in a way revolting like the smell of them. The blood was still edible but unnecessary to the vampire diet. Both Carlisle and himself, arrived at the edge of the tree line where you couldn’t see them.

“Let’s try not to scare them off. By the substantial smell of blood, if they keep straining the wound, they’re going to pass out soon,”  Carlisle smelt the aroma lingering in the air, “I think you should go first to talk to them Edward”

You could smell that someone else was there. Vampire with possibly more vampires. You try standing up in case you have to defend yourself but stumble backwards.

“Easy (Y/N)” you whip your head to find Bella’s vampire walking towards you slowly from 10 feet away, “I’m Edward, and I’m here to help”

You wondered how he knew your name but remembered that his kind had special gifts, you assumed his was mind reading.

‘I don’t need your help, I need to be alone right now please,’ you growled lowly as a warning.

“I can’t let you do that, especially if you’re bleeding that much,” he said gesturing to your injured leg and how the thick substance spilled from it matting your fur. 

‘There’s more of you here, I smell someone else’

“I brought someone that could help your leg. I brought Carlisle, he’s the one you imprinted on”

You let his roll around in your mind. It sounded like the name of someone who belonged to bloodline of  royalty. Edward smirked reading how you played around with Carlisle’s name. 

Starting to feel the blood loss, you fall down into a laying position on your side.

“Carlisle!” Edward called over to his adoptive father as he watched you fall to the ground

Catching your breath, you felt two presences over your form, Edward by your muzzle while Carlisle was by your leg analyzing it.

“They’re losing a lot of blood. We’re going to have to get them to turn back so we can wrap a tourniquet around their leg,” Carlisle relays to Edward before turning to you, “I’m going to need you to revert back so I can help you”

You looked into his amber eyes. Even though his colour was similar to Edward’s and the rest of the Cullens, you could see that his had matured longer to be that certain colour. It was like first day break rays hitting rich honey. 

‘I will be nude if I change back. Can I have a cover of some sort?’

“Carlisle, (Y/N) would like to use your jacket to cover up when they turn, if that’s okay they asked” 

Carlisle had no objection there, as a doctor he had seen everything but he understood that you would like to cover any and all modesty. He took off his jacket and placed it over your large form. 

You calmed down and slowly felt yourself shrink back into your human body with the jacket, thankfully, covering enough of your skin. Edward held your head above the rocks, trying to keep you awake. Carlisle took off his blue crew neck sweater, leaving him in a white undershirt, and made the tourniquet on your upper thigh above the teeth gash on your inner and outer thigh. The blood soaked through the sweater but Carlisle didn’t care, his main concern was getting you some where to stitch you up.   

“We should take them back to the house. Edward call Alice to tell them to stay out of the house for a couple hours”

Finally looking to your face, Carlisle had to stop for a second to take you in. Your features were soft yet seemed like they were chiseled in a likeness to statues he had seen in his time with the Volturi. There was only one word that came to how he felt when it came to looking at you in your human form. 

Alive

As if a shock of electricity flowed through him, and jump started his heart he  could see why you imprinted on him. If he was your imprint then you were his ‘true’ mate. 

Similarly to imprinting, when Vampires find their ‘true’ mates an eternal romantic bond is formed, it cannot be broken, and it can be anyone. Esme and himself acted as partners for many years as to not draw attention from the locals, for it would be suspicious that two individuals would raise six adopted children. He too had been lonely for over the last three and a half centuries but he would have never suspected that you, a shapeshifter, would be his true mate. 

Again for the second time today, Edward was astonished but had to stay composed enough for Carlisle and to not drink your blood.

“We should get them back Carlisle,” Edward broke Carlisle’s train of thought back to the fact you were indeed bleeding out. Edward moved away a couple steps so he could get out his phone and call Alice.

“I’ll send you the money for your dry cleaning,” you said to Carlisle, wearily trying to stay conscious.

“No need to do that (Miss/Mr/Mx) (Y/N). Edward and I are going to take you back to our house to give you stitchs”

“I would like that very much,” you slurred feeling the effects of blood loss before falling into unconsciousness.

Carlisle scooped you up into his arms. In perfect contrast, your form burned and he was frigid to the touch. It was comfortable for once not being the temperature of a blast furnace for you, and him to not feel like glacier to others.

Meeting your imprint was far from how some of the pack described meeting their’s, especially with all the blood and confusion. Eventually, you knew that you’d forgive Sam for what he did to you. And he and the pack would come to a place of understanding for their feelings about you and your imprint. For now, you knew while floating in between being conscious or unconscious in the doctors arms, that you’ll never feel truly lonely ever again.

MASTERLIST

(Request are open! Gif Source Unknown)

[downstarr]

The Pirate Brainrot Will Continue Until I’ve Written A Novel’s Worth of Fanfic, Apparently

Back on my bullshit and started a new one. Coming up on 30K words in a little over a month between various fics.  Latest:  The Accidental Seduction of Edward Teach by Stede Bonnet, Gentleman Pirate

What if Calico Jack didn’t sell them out? What if he just left? That’s where I pick up from just because I wanted to play around with more slow burn adorable idiotic flirting.  ---

Calico Jack was gone, sent adrift in a rowboat. Ed nearly left with him, but in the end, chose to remain on the Revenge.

Ed wasn’t sure whether that would be a decision he would regret. But there was something very freeing about choosing to leave Jack, and thus a part of himself, behind.

Ed couldn’t tell if Jack’s banishment pleased Izzy or not. The man’s face looked the same either way. Izzy had never been Jack’s biggest fan, but Ed bet he’d  prefer to sail with him over every current member of his crew. Even Fang and Ivan seemed to be happy with the new rhythm of things.

Stede on the other hand, was clearly pleased - maybe as pleased as Ed had ever seen him in the few short weeks they’d known each other. But then again, that man’s eyes got big as saucers at the sight of a moth, so Ed wasn’t sure he’d gotten him figured out.

“Well, that’s that, then. I know he’s your friend, Ed, but he was a toxic influence on the crew. And on you as well,” Stede declared.

Something about those words stung Ed just a little. He wasn’t not-not himself with Jack. It was just that being around him seemed to bring out the part of him that enjoyed giving and receiving pain. Cut your finger and you’ll forget about your chronic headache, if only for a little while.

But slowly, Stede was showing him that a moment of warmth and connection could be just as distracting.

Life continued in the closest way the Revenge had to normalcy over the next several days. Izzy still loomed over them and seemed to hold on to the faint hope that he could whip them into a crew worthy to sail under Blackbeard. The crew, for the most part, avoided doing real work when at all possible, except to keep them moving and keep them supplied.

“They’re getting restless. Can’t say that I blame them,” said Stede where he stood leaning over the railing, his brow furrowed. He was wearing a sunshine yellow silk frock coat, waistcoat and breeches ensemble. With his flax-blond hair, light green stockings and brown shoes,he looked like a dandelion.

It made Ed smile.

“Why do you treat them like children sometimes?” Ed asked.

Stede looked a little wounded by that, a sad crinkle appearing around the corner of his mouth.

Ed instinctively reached out to squeeze his wrist. “Didn’t mean it like that, mate. Just something I’ve noticed, is all. If you think they’re getting bored, you feel like you have to give them a task or entertain them somehow.”

“Well,” began Stede, “Boredom’s no good for the soul. I spent a lot of years being bored, myself. It’s not a lot of fun, feeling like you’ve got no purpose. Even if that purpose is small, or as simple as expressing yourself.”

Ed felt that right down his toes. These weird bits of synchronicity kept happening where he felt like he and this strange little man had flashes of perfect understanding. He grew silent for a moment as he contemplated the man’s clothing, with its yellow silk with soft flower patterns, its delicate lace and bits of embellishments. He found himself wishing he could slide his fingers over the silk warmed by the heat of Stede’s body, to smell the posh soaps on his skin, to…

“What is it?”

“Mhmm?”

“You’re just kind of..staring a little bit. Something on your mind?”

Ed ducked his head away a little shyly and reached up to tighten the band holding the hair off his face. “Mhmm, oh, just…if you want an idea to entertain them, I think I have one. Might do us all some good.”

“Oh? Do tell!” Stede beamed.

—

Ed’s idea involved surprising a boat full of rum runners as they moved a small cargo of booze and trade goods from one small island to the other.

Stede insisted on being a very polite menace, as always, and only took a third of the rum, a few bolts of fabric he liked and a matching pair of silver flagons.

In exchange, the traders got a crate of oranges (no one on the Revenge was ever going to risk scurvy again, so they were overstocked.) When Stede noticed the trade boat’s sails were torn, he had Frenchie stitch them up. They also fitted them with a new rudder that Wee John and Black Pete helped install.

All in all, it had ended up a trading expedition rather than piracy, but Stede looked so pleased by the time they got back to the ship that Ed didn’t have the heart to point that out.

Then they dropped anchor in a small cove, and got absolutely trashed.

Keep reading on Wattpad. Also cross-posted on AO3.

[rosaliekali]

Soulmate AU for IkeVamp with MC and Comte?

So writing for Comte is so hard because the timeline is so skewed, but I tried my best. This is not written to be true to history so bear in mind the inaccuracies and the modern language.

Contains spoilers to Comte’s route in JP and is a little angsty-ish?

The first time he meets her, she is the daughter of a Duke in an English court. Her family has decided to throw a lavish ball to flaunt their wealth. As a member of a powerful noble family in France, he is invited and taking the place of his father for the evening.

Meanwhile, her own father, a tall and proud man something-in-line for the British throne, welcomes Comte eagerly as he arrives at the Manor and a servant takes his coat. The year is 1335 and Europe is under Edward III. The British Duke clasps Comte’s hands eagerly.

“Monsieur, how brilliant you could join us! Has your father not come?” The Duke tilts his head and takes a step back.

Comte shifts uneasily and brushes a lock of his long hair behind his ear. His father has sent him in his stead. The British Duke is wealthy enough to be of importance in Europe, but not powerful enough to intrigue the Patriarch of a Pureblooded Family. Comte, expected to take his father’s place one day and join the ranks of the nobles, has been sent in his place. His family is hoping he will gain a shred of honor on this excursion and return ready to assume the mantle of a noble.

“Unfortunately, he feels ill,” Comte soothes and pretends to be apologetic, “His wishes are with you and your family.”

The British Duke quickly loses interest once another noble walks up. He makes a sound at the back of his throat and motions for Comte to enter the Manor. He can see a dance is starting deeper in the home and the festivities are well under way.

“Enjoy tonight!” The British Duke declares. He waves his hand at Comte and his Soulmate Stamp glitters in the candlelight. With a final smile, he hurries past Comte and joins another noble couple with the flourish of a host.

Comte makes a face and wishes he had been allowed to bring his friend Vlad with him. He toys with the buttons of his coat and makes his way inside. While humanity intrigues him, the role of the nobility does not. His family may want him to become a well-bred Pureblood like the fussy men his father often dines with, but the world of customs and propriety is a boring one.

Fiddling with the sleeve of his jacket, he absentmindedly traces the words inked on his own skin from birth. Like the human Duke, he too has a Soulmate Stamp, a mark depicting the first words his True Intended will ever say to him. On his wrist are the words, Pardon, Monsieur.

Comte has yet to meet his Intended yet, has no idea if they have even been born given the long lifespan of a Pureblood, and a part of him is relieved he does not know who they are. The thought of tying himself to just one person when there is an entire world out there of women seeking company and waiting to be wooed is not one he appreciates. He has seldom turned 21 by human standards, is nothing but an infant in vampire standards, and settling down is not on the forefront of his mind. Not to mention his family, as Purebloods, has raised him to understand that any Intended that is human will never work. To be tied to a human would be a cruel fate.

No, he’d much rather enjoy life and get up to no good with Vlad and a few of the prettier women in Europe that will be temporary distractions with no strings attached.

The music is in full swing when he enters the dance hall, most of the eligible ladies have already been partnered for the evening. Comte stands by the doorway with his arms clasped respectfully behind his back. He feels out of place among the humans. While he loves humanity, he does find their never-ending need for rules a bother.

If only Vlad had joined him, he thinks, his oldest friend could turn any activity into something fun. Vlad would shine in a party like this, he would make Comte laugh as he teased the stuffy older men and winked at the young ladies seeking dance partners, and then they would probably find someone to bring home for the night. The taste of blood freshly drawn from its source was very satisfying after all.

As the waltz draws to a close and Comte glances at his pocket watch wondering if his father would be upset if he left before making rounds around the hall, the British Duke arrives again. Accompanying him is his wife and young daughter. They take their stand at the foot of the steps and the Duke calls for attention.Comte tries not to yawn into his hand as the Duke delivers a speech thanking his guests and how he hopes they will have fun. Lately, balls have been all the rage in Europe. Anyone who has money and a title to pair it with seems to want to throw one. Comte is long past over any festivity that demands he follow a noble code.

When the Duke is finished, he raises his hand in a toast. His Soulmate Stamp is visible on his arm as his wife joins his side yet their Stamps do not match. Like every other Noble, they do not marry off a mark. Humans, especially those who fancy themselves wanting to marry above their station, ignore Soulmate Stamps all together. In the world of the Nobility, marriages are a business transaction used for elevation. A Soulmate Stamp is nothing but a fancy birthmark.

The Duke and his guests toast to each other and Duke’s young daughter hangs back uneasily. A girl of about his age, she remains quiet and offers a timid smile to anyone who glances her way.

When the Duke descends the staircase, the music picks up again and another song leads the couples to the dance floor. Feeling bored, Comte decides this is his chance to escape. The hour is not so late, if he leaves now perhaps he can find Vlad and they can go to a much livelier atmosphere with attractive company and strong liquor.

Just as he raises his hand to beckon a servant for his coat, his arm slams into something light. A sudden gasp makes him turn and the daughter of the Duke is behind him. It seems he has accidentally hurt her.

“Pardon, Monsieur,” a timid voice apologizes.

Right as the words leave her lips, a sudden burning light lights up the inside of his wrist on his Stamp and a sweet scent floats towards him. Startled, Comte takes a half step back. His arm goes to his Soulmate Stamp and his fingers press to the burning skin there in utter shock.

“The fault is mine,” he echoes without thinking, and the young girl tenses in place. Her hand goes to her own wrist and Comte can see a light emitting from underneath the long sleeves of her gown.

For a moment, neither speak. The girl seems startled, color flushing on her cheeks, and Comte tries to think of what to do. Meeting his Soulmate was inevitable at some point in his long life, but he wishes he had paid more attention to what to do once it occurred. His father had tried to teach him multiple times how to deflect from this very occurrence, warning him that any Soulmate that was not a Pureblood would be a Failed Match-that is a match that was rejected-but Comte had seldom listened. Now, he regrets it.

“Are you-?”

He cuts himself off with a growing feeling of unease. The mark is still burning faintly on his wrist and the girl looks like a startled doe. It seems she similarly shares his apprehension over meeting now.

Nobles are taught to not like their Soulmate Stamp, Comte recalls from his tutoring. Human nobles see marriage as a transaction for profit, they marry for advancement and income. It is rare for a person to be wed to a Soulmate. Marriages in Europe do not consider Soulmate Stamps as something of importance, his own parents do not have matching Stamps, and they instill in their children the belief that a Stamp is an unfortunate event.

“My name is Eleanor,” the girl says. She worries her fingers over her sleeve and glances around her. The people around them seem oblivious to the exchange, not that they’d care had they been privy to it, Comte knows. Soulmates are boring to nobles; they’d probably just gossip about yet another Failed Match.

Realizing that she is still expecting a response, Comte clears his throat. Briefly, he wonders if he should give her his true name, the name he only shares with his family and Vlad, then decides against it. He feels uncomfortable enough as it is and there is no hope for anything to transpire between them.

In fact, he does not want anything to transpire between them.

She is a human, he realizes. Her blood smells sweet and it takes every ounce of restraint he has to look away. Humans and vampires are a Failed Match from the beginning, his father will never agree to any union between them. Although his family could potentially sweet talk the British Duke into allowing his daughter to marry her Soulmate, his family would never pull strings for someone who could not give them the Pureblooded grandchild they want and even less for someone that would die with a few passing decades.

The girl, Eleanor, must realize it is a Failed Match between them too because she seems uncomfortable. Her fists tighten against her sleeve and she clasps her mouth tightly together. To meet a Soulmate as a noble girl with no say in marriage or reputation to spare for an affair is a tragedy.

“Comte de Saint-Germain,” Comte answers at last. He looks away as the dance around them draws to a close. The scent of her blood is strong, makes him feel thirsty, and the entire night has been soured. He is not ready to meet his Intended yet, especially if she is a Failed Match. 

The girl inclines her head and does a half-curtsy. She blinks and Comte realizes she looks distraught. She moves her skirts and nods at him. Her every movement tense, she moves to sidestep him.

This is what should be done, he knows. Soulmates are nothing but an inconvenience for those of noble birth. He should just say goodnight to her and move away. She will be wed off to the highest bidder soon, he has an entire eternity to live, and there is no hope for any match.

Still, a part of him demands he move. Without thinking, he calls her name and extends a hand towards her. Eleanor freezes, startled, and Comte does not allow himself time to think. Turning his palm up with a flourish and bowing the way his tutor showed him as a child, he clears his throat.

“May I have this dance?” Comte inquires.

Eleanor glances around her, visibly upset, but knows better than to reject a dance from someone so important. She takes his hand hesitantly and their Stamps light up in acknowledgement all over again.

A twist of the knife for both, Comte realizes.

Despite the Stamps beckoning them together, society is a wedge keeping them apart. One dance is all they can afford with a Failed Match. Afterwards, they will have to go their separate ways and ignore the way their Stamps want them to meet again.

He leads her to the center of the ballroom where another lively dance is starting. Comte is grateful for the music serving as a distraction. He may be a lousy noble by his family’s standards, but he knows how to dance like the best among them.

Eleanor does too, he realizes, as she keeps up with his every move. Her eyes, a pale green, look in every direction but at him. Her mouth is pressed thin and she looks like she wishes she could leave.

For her, it must be painful to have met her Failed Match. Afterall, a human has only one match in their short lives. She must have daydreamed about meeting him as a child only to grow up and be told her Stamp did not matter. For a young girl growing up with a romantic fantasy of what could never be, the realization that life was unjust must be very difficult. Comte, at the very least, was never allowed to dwell on the possibility by his father at all. For him, tonight is nothing more than just a bitter memory that centuries will surely scrub away.

“You dance well,” he voices. He glances away from her at the many dancing couples. No one around them has a matching Stamp. All of them are Failed Matches united only by propriety and a desire to advance.

“As do you, Monsieur.”

Eleanor meets his eyes for half a second before looking away. Her scent is slowly starting to become stronger. He forces himself to relax the way his father taught him, allow the blood lust to fade away, and counts the beats until the song begins dragging out its last notes.

Once the dance draws to a close, he bows formally. Releasing her hand, he feels a dull ache over his Stamp. The connection between them wants them closer, he realizes, it wants them to acknowledge each other and live out a happily ever after. Unfortunately, the world has different plans.

Eager to get away, Comte makes an excuse about the hour being late and moves aside. Preparing to leave, he startles when a small hand catches on to his sleeve.

Turning in surprise, he realizes Eleanor has taken a hold of his arm. He raises an eyebrow as she drops his hand. Their Soulmate Stamp aches for the contact but she makes no move to touch him again. Her skin flushes and she evades his gaze.

“M-May I write to you?”

It is a bold ask, they both know writing will only make everything seem worse, yet Comte doesn’t outright refuse. The best thing for them both is to go their separate ways. Eleanor should marry a man-a human man-who her family selects, she should forget all about her Failed Match and live the rest of her short life in comfort wedded to a wealthy man like every other noble girl. Comte should go back home and forget all about his first human Failed Match, should allow his family to select a Pureblooded Bride for him who he will wed and continue the line, and should not let a human of all things take up his time-

Yet he feels rebellious. Perhaps it is because he wants to disobey his father, perhaps it is because he wants to break some rules in polite society, or perhaps he just wants some more time to get to know his current Intended, either way, he finds himself nodding.

“You may,” he presses a hand to his immortal heart, “I will respond.”

–

In the end, their letters are nothing but a brief hobby. The first letter arrives months after the ball, Eleanor writes a small letter full of polite platitudes, and Comte responds with his own detached words. Vlad urges him to write more, really get to know his Intended, but they are both aware that a Failed Match is a Failed Match.

After a year of correspondence, his father forces him to stop. Eleanor, he tells him, has married a Spanish Lord and any more correspondence between a married woman and a bachelor-especially that of a Failed Match-is improper. 

Comte sends his final letter, a brief farewell wishing her the best in her marriage, then sets his quill down and runs a hand through his long hair.

Vlad, beside him, purses his lips. His old friend rubs his own Soulmate Stamp absentmindedly and Comte is envious of how he has not met his Failed Match yet.

“Does it hurt?” Vlad tilts his head at Comte’s Soulmate Stamp.

Since saying goodbye to Eleanor, the mark has been a constant dull ache. Comte awaits the moment when Eleanor’s short life ends, and the mark leaves him alone.

“It will go away soon enough,” Comte feigns boredom, “Give it a few decades.”Vlad says nothing in response and the two of them look away from each other. 

They have been raised to know better than to hope for a True Match when it comes to Soulmates. In their immortal lives, there will certainly be several heartaches.

In the end, Comte is wrong.

It takes only another 3 years for his Soulmate Stamp to stop hurting. The pain finally fades when the Black Death ravages Europe. Quarantining with his family in their estate, a letter reaches him from an old acquaintance. Eleanor and her husband have died of the plague.

Vlad offers him a sympathetic look as he reads over his shoulder, and Comte tosses the letter to the side feigning disinterest. Standing up, he suggests they practice sparring as a distraction.

–

It is about another 100 years before he meets his Intended again. The year is 1440 and he and Vlad are in France. They have just left a ball thrown by another Noble and are still decked out in full formal gear. Vlad swings an arm around his shoulder and laughs in Comte’s ear. His breath smells of liquor yet his steps are even as he walks.

“Shall we find a pretty thing to dine on for the night or just go home?” Vlad asks.

Comte gives a disinterested response and glances down at his pocket watch. The hour grows late and the moon is in full view. He beckons a carriage over for the two of them.

“Tomorrow. I’m too tired for tonight,” he states. Vlad shrugs and puts his hands in his pocket. His Soulmate Stamp still emits a faint glow.

Vlad had the misfortune of meeting his first Failed Match a few years ago, Comte recalls. She was a pretty thing who Vlad met while traveling. A Gaelic girl with a melodic voice and big red curls. Vlad almost chased after her, despite the warnings of his family, before Comte talked him out of it. His Intended was human, would no doubt live barely another decade as was the nature of humans, and Vlad would be worse for it.

Climbing into the carriage, Vlad yawns into his hand. He stretches out and tilts his head back.

“We should go to that tavern you like tomorrow, I bet there is at least one good brawl before the night is over,” Vlad closes his eyes lazily, “Or at least one pretty skirt willing to be fed on.”

Comte makes a sound at the back of his throat in amusement as his friend begins to doze off, he leans his forehead against the carriage window as the roads become cobble. They are now moving through the harshest parts of Paris, the ones nobles know better than to frequent, and he peels the thin curtain back. The streets are too dark to make anything out except for a misty fog. 

Disinterested, he drops the curtain and shoves Vlad’s leg aside to make more room for himself. His friend kicks him in response and yawns again into his arm.

“What do you think Margarette of Scotland would do if I asked her to dance?” Vlad inquires, lips turned in a smirk.

Comte raises an eyebrow in amusement. “You? Dance with the Queen? Don’t flatter yourself, mon amie. She probably has a whole line of men asking for her hand. The odds of you coming anywhere near here are about as great as the odds that my father will stop asking me to marry.”

Vlad rolls his eyes and gives Comte a good natured kick again. Tempted to hit him with his cane in response, Comte raises his arm ready to strike-

When the carriage slows to a stop.

“We are stopping,” Comte remarks. Vlad sits up straight and peeks out the window. They are still in the worst parts of town, they both realize, Vlad grimaces.

The driver of the carriage calls for them to sit back while he adjusts the harnesses of the horse. Vlad and Comte don’t bother to listen. Throwing open the carriage door, they both descend and look around.

It is hardly past midnight and the air is cool. Comte tightens his coat around him as he taps his cane on the ground. Vlad’s breath comes out in a chilly fog.

“Do you hear that?” He turns to Comte with his eyes narrowed.

It takes Comte a moment to realize what he means. To the left of them, deeper into the rougher parts of the town, a woman is shouting. He and Vlad give each other a half glance before rushing towards the sound.

Deeper into the poverty district, they can hear a woman argue. When they round a street, they see a man clearly intoxicated and a young girl around their age in human years trying to move away from him. She is dressed in clothing of ill repute, Comte does not have to guess what her profession is or why she is out this late at night with a stranger, and she bats at the man’s hand away with a scowl on her face.

“Is there a problem?” Vlad’s voice echoes in the night.

At the sound of company, the man startles. Letting go of the woman’s hand, he spins around. His countenance is very much intoxicated and his voice slurs. 

“Who are you?”

Free of him, the woman shrugs his arm and wraps a thin cloak around herself. Her dark eyes are fierce with anger.

“I think you’ve had too much to drink,” Comte smoothly tells the man. He puts a smile on his face, the sort he uses when he wants to hide his irritation with important people, and places a hand on his heart.

The man smells thickly of liquor as Vlad takes a step forward. His gold eyes are hard and the smile on his face isn’t as reassuring as Comte’s. “Perhaps we should take a coach home, da? The hour grows late. One would not want to be caught here.”

The girl huffs and smooths out the creases in her cloak. She regards the three of them with disgust and braces herself against the frigid air.

“Pardon, Monsieur,” she states. She stalks past Comte the moment he feels his Stamp begin to burn and light up.

The sheer shock of it all makes him freeze. His hand goes to his arm where his Stamp has lit up again in a hundred years and he feels some of the color draining from his face.

Another Failed Match so soon?

“Wait, you-“

He cuts himself off, but the damage has already been done. As soon as he has spoken, her own Stamp has lit up. Even with the cloak covering her arms, the light is evident peeking out the fabric.

The girl freezes mid-step but does not turn around. Her hand cups the inside of her wrist and her entire body goes rigid.

The night suddenly becomes quiet. Vlad, now supporting the drunken man with an arm around his back, turns to look at Comte. His gold eyes are narrowed as if waiting for Comte to make a move.

Comte feels a cold pit form in his stomach.

To have found a second Failed Match in just a hundred years is the epitome of bad luck. Fate has played a mockery of him yet again. His Intended is a human once more and a human of a different class than he. While he could have potentially married her the first time as both members of the Noble class, this union would be impossible. A woman of ill repute and a high-born Noblemen together would have made for a scandal that would have rocked Europe like no other.

The girl must realize it too because she doesn’t turn to look back. It seems she has already made up her mind as to what will transpire between them. Europe has still not embraced the custom of Soulmate Stamps and its people still think of them as awful things. Like the other human girls, and with more on the line as someone who cannot afford to have a partner in her profession, she despises it.

Vlad elbows him in the ribs and the gesture brings him back. Comte realizes that he has been frozen staring at the girl in shock. His Stamp aches and the light is starting to turn into something less bright.

“Mademoiselle, shall we give you a ride back home?” He throws Comte a look, “It is not safe for a lady to walk on her own.”

The girl makes a sound at the back of her throat and turns to regard them for the first time. Her eyes are a dark brown, Comte realizes, a nice, rich color. His throat begins to feel tight as a rustling breeze drifts her scent over. Like the first time, her scent is something incredibly sweet and alluring. He has to look away.

“Non,” she draws the hood over her dark hair and looks away, “Not necessary.”

She turns to walk away and Vlad elbows Comte again. His friend is waiting on him to say something, perhaps ask the girl to reconsider, but Comte already feels uncomfortable enough. Comte is not Vlad. Vlad may have been tempted to run off with his Intended upon first meeting her, but Comte knows a Failed Match is a Failed Match.

Since his childhood, his family has allowed humans to be in contact with him. Comte was raised and educated by human tutors who he learned to care for and had human governesses who gave him all the love of a mother for as long as his family could risk. He has loved and he has lost, and he does not need the heartbreak of a Failed Match to torment him in the sleepless nights he spends. 

Perhaps Vlad could let himself lose, but Comte refuses to do so.

“Bonne nuit,” Comte finally voices out. He turns around and does not wait for a response. Sticking his hands in his coat and tapping the cane on the ground as he walks, he turns his back on his second Failed Match and hopes once more it’s his last.

Just behind him, so quiet he almost believes he imagined it, he hears his Intended whisper it back before disappearing into the shadows.

–

Back at the carriage, Vlad joins him after dumping the intoxicated man at his home. He eyes Comte wearily as Comte traces his Stamp still glowing a faint light. A dull ache throbs on his wrist and Vlad raises an eyebrow.

“We can find her?” He tilts his head waiting for a response.

Comte turns his back and stares out the window as the carriage begins to roll along. He squeezes his hand into a fist and wonders how long it will be before his Stamp stops aching. 5 years? 10? 

“No.”

The response is quiet and thankfully Vlad knows better than to prod. He clambers into the seat next to Comte and they both try to forget the encounter.

In the end, it only takes 5 years for the mark to stop aching. 

–

A field of roses blankets their vision. Vlad is laying down on the grass and his gold eyes are watching the fading sun with a hard expression. Comte sits next to him leaning back on his hands. 

They are both quiet, watching the sun go down, and Comte bites down on the inside of his cheek.

Vlad is in mourning. 

A year ago, while traveling Russia, he met his Intended a second time. She was a beautiful Slavic girl named Zofeia. Unlike Comte who has learned to turn away each Failed Match and forget them the way a Pureblood is to forget every human match, Vlad refuses to learn the lesson. He chased after her and wedded her in a private ceremony. According to Vlad, she was a loving girl who had eyes the color of the bright sky and made him strawberry pastries. He taught Vlad to garden and brightened up his immortal life for a year-

Up until a disease ripped her away. She died in Vlad’s arms and the Pureblood returned to France with a deep melancholy and a dim Stamp.Comte pities him. 

Vlad was always the more sensitive of the two when it came to humans. Vlad loved humanity every bit as much as Comte, but he had largely been shielded of the pain of losing those he cared about. While Comte’s family hired human staff and allowed humans to befriend Comte, Vlad was raised by his family with only Lesser Vampires for company. His family only interacted with other Purebloods and Vampires and Vlad had never truly learned to say goodbye to humans. While Comte has been careful in turning away his Intended each time, Vlad has always let himself get too close. Perhaps after this Failed Match he will learn to not let humans in. To have to say goodbye to someone you loved…

No, Comte was better off alone until his Intended introduced themselves as a Pureblood.

After a long pause of silence, Vlad finally speaks up. While his voice sounds even, as if nothing is the matter, the sadness in his gold eyes speaks volumes. Comte knows the wounds of loss are still too fresh. 

“I believe in a world where humans and vampires can coexist. A world where we can all live together in unity and equality…” 

He lets his voice drift off and his fingers reach out to a rose in full bloom. He strokes the petals and Comte glances at him from the corner of his eye.

“Do you still think humans and vampires can coexist?” He tries not to let the surprise register on his face. After the pain Vlad has just endured…he still wants to believe in the impossible?

“Of course. I have decided I will always love humans,” Vlad responds. His fingers trace his Stamp idly. The skin there has ceased glowing and now looks dull in the fading sunlight. A testament to his loss…now a signature of his vow.

“Humans will die. They are not eternal. Time flows differently between us, Vlad, they will leave our sides with time,” Comte responds. 

He recalls his Intended each time she has graced his presence. He has met her as an English noblewoman with doe eyes and a shy demeanor, and a French woman of ill repute with fierce eyes and independent nature. He will undoubtedly meet her again and again, each time different, through his immortal life, but he has long decided he will never allow her near.

His family may have been ruthless in their dismissal of human staff and ruthless in the way they allowed every human he ever cared for leave without so much as a goodbye, but at the very least they were honest. Humans were fragile things who lasted less than the lifespan of a rose. They would age and they would die, and the loss of an Intended he allowed himself to love was too great for him to imagine. 

The fact that Vlad, at his side, had lived it before and still believed the pain was worth it was as poetic as it was pathetic. 

Still, Comte closes his eyes and recalls every human he has loved as a child. 

The elderly tutor that had gifted him his pocket watch and treated him as a son, the young governess with a brilliant smile that had raised him as if he were her own, the butler his father had hired when he was young that would make him laugh with his stories, the maid his mother had hired that would sing Comte to sleep as a child and was the only one who could soothe him during his tantrums…

Each human, each temporary. They had all left him once and he had been devastated by their loss. Comte could not imagine what losing a Soulmate would do to him. Vlad was stronger and much braver than he.

“Humans are beautiful,” he said at last, “Their ephemeral quality makes them beautiful, like roses, but they fade faster than the flowers. They are a different species from us, and I should have listened to my family as a child. My family tried telling me every time I cried over a human caretaker being dismissed that an eternal life was a life of goodbyes.”

Vlad turns to him and his fingers tighten over the mark on his wrist. 

“I do not care. I have decided to love a human’s ephemeral moments too. They bring joy even if it is only temporary.”

Comte was willing to give him that much. “True, it is their mortality that allows them to shine even if only temporary.”

A silence reigns over them both and they dwell on everything. Vlad on the Intended he just lost and Comte on the ones he never allowed himself to meet. Finally, Vlad stands, and the stars illuminate his silhouette. 

“Would you close yourself off then? Never allow a human to come near you?”

“No, that is not possible. I cannot avoid humans forever; I will have to be near them at some point. Even if I tell myself I will only visit Purebloods and will marry someone my family wants me to, I will never be able to avoid humans all together. Fate will always have a different plan,” Comte stands.

His Soulmate Stamp seems to mock him in the moonlight. He might want to close himself from humans forever, but his Soulmate will always find him someway or another. Avoiding is futile, the best he can do is to simply ignore it.

Vlad gives his back to Comte and stares up at the moon and stars newly reigning over the horizon. His hand with his dim Stamp drops to his side and his jaw locks. Suddenly having made up his mind of something, he spins around.

“What if we could prolong human life? Bring back great humans so that their gifts will extend the test of time and can brighten the world,” He walks towards Comte and his eyes have taken on a new light, “Create life that will withstand time? A rose that never withers?”

Staring at him, Comte raises his eyes. “A rose that never withers?”

The corners of Vlad’s mouth turn up and he grabs his hand, shaking it. A sealed promise. An agreed upon vow.

“Let’s make it together. A rose that never withers.”

–

Centuries after that fateful decision, Comte sits next to a new friend. Leonardo da Vinci, an Italian polymath and Pureblood, joins him for a smoke on a balcony of a newly furnished mansion. Vlad has long since become a stain on Comte’s memory and the relationship between the two has soured. The only remnant of their friendship is a door that can travel through time. Comte intends to use it soon to bring back his first prolonged human life, a famous playwright named Shakespeare.

Leonardo leans against the railing of the balcony and the smoke seeps out of his mouth. He raises his hand to brush his hair back and his Stamp is illuminated in the moonlight. Unlike Comte who has seen his Stamp light up over and over, Leonardo has yet to meet his first Failed Match. Comte is almost envious.

“Still haven’t met your Intended?” Comte needles and he holds his cigar a loft.

He’s been doing that a lot lately, he realizes, smoking. Leonardo likes to mock him although the Italian freeloader taking advantage of Comte’s hospitality certainly could do with looking in a mirror and recognizing his own smoking habit.

Leonardo glances at Comte and shoves his hands into his coat hiding his Stamp from view. 

“Nah, I never want to. One partner for all eternity seems like too much work.”

Comte makes a sound at the back of his throat. “I pity the poor girl who has your Stamp wherever she may be or whenever she may be. I would never recommend you as a prospective match.”

Leonardo shoves him in response. He leans against the railing and clenches his jaw. Thinking hard, he finally decides to return the question in kind. 

“How many times have you met her?” He tilts his head to the side.

Comte takes his time answering. A myriad of names and faces clouds his vision and he can almost feel his Stamp ache if he dwells on them too long. Failed Match after Failed Match. Too many already. 

A British Noble girl, A French Lady of the Night, An Egyptian peasant, a British nurse during wartime, an American creole recently freed from bondage…and so many more he has never allowed himself to get close to. Failed Match after Failed Match. For some, he does not even have a name to a face. for others, he does not even remember how long ago it was. 

They all blend together, at some point, when your life is an endless stream of failed encounters and goodbyes.

“Too many,” Comte finally answers.

His voice is final, closed off, and Leonardo knows better than to pry. The Italian gives him a look of almost sympathy before obscuring his emotions from view and raising the cigar back to his lips. The topic of conversation dies away just like every Failed Match of his has in the past.

--

By now, Comte has lost count of the Failed Matches he has encountered. His Intended has come and gone in many forms and each of them he has kept at an arm’s length never wanting them near. He has long since decided to ice his heart and not allow them in the way Vlad has in the past.

Instead, he fills his time with a makeshift family he has created for himself. His home is full of Residents collected from different time periods. Writers, musicians, geniuses, and soldiers. He welcomes them all into his home and creates a family out of them. All men who have never met their Intended either, careful to bring back only those who consent, and those who are willing to taste immortality however briefly. Pretty soon, his home is full of lively discussion and the occasional argument he must break up like the father of a mansion.

He travels time and meets new people. He has ventured to all time periods, even those in the future, and has met so many new people. His Stamp has become nothing but a bother at this point.

Europe may have changed its attitude towards Soulmates, cultural revolutions have now embraced and promoted the ideal in media, but Comte refuses to be swayed. After centuries of goodbyes, he learns to keep it all at arm’s length.

The Louvre is his current destination. After a month in the future, he is ready to return home to his little quaint family and have their dinner together. He can see the door leading back to his estate at the back row of exhibits.

Still, something makes him stop. Something gold glitters at his feet and he bends down to pick it up. A pretty earring in the shape of a half moon crescent. Comte stares down at it in his palm and has only to turn his head to find its owner.

A young woman stands with her back to him. She stares at a painting and makes no notice that one of her ears is missing a piece.

Comte walks up to her and his Stamp begins to itch. The air seems to shift but he’s long ago learned to stop paying attention to it. The young woman remarks about the size of the painting before her quietly to herself. 

Comte walks up to her side. “Did you know, it’s the second largest painting in the Louvre.”

Surprised, the woman turns around. She’s pretty, Comte realizes, with Auburn hair. A tourist. She holds a smartphone in her hand, and Comte’s eyes are drawn to her wrist. 

A light has lit up on her wrist and her Stamp begins to spark. He feels his own Stamp respond in kind just as she opens her mouth and repeats the same phrase she has said repeatedly each time in different lifetimes.

“Pardon, Monsieur?” Mystified, she blinks brown eyes up at him. 

Used to meeting his Intended, Comte ignores the burning in his wrist and extends her earring to her. He hopes his face is neutral, showing nothing, and that she will not try to keep him longer. He has long since sworn to himself he would never let her get close if she were a human.

“I knew it, this earring belongs to you.”

He deposits the piece of jewelry into her palm as her fingers fly to her ear. She asks herself when she lost it yet her eyes are still startled. It is as if she believes herself in a dream, Comte realizes, cannot begin to comprehend her Intended is before her.

“If you hold still, Mademoiselle,” he suggests. Not waiting for her reply, he takes the earring and adjusts it for her tightening the backing to her ear. 

Up close, he can sense her. His Stamp flares at the contact and he tries to ignore the way she tenses. Her scent drifts up, a sweet smell, and he forces himself to step away. Centuries of saying goodbye have made him rather good at evading her. Practice makes perfect.

“That’s a lovely fragrance,” he murmurs. He knows it by memory, the smell of her blood never changes despite the lifetime she meets him in. 

“T-thank you, I bought it in Paris,” the girl blinks up at him dazed. 

Her fingers clench tightly unto her own Stamp. She struggles to find a way to broach the topic, tries to find something to say to her Intended who she has no doubt fantasized meeting her entire short, short life-

Comte turns away. 

“Oh, but I wasn’t referring to your perfume,” he looks back towards the door and ignores the way his Stamp begins to ache, “Bon voyage.”

The girl balks at him and tries to stop him. Her eyes are wide and her Stamp is still glowing stark against her skin. Comte briefly wonders how long his will glow before her life ends and it loses its color. 50 years? 60?

Either way, he is uninterested in finding out. Ignoring her calling for him to stop, he shoves his hands in his coat and tells himself she is nothing but another Failed Match. Fate has seen fit to torment him once more.

Walking towards the door, he fails to realize the girl has taken chase and will follow him into another time period.

It seems this Match intends to be True.

[ourcorny]

charactersssss (a constant wip)

annie morris … twenty-five. currently haunted by her paintings and doodles. how embarrassing! waitress, artist, medicated for an illness she doesn’t has. is actually just from a bloodline of cursed female creative types. more info can be found @tghluck. (fc: mary elizabeth winstead)

edward ainsley … sixteen years old, is actually fifty-seven, vegan vampire. utterly disliked by his vampiric peers due to his being turned into a vampire in his youth, rendered sixteen years old for life. has a tendency towards alcoholism in order to silence his cravings for blood since he deems vampirism altogether unethical. more info found @pastytwat (fc: craig roberts)

robbie moore … fifty. always one of those too big for his own boots kinda guys – one of the ‘i’m jumping ship as soon as hit eighteen’ types. that’s what he did, and that’s when he absolutely fucked it. ran his mouth too loud for too long and ruined any chances he had anywhere he went. robbie is a writer but his unwillingness to compromise with his work leaves him unable to find any real place in the industry. an absolute self publishing expert. to pay the bills he’s an english teacher but there’s no real passion for it. he came back to his hometown after struggling his way around the country and settled down in a marriage with his high school sweetheart that turned sour quickly. the pair never had children and were heading to a painful divorce when his wife passed away suddenly. years down the line and he’s still trying to wrap his head around it. jesus fuck this guy. (fc: marc maron)

tara shaw … thirty-four. owner of SHAWSPB, an independent publishing company ran (run? past tense…? it’s confusing) by one tara shaw, someone who needs to work on her social skills. as it seems, you can actually only reject so many people so many times before it bites you in the ass. more specifically (and more accurately), you can only reject so many people so meanly after you fire the companies’ reader because they’ve let one too many trashy reads out of the slush pile and you have to start wading through the heaving thing yourself. opening manuscripts seemed well and good and safe enough because all you’d be facing is words that were crappy in a worst case scenario, until late one night, you stumble upon something that a sour faced rejectee (yes, one that landed themselves with a personalised handwritten and very specific rejection from the woman herself) gets their pages in the pile. tara opens it and finds that it’s no story at all. it’s a string of nonsense – words that don’t exist, script she’s not sure she’s ever seen before, but transfixed on the page, tara shaw reads the thing front to back and the second she puts the papers down is hurtled into the space time continuum, left to float around in there til something grounds her back into the real world, when or wherever that is. it’s an act of karma, or something, and whenever she lands she pukes her guts out because that’s what that kind of thing does to the human body apparently. (fc: natasha lyonne)

genevieve walsh … seventeen. was made fun of in year six for choosing to go to an all girl’s catholic secondary school, her classmates saying that she would end up a lesbian. she did, though it was unrelated to her formal teaching. very unrelated. she has too much going on and is too moody for her own good. extra info can be found @genegrieve. 

morrigan kenny … age unknown. bringer of the apocalypse. wanders earth with her way too long hair (it collects twigs and mud) looking for someone to spend the rest of the end with.

alex … thirty-odd (undisclosed actual age) years old. she is yet to learn to do her taxes, and is for all intents and purposes: a con-woman. arguably not an ethical profession, charging the old and the gullible for exorcisms and that of a supernatural variety while having no knowledge of the subject. but a girl’s gotta make a living — volunteering yourself for stand up gigs at the same place night in night out with little to no compensation doesn’t provide much. she’s a kind person, if you ignore the conning, and is decent to talk to. will give away any information. whoops. (fc: jenny slate)

lou webster … seventeen. modern prophet. refuses touch with good reason (skin on skin means she see the other person’s skin melting off, right to the bone). regularly sees the end of the world and it gives her stomach aches. (fc: natalia dyer)

liv o'dell … twenty-nine. screaming messy would probably win the lottery (the luck of her) if she ever tried it, multiple time accidental murderer. makes no sense. is rude. is annoying. has a surprisingly sweet daughter (kitty). more info @heavyroads 

betty cloverfield … a twenty one year old motormouth who can’t hold down a single thing she’s meant to. she happens to have recently induced some type of magenta sensitive dissonance in her sensory processing that she can’t shake. it’s speculated by many that she’s taken one too many poppers and it’s taken its toll. (fc: kat dennings)

aiden ryder … seventeen years old. the angstiest, quietest idiot with four fully charged portable chargers to hand at any moment you will ever know. heavily associated with @optimistsclub​ (fc: jack kilmer)

mert james ... 21. a children’s author, the writer and illustrator of the BEWARE GIANT CREATRUES series. he has many reasons to not want to leave his house and most surround the obvious images conjured in the phrase hatemyself1999 — hate myself (explanatory) and 1999 (dexter ‘mert’ james’ birth year. also self explanatory once you know this fact). all that said, he does in fact leave his house. teaches drums to kids. none of them practise and it makes him insane. in a running circuit of bands where none of the members are committed. that, or he’s misjudging their commitment and giving them nothing when they do in fact care and then he is the dick. music snob, deadpan snarker, karma houdini, middle child syndrome, world of cardboard, can’t get away with nuthin, i coulda been a contender!

lazyguts / victoria ... suicide/eating disorder mention. i’m writing her through ages 17-19 and here’s the brief overview/context: lazyguts lost all of her friends the year before she went off to university as a result of her total withdrawal [causes being a) her brother attempting to kill himself (he survived but it’s very confusing to grieve a hypothetical especially when you’re not supposed to talk about it) and then b) her already struggling with food issues getting worse worse worse. these two things alone are not the reasons as no one else explicitly knows about them, but the adverse effects of these things combined make her difficult to be around/hard to maintain a friendship with her. all very tragic, but still happens. uno].going to a uni where she doesn’t know anyone seems like the best move. she does. she makes friends with a girl called olivia and they become mad close very quickly. this lasts maybe two months until lazyguts starts locking herself away in uni room and doesn’t see much of anyone at all. she has to drop out on mental health reasons just before the end of her first year. she moves back home and lives miserably and very solitary. she and olivia have long lost touch by this point. a few months later she sees an in memoriam post up on olivia’s social media from some of olivia’s friends saying how tragic the loss is, etc/ olivia had killed herself. the post had said something about a project for the close friends of olivia and she tentatively sends a message despite having never really known the girl. anyway, after quite a few ‘exaggerations’ and then a few straight up lies, she ends up super into the friend group of olivia’s based on the lie of being a long-time friend of hers. she’s not sure why the lie comes out nor why she keeps it going. it’s something to cling onto so she does. best way to put it is she’s very dear evan hansen about it, lying lying lying lllyyyinng. eventually she’s caught out but we’re not there yet (fc: odessa a’zion)

dale knox ... 30ish. painter/decorator. info literally not ever written out before. he’s lovely and in a constant state of stress! affiliated with @fullyfungi (fc: aidan turner)

lenny gata ... 26. lonely funeral poet. followed by a select few of the unknown dead #irl after an accidental latin spell read out at a graveside (not her fault, literally not her fault - she read this out in good faith). caught ignoring them/walking them to their homes depending on the day. (fc: aubrey plaza)

millie matthews ... 17. half part antichrist. the other half is her twin sister (#MISSING). currently, unfortunately, sadly, disappointgly, worryingly, being tracked down.

more tbaaaaaaaa thank you thank you

[catubarca]

Harry Potter Next Generation Headcanons

im bored. im full of emotions, and am rly missing the HP world... i just want to write down my headcannons for the next gen kiddos tbh.

please remember these are just my opinions? its okay if yours are different. im just bored and want to share my thoughts,,

Teddy Lupin

his name is Theodore Remus “Teddy” Lupin. it’s just what it is

I don’t care what JKR says, to me his name will always be Theodore

i can’t do this “Edward” stuff im so sorry,,,

h u f f l e p u f f

proper school uniform? never heard of it

messy hair, messy clothes

punk rock child

we’re talking like,,,at least two (2) lip piercings ok

absolutely terrible in herbology. do not leave this child alone in a greenhouse, bad things happen

fuckin hoards chocolate

its a problem

dating Victorie Weasley

random bursts of dancing

keeps a lock of hair pink for his mother

lives with the Potters, enjoys pretending to be Ginny to ground his siblings

“Lily, why aren’t you coming out of your room? Dinner’s ready?” “You said I’m grounded! You tell me!” “What? Oh, for the- THEODORE REMUS LUPIN-“

s m i r k s

effortlessly cool,,, but so so dorky,,, in a cool way

Victorie Weasley

ravenclaw!

looks a lot like her mother, Fleur, but inherited those Weasley freckles

a little confused a lot of the time

absolute sweet tooth (teddy abuses this fact a lot)

Mom Friend™

will help you with your homework

always got a book on her

super beautiful and like,,,, the absolute nicest person,,, but

cannot dance

like at all

adores Charms class

a softie you don’t want to cross

“I’m the oldest”

Dominique Weasley

inherited the Classic Weasley Red Hair™

idolises her Uncle Charlie

“I wanna save animals and work with cool dragons, just like Uncle Charlie does!”

Bill almost has a heart attack

always bringing stray animals home

(“is that a lizard in your pocket, Dominique?” “Yes! His name is Blob.” “You know how your father’s afraid of reptiles, sweetheart, you can’t bring it inside.”)

Gryffindor child

favourite class is definitely Care of Magical Creatures, she and Hagrid like to talk about proper care methods for rare creatures

perpetual dirt stains

BIG middle child vibes

doesn’t really label her sexuality… just kinda does what she wants rly

all the pets in Hogwarts love her

rumours are she’s got an innate, natural magical ability to make them all love her

(she feeds them under the table)

it’s a mystery

big advocate for animal rights

f e m i n i s t

willing to throw hands at all times

usually all smiles though

one of those people who use their whole bodies to laugh

kind of an accidental heartthrob

romcoms

Louis Weasley

looks the most like his mother

ravenclaw

absolutely filled with curiosity. always reading or talking or learning

random facts

(how do you even find that sort of information?

you don’t want to know)

coffee boy

sort of musically talented?

he and James Sirius preach the importance of skincare to all who will listen

secretly full of sass and dry wit

vry graceful and fluid

e y e r o l l

awkward smiles? can never smile properly in photos

on the ravenclaw quidditch team

Ravenclaw Prefect

(“You might be older, but I’m taller.” “Fuck off!”)

only watches High Quality™ tv shows/media

kind of a disaster, despite the gracefulness

Molly Weasley

Classic red hair

comes across as a bit uptight, like her father

I don’t care what you think. (She really cares what you think.)

E y e b r o w s

death glares

drinks like 5 cups of coffee in the morning

studies,,, like a lot

definitely a Gryffindor though

mom jeans

always ready to debate a topic. will destroy opponents.

has been trying to start a successful Debate Club for like 4 years now

naturally falls into the position of a group leader

would be a teacher’s pet, if she wasn’t ready At All Times™ to debate the relevancy of the course syllabus or outdated teaching methods

got into a fight with Severus Snape’s portrait in Headmistress McGonagall’s office.

(Dumbledore’s portrait was laughing, until she turned and ragged on him for a bit. Minerva thought it was absolutely hilarious, so she just let Molly go at it for a while).

full of rage towards everything, but wears a very careful mask of aloofness

to calm down, she likes painting her nails

she’s very good at it

she’s also very good at painting and art in general, weirdly enough

Lucy Weasley

G R Y F F I N D O R

adores shitty puns and has a terrible sense of humour

brown hair, not red

loves to prank people, which makes her Uncle George very proud

Percy complains about her behaviour, but makes sure he knows he’s proud too

(charming all the cauldrons in the potions classroom to scream whenever they’re stirred takes a more complex understanding of spell work than one would expect).

a pit of a punk streak

rly loves hip hop

high key drama queen

does she ever stop yelling? we’re yet to find out

average grades in terms of theory, but she’s the best in terms of applying information

especially for her pranks

has allies throughout the castle, from the portraits to the students

the bigger the prank, the better

but is a firm believer in “confuse, don’t abuse”

all her pranks are mostly harmless

is a surprising lover of older literature, like Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, an influence of her sister

a bit rebellious

Fred Weasley II

name isn’t officially “the second”, but it sounds cooler

James Potter, Lucy Weasley, Molly Weasley and Fred Weasley are like the Marauders 2.0

says “squad” and “lit” unironically

niche humour

hipster vibes

avid music lover

smiley sunshine child

takes after his mother the most in looks, just like his sister

a chill type of gryffindor

plays quidditch, and is an excellent chaser, just like his mother

the absolute undisputed King™ of puppy-dog eyes

just,,,, beautiful

the True teacher’s pet

hands in his work on time,, asks lots of questions,,, likes helping students understand their work,, what a boy

can hella nyoom

runs so fast

look at him go

as you might expect, loves a good prank. always down for a laugh

Roxanne Weasley

Gryffindor and pROUD

absolute Queen tbh

was definitely Head Prefect or Gryffindor Prefect at some point

loved by the school

absolute legend

G I R L   P O W E R

infectious laughter

has a soft spot for Louis Weasley and Scorpius Malfoy

these poor disaster children,,,, they need a Mother

M O M

big mom vibes

mothers the hell out of all the first years

a feminist through and through

can be found nodding aggressively to Molly Weasley’s semi-deranged, furious ranting

YAAAASS

loves slang. uses so much slang. always up to date with trends and memes

has all the gossip

becomes a mess around pretty girls

absolute blushing, stuttering disaster around cute girls oh my god

her eye make-up game is killer

sparkly

Distinguished Lesbian

Rosie Weasley

did someone say Weasley™?

red hair and freckles and curls oh my

on the autism spectrum, has trouble socialising sometimes

hella passionate about stuff

hangs out with Scorpius and Albus, the Golden Trio 2.0

f em ini st

her jokes are the best. high quality sense of humour.

Ravenclaw

likes to read. it’s quiet in the school library, which is nice.

abysmal at herbology

surprisingly good at Care of Magical Creatures though? Animals are just,,, so much easier to deal with

overall, really good grades though

bit of a silent type, but she’s actually a riot to hang out with

actually pretty good at quidditch? She’s not on the team, and she’s not super interested in playing, but?? She’s not bad??

She can land a solid hit with a beater’s bat

(eyes you judgementally over the top of a book)

dry wit humour

will throw hands over chess

Hugo Weasley

hufflepuff

unbeatable at chess, like his dad

a lost puppy

someone please help this child

softie

kind of low-key emotional

so supportive!! and loyal!! high-key best friend material

foodie. loves food. please feed him.

takes a bit more after his dad appearance wise

loves to cook. spends lots of time with grandma Molly and his dad in the kitchen

Professor Longbottom is his favourite professor, because he’s more chilled and laidback.

other professors and classes fill him with Distress™

loves astronomy too

maths whizz, so good at arithmancy

(“uh, actually-“)

a little bossy, like his mother

is trying so hard

maybe a little too hard

a bit insecure and nervous, but so soft

please treat this child carefully and with love

James Sirius Potter

Gryffindor

L O U D

a fucking disaster child

what’d you expect, putting “James” and “Sirius” together?

DRAMATIC GASPING

flails his hands around when he talks

s t r u t s

bisexual mess, had a crush on both the Longbottom children at some point

is better than you at everything

including being a different gender

fuck you that’s why

so pretty

he’s so pretty

is thIS CHILD EVER NOT LAUGHING AT SOMETHING OH My god

laughs at everything

all the time

always

high-key emotional

badly timed finger guns

looks like a model in photos? wtf?

gets invited to Girls Nights™

wears nail polish and makeup

loves to yell at people about gender roles and defying stereotypes

TEA SIS

not on the quidditch team surprisingly enough, even though he’s pretty good

prefers to be in the stands, doing A+ commentary on the games

if he can get Fred to stop mid-air due to unbearable, suffocating laughter at least once a game it’s a win in his books

has it OUT for the hufflepuff quidditch team and no one knows why??

definitely makes puns on his name

it drives everyone insane

harry always replies he’s just making his namesake proud

that also drives everyone insane

smug lil shit

Albus Severus Potter

“It’s just Al.”

S L Y T H E R I N

will always find a way to get what he wants, eventually

“dad, why did you name me this way?”

unimpressed

sigh

hella smart. is topping at least five classes

Aunt Hermione is his favourite. She’s the fucking Mistress of Magic! All that power, the ability to make change and improve the Magical World as a whole-

sass master

the reason headmistress mcgonagall keeps a bottle of scotch under her desk at all times

the only potter child to inherit The Eyes™

absolute insomniac

kind of emo, but turns into a fucking softie around Scorpius Malfoy it’s hilarious

adverse to violence. prefers a verbal beatdown method

really tall? despite having shorties for parents??? no one saw it coming

(especially not Teddy. He’s always scared of losing his last few inches of height)

Functional Gay

he’s on the slytherin quidditch team, as a seeker

Lily Luna Potter

Gryffindor

FEMINIST

do not mess with lily luna potter

she may seem cute and sweet, but she will destroy you

inherited her father’s black hair

disaster lesbian

transfiguration is her favourite subject, by far

has no idea what she wants to do with the rest of her life.

Existential Crisis Father-Daughter Bonding Time™

do you ever sleep?

takes after Ginny the most in personality

also, kind of the most like James Fleamont Potter in personality, too?

Loves to help her brother out with pranks, laughs at him when he gets caught and she gets away with it

The only one of the Potter Children who hasn’t got into a fight with Severus Snape’s portrait

because she just ignores him instead

loves talking to the portraits around the castle

Super good at Quidditch, is on the team as a Chaser

Quidditch Captain at some point

adores Hagrid, but who out of the Potter children doesn’t?

Idolises Minerva McGonagall

just as oblivious as her father

Scorpius Malfoy

Actually in Ravenclaw, not Slytherin, much to many people’s surprise

abSOLUTE DADDY’S BOY

super close with his dad

Draco is just so supportive of like everything he does (unlike his father)

classic blonde malfoy looks

actually really funny?

a cuddler. loves hugs. always leeching warmth off of someone

he and Rosie sometimes finger-tip-touch which is their version of a hug, because he know’s she’s not super comfortable with touch

was basically adopted by the Weasley’s and Potter’s

James Sirius will murder for this child

booknerd, always rambling to Al and Rosie about new books coming out he’s interested in reading.

has had a crush on Albus Potter since like 1st year

always worried about making his dad proud, and keeping up the Malfoy name

sweet tooth

he’s just,, soft. just a warm, happy child. he wants love, and affection. someone tell him he’s doing okay, please.

needs,,, validation,,,

he’ll tell you out loud that he has no favourite aunts or uncles, but he secretly really likes spending time with his Uncle Ron

they had a talk, once, in like the middle of the night at a sleepover with Rosie and Al, about feeling insecure in comparison to others, and learning to be proud of yourself for your achievements

there were a few tears, but it was nice

Ron was actually the third person he told, besides his dad and Rosie, about having a crush on Al

openly a disaster romantic. trash taste in romance novels.

always welcome in the Potter-Weasley households

[sapphic-sedai]

D&D asks for Francis - 12,43,44,58

FRANCIS SPELLMAN!!!!!!!!! 

I have never had the absolute pleasure to write for such a sorrowful woman in my entire life - and I’ve written post season 4 Zelda. </3 I love her so much. I know most don’t love her yet and probably won't (She’s a hard woman) but I do love her. <3

12) Physically, does your character feel warm or do they always feel cold?

Francis is cold through and through. She is in dresses with long sleeves and high necklines as much as possible without being a fashion faux pas. Her FEET are ICE! The only place she can feel warm to the touch is her neck, usually when she’s particularly stressed, but this is rare. 

43) Is your character good at apologizing? Why or Why not?

No. Well...... Yes, but NO. Francis has memorized every rule when it comes to social life possible. She will not make a mistake as a socialite, or as a daughter, or as a wife - because mistakes come with a price - often a physical one. Francis married her father - well.... was given away to a man like her father. Francis has never had agency in her life - all of this leading to A LOT of apologizing until she can “learn the rules,” but unlike Zelda she is very good at following the rules.......She also does apologize on behalf of her children (well...one child more than others) as her children’s transgressions are her’s. (insert sobbing!) BUTTT If you were a fellow socialite witch (*cough, cough* Poor Seia Sone!) and Francis Spellman wronged you - that cunt is never going to apologize, of anything she will do it again and worse the next time because she can. She also will never apologize to anyone under her - servants, staff, people on the streets, her children, the waiter at the restaurant. If she has any equal ground or higher ground than you - you’re fucked. 

44) How do they hold onto people?

Lota, you knew this question would HURT me. Will I ever forgive you for asking this question??? No. Absolutely not. 

Francis Spellman doesn’t know how to hold onto people - she is petrified of experiencing and giving softness (once again - things have always come at a high price for her and she didn’t have a mother to teach her how to hold - she was raised by a nursemaid who could not have cared less), so when she does try - it’s generally silent and personal. In most occasions, unless you knew what to look for - you would have no idea she was trying to clutch onto you. In “Krampus Kringle” she draws a little ‘X’ over Zelda’s chest as a protection spell (In Francis’ head, she always spells Xelda’s name with an “X” for the same reason and periodically slips up and writes it as such) she is one to “accidentally” leave things like cookies or little presents somewhere. But it should be noted that at her best (if Reginald has been away for a while or in the dead of night between the times 3am and 6am (rip) (or sometimes in the kitchen as little Hilda brings this side of her out the most often) she may even stroke one of her daughter’s hair or wipe away a tear, but this is rare (and usually reserved for Hilda). 

58) What’s a habit that needs to be broken?

Being married to Reginald. Lmao! She needs to learn that she CAN let down her walls. They’re fortified with steel and brick and cement and titanium and barbed wire and if she would just let them fall a bit for her children and maybe a person who MAYBE could be considered a friend - I think she would have done much better in life. She just had no concept that a person could be trustworthy. She trusted Edward the most in her life and Hilda after him, but that was all and even then. 

I need to write more with Francis. I do love her and wish she could see the Spellman’s as they are now. She wouldn’t say it, but she would be so proud. Fun Francis Fact: She LOVES swans. 

[our-flag-means-death-ao3feed]

The Underground

by NymsShadow

Recently and amicably divorced Stede Bonnet is slated for a big promotion, when new hire Ed Teach swoops in and steals his job… and then his heart.

Words: 2850, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Our Flag Means Death (TV)

Rating: Not Rated

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con

Categories: M/M

Characters: Blackbeard | Edward Teach, Stede Bonnet, Lucius Spriggs, Mary Allamby Bonnet, Doug (Our Flag Means Death), Chauncey Badminton, Alma Bonnet, Louis Bonnet, "Calico" Jack Rackham

Relationships: Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet, Black Pete/Lucius Spriggs, Mary Allamby Bonnet/Doug

Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Modern AU, Coworkers to lovers, Miscommunication, Accidental Voyeurism, Good Guy Izzy, Food Porn, food as a love language, Timeskip, Falling hard and fast, fastburn, Showers, group activities, U-Haul lesbians, stepdad ed, Lies of Omission, Enthusiastic Consent, Consent is Sexy, Blowjobs, Anal Fingering, Rimming, Anal Sex, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Stalking, Coercion, Gaslighting, Blackmail, Cheating, CW: Jack Rackham, Domestic Violence (not including children), Dubious Consent, fuck jack, Fuck Jack but do not under any circumstances fuck Jack, Domestic Violence, Sam Doesn’t Understand the word No, Angst with a Happy Ending, High Angst, High Angst And They’re Not Brave About It, New York City, smau, Abuse, criminal activity, Organized Crime, Violence, Jack Gets His Just Deserts

source https://archiveofourown.org/works/46779469

[darkestwolfx]

Ghost Ship - Re-Review #28

Thought you’d appreciate them popping up before I start talking. I love this episode for so many reasons, firstly it is for the space brothers! Getting a chance to see these two interact some more was so so worth it. It was something we were seriously robbed of in TOS, with Alan and John only appearing in the same scenes thrice - ‘The Uninvited’, ‘Danger at Ocean Deep’ and ‘The Cham-Cham’. Seriously robbed, folks.

‘Space Race’ was the last TAG episode which really put these two in a similar place, but due to the new communication methods e.t.c. we have seen that they can communicate more and as such have still had scenes together as seen in ‘Relic’, ‘Chain of Command’, ‘Ring of Fire’, ‘Slingshot’.. yeah, there’s quite a list, so I’m just going to stop and keep on with the episode review for now, okay?

Okay. So, we’ll get back to John and Alan, but for now let’s stick with John. 

Firstly John and EOS (hooray someone remembered she exists!). John and EOS playing chess is just one better. Of course he would teach her to play chess - that is just so John, let’s all be honestly.

“John, I’m intercepting a GDF encoded message. The signal’s very faint.”

You’re trying to distract me, EOS. You know I finally have you checked.”

“Honestly John. The bulk of my processing is currently dedicated to boosting the weak signal. It’s a distress call from the moon side of EDEN.”

Thirdly, let’s get to the action of the episode. Space mission! It makes complete sense that John can go on missions of his own, after all, some of these places would be on his doorstep considering Thunderbird Five’s location, and ‘Legacy’ showed us that Five has an inbuilt pod. But right now, let’s discuss this work of machinery.

Jets, wings, light beam and laser beam - pretty fancy equipment this Exopod/Wingsuit has going for it. It does makes sense for John to have something like this as well - not just for the case of nearby rescues, but in the sense of needing to escape Five. I personally think this was born out of the events with EOS, because it was never used in Series 1, which implies Brains hadn’t designed it then (or just that the writer’s hadn’t thought about it, but hey, let’s put that to one side). Also, the fact Scott says;

“So you finally get to take the suit out for a spin.”

implies it is newly fitted. So, chronologically, it makes sense to me to think that those events brought around the designs for this. Yes, this wouldn’t be any good for re-entry, but it would at least provide a getaway that would last a little longer. And a laser also implies defensive/offensive capabilities - minor yes, but probably enough.

“I only have five minutes on the meter.”

“Then we’ll see you in four.”

Oh that Tracy brother confidence. Must run in the blood.

“Precision flight isn’t as easy as I make it look. Let me know if you need any pointers.”

“Oh I do have one question. What’s that big, blue, marblely looking ball down there?”

“Haha.”

So this is EDEN, now nothing more than a Ghost Ship, and the setting of today’s episode. Apparently the GDF maintain it to make sure it doesn’t become a space hazard... maybe they should have just got rid. It’s probably going to become a space hazard now after all, because it’s made it into an episode of Thunderbirds and that is just what happens to these things.

“Whenever I’m near it, the place always gives me the creeps.”

‘The Ghost Ship’ is also an episode of the Anderson’s series ‘Stingray’. The episode also starred Ray Barrett and David Graham, the original voices of The Hood and Parker respectively. Of course, David Graham stuck around for TAG - because Parker could only ever have one voice actor as we all know (and I’m sure you’ve all guessed by now by absolutely love and praise for the man who made Parker into everything he is). Also, is it ironic or chance that this reference appears in a John strong episode, after it was John in ‘Ring of Fire’ who declared ‘Stingray’ his favourite show? I think it could be a good bit of script writing, but who am I to say. Anyone want to give me the answer - script writers of TAG I’m looking at you now.

And this is GDF Captain Ridley O’Bannon. Hello! Everyone introduced? Good let’s keep moving.

“Lights on, but nobody’s home.”

Probably a good sign to leave... No, okay, let’s just go even deeper into the malfunctioning ship.

“Some people say the place is haunted.”

“There’s no such thing as ghosts, Captain.”

“It’s the end of the line.”

Yeah... lets just keep going still... with no comms and the feeling you’re not alone. Yeah, let’s definitely do that!

“John, do you hear me? EDEN, are you there?”

Apparently not Scott, so don’t waste your breath shouting into the void.

So, I’ll be honest, ghosts and stuff don’t really spook me and I breezed through this episode fine. Except first time I saw this thing - it gave me the creeps. So, I watched this episode for the first time at night (I was thinking it’s a children’s show, what can go wrong?) and I looked away for two seconds and then this appeared. It looked too much like a spider for my comfort and yeah, scared me cold. Especially these red blinking eyes.

“Hello there. We come in peace.”

John, did no one pass you the memo? This is not ‘Alien’!

“Looks like he understands. could be some sort of sentient AI.”

He loves tech a little too much I think.

Yeah... accidentally punch the thing John. That will do it

“It thinks you’re a threat. Show it you’re not.”

“Seriously? Ok, I surrender.”

Yeah, still not in ‘Alien’, or ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ or ‘Peter Pan’... But whatever you want to say, John, is absolutely cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WezjFUZOvVA

I can’t describe this scene any better than the scene itself, so I’ve included it.

“And it won’t be ghosts.”

No it won’t, it wasn’t... um, isn’t? It’s just Mau’rice [Edward Razor Burn Reece] (right) and Dobbs [Dan - no nickname, no middle initial - Dobbsy Dobbs] (left). Space pirates! Okay... maybe it is turning a little into ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’...

How about... Pirates of EDEN... Next big block buster?

Yeah I think so!

“Plundering. I like that. Very nautical.”

Yeah, there’s nothing nautical about these guys though. I really do love the voice acting though. These characters are great.

Trust John to figure it out - never shut something down until you know what the after effects will be! 

I do really love this getaway plan though. It made for an absolutely awesome scene.

Overall, I think this episode leaps its way onto my favourites list too! It literally has everything, I think! Well, nearly everything.