#episode: xix | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

violetrainbow412-blog · 1 year ago

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Devil's night [S. R.]

Spencer Reid x fem!reader

word count: 4k

summary: Spencer is excited about his Halloween plans and you join him.

Directly based on episode 6x06, because I felt so bad about how the team behaves with Spencer that I needed to do something

“I see someone’s feeling spooky today,” Morgan smiled, looking you up and down.

You were wearing a cardigan knitted with various prints related to the time of year; pumpkins, ghosts, black cats, and candy corn, over a bright purple skirt and tall boots. Normally you would dress more formally due to the implied dress code the FBI operated under, but it was the weekend and Halloween was around the corner, so you could skip a suit day to wear one of those many scary-related items you had. After all, Halloween was your favorite holiday of the year. It was fun for everyone when you were a child, but as you grew up, your love for said celebration became a little weirder for others, so when you became an adult, you didn't think anyone shared such excitement about the date. Well, that is until you met Spencer Reid.

“It became a little more commercialized in the 1950s with trick-or-treating, and today it rivals only Christmas in terms of popularity” you heard him say, as he walked in with an already quite annoyed Emily Prentiss.

You knew that sometimes Spencer talked too much, but you hated that the rest of your coworkers got upset like that when he was talking about something that he was passionate about. Now the subject was, clearly, the next date.

"All I asked was what he was doing this weekend" she complained to Rossi. Spencer ignored her and continued with his cathedra as he settled into the empty space next to you.

“I'm toying with the notion of either going to the Edgar Allan Poe Shadow Puppet theater or the re-enactment of the XIX century Phantasmagoria,” he said and your heart did a little skip. You and Reid had argued on a few occasions, outside of work, about Poe’s works and although you didn't know what the second thing he had mentioned was, it sounded very interesting.

“What is a Phantasmagoria?” you asked nicely and when your partner noticed your presence he smiled widely, as if he was just noticing you in the room. The others all pouted in anticipation of the explanation to come and you hoped Spencer hadn't noticed.

“Phantasmagorias are these amazing pre-cinema projected ghost shows invented in France, where the showman attempted to spook the audience using science magic” he explained to you, while he took a seat and waved his hands from side to side. You were completely unaware of the term so you slightly parted your lips in astonishment.

"Sounds interesting"

"I have an extra ticket, do you want to come with me?" he asked you, almost immediately, with the biggest smile of all. Honestly, the invitation took you by surprise, especially who was asking, and Spencer seemed to see it on your face. “I mean, if you don't have plans this weekend. You can say no if you want."

“I'd really love to,” you exclaimed, so he wouldn't get the wrong idea, and watched his eyes sparkle with joy as he nodded.

The others wanted to make fun of it a bit, but Garcia didn't give them time to when she handed you the case files. When Hotch told you that you were going to fly to Detroit, your partner complained loudly and his gaze inevitably went to you, since you were supposed to have made plans together literally three minutes ago, but knowing that the unsub only attacked during these three days of the year. You had no choice but to accept your fate. You have never gone from feeling completely happy to being so disappointed in such a short time.

"I guess you better forget what I just told you," Reid sighed, as you left the conference room.

"Maybe we'll make it on time, when is the show?"

"This Sunday. The puppet theater is at 9:00 pm, the last Phantasmagoria show is at 11:00 pm. None are sold out yet"

"If we get back in time enough, I'll accompany you both, what do you say?" you muttered, trying to be as positive as possible, as you took your friend's arm with both hands and gave it a friendly squeeze. Spencer was taller than you, but thanks to the boots you were wearing and the extra inches they gave you, your eyes were almost at the level of his “Don't be discouraged.”

"I like your clothes today," he suddenly murmured. Sometimes he would give you those kinds of sweet compliments, perhaps as thanks for the kindness with which you always treated him, and you would almost always blush "The drawings are beautiful. Do you know why pumpkins became so representative?"

"Jack-o'-lantern," you replied, rather proud of yourself for knowing the answer.

"But did you know that in the original story it wasn't a pumpkin but a turnip?" he said and you were silent. But he didn't make fun of you for it, instead he saw a new opportunity to impress you "Yeah, you see, in the original legend Stingy Jack..."

The rest of the team, who was in front of you, shared knowing looks as if they were pitying you for having activated the doctor's rambling mode, but the truth was that you were fascinated with every word that came out of his mouth. Sometimes you couldn't believe how there was someone as intelligent in the world as your cute companion and as he spoke you prayed, perhaps with all your might, that you could catch the unsub in time to be able to fulfill the plans in the ones he had included for the weekend.

Almost as if by divine handiwork, the case was solved just in time for the plane to land and you two to rush home to get dressed for the theater. Hotch was even sympathetic to you and told you that the paperwork could wait for Monday just because he had heard of your plans, which you were immensely grateful for.

Spencer was happy that you agreed to go out with him, especially since the idea of asking you out was completely impulsive. It was true that he had an extra ticket but he never thought of having the courage to ask you to accompany him, much less did he think that you would be interested in it, since he was regularly ignored by his colleagues at work. It was something he had never discussed with anyone, only his beloved and gone Elle, but it haunted him almost every day.

Luckily for him, Spencer had prepared the wardrobe he wanted to wear in advance, and all he had to do was take a warm shower, shave, and put on some cream and cologne to get ready. In addition to, of course, styling his short hair as best he could.

He felt particularly concerned by his appearance that night and he pondered whether you would think he looked silly wearing a 19th century French suit. He had bought it last month and it was stored with his costume collection, which no one on the team knew about yet and he didn't intend for that to change.

He had offered to pick you up and when he got to your building, he felt strangely nervous. The doorman was a kind older man that he had seen a couple of times, so when he said that he was looking for you, the man called you on the phone to let you know.

They were silent for a few moments and he began to rock on his heels to kill some time.

“Will you take her trick-or-treating?” the doorman, Tony, joked. Spencer didn't take it the wrong way, instead he laughed it off.

"It's not the plan, but if someone takes pity on us and gives us some I won't complain" he replied and now it was the employee's turn to laugh.

"I've seen you before, are you her boyfriend?"

“Coworkers,” Spencer clarified, with a smile.

"Ah, so you're also a policeman?" although it wasn't the proper term, Spencer didn't know if you had hidden your real job for personal reasons, so he held back from explaining to the man that you were actually a profiler.

"Yes, something like that"

Tony wanted to ask more questions, but the sound of the elevator caught the attention of both men and revealed your figure.

"No fucking way," you breathed, looking your friend up and down and if he hadn't gone dumbfounded, he probably would have said the same thing "Look at you!"

"Where did you get that?" he asked in amazement. Although Spencer had thought that you would show up in a costume, he hadn't expected to see you like this.

"You don’t like it?"

"No, I love it" he hastened to say, when he heard the insecurity in your voice "It's just… I didn't expect to see you as a 19th-century French lady"

You were wearing a beautiful black dress with lace details that obviously alluded to the fashion of the time, black satin gloves, plus a discreet hat on your well-groomed hair and boots that Reid had seen before, but they made a great combination with the outfit. The man's surprise was because he had invited you with such short notice and yet you had gotten the perfect costume and not only that, but one that conveniently matched his.

“And I didn't expect to see you as a French gentleman either” you laughed, as you reached out to wrap him in a hug "I guess it was pure fate"

“Or the fact that we are going to see a recreation of a 19th-century show. Our brains thought the same thing.”

“It doesn't sound so charming when you say it like that" you complained amused and he realized it was true "Shall we go? I don’t want to be late"

Spencer nodded and immediately offered you his arm to hold onto as you walked, a gesture that made you believe you were really entering a time tunnel.

“Enjoy your night”

"Thanks, Tony! Don't scare too many kids and don't eat too much candy,” you waved, blowing him a kiss as you followed Spencer out the door.

He guided you to his car and opened the passenger door for you and then he got in himself to start the engine and get going.

"I really can't believe that we got a couple's costume by pure coincidence"

“Couple costume?”

“Yes, they are those costumes of the same theme that you use with a couple. You know, like the people who dress up as Fred and Daphne or Morticia and Gomez”

Spencer didn't know the last couple, but he did have a vague recollection that the first ones mentioned were from Scooby Doo due to the cartoons he came from as a child.

"Oh" he sighed "Yes, get it”

“Honestly this was a last-minute thing. My downstairs neighbor studies theater and we are good friends, so I asked her if she had anything in her curiosities bag that could help me and she pulled out this dress. It was enough to adjust it a little" you told him, putting both hands on the neck of your dress and smiling from ear to ear "I couldn't believe it, it was really a stroke of luck”

"It looks so pretty on you," he said suddenly, looking away from the road just for a moment to check that you had heard him. "I don't think I told you when I saw you, but that's what I thought."

"Thank you then," you smiled, feeling your cheeks warm a little.

Spencer started talking to you about the creation of puppet theaters and, of course, the Poe stories you were going to witness, with you interrupting him only to point out some decoration along the way that you thought was cute. On Halloween you almost always preferred to stay at home to watch horror movies or go down to the hall to distribute candy to the youngest children, with very discreet costumes to avoid the evil looks of adults. But now you were excited to be doing this with Spencer, who was maybe the only person you knew who wouldn't make fun of you under any circumstances. Your relationship was based on a certain complicity, perhaps more than you had with any member of your unit.

Arriving at the site, he reopened your door and offered you his hand to help you down, which you took without complaining. Once you were outside, he repeated the gesture from when he picked you up from your building and in this way you walked to the entrance, where a woman disguised as who you assumed was Berenice (a Poe character) sold you a couple of tickets.

It was a lovely show and when you weren't looking at the puppets you took the time to admire your companion, whose eyes revealed the emotion of a child. You never thought the doctor was fond of a thing like this and now that you had discovered it you found it quite adorable. As you left you asked him if he was a Muppets fan by any chance and, to your surprise, he was. Spencer even told you that he had a couple of Kermit the Frog items that his mom bought him when he was little, but he also told you not to tell anyone or he'd be embarrassed and you pinky promised him.

You still had an hour between the two shows so you decided to go to a nearby park where there were lots of food stalls: candy apples, popcorn, candy, lemonade, and you even got to one where a Hispanic woman offered you pieces of candied pumpkin. You had to take off your gloves (which he kept carefully in his jacket) when you bought a few pieces of this last one for the two of you and when you tried it you agreed that it was delicious. The woman told you that in Mexico, her country of origin, she always served them to her children with a glass of milk.

Spencer spared no expense just to fulfill all your cravings, even though you refused, so when you got in the car to go to the Phantasmagoria your stomach was pretty full. The place where it would take place was a gray tent in the open air, with a dais in front and several wooden benches arranged so that enough people could fit in. As you had arrived with some time, you took a seat on a bench in the second row and waited patiently for the show to start.

Suddenly all the lights around you went out, leaving only the ones pointing to the front of the stage, and a presenter dressed as a magician appeared.

“For many centuries, wandering spirits have inhabited the world unseen by the human eye, always confined to the world of shadows…” his voice was mesmerizing and kept you on the edge of your seat, watching him carefully “but for a certain time of the year, their magic grows and they are able to cross the barrier that separates us…”

The entire tent was filled with smoke and the audience, including you, looked around trying to figure out what would happen. The presenter continued giving his gloomy monologue and, although you didn’t imagine how, you even felt that the temperature decreased a little with each word he said. Suddenly even the lights that were pointed at him began to dim and by the time he finished explaining to you the whole place was in complete darkness.

There was silence for a moment to build tension and then there was an explosion that made you jump in place. To tell you the truth, you didn't expect much from the show, you thought that being a recreation it would have many shortcomings, but when the first figure appeared on the roof your heart skipped a beat.

You weren't a scared person under normal circumstances and your resistance to the horrifying images you saw at work on a daily basis shows this, but this time perhaps all the environmental components of that night were what made you feel that way. A loud laugh resounded and then another pair of specters appeared, this time flying at the height of the audience and even passing through some of you.

Spencer's reaction was nothing like the rest. Despite his fear of the dark he was totally fascinated by all the images, his mind already working to decipher the magic trick that was being performed. What finally got his breath caught was the feel of your hand searching his. He was still shielding your gloves so he could feel the cool temperature of your fingers, as opposed to how warm he was in comparison. Even knowing that doing that was a reflex act due to fear, he stopped paying attention to the show to look at your hand on top of his, with that noticeable difference in size.

Just as you had admired him during the puppet show, he took the time to observe your expressions now. Your face lit up from time to time by the illusions around you and every time you startled you squeezed his hand harder, in addition to adjusting your body against his as if you were looking for some kind of protection. Spencer had gone out with friends many times and of course with the rest of his female colleagues at work, however none of them had behaved like you were doing. He wasn’t bothered by your behavior, but rather intrigued, since you seemed quite comfortable taking refuge in him to feel safe. Although he knew how to identify qualities in people, he sometimes had a hard time crossing the line of identifying them to really admire them. When he thought of JJ, he thought of a charismatic woman. When he thought of Emily, he thought of intelligence. And when he thought of Penelope, he always saw joy and optimism. But when he thought of you, there were too many qualities to focus on just one: he thought of kindness, calmness, creativity, wit, beauty, empathy... what a big heart you had and how at the end of the day you were perhaps the only one who could make him smile. When he invited you to join him, he did it because he knew you had the same feeling towards scary things, but now that you were there, looking so pretty and holding his hand tightly, he thought maybe there was something else going on between you. You were the closest thing he had to a best friend, though he had never said so verbally, and that night he wanted to be nowhere else but by your side.

Only when the lights came back on did he realize that the spectacle had been forgotten to him, since the whole time he had been looking at you.

“That was all for today, my friends. Thank you for these wonderful performances and remember to recommend us to your friends the next time we're in town. Have a spooky night, all of you."

“I can't believe it, did you see all that? It was just awesome! I didn't think it was going to be this good” you said, completely excited, as you turned in his direction. Apparently you weren't even aware that your hands were clasped until he got up from the seat and helped you imitate him with that grip. Though you thought of apologizing for that, you didn't, fearing to embarrass yourself further.

“It was amazing, even for me it was hard to figure out the trick”

“Why do you want to figure it out? admit it's only magic, doctor. Sometimes life is” you laughed, grabbing his arm for the third time like a happy wife would her husband.

You are something magical, he thought, with the words on the tip of his tongue, but not daring to say them to you.

Although the night was late, the movement in the streets was still the same and Spencer considered asking if you wanted to go somewhere else, but the yawn that escaped you made him think that the best thing for both of us would be to go home to rest. After all, the case had exhausted you.

"Back to your house, right?" he asked, just to be sure and you nodded with a smile.

The road wasn’t long, you only had to take care of the naughty at night so as not to receive any damage, so when you least expected it, you were already in front of your building. Although you intended to say goodbye, Spencer told you that he would accompany you to the door of your apartment just to make sure that you arrived completely safely, because he knew better than anyone how much could happen to a woman alone, even if it was such a short journey, and he didn't want to risk you. Tony was still awake and greeted you nicely as you walked in, so you could then get on the elevator and press the necessary button.

“I seriously have no words to thank you for today, Spencer. Except for that one time I ended up in the hospital for eating so much candy, this has been my best Halloween ever,” you admitted with a laugh, as you leaned in for a big hug.

"Thank you for accompanying me. I'm really glad you had fun, because I had a great time too”

There was a dead space between you, in which you just looked at each other with a smile. It wasn't an exaggeration to say that the night had been wonderful and maybe it was just that you two were trying to drag it out as long as possible.

“Spencer”

"Yeah?"

"Before you go, can I ask you something?"

"Whatever" he responded immediately. He got a little nervous thinking that he wouldn't be able to satisfy your curiosity by ignoring the topic you were going to ask him about and hoped that wasn't the case.

You waited another second before speaking.

"How frowned upon do you think it was for 1800s society for a woman to steal a kiss from her companion?"

Spencer's eyes danced a little in his sockets and you thought he was processing your request in disguise, until he looked at you again and spoke with complete assurance:

“Very frowned upon, surely. At that time, it was usual for men to court women, who were very repressed from making their own decisions or living their sexuality as they pleased. A woman who kissed a man was considered indecent."

You wanted to correct him, tease him or, as a last resort, simply pull him by his shirt and plant the kiss you had wanted to give him all the way. But you didn't do any of that, you just laughed softly and enjoyed his smirk for telling you the right answer.

“I was afraid of that. It's good to know” said this, you carefully approached him and placed a small kiss on his cheek, seeing him slightly surprised by the act “See you tomorrow at work. Call me when you get home”

"I will do that. Rest and see you later"

"Bye”

Just as he said, he called you a few minutes later to announce that he had arrived at his destination so you could sleep peacefully.

Spencer didn't realize that you had explicitly asked for a kiss until Morgan told him and while his friend laughed, he felt like the luckiest guy of all and, at the same time, the dumbest.

taglist: @navs-bhat @reidwritings @tricia-shifting14

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maxanor · 2 years ago

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TOBY STEPHENS as JAMES FLINT Black Sails | Season 3, Episode 1 "XIX"

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rollingsins · 2 years ago

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all hers, part xii

summary: Tara's out. Reader gets an unwanted and unexpected visitor.

warnings: (+18), Tara is Ghostface, mention of murder.

word count: 3.8k

a/n: :0 who could it be??? thanks as always for all the love, let me know your theories (and what you want to see next)!!

Since that unfortunate incident in the living room, you and Tara have been hiding out in her bedroom.

Well you’re hiding out, unable to get past the mortification. The look on Sam’s face as she’d seen the two of you. The hushed lecture she’d given you both the morning after. Tara, as usual, doesn’t think she’s done anything wrong, but she goes where you go, and tonight, that’s curled up under her covers watching an episode of Ancient Aliens.

You’re perfectly content, wrapped up in Tara’s arms, until you hear a long rapt on the door. It’s Sam, presumably. She’s taken to knocking profusely before entering any room.

Tara’s bedroom especially.

“What?” Tara calls out. Sam’s voice sounds through the wood of the door, a little muffled.

“Is everybody decent?”

“No.” Tara says, deadpanned, “We’re having wild, passionate sex, don’t come in.”

Sam pauses.

You whack her, lightly.

“You’re fine Sam, we’re fully clothed.” You call out.

Tara shoots you a look but you ignore her, watch as Sam hesitantly steps into the room.

“Richie got Clue from the house. Do you guys want to join us for a game?”

“No.”

“Yes.”

You and Tara both say at the same time. It earns her another smack.

“We’ll be down in five,” You tell her, voice syrupy sweet. You’ve been doing that lately, being extra nice to Sam. Trying to make up for your girlfriend’s utter lack of respect.

Sam nods, closes the door behind her.

“What did you do that for?” Tara groans, “Now we’ll be stuck with them all night.”

“You need to start being nicer to your sister.” You tell her, stand and tug at her hand, “She’s making a real effort. And we still have some groveling to do.”

“You can grovel all you like, unless you can erase memories I think that one will stick with her for a while.” She grins like she’s proud of herself.

You smack her again.

“And whose fault is that?”

“Ow.” She rubs her forearm, eyes wide with outrage, “Stop hitting me.”

“Stop being an idiot and I’ll stop hitting you.” You tell her, hold out your hand. She takes it with great reluctance, scoots herself off the bed, “Now what are we going to go downstairs and do?”

“Be nice to Sam,” Tara grumbles.

“And Richie.” You remind her. She goes quiet.

“Tara. He’s fine.”

“He’s creepy,” Tara complains, “I just get a bad vibe from him. And Sam can do so much better-”

“Drop it.” You chide. You reach for her hand, interlock your fingers, “You’re going to be nice to Sam and you’re going to be nice to Richie. All night. Please?”

She really looks like she wants to argue. Instead, she pulls you into her, presses a long kiss to your cheek.

“Fine. But only for you.”

“It’s Colonel Mustard. In the study. With the knife.”

Richie’s eyes glint. Tara huffs beside you as Sam reaches for the small yellow packet in the middle of the table.

“Sam, don’t. It’s been two rounds, he can’t possibly have gotten it already.”

Sam slaps down the cards. It is Colonel Mustard. In the study. With the knife. Tara blinks.

“You cheated.” She says, immediately.

Richie laughs, “No. I’m just good at this kind of thing.”

“He is.” Sam assures, pulling everyone’s cards to the center of the table, “It’s annoying.”

You rub the back of Tara’s neck. You can tell she’s getting upset. She doesn’t like to lose and this is the third game in a row Richie’s won. You’re starting to think this was a bad idea.

“He’s looking at the cards,” Tara insists, snatching the packet off Sam, “Here, let me deal.”

But Richie wins again, even after Tara makes a big show of dealing the hand quite literally under the table. Tara’s shoulders tighten. The first sign of her mood. She goes quiet as she plays, all focus and determination, snapping replies when she’s asked questions. Pushing your hand on her thigh away.

By the end of the fourth game, you’re the one snatching the cards from the table.

“Maybe we should play something else,” You suggest quickly, your hand around Tara’s waist maybe the only thing stopping her from launching across the table to slap the shit-eating grin off Richie’s face, “Uno?”

You can’t stand Uno, you suck at it. But Tara’s good at it and she almost never loses. A quick win is exactly what she needs. You hold back your cards on purpose, determined to give her the game. Direct all your bad cards at Richie and Sam.

But despite your best efforts, Richie wins that too.

By the time game night is over, Richie’s standing a little taller and you’re left to pick up the pieces of Tara’s foul mood. You lead her back upstairs, direct an unsaid apology towards Sam with your eyes.

Tara’s so annoyed she barely notices when you strip naked in front of her and slip into bed.

“God, he sucks,” She vents, so irate you can almost see the steam coming out of her ears, “He cheats at Clue and if that isn’t sad enough he cheats at Uno too. What is he trying to prove?”

She’s a terrible loser, always has been. If someone except her wins, she’s certain they’ve cheated. Somehow you even find that endearing about her. You reach for her and rub her back, soothingly.

“Babe, I don’t think he was cheating,” You say, nestling yourself into her side, “He’s just good at games. He’s a nerd. He probably spends all his free time practicing them. I mean, all he ever does is play that stupid shooting game.”

Tara chews at her bottom lip.

“He probably spends all night practising because his girlfriend never wants to fuck him.” Tara says, her eyes sparking a little. Next to fucking you, ragging on Richie was her absolue favorite thing to do.

You indulge her, try to prompt her out of her grump.

“Exactly. And you don’t have that problem.” You say, pressing your lips against her ear, “Because your girlfriend always wants to fuck you.”

That does it. You feel her soften immediately, her hands around your waist tightening. She’s suddenly realized you’re naked against her. She runs her hands down your bare thighs, her mood gone with a single sentence.

“Hmm,” She says, her voice dropping a few octaves, “That’s true. I’d beat him every time if I didn’t have such a sexy, naked girl in my bed 24/7.”

“Definitely.” You assure, “So who’s the real winner?”

‘Me.” Tara grins as she flips you onto her back, “Definitely me.”

In the end, the real winner is you.

You get three orgasms as a reward for your peace-keeping efforts. By the time you’re done, a sweaty mess of entwined limbs, you’re satisfied but dehydrated. Tara mews as you get up, trying to tug you back into her.

“I’m just going to get some water,” You assure, reaching for her discarded t-shirt and pulling it over your head, “Do you want some?”

She nods, a little sleepily, rests her head back down onto the pillow as you leave.

The house is dark, you pad quietly through it, not wanting to wake Sam and Richie.

But when you reach the kitchen, Richie’s already there in only his boxers, a glass of milk in hand. He raises it to you in acknowledgement.

“Hey,” He says, “You thirsty too, huh?”

“Just getting some water.” You say as you reach into the shelf and grab yourself a glass.

“Tara still pissed she lost?” He asks, leaning against the countertop, “That girl sure knows how to throw a tantrum.”

He grins a little, like he’s sure you’ll agree with him. Bitches, am I right? His smile screams. As if he’s forgotten he’s talking to her girlfriend.

“She’s just competitive,” You say, a little defensively. You fill yourself a glass, grab another for Tara.

“Hmm.” Richie says, “I’m sure she’s fine now. After you got done with her.”

His eyes flicker down to your bare legs. You cross your arms a little self conscious.

“You guys have a lot of sex, you know.” Richie continues. He takes a long sip of his drink, “We can hear you through the walls. It’s driving Sam crazy.”

Your neck prickles uncomfortably. The thought of Sam hearing you have sex was mortifying but knowing Richie could hear too was somehow even worse.

“Sorry.” You say. You pull her shirt down your legs a little, subconsciously trying to cover yourself, “We’ll be quieter.”

“It’s fine.” He says, “I don’t mind.”

He blinks as if he’s just realized what he said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean that in a weird way. I just meant- you know what, never mind. I’m going to stop talking.”

He hovers, a little awkward. You blink back at him, unsure what to say.

“Enjoy your water. And your- sex, I guess.”

And then he leaves you standing in the kitchen alone, the hairs on the back of your neck standing up.

When you make your way back up to Tara’s she’s still laying in bed, her eyes drooping.

She accepts her water, and doesn't seem to notice your mood.

You’re glad, you don’t want to tell Tara about your conversation with Richie in the kitchen.

You feel weird, uncomfortable. You tell yourself to let it go. After all, he hadn’t even anything that offensive, outside of being slightly creepy. There really wasn’t anything to tell Tara. And she’d go ballistic. Probably go in all guns blazing and drag Richie out of bed by his hair.

The last thing you need is her to be angry again.

You curl back into bed against her, still wearing her shirt.

“Take this off.” She murmurs into your chest, trying to tug her shirt off you. You resist.

“You know we can’t sleep naked.” You say. Sleeping naked with Tara almost always ended up the same way; her waking you up at some ungodly hour to fuck you into the mattress because she’d gotten so turned on by the press of your skin against hers in the middle of the night, “We have to be at school for eight.”

She pouts. You press a kiss to her lips.

“Tomorrow.” You promise, “When it’s Friday and I don’t have to be up early.”

“I’m holding you to that.” She says, quite seriously and lets you pull her pajamas back on.

It’s Saturday night.

Usually, you’d be out with Tara’s friends but the mood has dampened a little since Wes’ disappearance. The friendship circle dwindling a little, only five of you left, with Wes and Amber’s untimely departures.

Instead, you’re starting dinner prep while Tara and Sam do the grocery shop. Tara had insisted on going with her, complaining Sam’s grocery options were far too organic for her taste. Richie’s out somewhere with his college buddies, so for once you have the house to yourself.

Maybe when Tara got back the two of you could watch a film, since Richie had temporarily vacated the living room. Or maybe you’d rope her and Sam into another game of Clue, fix Tara’s bruised ego by letting her win.

For now, you put on some music, put your hair up.

Chop potatoes while grooving out to Fleetwood Mac, not a care in the world.

In fact you’re so into the music, you don’t even hear the press of the kitchen door opening. The heavy click of boots against the tile. The gentle scrapping of a knife against the wood of the counter.

And when you turn around, lyrics to Dreams still on your lips, your heart almost jumps out of your throat.

It’s Tara, wearing the Ghostface outfit. Black robes and all, mask down, silver dagger in hand.

Your reaction is instantaneous; the knife you’re holding clatters to the counter. Your entire body fizzles: a mesh of confusion and rage and horror at the sight in front of you.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” You hiss, “Where are you going?”

Tara tilts her head. Her fingers press tighter around the knife in her hand. She doesn’t bother to answer. It makes you angrier. Your stomach writhes sick with fury. She’d told you she wasn’t going to do this anymore. She’d swore black and blue. Hurt, anger, betrayal well up, set deep within your bones.

“You promised me you’d stop with this. Take that off right now.”

But she doesn’t move. Not an inch. You reach out for her, grab at the mask, determined to tear it off and tell her how disappointed you are to her face. But she jerks away from you out of your reach. You stare, irritation swelling.

“Where’s Sam? Tara, if she comes home and sees you like this-”

You don’t see it coming. One minute she’s standing completely still. The next, her arms are jerking out wide, grabbing at you hard. She yanks you to her, hands are gripping your forearms so hard you think it might bruise.

“What the fuck? Get off me!” You cry out as you struggle against her.

Something’s wrong. Something other than Tara standing in front of you in her Ghostface costume. Her grip is hard, unforgiving. Her hands are too big, her weight against you feels strange. Foreign.

Your struggle against her is futile. She’s much stronger than you. She drags you backwards across the kitchen and slams you down onto the floor like you’re a ragdoll. Then she’s climbing on top of you, too heavy, hands wrapping tight around your throat.

She chokes you hard. It’s not an unfamiliar position. But this is different. She’s choking you like she wants to hurt you. You writhe in a panic as her fingers squeeze down tight around your throat. You try to cry out but she’s pressing down too hard on your vocal chords. Your vision blurs. Your head light.

In a final, desperate move, you manage to kick up between her legs at just the right angle. Her grip loosens, only slightly but it’s enough.

You scramble out from under her. Immediately grab at your fallen potato chopping knife.

When you whirl around, knife pointed out at her, she’s pulling herself back to her feet, Ghostface mask tilted menacingly.

“Who the fuck are you?” You hiss, hands shaking.

This isn’t your girlfriend, you don’t know why you didn’t see it before. This person is taller, bigger, and they want to hurt you. As they stand, you see the glint of the knife in their hands.

“Someone who thinks you should pay.” They’re using the Ghostface voice changer. You haven’t heard it since that night at Chase’s house. The night you’d discovered who Tara truly was. It sends shivers down your spine. Your lip quivers.

“Someone who thinks you should both pay.” Ghostface edges a little closer, knife tilted out towards you. Your eyes flicker down to it. It gleams under the cool lights of the kitchen, “And when I’m done carving you up, I’m going to drag your pretty girlfriend in here too. Just long enough so she can see what I’ve done to you. Then I’ll mutilate her over your corpse.”

“You stay the fuck away from her.” You growl, edge forward and launch a strike. Ghostface ducks past it like it’s nothing. You topple back, grip the counter so hard it might just crack under the pressure. Ghostface is close now, close enough that if you just reached forward and grabbed the mask…

Ghostface ducks as you try it. Launches a hard strike at you. You spin out of the way just in time, their dagger hitting the side of the counter. It clatters to the ground and you take the moment to run.

You’re sprinting, far out of the kitchen and down the hall, heartbeat in your ears. You rush for the front door. If you can just make it out of the house, run out onto the street, you’ll be able to find help. A neighbor, a car, anything.

You hear footsteps, loud and heavy behind you.

Panic floods through your veins, tears streaking hot down your face. Your hands are shaking as you pry open the lock. Their close now, close enough to grab you. Just as a pair of gloved hands reach out to pull you back, the click of the lock sounds.

You don’t wait a moment longer. Pry open the door as fast as you can and sprint forward.

Immediately, you hit a solid body.

You hit the ground hard, a mess of tears, tangled limbs and loose grocery items. You gasp as a rogue glass of pasta sauce shatters around you, a carton of milk seeping cool under your fingertips.

It’s Sam, looking confused and a little dazed. The weight of you has sent her toppling back onto the porch. You wildly flurry to untangle yourself from her, scramble up desperately looking behind you for the foreboding figure that had just chased you down the hallway.

“My groceries.” Sam gasps, from the ground, “YN, what the hell?”

But you’re not looking at her. You stare back into the house. The hallway is empty, eerie, lights flickering. Ghostface is long gone.

You hear the thud of the car door closing, and then a voice that makes you want to crumble to the ground.

“Sam?” Tara calls out from behind the car. No doubt she’s heard the panic, tries to round the corner to see what’s going on. She’s carrying two brown bags worth of groceries, a particularly long celery stick blocking her vision. She brushes it out of the way, eyes lock to Sam on the ground and you, standing limp-handed, tears and mascara streaked down your face.

“Baby? What’s wrong?”

You run towards her, all but throw yourself into her arms. She lets go of the groceries instantly. They fall to the ground with a crash as she wraps her arms tight around you. You sniffle into her neck, breathing wild, heartbeat erratic. You try to speak but it comes out in a quiet, muffled blubber, tears spilling hot from your eyes and into her neck. She’s pulling you away only slightly so she can cup your cheeks, eyes panicked as she sees the look in your eyes.

“Babe, what happened?”

“He’s inside,” Your voice shakes. It’s thick, “Ghostface. He’s here.”

She blinks back at you. You’re so close to her you can almost hear the thud of her heartbeat as it speeds up.

“What?” She says, “That’s impossible.”

“He’s here.” You say, desperately, “Call the police, now.”

“Who’s here?” Sam asks. She’s long abandoned her groceries, looks over at you with concern.

“Ghostface.” You say, “He attacked me in the house. Just now. He’s probably still inside.”

Sam’s face drops. Tara’s hands tighten around your waist.

“Wait here.” Tara murmurs, pressing a quick kiss to the top of your head.

“No.” You and Sam both shout at once. You grip her hard. Keep her locked into you.

“You’re not going in there. No way.” You say. The shake in your voice gone, replaced with sheer determination. Over your dead body was she going into that house alone.

“Baby, let go. You know I can handle myself.”

Sam reaches for her phone.

“Get back in the car. Lock the doors.” She orders, taking charge, “YN, don’t let go of her. I’m calling the police.”

“He’ll be gone by then,” Tara says, aggravated but you don’t loosen your grip. Cling to her like a baby koala would its mother.

“Let’s get in the car, please Tara.” You all but beg. She looks down at you, conflict in her eyes.

“Please.”

She relents. You feel the tension in her body loosen only a little, before she’s leading you back into Sam’s car, and helping you into the back seat. You all but crawl into her lap, watch as Sam paces back and forth across the front lawn, talking animatedly to the 911 operator.

“Are you okay?” Tara’s asking, her hands over your body. She’s wildly checking for marks, cuts. “Did he hurt you?”

You shake your head.

Tara presses a long kiss to the side of your head.

“Did you see his face?” Tara asks. She looks so anxious you want to weep.

You shake your head once more.

“Did you get close? Did you hear his voice?”

“Voice-changer,” You all but mumble.

She bites at her bottom lip. She looks back into the house, eyes it like she’s about to make a break for it. You curl your fingers tight around her waist, keeping her in place. Press your cheek to her chest. Her heart is beating faster than yours, drumming loudly against your ear.

Her fingers thread through your hair, heartbeat still racing.

“Shoes?”

“Boots. They were black.”

“What did he smell like?”

You retract from her just long enough to stare up at her. She’s looking back, completely serious.

“I didn’t smell him, Tara, I was busy trying not to get stabbed-”

Your lip trembles. A fresh wave of tears spill hot from your eyes.

“Alright. Alright, I’m sorry, baby. Of course you didn’t smell him.” She takes you back into her arms, hushes your cries with a kiss, “There’s got to be something. He grabbed you, right? What did he feel like? Was he skinny? Beefy?”

“He was…” You trail off trying to remember. You look down at your forearms, remember the way he’d gripped you, “He was strong. Solid.”

“So he was a he, then?” Tara tries to confirm. Her eyes flit between yours, searchingly.

“I don’t… maybe. Not necessarily.” You say, suddenly hyper-aware of how unhelpful you’re being. You pause a moment, remembering something.

“He knew though.”

Tara looks at you, long and hard.

“He knew what?”

“What we-” You take a breath, hot flashes of memories painting thick behind your eyes. The knife in your hand. Wes’ body on the floor.

“About you-know-what.”

Sam’s close, you don’t want to say it aloud. Tara’s expression is even, unreadable. Her heartbeat hammers even louder.

“That’s not possible.”

“He said that we need to pay.” You insist, “There’s nothing else he could have meant.”

Tara goes quiet, her fingers in your hair tightened. Then she’s pulling you back into her chest, pressing another long kiss against the top of your head.

“I shouldn’t have left you alone,” She says, voice agonized, “Why did I leave you alone?”

“Nevermind about that,” You say. You close your eyes, breathe her in. It calms you, if only for a moment, “What are we going to do?”

She blinks back at you. She’s afraid, uncertain, you can see it in her eyes. She doesn’t have an answer for you, she doesn’t know what to do.

She’s used to being the hunter, not the hunted.

And the thought of Tara being Ghostface’s prey is what scares you the most.

Next part

#scream #scream vi #tara carpenter x yn #jenna ortega #tara carpenter #ghostface #all hers #mine #fanfiction #ghostface!tara

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humblegrub · 8 months ago

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This weekend (5/17-19/2024) my parents and I journeyed through central Illinois seeking evidence of the 2024 double emergence of periodical cicadas, Brood XII and XIX! Our mission was to

1) take clear and detailed photos for citizen science apps

2) go to locations cicadas had NOT been seen yet to search for them

3) go to locations cicadas HAD been seen to verify their presence.

We used Cicada Safari (recommend!) and also iNaturalist (highly recommend!) to map our path… and boy oh boy, our mission was HIGHLY successful. 5/5 of our planned stops had cicadas in varying numbers - from a single sighting in a small woods near the Illinois River to thousands singing in a central public park in Jacksonville. I'm not able to confidently ID them to a species level (there are actually 7 distinct but similar species in the genus Magicicada), but I still took tons and tons of photos. If you are confident in your IDing skills please DM me and I'll share my iNaturalist account with you!

On the way down we listened to the Ologies episode "Cicadology with Gene Kritsky" (recommend!) and also an episode of 30 Animals That Made Us Smarter on "Cicada and safe surfaces". I also listened to "Cicadapalooza" from Sidedoor, a podcast by the Smithsonian on my own time and got even more cool insights.

This was probably one of the best vacations I've ever taken because we were just driving around and looking for bugs!!! Would you ever go on a road trip just to look for a specific bug?

MORE PICS UNDER THE CUT!

The path we took, plotted out with help from Cicada Safari, iNaturalist, and google maps :)

The first (top) and last (bottom) cicadas I took pictures of.

Exuviae everywhere at Duncan Park in Jacksonville, IL.

got mightily crawled upon!!

I brought hand lenses for everyone but ended up not using them that much!

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randomfoggytiger · 6 months ago

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The Scully Family In-Depth (Part XIX): Eyes Averted, and Final Decisions

Thus far we've discussed the effect Scully's diagnosis has had on herself, her mother, and her brother. Yet, it's not until this scene in Redux II that we hear the Scully family bouncing off of each other in a crisis: what behavior they expect from one another, and what boundaries they do and don't push. It's an interesting portrait of resurfaced dynamics and shared familial traits.

More importantly, it sets up blink-and-you'll-miss-it explorations of their differing perspectives on Scully's odds of survival.

THE FIGHT

The scene opens on Bill’s building anger (“This is crazy, just crazy”) and Mulder’s somber, challenging response (“Well, crazy in what sense-- in that it might save your sister’s life?”)

The camera quickly cuts to Scully’s expression during their exchange. She closes her eyes in a controlled shudder at Mulder’s blatant acknowledgement of her illness, opening them only when she has regained mastery over her rocked emotions.

Bill is flabbergasted but contains his fury.

His control is very telling. In Gethsemane, he pushed and prodded his sister's motives-- why didn't you tell me? do you know what our mother's been through? "loyal to who, to this guy Mulder?"-- but never yelled. When he first met his sister's partner, he shook his hand and glowered but didn't tear him up (as he will later this episode.) And here, he's listened to Mulder's farfetched explanation of farfetched chips and cures but still refrains. Bill seems to have put himself under an injunction (be it his own resolve or Maggie's warning) not to provoke or punish; but that resolve requires restraint. As we see here, Mulder pushes his buttons and effortlessly dissolves that restraint in under two minutes.

“You’re not a doctor. You have no place even suggesting this… science fiction.”

Maggie and Scully bend their heads, their body language stiff and conflict-avoidant but not shocked or surprised. To them, a Navy man laying down the law is not a new phenomenon.

“It’s not science fiction,” Mulder insists, immovably calm.

This interaction is solidifying what Bill perceives to be Mulder’s character: insistent, thoughtless action followed by blatant denial of reality. For the first time, we hear Bill Scully holler.

“He’s never heard of it!”

Scully writhes in discomfort-- not wanting to be caught in the middle of her brother’s anger and Mulder’s last, pleading attempt-- and her mother catches it. Shaking off her role of quiet military wife immediately, she softly latches onto her son's arm and orders, "Bill."

Her son immediately complies, respectfully sighing out the bite in his voice. Turning to the doctor, he questions, “Have you?”

“No, I haven’t.”

Maggie takes the lead here, stepping in before Mulder or Bill can steer the conversation back to confrontation. “I think there’s an obvious… difference of opinion here,” she puts delicately, carefully laying down her unspoken expectations of both men.

Mulder nods, easily acquiescing; then turns to Scully when she quickly speaks up.

SCULLY'S DECISION IS HER OWN

Even on her deathbed, Dana Scully commands the respect to speak and to be heard. “I think… that everybody here has their heart in the right place.”

She spares a split-second smile towards her mother, affection and love pouring from her worn, red eyes.

Maggie's expression is not soft or warm: it's one of steely distrust. She is letting Dana advocate for herself but knows, already knows, she will disagree with the final decision.

It’s not a stretch to come to this conclusion, either: her daughter left medicine for the FBI, creating a rift in the family; her daughter signed a living will privately, leaving Maggie to grapple with the task of following it through without notice; her daughter was somewhere else in the wild when Melissa was shot and died in her place; and her daughter didn’t want to tell her about the cancer diagnosis at first, then swore her to secrecy after. She may respect that Dana has the right to make decisions for her own life, but she doesn’t trust her-- each choice Scully has made unintentionally wounded Maggie.

And since her husband’s death, Maggie seems less and less willing to “shove off” without question.

Bill, meanwhile, waits patiently for his sister to continue. However, when Scully insists, with strength in her voice, “But I need it to be my decision”, he shakes his head, attempting to break in with a gentle, “Dana--”

Here we see a Scully family tic. He looks down and away when something personally affects him. Here, when his sister considers putting "pseudoscience" in her neck; later, when he cracks himself open to weigh Mulder's motives in the hallway.

“I know you’re only looking out for me, Bill,” Scully begins, watching her brother's face fall, "but I don’t think you have all the facts.”

Her unbeatable spirit shines through-- faith in her facts and a little pride in herself. Assured, and believing she will pull through.

Mulder looks from her to Bill; and Bill, knowing he can’t budge his sister, looks down before laying the blame fully at Mulder’s feet.

It’s an important moment for his character: Memento Mori Bill would have blamed Scully for their father’s dashed pride and Melissa’s death. Instead, this Bill blames only Mulder for his family’s destruction. And even then, as much as he despises her partner, this Bill will still give him a opportunity to explain himself.

Seizing one last chance to countermand his sister's inclination, Bill looks to his mother, hoping she will talk her daughter out of it. Mulder catches this and swings his attention to Maggie's face, too.

“Don’t you think you should listen to your doctor?” she asks, diplomatically; tense, strained, and hoping Dana won't pursue the wrong path at the last hour.

“Yes,” Scully insists, taking a gulp of air for her weak voice, “I am.”

Mulder immediately reads between the lines, brokering her concerns to her doctor. “Will she have to stop her conventional treatment?”

An important incident occurs: Scully panics, terrified at the thought she will have to stop her treatment plan. Because, deep down, Scully doesn’t believe she will die: her treatment-- her science-- will save her; and if it fails, then Mulder’s magic tricks will cure her.

We know this to be the case because of her reaction to Bill’s incredulous, “You think you can cure yourself” in Gethsemane (post here); we know this because of her fright now that she will, perhaps, be disconnected from the medical safety net; we know this because she hasn’t, yet, accepted that death is imminent (and won't until Mulder’s chip “fails” and she falls apart in front of her mother.)

Scully desperately locks onto her doctor as he soberly explains, “To be honest, at this point, the only approach I have left with her particular cancer is… quite unconventional.”

Scully’s science has failed her; and she is crestfallen.

However-- as in everything that is too terrible to face immediately-- Scully brushes her desperation aside, shoring up courage by closing her eyes and clutching the chip tighter.

“I’d like to try this,” she determines, resolved.

The camera shoots back to Maggie, caught between shades of disappointment, frustration, and resignation; and she turns to the wall to hide her turbulent emotions from her daughter.

Maggie, like Dana, does not believe her daughter is marked for death-- she still wants her to fight, to take treatment, to turn to God and pray with Father McCue and trust to miracles. It’s a faith not unlike Mulder’s: they both believe, though she prefers to pray down the miracles and he to catch them in his hands.

Resigned, Bill resentfully snaps up his head to glare meaningfully at Mulder. Mulder, spotting the searing animosity from across the room, keeps his head turned, uncomfortably avoiding eye contact.

Bill, unlike his sister and mother, does not believe Scully will be cured-- the cancer is in her bloodstream, and all the family can hope for is a peaceful death. Hence, he buries the hurt and frustration her reticence caused, tries to steer the work away from her room, and intends to lay off of Mulder for Dana's sake. He is showing his love by guarding her last days-- not unlike Melissa’s bedside manner (posts here and here): both prepared themselves for their sister's death by looking out for her best interest (and by confronting Mulder mercilessly.) The difference between he and his first sister is that Melissa believed in the impossible, and Bill only in the probable.

And that's the reason he and Scully and Mulder butt heads: he's looking out for his little sister, but he doesn't have all the facts.

Scully, emotionally overwhelmed, takes a page from her mother and brother’s book by avoiding everyone’s eyes.

CONCLUSION

Maggie bears the scars of her daughter's decisions, calling in Bill to lean on his strength (while also keeping him wisely in-check.)

Bill has revealed that he prefers the status quo. Trusting that her doctor has done his best, he views Mulder's last-minute, untested, shaky-at-best cure to be a reprehensibly irresponsible suggestion. Without saying it out loud, he has resigned Scully to her fate-- and Mulder, brilliant man that he is, has noticed and resents it, picking at Bill's disbelief in small pokes or digs.

Mulder has doubled down on the untested and (seemingly) unscientific chip he picked up from the DOD as the cure-all for brain cancer. He’s already argued-- and won-- for it to be tried, handing out hope to the sick and dying. Bill, stubborn and distrustful, sees this trial as a moral failure; and hates his guts for it.

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

#txf #meta #The Scully Family In-Depth #Part XIX #Eyes Averted and Final Decisions #In-Depth #S5 #Redux II #mine #Mulder #Bill Scully Jr.#Maggie Scully #Scully #xf meta #xfiles #x-files #the x files

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electronickingdomfox · 9 months ago

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"Ishmael" review

Novel from 1985, by Barbara Hambly. A pretty great read, it's actually a crossover between Star Trek and a Western show from the 60's: Here Come the Brides. However, you don't need to have watched the other show to understand the novel, since the characters and their relationships are properly developed, and no previous knowledge is assumed.

The plot follows an amnesiac Spock waking up in 1860's Seattle (the setting of Here Come the Brides), and learning to navigate among the people there, all the while hiding the fact he's an alien (which is one of the few things that Spock remembers about himself). He takes the identity of "Ishmael", the nephew of local businessman Aaron Stemple. Funnily enough, Stemple was played by Mark Lenard (Sarek in Star Trek), which may have given the author the idea to combine both shows. Interspersed with Spock's chapters in Seattle, there are chapters focused on the "present", with Kirk and McCoy trying to figure out what happened to the Vulcan. I ended up finding those chapters a bit more interesting, since the reader is as much in the dark about the mystery as Kirk. But it was also nice to see Spock adapting to the townspeople, and being more human and emotional, given how little he remembers about his Vulcan education. Besides, this serves to confront Spock's values against those of XIX century America (addressing subjects such as the sexism and racism of the era).

I can't judge how well portrayed are the Brides' characters, not having seen the show myself, but they're all lively and easy to warm up to. As for the Enterprise regulars, they're fine, and in particular the portrait of Spock as a rootless, lonely stranger, carving his own place among those humans, is pretty moving.

On another note, it's curious how this is the first novel to involve time-travelling to Earth's past, considering it was a recurring theme in TOS (which even had its own Western episode!). And there are also parallelisms with the later movie The Voyage Home, where a somehow amnesiac Spock also visits San Francisco, though at a much later date. Apart from this, Spock's unofficial family name: "S'chn T'gai", is first introduced here.

To summarize, this is an intriguing story, that also manages to be quite poignant at times. Though there's still no cowboy Bones...

Spoilers under the cut:

During shore leave at Starbase 12, built in the vicinity of the Tau Eridani Cloud, Spock notices some unusual dealings in a Klingon cargo ship, and he's authorized to conduct a solo infiltration mission aboard the transport. Time passes without Kirk receiving any news from Spock, and the Enterprise follows the cargo discreetly, once it leaves the starbase. Suddenly, the cargo starts accelerating inside the Cloud, which is rife with magnetic anomalies, and then it simply... vanishes. The only transmissions from Spock that they receive before he disappears, are a cryptic series of words and numbers: "White dwarf. Khlaru. Tillman's Factor. Guardian. 1867."

The story moves then to 1860's Seattle, where Aaron Stemple finds a badly injured and unconscious Spock in the forest. He recognizes immediately that Spock's an alien, given his green blood and strange ears, and understands he's been tortured and will die if left alone. Not without misgivings, Aaron decides to take the alien to his cabin in the woods. There he takes care of him, until Spock recovers, and is surprised to find out that the alien can speak English. Spock, however, can't remember anything about his past or identity, though from time to time he gets impressions from his previous life, that he can't pinpoint. The only other person who is aware of the alien's existence is Lottie, the local saloon owner, but she keeps the secret. Back in the saloon, Lottie notices two foreigners asking a hell lot of questions (the reader will identify them as Klingons at once), but she doesn't mention it to Aaron, despite her suspicions.

Back in the starbase, Kirk, McCoy and Maria Kellogg (the starbase commander), try to make sense out of Spock's transmissions. The mention of a "Guardian" is taken as a reference to the Guardian of Forever, and implies the Klingons are trying to tamper with the timeline. This is supported by the mentions of a "white dwarf" and "Tillman's factor", which describe a method to open a time warp. After some discussion, they also determine that 1867 must be a date... but from what calendar? As for "Khlaru", it could refer to a Klingon historian that was researching at the starbase. Khlaru's colleague, the Vulcan historian Trau, tells them a bit about their research. They were studying ancient Karsid records; a civilization that used to subtly infiltrate other societies through economic deals, before annexing them to their empire. The Klingons were part of that empire, until the rebellion that gave them independence (which is a very unusual backstory for the Klingons). However, Trau fails to see any connection between Karsid history and the Klingon's current plans.

Meanwhile, Spock is adapting to Seattle's society. He lets his hair grow to cover his ears, and passes as Aaron's nephew Ishmael, working for him as accountant at the mill. The general situation in the town is also explained. The Bolt brothers (Jason, Jeremy and Joshua) had brought several women from the East Coast to marry local workers. Aaron has placed a bet with Jason: if he fails to get all the women married by the end of this year, the Bolt's mountain property will pass to Aaron's hands. Ishmael (I'm going to refer to Spock as such, since that's the name used for most of the story) shows his super-human abilities when he's able to locate Jeremy and his fiancée Candy, lost in the forest, by hearing alone. However, Aaron manages to dispel any suspicions about his "nephew". Ishmael's acute hearing also comes in handy to save Aaron's life during a trip to San Francisco, where two men assault Aaron in the street. During this trip, Joshua meets Sarah, a doctor who faces discrimination for being a woman trying to work in the medical field. This is something that Ishmael can't understand; and he's constantly worried about slipping up, and showing traits unusual for a human in this era. The San Francisco bay also stirs something in his memory; Ishmael is certain of having seen that landscape in other time and shape, but whenever he tries to recover those memories, he feels intense pain around his temples (and if you know your Klingons, you'll probably guess by now that they used a Mind-Sifter on Spock).

For his part, Kirk consults with an engineer in the starbase, Aurelia Steiner (a curious alien that looks like a blob of gelatin, and shows her emotions through variations in her color and perfume). She devises a means for the Enterprise to create a time warp like that of the Klingons. At this point, they're certain that 1867 is a date from Earth's Christian calendar. And after Klingons try to kill Trau, and destroy the Karsid records, the historian concludes that there must be some relation with Khlaru's research. Effectively, they find out that the Karsid tried to infiltrate Earth around that date. However, they were stopped because a representative from Washington, Aaron Stemple, showed an unusual hostility and suspicion towards them. The Karsid abandoned their attempts, and soon thereafter, the Klingon rebellion put an end to them. Kirk and co. suspect the Klingons will try to kill Aaron before he enters local politics, so the Karsid succeed in their invasion and the Federation never comes to be. There's still the question, though, of why Aaron was so convinced that the Karsid were aliens (given how good were their disguises), since humans of that era wouldn't have reached that conclusion easily.

Back in 1867, Ishmael accompanies the Bolt brothers to San Francisco, in a gambling quest to earn $50.000 at the casinos. Aaron had promised Jason that he'd forget about the bet in exchange of that sum of money. Jason was likely to lose the bet, as nobody wanted to marry one of the girls, Biddy Cloom, who is considered loud and unattractive. Aaron and Ishmael, however, had grown fond of the girl, and deep down, Aaron doesn't want Jason to marry her just to win a bet, since he's developed feelings for Biddy. The Bolt brothers start making money at the casinos using Ishmael's mathematical system. And again, the two foreigners from the saloon show up there. Meanwhile, Joshua meets with Sarah and proposes to her, but he disappears before going out on a date with her. They find Joshua a while later, apparently drugged and with marks around his temples similar to those of Ishmael. He also suffers from a minor memory loss. In the end, Jason fucks up when he abandons Ishmael's system to win money more quickly, and ends up losing all their cash (and this whole passage, with Jason's winning streak surrounded by impending doom, was pretty exciting). So they return to Seattle empty-handed.

A bit later, during Jeremy's wedding with Candy, Aaron finally asks Biddy to marry him (even if this means that Jason will win the bet and keep the mountain), and Biddy agrees, as she also loves him. Sarah also comes from San Francisco to accept Joshua's proposal. However, Aaron receives a sudden call from the mill, and leaves the party alone. Ishmael notices two men following him, and recognizes them as Klingons. This brings back all his memories (and from this point onwards, the novel refers to him again as "Spock", to signify the change). Spock follows Aaron, but he arrives too late, and finds him gravely wounded by a disruptor blast. The Klingons take Spock for a common human, and not wanting to disrupt history further, they leave, confident that Aaron will die anyway.

Spock and Sarah try to keep Aaron alive during the following days, but with their primitive medicine, there's not much they can do for him. Fortunately, Kirk and McCoy arrive in the cabin just then, having finally pinpointed the correct time and place. They take Aaron to the Enterprise for proper treatment. And Spock has a tender farewell scene with Biddy, where he promises to bring Aaron back in a few days, even if Spock himself will never see her again. Aaron is healed and brought back to Seattle, with the Enterprise returning to its proper time. As it turns out, it was the Klingons' interference precisely, what thwarted their own plans. By sending Spock to that time and place, Aaron became familiar enough with aliens, to resist against the Karsid later. The novel ends with a nice touch, as Kirk consults Spock's family records, and discovers that one of Amanda's surnames is... Stemple.

Spirk Meter: 6/10*. Kirk becomes very depressed after Spock is lost in the Cloud, having recurring nightmares and being unable to sleep. To the point that he hopes that Spock was already dead, to not suffer anymore. It qualifies as McSpirk too, because McCoy is shown to be similarly depressed, and turning to heavy drinking. At the end, both Kirk and McCoy stare open-mouthed at Spock being so affectionate with Biddy (of course, it's not romantic affection... but they don't know that yet, and it's easy to read it as jealousy). Besides this, there are many mentions of Spock being unable to appreciate feminine beauty, and he takes his inability to ever marry a woman as a matter of fact.

*A 10 in this scale is the most obvious spirk moments in TOS. Think of the back massage, "You make me believe in miracles", or "Amok Time" for example.

#star trek tos #star trek novels #novel review #k/s #spirk #mcspirk

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unabashedqueenfury · 1 year ago

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Reign 2013-2017/ 01-01

Mary and Francis

Conosco un uomo che non ha cuore

E che mi ha fatto impazzire d'amore.

Tutto perché un giorno

Toccandomi la mano

Mi risvegliò i sensi sopiti.

/ Alda Merini /

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velvet-vox · 8 months ago

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The dark side of Steampunk: Nox (Part 1)

There is this video made by the Youtuber schnee about Hazbin Hotel, and how its grimsical art style serves the purpose of forming the setting and dictating every writing decision through the usage of its thematic connotations.

youtube

It's a pretty interesting video to watch if you are a fan of that series, but I'm not here to talk about that.

No, I'm here to talk about a specific part of that video.

There's a certain timestamp in the video where schnee all of a sudden starts to talk about a movie named "Aeronauts", and how it perfectly nails the Steampunk aesthetic through its understanding of the themes of Steampunk and the historic/social connotations of his it's existence. Here:

For the purposes of his argument, schnee explains to us what Steampunk is all about and compares it to grim dark. While this was fascinating and all, after I've learned the meaning behind the Steampunk aesthetic I couldn't help to think about Noximilliem Coxen the Watchmaker from Wakfu, and how the show writers and character designers twisted the positive vibes of the style to create a more impactful and terrifying antagonist that swims confidently in his own aesthetic.

Today, I'm going to break down how Nox's story uses and twists the meaning of Steampunk to help him stand out.

There's going to be multiple parts to this analysis, so expect me to add their link in the future, but for now, I'm going to focus my attention entirely on the OVA episode and I'll tackle the main series at a later date.

The OVA:

Noximilien is a brilliant inventor specialized in the creation of clocks. His over excitement at the prospect of being the one to find the next big thing is very reminiscent of the classic Victorian scientist present in many stories, usually on the protagonist's side: at the start of his character arc, Milien is the embodiment of the optimism native of the XIX century from which Steampunk stories often take place.

Characterised by the industrial boom, Steampunk (Nox) seeks out to revolutionise the rigid lifestyle of the Victorian era through the wonders of machinery and science. This right here seems like the classic setup for any story of the genre, surely it can't vary more than this?

Unfortunately for our Watchmaker, this is the part where another genre of storytelling is introduced into the mix: the Eldritch horror.

Stories of Eldritch Horror are often characterised by the fear of the unknown: humans going insane trying to understand things that were never intended to be understood, some light ho######ia and ra###m sprinkled here and there, but you can't blame Lovecraft for being a bigot when he was so much worse than that.

Nox finds a mysterious object coming from outer space, it acts weird and suspicious, and he can't understand it, so he takes it back home where he can study it. (I don't know what the bubbles emitted from the cube and the following psychosis are meant to entail, but I think it's up to interpretation).

Immediately, Milien sees the cube as an exciting new discovery, already picking apart its effects on his clock and quickly brushing aside how it affected Igôle. It's honestly not that uncommon in stories of this genre, the inventor tends to be pretty self centered and not particularly emotionally intelligent, it's a flaw that tends to go undeveloped, but it's usually never a problem for these people (Unless they are the villain 🌚).

But here, it's where unfortunately the rift between his family and his desires starts to form: at the beginning of the episode, Galanthe was nothing but supportive of her husband's passion for his inventions and the future, but here, when she asks her husband to let go of his current hyper fixation, she, quite literally, puts a stop to the Industrial dream, one of the cores of this genre; basically rejecting Nox himself, whose the personification of Steampunk.

Naturally, Milien is at fault here, he shouldn't be taking her response too dramatically, but this is going to be the base to his later turn towards the obsession.

While we're here, I might as well mention the beggar and the puppet show.

They're not all that important to Noximilien's character arc (aside from the money problem giving him a ticking clock to all of his actions🌚🌚), but they do provide important pieces of character building and themes for our analysis, so I'm going to briefly touch on them.

The beggar and the puppet show serve to better establish and build up our Steampunk narrative before it can later be destroyed by the Eliacube.

The beggar, is our representation of society. More specifically, Victorian society. He's naturally unimpressed by Milien's creativity and ingenuity, and only seeks to get his part of the bargain. He's strict, rigid, and he's clearly intended to be the obstacle in this situation.

The conflict between the beggar and Milien parallels the conflict between the Victorian society and the positivity of modern science; said tension is the bread and butter of Steampunk and the reason why this aesthetic gained so much popularity in the first place.

The puppet show, created by our inventor, is, again, another establishing piece for our setting, it's the original direction Nox's character was supposed to take, becoming someone who uses their brilliance and generosity to better the world and brighten their family's lives.

If only Milien stayed in bed that night instead of going to temper with the Eliacube, who knows what could have happened.

Maybe, he wouldn't have found the Cube to be all that shiny when he woke up the next morning......

Next part>>>>

Want more Wakfu analyses? Give your vote here.

#Youtube #wakfu #wakfu nox #hazbin hotel #steampunk #noximilien #xix century #wakfu ova #wakfu villains #eldrich horror #lovecraft #essay

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alwaysmoncheri · 1 year ago

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𝐀𝐋𝐖𝐀𝐘𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐎𝐃𝐃𝐀𝐌𝐍 𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐘𝐒𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑

return to — steve harrington masterlist

you can find my story on wattpad here!

you can find my steve harrington playlist here!

you can read my story on wattpad or here on tumblr — whichever you prefer ´･ᴗ･`

𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝟏

I - the vanishing of will byers

II - the search

III - the weirdo on maple street

IV - the house party

V - the body

VI - pictures

VII - the woods

VIII - don’t turn off the lights

IX - monster hunting

X - the kiddie pool

XI - let’s kill this son of a bitch

XII - happy holidays

𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝟐

XIII - mad max

XIV - new kids on the block

XV - halloween night

XVI - tension

XVII - episodes

XVIII - the cellar

XIX - sexual electricity

XX - the junkyard

XXI - hawkins lab

XXII - the spy

XXIII - together again

XXIV - the fight

XXV - tunnels

XXVI - the snow ball

𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞

XXVII - scoops ahoy

XXVIII - suzie, do you copy?

XXIX - the code

XXX - evil russians

XXXI - the air ducts

XXXII - child endangerment

XXXIII - booby traps

XXXV - caught

XXXVI - drugged

XXXVII - escaping evil russians 101

XXXVIII - interrogate me

XXXIX - the bite

XL - the mind flayer

XLI - scoops troop

XLII - the battle of starcourt

XLIII - new beginnings

𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝟒

XLIV - the pep rally

XLV - the nightmares

XLVI - the game

tba !!

#masterlist #steve harringon #stranger things #wattpad #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington imagines #steve x reader #joe keery #stranger things steve #steve harrington x you #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington x y/n #stranger things s1

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dreamwritesimagines · 3 months ago

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Hi, at first I want to thank you! I absolutely adore this series and can’t get enough of it, constantly checking if there’s smth new ❤️🥺

So here’s my a bit angst headcanon about Logan having one of his self doubt episodes. We all know that he’s pretty much confident, sometimes even a bit cocky but I always have in mind that he has some times (probably late at night when he is all alone with his head) that everything bad catches to him. Like he remembers all the bad stuff he did, that in fact he’s just a weapon made for hurting people and how he should be alone because of it all (poor baby 🥺). It doesn’t help that he’s in XIX and has this mindset that he must be strong all the time, without any problems or doubts (of course he’s only hard on himself, he’s definitely not thinking the same stuff about Theo, Sunshine or any other students. she just has a lot of unresolved trauma and he was taught not to be a burden; that he has to deal with it on his own).

So one night he has another episode of those thoughts, doubting if he deserves the domestic and peaceful life with Sunshine, if he should be in Theo’s life and all of that crap.

The thing is that it’s a middle of the night, he’s laying in his room, Sunshine next to him (they had a free weekend cuz Theo is on some kind of school trip with Scott and Ororo), when he was caught still awake by her:

S: Logan…. What’s wrong?

She would be so confused and worried why he’s not sleeping.

L: Nothing princess. Go to sleep.

He would try to brush her off, not letting himself open up to her, because obviously he doesn’t deserve it and should simply get himself together (this dumb adorable man… 🙄😅)

But then Sunshine would reach him, make him look at her and talk him through it all, in the end making him confess about everything. He would even let a single tear fall down while thinking about all the good things in his life that he “doesn’t deserve” and apologized for it immediately, but her only reaction would be hugging him and telling him how silly he’s now for apologizing for being a human and having emotions. She talks with him about his feelings and emotions (probably Sunshine would be a first person that ever have this convo with him, such a kind and loving person she is) and how he shouldn’t be afraid of not being always strong and full macho mode with her. How she simply adores and feels even closer in those moments.

In the end she makes him promise that he will be open more about himself and talks to her about his insecurities when they bother him. He cuddles into her and in that moment he falls even harder for her, just because he finally feels comfortable and has a peace of mind that he hadn’t felt in years.

Ps: I know it’s all sappy but I feel like a lot of people overlook Logan’s self hatred and that in the end he’s just a human as everyone else. Soft and vulnerable Logan who low his guards and feels safe with admitting that he’s not in fact okay has a special place in my heart 🥹

And sorry if it’s bed written or smth, English is not my first nor second language so apologies if it’s hard to read 🫥

A lot of love and thanks again fot this amazing duo ❤️🙏🏼

AAAAAAA HONEYYYY! ❤️

You're absolutely amazing and your English is great and you're so talented AND I LOVE THIS HC SO MUCH-

Soft and vulnerable Logan my beloved!❤️

(probably late at night when he is all alone with his head) that everything bad catches to him. Like he remembers all the bad stuff he did, that in fact he’s just a weapon made for hurting people and how he should be alone because of it all LOGAN I WILL HUG YOU-

The fact that he thinks he's just a weapon while Sunshine would never ever think that about him 🥺 But even so he wouldn't be able to share it with her, just like you said! ❤️

I do think that Logan thinks he doesn't deserve Sunshine -and that life with her and Theo and such- after everything he's been through 🥺

he was taught not to be a burden; that he has to deal with it on his own I think that right there will actually create some problems in Logan and Sunshine's relationship before he learns how to talk about his feelings ❤️

probably Sunshine would be a first person that ever have this convo with him AGREE! Like, he doesn't really talk about his feelings and I think the fact that he was willing to be vulnerable with Sunshine like that...🥰

In the end she makes him promise that he will be open more about himself and talks to her about his insecurities when they bother him. HELP SHE IS SO SOFT WITH HIM-

This is so amazing, thank you so so much! ❤️❤️❤️

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