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nelllraiser · 3 years

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hell’s true north | adam & nell

TIMING: current. LOCATION: hellscape number ??. PARTIES: @walker-journal & @nelllraiser. SUMMARY: adam follows his compass home. CONTAINS: sibling death (brief references to the bea plot), mass poisoning (from inhospitable domain), parental death mentions.

Vines with the texture of withered leather fingers writhed under Adam’s feet as he stumbled out of a brackish puddle of ichor. Disaster response boots that’d been designed to weather fire, acid, and radiation had eventually yielded before the onslaught of otherworldly environs. Now the ragged soles barely clung to his feet, wrapped tight with bloody strips of bloody demon hide. The most cutting edge kevlar, environment-resistant tactical gear, breathing apparatuses, and deadly military firearms had been gradually ravaged into uselessness by universes full of chemicals and alternative laws of physics that Earthly science had never imagined. As the tactics, preparation, and martial science Adam had once relied on was stripped away in the nonstop battles with demonic flora and fauna, the title of Hunter had become brutally literal.

Adam spelunked through caverns that formed from the innards of sleeping elder things, scaled cliff sides made of solidified light and shadow, jumped across archipelagos of bone islands floating in stormy skies, climbed up trees the size of skyscrapers whose fruits were embryonic sacks in which monsters gestated, hiked across the savannahs with rolling plains of scalpel-sharp obsidian grass, and tightroped across worlds that were just spider webs of tentacles stretched across abyssal gyres.

Adam was now a ragged figure where a dauntless soldier had once been, the shreds of his tactical uniform stitched together with leather and pieces of chitin. Once the olympics-ready peak of health, the footballer’s veins were stained with dark lines across his skin and he stumbled across the landscape of grasping roots and tide pools of black blood. His breathing was shallow treks through world after world had wracked the Hunter’s body with alien toxins that even the mutant’s regeneration was failing to fight off. Adam’s vision was blurred with the edges and everything muscle in his battered body begged to just lay down in darkness.

But the compass in Adam’s hand pointed the way across the hellscape of fire, floating islands of tentacled flesh, and geometric monoliths to old gods that's already sunk into dreaming torpor long before humankind had discovered fire. Adam fought back agony and followed the compass needles across the poisoned land.

Everything had blurred together by now. Nell couldn’t even clearly remember how she’d gotten to this realm, just that she’d fallen through far too many holes in the ground, off cliff sides, or out of sky-hanging oceans to even begin to remember what world this was. The red skies she’d originally arrived under were long gone, barely a memory after all the worlds that had followed, and all the attacks she'd scrambled to come out of in one piece. Though perhaps calling herself one piece was being generous when she’d resorted to packing the missing chunks of her flesh with whatever she could find that didn’t instantly sting and burn at her open wounds. She didn’t know how long it had been since she’d slept, time still immeasurable in places like these— just that she hadn’t done it since the baykok’s attack. The lack of sleep meant she hadn’t been able to replenish a single shining grain of her magic after she’d been quite literally drained and fed from, her body having nothing but sheer determination to keep her wavering feet from falling out beneath her.

Something was the very definition of fundamentally wrong with this world in terms of survivability. Nell could feel it in the way each breath felt sharper than the last, and the ugly coughs that had her spitting up black specks on the palms of her hands. None of the places she’d seen could have been described as friendly, but this one felt like it was digging her foot deeper into the grave with every second she stayed. She needed to find a way out if she wanted to make it another hour. Nell was far past the point of finding a way back to White Crest, ready to settle for a hellscape that wasn’t killing the witch with every inhale of her lungs, and go from there if she could manage to last that long. How long had she lasted already? How much longer could she last? She’d always been a fighter, refusing to go down without taking at least a part of her attacker with her. But how could she carve out a piece of a world? How was she meant to rage against an entire realm? Maybe sometimes there was simply nothing to fight against, the hand of Fate snuffing out her life whether she liked it or not.

And yet she kept walking, limping along as the injury on her leg oozed with some otherworldly infection that promised to kill her if this air didn’t. There was no direction, no plan, just the foolish hope that she’d stumble into a place where she could properly breathe. She walked until she could barely make out a figure on the horizon, squinting her eyes against the bright green and dingy brown of this place while she wondered if this would be the final creature to kill her. But the figure grew closer, and despite her best judgement an uncontrollable wave of hope flooded her chest. “Adam?” she dared to utter, even though she knew it was far too good to be true. Nell and the hellscape had done this before in the form of a tikbalang sending her astray with the perfect illusion of her hunter. “We’re doing this again?” she asked the air in a tone that was resigned to the disappointment of finding another falsehood, the high instantly giving way to a low. “What is it? Another tikbalang?” But this Adam was different. He looked sickly, and past the point of battered— like he’d already knocked on death’s door only for death to tell him to come back in ten or so minutes. They’d call him when they were ready. Why would an illusion-caster show her this?

Hallucinations had become ever more common as toxic environs and constant otherworldly stimuli wore down Adam’s nervous system.

Sometimes it was dad, gently reminding him of past lessons as Adam fought his way through nightmarish creatures and tried to find his way through landscapes only possible in other realities. Other times it was James or Terry, come to chat idly about football and girls as Adam trekked across wastelands whose sloping yet flat contours didn’t obey the rules of time and space. Dave gruffly reminded him about knots and the perils of marine warfare as Adam journeyed through rivers that flowed up into the sky and seas of sentint poison. Regan gave pointers on splinting a broken arm with a demon’s bones all while primly reminding him she wasn’t that kind of doctor. Orion nervously recounted facts about obscure demon types as Adam ducked claws and spines while trying to find a weak point. Ariana punched Adam in the arm and reminded him to buck up and put on a tough grin when everything was just pain. Athena gave advice on slowing the poison’s spread through his body with her mixture of tenderness and steel. Kaden brusquely correctly Adam on his stances as the younger Hunter’s limbs trembled with neurological damage, before reminding him to stay alive. Mina kept him vigilant, pointing out dangerous movements and sounds even when every fiber of Adam’s body wanted to sink into oblivion. Morgan spoke gently to him when the horror became too much, her hand on his shaking shoulders when the mental strain of glimpsing elder things sent Adam into seizuring convulsions. Dani reminded him of duty and their ancestral oaths with a concerned smile when ancient deceivers whispered in Adam’s brain, offering easy miracles in his moments of weakness. Luce yelled at him to get the fuck back up and fight when Adam could barely stand and death’s release drew close. Beatrice demanded that Adam remember who he’d come her for, when poisoned dreams threatened to swallow reality entirely.

So this was not the first time Adam’d met Nell and had to hold back tears when stabbing yet another shapeshifter to death or felt crushing emptiness when it turned out he’d only embraced only empty air.

Adam looked down at the compass needle, pointing unerringly forward.

“Hey Nell,” Adam rasped through cracked lips, taking a green stone with a hole through its center from a cord around his neck. He held out the Adder Stone in one hand, gory knife clutched in the other. “When’d you give this to me?”

Nell looked to the Adder Stone held in Adam’s hand, her solemn resignation to the illusion disrupted by the flickering of uncertainty in her eyes. The compass was a new addition as well, though she recognized the daffodil bloom she’d carefully laid into the face of it, the magic and flowers they’d made together under a full moon. “But I didn’t- I was gonna give you that after the date,” she mumbled, already chiding herself for how easily a couple of emotional trinkets could sway her mind towards what the demon world wanted her to see. But the compass wasn’t what he was asking about. The Adder Stone. Of course she remembered when she’d given it to him- the first of many things she’d gifted in an attempt to keep him safe.

“After Bea- after we...brought her back.” Nell had masqueraded the gift as a thanks for Adam’s help in bringing her sister back from the ether, but the truth had gone deeper than that. “I said it was for helping protect my family. But I just- the carachs had just given you those visions, and the somnivore thing wasn’t that far off.” It’d been nearly a year ago that she’d delivered the stone, nearly five months after their first meeting at the Ring, and by then she’d already gotten soft for him. “You were hurting and- I didn’t want you to hurt.” Taking the Adder Stone between her fingers, she swallowed hard as she held it before her face, already dreading the moment he’d disappear before her eyes. The motion sent her into a brief coughing fit, the heaves long and loud as her lungs desperately tried to dispel the poison in her system. At the end of it she finally raised the stone’s center to her eye, knowing this vision and her willingness to linger with even a false Adam had already shaved precious moments off the stopwatch that was ticking down the seconds until the poison got the best of her. “Let’s just- let’s get this over with.” It was silly, and she shouldn’t have said it knowing he was nothing more than an exhaustion or demon induced delusion. But she couldn’t help herself as the next words whispered from her lips, trying to find a moment of peace in a land that had never known it. “I miss you. I’ll miss you.”

Finally Nell looked through the stone’s center, still surprised at how solid it felt in her hands, wondering if that was another lie to be chalked up to feeling dead on her feet. Except Adam didn’t fade from view, didn’t disappear into nothingness as she locked her gaze onto his familiar and brown eyes. She gasped, still hardly believing it but reaching out nonetheless, letting the Adder Stone thump unceremoniously against his chest while its cord slackened and her hand found a gentle resting place alongside his cheek. Warmth. Perhaps a little too warm, as if he were running a fever. But there was the unmistakable feeling of life beneath her fingertips, and she didn’t hesitate a moment longer to close the space between them, slipping her other hand into his. Her knees grew even more unsteady, either from shock, barely having the energy to hold herself upright, or both— and for a moment she rested a little more weight against him than she probably should have considering his state. But it was impossible for her not to sink into the first safe place she’d found since the onychorror had snatched her. She’d finally found a place where she was safe in the hellhole. A place where she’d always been safe to crumble, to relieve her walls of their nearly ever-present duties. A place where she knew it was safe to fall because he’d never once stumbled when it came to catching her. “How- How did you- you’re real? Please- either this is a really good mindfuck or-” Or Tate had made good on his deal, and managed to get her hastily doctored sigil back to White Crest. Was it possible something had actually gone right? Had gone so right as to bring the man she loved to her side?

Adam let the knife fall from his hand onto the writhing ground and put his arms around Nell. There was a moment of tenseness, of resigned expectation. But she didn’t turn to mist, slip right through him, or boil up into some hungry thing. Tidal waves of relief and shock at something too impossibly good to be true collided in Adam’s chest. Nell was solid, real. Just a moment Adam couldn’t feel the heat of the burning sky or the poisons of alien worlds killing him cell by cell.

“I’m real,” Adam assured holding her tight with what strength was left in him. “I’m really here.” He entwined the fingers of their free hands. “I don’t want any other life except one with you in it,” the Hunter confessed, wasting precious water as the tears slid down his bloody and battered face.

“So uh...here I am.”

Nell could feel her own tears gathering in the corners of her eyes, an avalanche of relief washing over her near-ravaged spirit, almost still waiting for this moment to break in a way that left her spinning. But the moment never came, and Adam was breathtakingly solid within her arms. For a long breath she savored the peace he brought, like a salve over an open wound. She wanted to bury herself against him, to hide from the world around them and pretend like it didn’t exist, but the fear that he’d disappear if she so much as looked away from his gaze was too great, afraid to even blink lest the break in their eye contact be the blip of time needed for him to dissipate from under her hands.

She could feel her pulse gain a few extra beats while Adam made his declaration, heart in her throat while she ran his words on repeat through her mind. It was wrong. So wrong that such beautiful words should have to be uttered in a world as ugly as this one, spoken between the gasping breaths of a dying pair. Nell had always known that loving Adam wouldn’t be easy between his constant brushes with death, and the conditioning that often made him feel the need to put humanity’s welfare before anything else in his life. She’d done it nevertheless, having made peace with the fact that maybe he wouldn’t ever wholly be her’s, a part of him always belonging only to his mission. The pieces of him she’d been given had been more than enough. But that didn’t mean his admission didn’t tug at her heart, didn’t make it soar in a way that made a fluttering bloom in chest that had nothing to do with the poisonous air slowly killing her.

“Here you are,” Nell finally managed to repeat in wonder. Hadn’t he been the one trying to convince her to leave him behind should the demon apocalypse commence? He'd told her that she was a part of humanity’s hope for survival, that she should abandon him for the sake of the world. It was his own words that made her know the gravity of him choosing to come for her, to potentially sacrifice one of humanity’s hopes in the form of himself by searching for her in the endless worlds. And that was enough to keep her voice steady and sincere while she spoke. “I don’t want a life without you either.”

Part of Nell wanted to be upset with him, to scold him for being so foolish with his own life by following her into the portal, but she couldn’t manage to speak the words through the temporary moment of solace they’d found in the middle of hell— unwilling to break it. Unfortunately there was something else that needed to be said that would do just as good a job at shattering their moment of quiet. Something she couldn’t ignore. “There’s...something else I need to tell you.” Let her hold onto this shining feeling for just a few more seconds before she brought them back to reality.

Adam had grown up with the knowledge that his life wasn’t his own. It belonged to humanity’s destiny, a merciless idol that generations upon generations of his family had been sacrificed to appease. The abnegation of the self had been soothing in a way, it’d made him brave in a way. It doesn’t hurt to suffer and risk your life again and again if it isn’t truly yours to lose. He tried to never deceive the women in his life. Nobody deserved to be given only part of someone to love.

Mom and dad had loved each other intensely, and Adam had seen the aftermath after the needs of humanity had demanded yet another sacrifice. At the time he’d thought he’d learned a lesson from Esther Walker’s sorrow, and was determined to never hurt someone the way his father had.

But after three years of complete radio silence, Adam had spoken with mom and learned too late that he'd gotten it all wrong. As he’d grown, so had she, and neither mother or son were the same broken people that’d parted at Gehena 19.

Penelope was a person he shouldn’t have loved. She practiced demonology, the very art that’d fucked up the world in the first place. She’d participated in human trafficking and slavery. She’d performed ritual human sacrifice. She’d hunted down bounties without any concern for morality or a higher cause. She aided and abetted supernatural criminals simply because of her personal feelings. When these actions reaped consequences, Nell responded with personal wrath and revenge rather than seeking resolution, splintering tragedy into ever more fractals of repercussion.

Basically, by every standard he’d been raised to believe in, Penelope Vural was evil, and if she hadn’t been born human Adam would’ve been obligated to kill her.

But that’s not what happened. At first it’d just been that she was a useful ally. Next it'd just been typical horndog Adam, thinking with the head in his trousers rather than one on his shoulders again. Physical attraction and wary partnership had explained things for only so long however. She was brave, self-sacrificing, vivacious, and free to act according to passion and her free will in a way Adam had never dared to be. Eventually Adam was sharing things with her that he’d never dreamed of telling anyone else.

He wasn’t supposed to care about someone like Nell, to give her so much of what belonged to the mission. Adam could only love someone also sworn to fight the same war, no one else could understand the sacrifices necessary and what’d inevitably come sooner rather than later. Adam had been introduced to Huntresses his age with the unspoken understanding that eventually he’d find someone to fight alongside and raise children with to pass the sacred charge onto the next generation.

Adam had drank, partied, and screwed his way into forgetting for a while. Until suddenly, he ended up loving the wrong person, someone who wanted Adam for just himself, war be damned.

It wasn’t the right thing.

But what if he just….did y’know?

What he just loved Nell like she deserved without holding back, fight for his own humanity for a change?

Adam just wished he'd had the courage to take that plunge earlier.

Adam looked parted the embrace slightly so that he could meet her gaze “What is it Nell?”

Nell hadn’t planned to fall for Adam Walker, hadn’t even entirely noticed how close she’d let him get until she’d felt like she was on the edge of losing him, delivering the news that August Thompson had died a death far from peaceful— that Adam’s hand had been directly involved in the spellcaster’s demise. Of course she’d known he was one of the people she’d trusted most, one of the only people she’d ever let see her stripped to the core while he’d held her after Bea’s death. It was why she’d asked him to help in the first place. But she hadn’t realized just how much there was to lose until she was standing on the precipice. She’d been convinced that it would be the end, that she’d managed to ruin something before even really letting it begin, and that he wouldn't come back. It turned out she didn't need to worry about him coming back, because he’d never left in the first place. And he kept not leaving, something that had been rare in the life of a witch who had an overzealous temper and a reckless streak a mile wide.

So when he’d done things others might condemn or draw the line at— killed a werewolf in cold blood, admitted his own bloodlust beneath a full moon, gone on a murder spree fueled by the same moon, considered a demon pact, left her on read in the middle of feeling as if she were about to lose him...there’d been no choice of whether or not she’d grant him the same loyalty, to stay with him just as he’d stayed with her. She’d just wanted him to come home. And he always had. Even now, after fighting his way through literal hell, he’d come home.

Selfishly putting off her bad news for one moment longer, she let months of feeling the sun on her face when he smiled fill her soul, holding onto that feeling as she tried to find the words for what she wanted to say. What needed to be said if they didn’t make it out of this hellscape, and what she should have said much sooner despite being scared. She’d been worried about what he might say in reply, always thinking of that part of himself that she knew he felt he couldn’t give, not sure if she wanted to hear the ‘I’m sorry, but’ that she might get in response. But the man who’d dived into hell for her deserved to hear it, and she wasn’t scared anymore. “You know I love you, right?” He didn’t need to say it back, she’d finally realized that while he’d been walking towards her, knowing loving words could never speak as loudly as his actions had. “I just wanted you to know,” she assured him, letting him know she didn’t need to hear it in return. It wouldn’t change anything.

Now for the less charming of her news. “Not to...instantly bring the mood down but...the other thing I needed to tell you…” Nell glanced over her shoulder, as if the soul-snatching creature would be there even now as she divulged news of it. “There’s a...slaugh. I think it’s been following me.” Adam would know what it meant, that such creatures only went after those who were generally mere hours from dying, waiting to devour their souls. Nell had glimpsed it as she kept rubbing elbows with death in the hellscape, the being momentarily coming into focus while she’d barely escaped a demon encounter with her life still intact. The creatures were nearly as good at predicting death as banshees were.

Adam followed her gaze towards the burning horizon where plasma storms corrustated in lightning rainbows over living plains of crawling flesh. Slaugh were vultures of the spirit world. As a kid he’d been terrified of the invisible presences that set off his Hunter senses whenever there was a clash between militia forces around the Levant. It’d felt like a blizzard of dark wings, choking him with claustrophobia on empty arid plains covered in bodies shredded by shrapnel.

Mom had assured her son he wasn’t crazy. He could just feel the demons glutted humanity’s senseless wars against itself.

Adam‘s mind went back to Regan’s prophecy and felt an iron dread settle in his stomach, adding bittersweetness to the joy and relief coursing through his enervated body.

Adam let the future go and drew Nell close against him again, just letting this moment exist for as long as hell allowed. “We’ll figure it out when we get back to Earth ,” he murmured.

The tension in Nell’s shoulders melted as Adam pulled her back, savoring their togetherness for as long as she could, feeling true hope for the first time since...she wasn’t actually certain how long it had been, not even knowing how many days she’d been stuck in these hell-worlds. She drew a long breath while she was pressed against him, giving his hand a gentle squeeze to assure herself that he was still here- still real even though it seemed impossible that he was. When they got back to Earth. It seemed like a far off hope, like shooting for the moon without any of that bullshit optimism of landing among the stars. “Then you can tell me the plan when we find a place that’s not suffocating us.” He wouldn’t have come without one, right? It was one thing to condemn himself to death, and she wouldn’t be entirely surprised given his generally self-sacrificing nature, whether that had been taught, was natural, or a combination of the two. But it was another entirely to forfeit the life of her as well by diving in without an extraction plan. He wouldn’t have risked the person he was saving.

The slaugh was worrisome enough as an omen of death, but there’d been more to consider when it’s eating of souls was brought into play. Nell still wasn’t all that sure whether she’d want to be raised from the dead in the first place should she perish in the next twenty-four hours, but if the slaugh ate her soul...she wouldn’t have a choice to begin with. You couldn’t raise a body without a soul.

Again Nell fell silent while she drank in as much as this as she could, the dread in her stomach a constant reminder of how far there still was to go. But with Adam- at least she stood a chance. With Adam they could at least sleep, taking varied watches. And then maybe some of her magic would come back and Adam could heal, and then...well then they’d at least have a fighting chance together, always stronger together. Nell used her fragile strength to bring herself to the tips of her toes, trying to press a gentle kiss to his black-veined cheek before feathering across his lips. “We’ll figure it out when we get back to Earth,” she echoed, recognizing it as another promise they could hold between them. They’d go back to Earth together in the same way they’d fought the dolorphage, the way they’d faced an unknown future beneath the full moon all those months ago, and the same way they’d taken on a demon cult and lived to tell the tale— always together.

#// DON'T LOOK AT ME IM EMOTIONAL #as alwAYS tapir just gives me a GIFT of a chatzy #wickedswriting #chatzy #ch:adam #hell's true north #sibling death tw #mass poisoning tw #parental death tw

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peligin-eyed · 4 years

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In Dreams

Of Urchins, Criminals, Revolutionaries, and Learning to Chart Your Own Course.

Featuring cameos of the Boatman, London’s greatest criminal masterminds, and the Jovial Contrarian.

(aka I wrote out Robin’s backstory and some early game shenanigans)

---

You don't remember the sun, except in dreams. You were so young when your parents brought you to the Neath that the world above seems hardly more than a story. Your life there was something that happened to some unfamiliar small child who was safe and loved and happy. When you dream of warm golden light and strong arms wrapping you into a protective embrace, you wake in the morning with a hollow ache somewhere deeper than your bones.

You have been in the Neath for less than a month when your mother runs off with a devil. Your father throws himself into his new job at the Docks and sometimes he is gone for two days or more only to stumble home in the middle of the night to pass out drunk on the floor of your dirty little Spite flat. One day, instead, a pair of weather-worn dockers come to your door with their caps in their hands to tell you that your father won't be coming home anymore. It was an accident, they say. He fell into the zee and the Drownies dragged him down. They say they'll find someone to look after you and they offer to bring you to see him one last time, to say goodbye. You are too shocked to do anything but nod silently and follow after them.

They take you to a lonely and empty stretch of dock, facing out toward the inky endless darkness of the zee. One of the dockers crouches down and calls your father's name into the water. He emerges a moment later, dripping and pale and not quite looking like himself anymore. He stares at you, brow slightly furrowed, as if he is struggling to recognize you. Then he starts to sing. The dockers each grab one of your thin arms and pull you back from the edge of the dock, watching you warily. The song fills you with a sadness too deep for words and you wriggle out of the calloused grip of the dockers. They shout at you to stay away from the water but you are already running in the opposite direction, back toward London, tears streaming down your cheeks.

---

You never go back to that little flat in Spite. You fall in with the Naughts, who take you in and show you the best places to find food and teach you how to fight. They joke with you and plot against the Crosses and after a little while you find that your thoughts don't dwell on your parents as often.

One night, when you can't sleep, you stay up whispering with one of the other urchins. You wonder if you might be able to track down your mother somehow. The Twitchy Pickpocket tells you that it probably won't work. There are just too many devils in London and you don't even know the name of the one she ran off with, and she has probably lost her soul by now anyway. You lie awake long after he has fallen quiet and started to snore, staring up at the ceiling and trying to recall the color of her eyes.

---

Sometimes, in your dreams, you play with your parents in the sunlight on grass that looks impossibly green. By the time you learn that no one can go back to the Surface after having been in the Neath for too long, it's too late for you. You've died once already after a territory battle took a particularly nasty turn, and no one can survive on the Surface if they've died in the Neath.

(The first time you died, you were terrified. It was so dark and the lapping waves reminded you of your father's pale face rising out of the zee. The Boatman awkwardly tried to comfort you with a bony hand on your shoulder as you frantically handed over every lucky weasel hidden in your pockets and begged him to let you go home. It was never as bad, after that first time.)

---

As you start to get older, you realize that you'll eventually have to leave your gang and start your own life. You haven't the faintest idea how you're supposed to go about it. You track down the Twitchy Pickpocket, who left a couple years ago and is now doing rather well for himself. He offers to put you in touch with some of his criminal contacts who could help you get started as a proper adult thief.

The Naughts throw you a party the day before you leave for good. Someone managed to get a little bit of real Surface meat and you get the largest piece, and a whole bottle of cheap wine just for yourself. In retrospect, you realize that perhaps you should not have drunk the whole thing and then tried to burgle a fine townhouse the next morning while hungover. You land yourself in New Newgate on your first day out of the gang.

Once you make it out, you find your own little hideaway up in the Flit. It's drafty and a little precarious but it's all yours. You have your own bed you don't have to share and enough room to spread out your meager belongings with space to spare. You can't sleep the first night. It's too quiet all by yourself, just the wind whistling by outside with no one else around you tossing and turning or snoring or mumbling in their sleep.

You find that it is lonely, trying to make it as a thief on your own. Among the Naughts, at least, you could always trust that the rest of the gang would have your back if something went wrong. Adult criminals seem to all be out for themselves and it's hard to know who you can trust and who is just waiting for the chance to stab you in the back (sometimes literally) for their own gain.

---

You decide you will try to make a name for yourself. You boldly proclaim that you'll be one of London's next great underworld kingpins before it even occurs to you to question if this is what you actually want. You learn, in time.

You hear rumors of a diamond the size of a cow and decide that stealing it will be an excellent test of your skills. You start down a dark and twisted path and find yourself buried alive for your trouble before you learn that it was never about a real diamond, after all.

You spend time smuggling for the Gracious Widow and come to admire her subtle cunning. There is wisdom in being quiet and observing and planning before making a move, though you find it hard to shake the habit of rushing in when you feel strongly about something. You admire the care she takes with the orphans she looks out for, too. You hope you will be able to do the same someday.

You spend hours in the chilly roosts of the Flit trying to understand the Topsy King. You get to know the Cheery Man and do what you can to help him in his pursuit of reconciliation with his daughter. He’s never the same after she dies.

You pity them all, in a way, and you decide that you have no desire to join their ranks. It isn't the kind of life you want.

---

You get to know some revolutionaries along the way. They are hard to miss, really. You listen to their speeches with skepticism but you're willing to consider some of their ideas. You burn down a silk warehouse and get arrested again. You destroy a statue and they celebrate you. You learn about the Liberation of Night and think it sounds like a ridiculous idea, frankly. What good could come of unending darkness?

The more time you spend talking and arguing and drinking coffee with them, the more you find yourself sucked into their world. You learn to differentiate between the different schools of thought they fight for. You still struggle to understand the Liberationists. You can't see why they set their sights on such lofty and (for the moment) theoretical goals when the real evidence of the failings of the Masters and the Bazaar is all around you. It's in the neddy men beating dockers for daring to speak up for better working conditions, in the writers made to disappear just for expressing controversial ideas, in the urchins fighting for food in the streets while those in power refuse to share even a little of their wealth. Who cares about the cruelty of the stars when there are people suffering all around?

You find some others who seem to agree with you and your social circle starts to shift. You take up a new job campaigning for the cause. It's not quite a respectable profession but it feels a lot closer than anything you've done before. A handful of supporters start to look up to you for your passion and dedication, not just because they're afraid of you.

It takes you rather by surprise when an old acquaintance shows up at your door in the middle of the night, covered in blood and begging you to let him stay. You don't know how he found you. You'd left behind the drafty shack in the Flit for a set of warm, spacious rooms at the Bazaar and it has been months since you've heard from most of your criminal friends. You're not actually sure how he made it all the way here without being noticed by someone in the street, though you suppose it is very late. You cast nervous glances around the empty street as you try to convince him that you can't take him in at the moment and it would be in his best interest to leave before the constables come by on patrol. He doesn't leave. Finally, you hear the distant sound of heavy boots on cobblestone and you close the door on him. He bangs on the door a few more times before you hear him run off. You try to tell yourself he'll be okay. You're not sure if you believe yourself. You don't sleep well that night.

The criminals keep their distance from you for a while after that. Apparently this does wonders for your reputation. The Jovial Contrarian approaches you one day to ask if you would be able to help an agent infiltrate the Ministry of Public Decency. He specifically comments on your sound reputation and you manage to keep a straight face long enough to agree to his proposal. After it is done, you learn that you've earned a certain amount of respect among the revolutionaries. You start to feel like maybe you are doing something important, something that matters for once, instead of just whatever you have to do to survive.

---

Your dreams have often felt distant from your waking life, like you're catching glimpses of someone else's world, so in a way you are not surprised to learn that it is possible to physically enter a different world through dreams. You just didn't expect to learn about it from a sweaty, balding stage magician in a music hall.

You start spending more time staring into mirrors, trying to work out their secrets. Sometimes you catch glimpses of an unfamiliar place filled with cosmogone light that is almost similar to your dreams of sunlight. You decide that you will find a way to reach it someday.

With time, you learn how it's done. You step through the glass and into the Mirror-Marches. The grass isn't quite like Surface grass and the light isn't really the same as sunlight. The Writhing River is like nothing you've seen before. Parabola is certainly different from the Surface, but it still feels like a sort of escape from the Neath.

You don't know what "home" is supposed to feel like, but something about the wild landscape reminds you of some of your earliest dreams, of being warm and safe and happy in the sun.

#oc: the illusive rascal #my writing #fallen london

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tazzytypes · 4 years

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Apocalypse: Sanctuary - Chapter 1

EDIT (6/10/2020): I know this is unprofessional as hell, but I added more because the ending didn’t sit right with me. Was too excited too hurry up and post and forgot there was a reason I plotted things out in a certain way. Hope you all can forgive me.

Finally! Chapter 1! I hope you guys enjoy it. I loved reading your comments and every kudos made me more excited to keep writing. Also, I apologize for the weird spacing throughout the post. I had to copy it from scrivener to AO3 to here and it just made things messy, but it’s 1AM rn and I’m tired.

Read on AO3 or Fanfiction.net!

click here for: Prologue |

Emily shifted in her seat, head rebelling after spending a week in the dim light of candles which cast everything in an orange hue and made the shadows dance on the walls. Even her large circular glasses did nothing to ease her sight… it was a wonder she wasn’t already legally blind. Either way, she had the mother of all headaches.

The constant fires always left E uncomfortably hot and the layers upon layers they were forced to dress didn’t help. First thing the wardens did when they arrived was strip her down and burn every shred of fabric… her favorite shirt nothing but ash. Clothing standards were non-negotiable. Evening wear on the left side of the armoire. Don’t mistake it for your daily clothes or you won’t receive dinner. Cocktails before-hand at 6:30 sharp. Lucky for Emily, she was always early for everything and had yet to find out what the punishment was for that particular faux-pas. She wished nothing but to grab the t-shirt and shorts she had arrived in just to find some relief.

“Be careful what you wish for,” Her mother had always told her.

At first, she had been relieved when the others arrived. Now she had to wonder if she would have been better off on her own… the supplies she had counted in storage would certainly have lasted longer. Small little cubes with all the nutrients they needed. They probably would have been better with non-perishables, but she doubted the wardens would risk a venture outside to hunt for some… not like they would be able to eat it, anyway.

Another stabbing pain pulsed at her temples, hands going to smooth it out as she listened to the chattering around her that sounded more like white noise than coherent sentences. Waiting out the apocalypse in solidarity would have driven her insane, humans being the social creatures they were. However, she doubted any of them would survive the end of the world with their sanity intact.

Not that one could guess it was the end of the world by the conversations of her fellow residents, most of them rich and most of the snobby. Gallant and Coco were thick as thieves… their personalities almost comically matching that of Regina George from Mean Girls. Evie, Gallant’s washed-up film star of a grandmother was almost repulsively republican — so homophobic and racist that most of the residents hoped she’d have a heart attack and die. The Stevens, a mother and son pair along with the son’s boyfriend, were tolerable. Andre liked to throw shade, but he was balanced by his witty counterpart, Stu.

She couldn’t help but smile to herself as she thought of their earlier conversation.

“It’s like Satan’s Spotify playlist,” Stu had joked in response to Gallants endless complaining, making Andre nearly choke on the water he had been drinking.

“For the amount of times I’ve been told I’m in league with the devil, I’d have expected him to have better taste.” Emily had joked in return.

Stu laughed and Andre only sighed, “don’t even get me started on the clothes.”

“Well at least you don’t have to wear a corset,” Coco had snipped, hand going up to pat at her hair in an attempt to keep it in place.

Emily tugged at her own, something poking her in her stomach, “These are not historically accurate.”

“Let me guess,” Stu said, gesturing to her glasses, “history major?”

“Insomniac.”

The pounding returned to her head and she leaned on the table, pressing at her temples with the hope of some relief. Maybe she could ask a Grey to get her some ice… she doubted Venable had a stash of ibuprofen in the reserves.

It had been 14 days since they had gotten here. 3 of which she had spent on her own, wandering the halls with a candelabra like a damsel from a Victorian novel. She tugged at the high collar of her shirt. Whoever designed this hole in the ground was determined to have them living in a corset-laced wet dream.

“Are you okay?” The girl beside her asked, a gentle hand placed on Emily’s arm. She had just arrived at the outpost, 2 weeks after the bombs dropped, with a boy around the same age. They had barely been able to introduce themselves before Venable cut in, ringing a bell obnoxiously to usher them to dinner.

The few words the pair had said still haunted her.

“It’s all gone,” The brown-haired boy had told them at Gallant’s insistence, lips pressed into a thin line as he tried not the let the emotions that came with those words to overwhelm him.

“Everything,” The girl echoed, voice hollow.

Gallant fell back as if he had been shot, panic threatening to overtake his lungs after it was done squeezing the life out of his heart.

“What…” Emily had stuttered out, trying to calm herself, “What did it look like?”

Andre’s voice had cracked and spat out like venom, “who cares about what it looks like?”

Stu had placed a hand on his lover's shoulder. His brows were furrowed and there was a slight shake that came over his body. Andre curled into him, Stu wrapping his arms around him as if he could somehow shield the man from the world.

Her anxiety spread through her like a wildfire, the attempted facade of strength cracking, “It matters because it could tell us how fucked we are!”

“We’re well past fucked!” Coco had snapped.

The girl with ebony hair focused on Emily, eyes welling with emotion she all too well understood.

“No sun…” She said, forcing the words from her mouth, “just green… smog.”

“Does that mean anything to you?” Stu had asked her, eyes betraying his own fears.

“Hiroshima happened in the… 50s? Chernobyl happened in the 80s,” Emily began to say, too in her thoughts to notice the side-eyed stares of her companions, “and that was still radioactive before it was radioactive… again.”

The comment seemed to stir something in the new girl’s head, “I heard about that… people were able to take trips last year… once in a lifetime opportunity.”

Coco scoffed, “so is dying.”

“Wait, so like… this can go away?” Gallant asked.

The girl looked to Emily, “People were living on Hiroshima before all this.”

“Possibly,” Emily mused, “Then again, we’d have to multiply that incident by… well, a lot.”

“We’d have to find out where and how many bombs were dropped.” The girl added, “as well as the area affected by it.”

Coco frowned, still more focused on her hair than the literal end of the world, “could you stop talking like that? You’re seriously freaking me out.”

“We’re all freaking out,” Dinah snipped.

“Just tired,” Emily reassured the girl, leaning back in her chair. She realized she had yet to ask the girl her name, but the Grey’s entered with their meal before she could — one Grey for each purple at the table. The large black plates were almost amusingly large in comparison to the singular small cube that sat at its center.

A full table-set was spread out before them, silver soup spoons, teaspoons, knives, and a salad fork mocking them every day. They stood out against the dark wood and reminded them that they were doomed to a life of tasteless jello for the rest of their lives. Emily finally understood how her pets felt, fed the same food day in and day out… at least she had bothered to change up the flavor. Her body rebelled against her after the third day, gagging whenever she brought the cube anywhere near her mouth. A few days of starvation quickly rectified the situation and greatly amused her jailer who was all too happy to put the food back from whence it came.

Venable chose the seating arrangements, naturally. Emily was sat beside the two new arrivals, positioned as far from the woman as possible. It was an arrangement neither of them minded. Emily didn’t hold her tongue in moments such as these and she didn’t like placing her wellbeing in the hands of another. Venable expected complete and total control over her residents, enforcing strict standards of order that were almost as tight as her hair, tightly pulled together in a double french twist at the back of her head. Emily was the stray hair that wouldn’t lay flat no matter what she did.

The new arrivals stared at their plates as the Greys placed the cubes before them, sending each other confused glances and waiting to see what the rest of them did. It hardly looked appetizing, brown and having a texture reminiscent of a health-nut’s chia-seed protein bar.

Emily poked at her own food for good measure, feeling her throat clench at the mere thought of eating again. It didn’t listen no matter how many times she tried to reason with it. You’d think the body would behave and finally realize that this was as good as things would get.

Gallant turned towards the girl to his left, “Don’t be too disappointed.”

“Darling,” Evie sighed from the other side of the table, spreading a napkin across her lap, “You don’t know what disappointment is until you’ve slept with Yul Brynner.”

The mere thought of the old woman having sex was enough to make Emily’s lips curl in disgust… maybe she didn’t need to eat after all. For once Dinah was amused by the old crone, chuckling as she cut apart her cube like it was a five-course meal instead of the science project of Elon Musk.

“I want to die,” She could hear Gallant mutter a few seats over, head in his hands as he contemplated his decision to bring his nana along on whatever this adventure was.

Dinah was quick to explain the cubes to the new pair, “The cube on your plate contains every vitamin our body needs…”

Across from Emily, Coco ungracefully shoved the entire cube into her mouth with one fell swoop, cheeks puffing out. Dinah continued to speak, pretending to have not seen Coco, words coming out rushed, “…or so they tell us.”

“Whether or not it aids in our caloric intake is up in the air,” Emily added, following the woman’s lead and gently cutting into the cube.

“The fewer calories the better!” Evie proclaimed from down the table, waving her fork in the air to accentuate her statement.

“Until you become a skeleton.”

Emily had learned from Dinah’s example to take small bites, savor it. She hoped it would fool her body into thinking it was eating more. Either way, her stomach still growled and she was grateful to her handler for taking her to Chick-Fil-A on their way to the Outpost. The mere thought of that last meal made her mouth water.

Coco’s silverware clattered onto her plate as she closed her eyes and whined, “I’m still hungry… I am so tired of the hunger.”

A fist to the table made Emily jump, dropping her own silverware in turn. The girl next to her looked to the other residents as Coco stood up abruptly, letting her chair screech against the floor as it was thrown back. She looked to Emily and all she could do was offer a half-hearted shrug that said, “same shit as usual.”

… God, she missed John Mulaney.

“Fuck! This! Bullshit!” Coco continued, “With all the thought that went into this they don’t have a single bag of Pirate’s Booty in the pantry?”

Evie sat back as if watching a soap opera while the rest of the residents braced themselves for another tantrum. Coco raved on, unaware of the sudden looming figures coming up behind her, “For a hundred million dollars a ticket, I expect goddamn Gordon Ramsay in the kitchen cooking us real food!”

Then she stopped, a tap of a cane on the floor signaling the arrival of Venable, Miss Mead on her heels like an obedient dog. They braced themselves for another, self riotous lecture on appreciating what they had as if none of them mourned for what was. Slowly, head bowed and aware of her impending doom, Coco turned.

The slap rang in everyone’s ears, causing a collective gasp to fill the room. The brown-haired boy beside Coco caught her as she fell back, her hand going instantly to her cheek. As she stood once more she took it away and examined it. Emily could see the barest hint of blood on the blonde’s fingers. A growl threatened to rise in her throat and her lips curled in a disgusted snarl.

It was hard to keep calm as she addressed the woman donned in black, “we’re all adults here. We can use our words… I hope. At least some of us have mastered that much.”

Venable turned to her. The black-haired girl beside her shifted uncomfortably. One could cut the tension between the two women with a knife.

Finally, Venable pulled her eyes away and turned her focus to the spoiled girl before her, her hand resting back on the cane she always carried, “Let me be very clear so there will be no misunderstanding. We have enough nutrition to last for the next 18 months and if our situation doesn’t improve, you can count on less and less.”

Slowly, Coco sat. Shaking hands pulled away from her cheek as she reached for the chair. She was so scared that her movements were stiff. Yes, she had been yelled at before. God knows she was a stubborn woman with a temper, but no one had ever slapped her before.

Venable retreated into the only exit of the room, slithering back into the shadows. Venable’s tone bordered on the overly-theatric, playing the part of a woman burdened by knowledge she dare not speak lest it disrupts the peace.

“You could have told us that from the very beginning.” Emily blurted out.

The woman didn’t even bother to look at her as her lips curled into a mocking smile. When she finally turned to Emily, her tone was thick with condescension, “and cause unnecessary panic?”

“You know what they say about communication and relationships.”

“ Situation ?” Gallant asked, waving a hand to get their attention, “What is our situation ?”

Miss Mead looked to her boss whose face glimmered with uncertainty and surprise, but only for a moment. Venable was debating whether or not to tell the truth or keep them in the constant state of unknowing, easy to control. If she were still in college, Emily could have written an essay on the ways Venable reminded her of the worst sort of people in their history books.

“We had a perimeter alert this morning,” She finally told them, less than pleased with the fact the words were leaving her mouth at all, “Something penetrated the grounds. It was a carrier pigeon delivering a message from our benefactors.”

Coco gasped, “Wait! A pigeon! Can we eat it?”

Emily sighed and leaned on the table, resisting the urge to hand her head in her hands. This place was going to be migraine city the moment she tapered off her medication.

Miss Mead’s tone echoed her feelings, brows scrunching at the pure idiocy of the question.

“It was contaminated by the fallout .”

Her response didn’t phase Evie, who made it abundantly clear she had never made a meal for herself in her entire life, “Can we boil it?”

Venable reached into her pockets and pulled out a small sliver of paper and began to read, “There are no more governments. Only rotting mounds of corpses, too many to bury.”

Emily’s hands fell to her lap and curled into fists until she could feel her fingernails embed themselves into the flesh of her palms. All she could hear were the voice-mails, each and every last plead for life. She could still hear her brother’s voice, cracking in a way she hadn’t heard since their grandmother’s funeral. It was etched into her brain to the last breath. To his last breath, he took his role as an older sibling seriously, trying to soothe her fears instead of his own.

“I don’t want to die. God, I don’t want to—”

Venable continued reading, “Starving people kill for a piece of bread.”

“I love you… I… You were… are a good sister.”

“Three outposts have been overrun.” Venable’s voice droned on, voice cracking ever slightly as she reached the end of the letter, “We are the last vestiges of civilized life on the planet.”

“I… I know you would have made a difference… I wish I could have seen the life you would have created.”

Venable looked to them all as she read the last line, “be vigilant.”

Emily was pulled from her thoughts by a squeeze to her hand, instinctively pulling it back until she realized a hand covering her own. When Emily met the ebony-haired girl’s gaze she offered a reassuring smile, Emily nodded in a small message of thanks before brushing away the single tear which had begun to roll down her cheeks.

“Everything we know is gone,” Mead summarized, eyes blank. It was nice to see that even the Warden and Venable felt fear. Made them feel… human.

“In two weeks ?”, Andre shook his head, staring blankly at his hands, “That’s all it took?”

In a rare show of empathy, Gallant reached out and squeezed the man’s hands. Emily noted the way Stu watched the interaction, eyes watching the hands as if it were a snake slithering in his direction.

“They made you think the system was a rock,” Mead explained, standing at attention with her hands locked together in front of her, “It was a water balloon. One prick of the needle and —”

She made a popping noise, “that’s all it took.”

It wasn’t as if Emily was surprised. One of the first things she learned in a college psychology class was that the only reason the world didn’t fall into chaos was due to people putting faith in a system that would protect them… conventional. The bombs had scattered them, left them weak to the chaos that ensued. It reminded her of the way roaches scattered when sprayed with Raid. Lawlessness was the antithesis of reason, mob mentality was evidence enough of that. It was textbook horror.

“We will only survive if we follow the rules,” Venable emphasized.

Emily scoffed. Some of Venable’s rules she understood while others were a blatant overreaching of power. She could understand the “no sex” rule to a degree. Copulation could result in the creation of new life which they had no means to sustain, but even the Victorians had condoms and you couldn’t walk into a 7-Eleven without finding a rack of Plan B. Not to mention half the residents were gay which made her rules pointless.

“Rules are the basis of order,” Venable said, clearly addressing her despite staring at the wall above them, “unless you find yourself to be above the rules? Too special for them to apply?”

She hadn’t a moment to voice her thoughts, quickly distracted by the army of wardens that quickly began to fill the room. They all watched with bated breath as The Fist bent down to whisper in Mead’s ear, her lip twitching and eyes flitting to the ground as she gave the other woman her full attention.

“There’s a problem.”

Those 3 words were enough to break Venable’s gloating, head snapping to the side like Coco’s had a moment ago. They all watched the pair, unsure of who to keep a better watch on — Venable or Mead.

“We’ve detected a spike in the background radiation, centered in this room,” Mead informed her boss.

Gallant was quick to point fingers to the new pair, whatever empathy he had shown with Andre gone like the wind as he moved from them as if they had the plague, “It’s them! They just came from the outside!”

“No!” The girl exclaimed, shaking her head vigorously and sitting forward in her chair, knuckles white around the wooden arms, “No! We were checked when we got here! We’re clean!”

She looked to Emily for aid, brown eyes wide and pupils dilated. Her eyes glimmered with confusion and panic, searching for an unspoken question. Emily’s brows knitted and she bit her lip, eyes flickering between the girl before her and the wardens preparing a device that looked like a microphone attached to a larger box.

“No,” the boy echoed, “we went through decontamination.”

His eyes also went to Emily as he continued to speak, begging for her to understand, “we were cleared.”

Emily opened her mouth but could find nothing to reassure them. Mead addressed the room before Emily could utter a word. “Place your hands on the table… and don’t. Move .”

Shaking her head at the girl, Emily did as she was told. This hadn’t happened before. She didn’t know what to expect. As the device clicked from her left, she edged her pinky towards her knife. It wasn’t sharp. It didn’t have to be sharp to cut through jello. With enough pressure, it could cut through skin. The rest of the room faded away as she kept her eyes on The Fists' hands, a second device in her hands as well. Emily’s heart hammered with each step closer.

“Radioactive contamination,” Mead spoke, devices crinkling like static as they hovered over each person, “is a grave risk to our entire community.”

The Fist, a giant of a woman with blonde hair pulled back from her face, towered above Emily when she was standing. Sitting down made her feel like a child in the presence of a giant. She held her breath as she felt the device get closer, clicking sounds falling silent as soon as it came above her hand. The Fist repeated the motion a few times more, making Emily’s heart go haywire in her chest, before moving on to the new arrival next to her, the clicking resuming once more.

“The clean rule is there to protect all of us,” Mead continued, now going over the boy who sat stiff as a board, eyes following the woman’s every move, “A single stray gamma particle can cause skin lesions. Your DNA breaks apart, your body disintegrates. You’ll wish you died in the blast.”

The residents weren’t sure what to make of her speech. It wasn’t as if any of them graduated with a degree in radiology. They had learned it in high-school, sure, but that was ages ago… before there was colored TV for some of them.

“But someone here decided,” Mead went on, circling the table for a second round of testing, “that their individual needs were more important.”

Emily tensed once more as the stick was waved around her, Mead pausing momentarily to look down at the box she held in her hand to see if it had somehow turned off. Finding nothing, she continued. “Someone went outside. Touched something dirty .”

The room was holding their breaths. They all knew they were innocent, but didn’t trust their companions as far as they could throw them. Their gaze followed the device, then to the person next to them, then to the person in front of them. They searched for a sign of guilt. It was easier to point fingers when someone looked shifty.

“Makes me sick to think that this person,” Mead spit as she made it to gallant, “to risk contaminating all—”

A wild crackling filled the room. They all jumped in their seats, eyes focusing on the hairdresser. Emily’s heart leapt into her throat, paralyzed as the vultures began circling, donned in leather and stronger than any of them could hope to be.

“No,” The man said after a moment, shaking his finger as he looked to the Wardens, “nononono. That’s a mistake because the only thing I’ve touched is Coco’s hair.”

The Fist stood over Coco and shook her head. Mead gave the final order, voice lacking any pity, “she’s clean. You’re dirty.

The wardens grabbed at Gallant, claws latching onto him as he began to struggle.

“No!” He cried, “this is impossible! That machine is wrong!”

Fingers dug into his shoulder and Gallant cried out in pain, dragged to his feet and across the floor. The warden closest to him placed him in a choke-hold, Gallant letting out a fearful sob as he clawed at the man’s arm. Evie stood, chair screeching across the floor as she reached out towards her grandson with trembling hands.

“This is outrageous! Stop! Please, stop! Bring him back!”

Coco gasped and let out a cry, hands moving to cover her face as her eyes welled with tears. The girl beside Emily looked between herself and the boy in front of her, chest rising and falling rapidly as she began to hyperventilate.

Gallant scream pierced the air, “Evie!”

The crackling filled the room once more. In their panic, they had failed to realize Mead making her way towards Andre and Stu. The couple could only stare at each other, the seconds dragging on like hours.

“No way!” Stu chanted, refusing to look away from Andre, “No! No way!”

“No,” Andre sobbed, reaching out towards the man and trying to pry him from the grasp of the warden pulling him away. He was thrown away with a shove.

“Get your hands off me!” Stu screamed, another warden now going to carry him by his feet.

Mead’s voice rang out from the chaos, followed swiftly by the marching of footsteps.

“Take them to the decontamination room!”

They could hear the groans of their fellow residents echoing down the hall. The sounds resonated long after the steel doors had closed.

Emily reached out for the hand of the girl next to her. Her face was frozen in a gasp, eyes wide with terror. Her hand rested on hers which still sat on the table. She squeezed back and held on for dear life.

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

For once the saloon was quiet. Evie had gone to bed. Emily currently sat next to a crying Andre, Dinah opposite her. He hadn’t been able to stop crying since dinner, now unable to do more than hiccup.

“How could he have been contaminated,” He sobbed, a horrible epiphany crossing his mind as he turned to Emily, “do you think they—?

Emily gave him a look, “Did you forget Gallant’s little hand-squeeze during dinner? He was coming on to you, not Stu.”

Andre had a fleeting smile before anxiety overtook him once more.

“What we need to do now,” Dinah said, running a hand up and down her son’s back, “is make sure Stu comes back safe.”

Her words were less than comforting, Andre shoving away her arm and staring at her with an emotion Emily couldn’t quite place… somewhere between distress and anger.

“Why wouldn’t he be safe?” he demanded, looking to the brunette when his mother offered no response. Emily opened her mouth, hoping something would pop into her head, but she was at a loss for words. She couldn’t reassure him of anything. It would be a lie.

The man scoffed, stepping back and shaking his head, “I can’t believe you.”

He turned on his heels, breath hitching once more as another fit of sobs threatened to take over him. Why Stu? Why not them? Of all the residents Stu was the least deserving of—

Emily rose, hand held out to stop him, “Andre—”

A gentle hand was placed on her shoulder. Dinah took a step around her, hand trailing down her purple-clothed arm until she held her hand, the other coming to rest on top of it.

“Let me talk to him,” the woman tried to reassure, the events clearly have shaken her as much as Stu.

Emily pressed her lips together and nodded, pulling back and watching the woman hurry towards her son, heels clicking down the hall. The door clanged shut behind her and silence filled the room.

… but only for a moment.

“What’s going to happen to me if they find out Gallant is —” Coco started to ramble, “I mean I was the only reason he was here in the first place.”

“You were clean,” The brown-haired boy pointed out, face twisting in confusion.

“Well, I know that!” Coco exclaimed, turning on the couch to face him, “but who’s to say there won’t be a second investigation. I mean there had to be a reason they were tainted.”

She went quiet for a moment, hands held out in front of her as if she was having a revelation, “oh my gosh! If they kill Gallant who’s going to do my hair?”

Emily sighed and sat next to the new girl who was wringing her hands and staring into the fire.

“I never did ask your names,” Emily noted, looking to the girl and the boy.

“Timothy,” He said with a nod of his head.

The girl was pulled from her thoughts, turning from the fire and to the people behind her, “Emily.”

Emily chuckled, “You’re joking.”

“What?”

“It’s the end of the world and I can’ escape the fate of having a basic girl name.”

A smile curled at the other Emily’s lips, then a laugh, “really?”

Emily extended a hand, “Hi, Emily. I’m Emily.”

“There’s two of you now?” Coco groaned.

“I was named after my grandmother,” The other Emily said, taking her hand and giving it a shake, “you?”

“My parents looked in a baby book and picked a ‘less common’ girl name. 21 years later and there’s at least three Emily’s in each one of my classes.”

“God, this is going to be confusing,” Coco sighed, pressing her fingers to her nose in a praying motion, “Oh! I know! Emily 1 and Emily 2… no... That’s too wordy.”

“Middle names?” Timothy asked.

“No way in hell,” The two replied.

“I can always go by ‘Em’,” she said, “god knows I’m used to it by now.”

“M?” Coco asked, “that’s original.”

“Well, we can’t all be named after a brand of cereal.”

“I was named after Coco Chanel!” she snapped, turning to Timothy with crocodile tears, “You get it, right?”

“…yeah?” he answered, an eyebrow quirking up in confusion, “The clothing brand.”

He looked to the two Emily’s as he spoke like he was part of some hidden camera show. The two could only laugh and shake their heads as he was quickly rounded into another one of Coco’s monologues.

“My parents named me Coco because they knew I was destined to make it big. So it was only natural that I…”

Timothy looked ready to face nuclear winter. His guilt over the previous dinner altercations made him feel guilty for wanting to run away, but the boy always had a hard time saying, “no.” The Emily’s watched on, sparing him pity-filled glances when he looked to them for help.

“So did you pay your way in here or are you here for your superior genetics?” Emily asked.

“Genetics,” Emily… Em replied, “I was supposed to be on the east coast but someone paid for me to be transported all the way out here.”

“Who?”

She shrugged, “no idea. Some rich snob wanted their dog to go with them… at least that’s what Venable tells me.”

“I’d hardly call her a trustful resource.”

Em laughed, “That we can agree on.”

“How long do you think we’ll be here?”

“More than we have rations for,” Em sighed, reaching for a glass of water, “Fallout could last up to five years and we’ve talked about Chernobyl… but nothing on this scale has ever been recorded.”

Emily stared blankly ahead and nodded, trying to recall all she had learned about the matter in school, “we could be here for 30 years… maybe more.”

“Sorry,” Em offered, “anyone here can tell you — I’m not one to speak to for optimism or reassurance.”

“No,” The other girl shook her head, “I’d rather blatant honestly than pretty lies.”

“If we had anything more than water I’d toast to that.”

Emily laughed and shook her head. She reached for a glass of her own and held it up.

“Let’s toast anyway.”

Em smiled and leaned her glass forward, a dull clinking sound filling the air.

“What were you doing?” Em asked, leaning back and taking a sip of water, “before the bombs hit?”

“Protesting. It sounds minuscule now… climate change, minimum wage.”

“Everything is minuscule in the presence of death.”

“Poetic.”

“I sure hope so,” Em jested, “or all the money I wasted on an English Major was worthless.”

Emily laughed, “Is that what you were doing before the bomb’s dropped?”

“Nah… I was at home… enjoying summer. I was working on our campus’ literary magazine and selling art prints online as a side-hustle.”

Em shook her head, silence sitting for a moment before Emily spoke.

“I don’t know what to do with myself now.”

“I don’t think any of us do, but at least we’re not alone.”

“I wouldn’t call this particularly good company,” Emily admitted.

“It’s not,” Em blatantly admitted, earning a short laugh from her companion, “but you and timothy seem alright.”

“And you?”

“Well…” Em said, side eying Coco who was still avidly speaking without a sign of ever stopping, “I’m no influencer.”

Emily snorted and shook her head, “that may be for the best.”

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

“All I’m saying is Stu was boring and using up our food, and that lesions won’t work with my complexion.”

Em rolled her eyes and looked to Emily who once again sat beside her as Coco’s tirade went on. The blond-haired woman once again was patting at her hair like she was on the red carpet. They looked to Timothy across from them who just sat looking blankly ahead of him. Em smiled at shook her head, not able to blame the man for pretending he was anywhere else but here. If not for the mandatory cocktail hour and communal meals, Em would have stayed as far away from the others as possible.

Days had passed since Gallant and Stu had been forced into decontamination. Gallant refused to speak of the incident and… well… they knew where it got Stu. One would have liked to have said that Coco had shown some respect for the deceased, but the farthest she got was initial shock followed by contempt towards their fallen comrade.

“Fuck you,” Andre spat, murder in his eyes, “I hope they come for you next.”

“If they don’t,” Em noted, Coco’s eyes glaring into her own, “I will.”

She gaped at her, nose curling as her expression turned into one of disgust, “Is that a threat?”

“A promise.”

Emily gave her a look like a mother trying to get their child to behave among strangers.

It’s not worth it!” She hissed under her breath. Em was far too annoyed to pay her any mind. She could forgive selfishness and vanity, but her complete lack of sympathy for those in pain? It didn’t matter if it was genuine. All she had to do was shut up, give Andre space to grieve.

Lucky for Coco, their jail-keepers arrived at the table before Em could follow out her threat. Venable’s cane sounded like the tik of a clock with each step she took, reminding the brunette of a horror story her friends and herself would tell around Halloween.

“Nobody is coming for anyone,” Mead told them as they both rounded the table to their respective seats at the head of the table, “unless you break the rules.”

She looked to Em, “which includes murder.”

Em paused as she took a sip of water, raising a brow at Coco, “I never said anything about murder.”

The older woman looked into her lap and shook her head, trying to hide the amused smile threatening to show on her face. Coco scoffed.

“This is harassment!”

“This is a difficult time for everyone,” Venable spoke, failing to address Coco’s claims, “as a small consolation, we have a special treat.”

Em could smell the food before she could see it, the salt and the meat, she could taste it in her mouth without even touching it. She felt like a dog, smelling things with such detail she had never been able to notice before. It was incredible what desperation could do to the body. The whole table buzzed with excitement, grins brightening faces and hands going to silverware before the food could be set on the table.

Emily was unable to hide her shock, “no cubes tonight?”

Venable’s lips curled into a smile, the expression doing nothing to ease the woman’s continuously angry expression, “enjoy the bonne bouche.”

Bowls clinked together, the Greys hurrying to place food on the table.

“Don’t get used to it.”

“Yes,” Emily sighed beside her, looking over to Em with an expression of relieved joy.

The brunette didn’t care. If she was being honest, she hadn’t exactly paid much attention to the woman’s words after she saw the soup on the food trolley. It was much like a cat seeing a bird at the window, green eyes widening and pupils dilating as if Em had found her true love. While her companions were much more graceful, at least attempting some decorum, Em quickly dug into the meal.

Her mother used to chide her for this as a child, sitting next to her brother at the dinner table and seeing who could finish first. She couldn't explain to the woman that she had to eat fast or else her brother would steal her dessert. Such things didn’t make sense to an adult, but a child’s reasoning was elaborate and honest. For a life so short, every little detail mattered.

Usually, she wasn’t a fan of stew. Something about the floating meat and murky broth didn’t sit right with her. Now she wondered why she didn’t enjoy the delicacy more often. The meat fell apart like well-buttered bread in her mouth, the broth warmed her from the inside out. She could feel it burning down her throat like a shot of Bourbon, somewhat painful but none the less satisfying.

“You think bribing us with a hot meal’s just gonna’ to make everything okay?” Andre asked, voice sore with grief. A white handkerchief flourished with the wave of his hand. It had been somewhere on his person since Stu was pronounced dead. Em was too caught up in her hunger to realize the weight of his words or the sudden stillness of the girl beside her, an unspoken conversation between herself and Timothy. She would take the bribe happily if it meant being spared from the tasteless cube she had become accustomed to. It wouldn’t win her over, but only a fool refused something readily given with no strings attached.

By the time Emily swatted at Em’s arm the brunette had already finished most of the stew, the bottom of her bowl visible through the broth. She sent Emily an irritated glare, gesturing with her hands as she swallowed her last bite.

“What?” she hissed.

Emily only rose her brows and sent a pointed glance towards Timothy. Turning towards him she was meant with an equally suspicious gaze and a shake of the head. With a sigh, she sat back in her chair, looking between the two and waiting for an explanation.

“I think my mouth just had an orgasm,” Coco moaned with a full mouth, quickly shoving more food into her mouth in fear it would turn out to be a cruel mirage. Em looked at her and embarrassment made her flush a pale pink. Is that what she had looked like?

“Andre,” Venable sighed, settling in her seat and arranging her silverware before she took a single bite, “We’re not trying to bribe anyone, but there is something we all need to understand.”

With a thud of her cane on the floor, the residents turned to her like raccoons being caught in a garbage can. Em prepared herself for a show of saintly-hood the uptight woman so adored.

“There is no ‘us’ and ‘them,’ We are in this together,” Venable proclaimed, “No individual is greater than the group. We did what we had to do. This is, quite simply, a tragedy.”

Em held her tongue for once. While Stu and herself hadn’t been close, she respected him more than she respected most of her fellow purples. The old world may have died, but the power games still presided — a strongman was still a strongman even when draped in fine clothes and laced in a corset.

It wasn’t as if any of them were paying her any mind, too enthralled in the smell of salt and meat like Hansel and Gretal in the witch’s house. Dinah sighed as she took another bite.

“Where have you been hiding the meat?”

Venable’s pause waved over Em like a bucket of cold water, the slight twitch of her lip as she looked down at her plate louder and more illuminating than any sermon she had given them. “We have resources… for special occasions.”

Em could only stare at her as she ate, trying to work at the puzzle which was Miss Venable. There were moments where she swore the woman showed regret or perhaps anxiety, but they were small and fleeting. Everyone had a tell, even the most stoic of society. Em just couldn’t figure it out and it drove her up a wall. It felt like she was staring at a brick wall, waiting for it to crumble.

Gallant pulled something out from his mouth, cringing as his teeth dig into something hard. It was white and square, but he couldn’t tell what it was? Gristle? Bone?

“I’ve never tasted anything like it.” He murmured, examining the object further as he twisted it in the light.

“It’s chicken,” Mead told him a bit too insistently.

“That’s not a chicken bone,” Timothy spoke, looking from his untouched bowl to the object the hairdresser was holding. His lips pressed into a thin line. Venable took a spoonful to her lips, then another, and then another.

Andre spoke from the other end of the table, voice wavering as he stared at yet another hard piece which had made his teeth hurt, “tell me this doesn’t look like a finger.”

Em looked to her plate, stomach twisting as she poked at the remains of her meal. A piece of white glimmered to the surface. Damning polite behavior, she reached in with her hand and pulled it out. Her mind went blank as she stared at it, rectangular with two prongs reaching outward from the body. It was a tooth. There was no doubt. Chicken didn’t have teeth. A frog gathered at the back of her throat, threatening to leap from her mouth.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Andre sputtered out, breath coming out in wheezing gasps as he flew back from the table shrieking, “The stew is Stu!”

The table erupted in panic. Gallant spit out whatever was in his mouth, leaving a dripping dark stain on the tablecloth. Andre wailed and Coco shrieked to a Grey named Mallory to make her throw up. Em could only stare at the near-empty bowl in front of her, the reality not quite sitting with her. Morbid questions filled her mind. It had tasted like… she didn’t know what it tasted like other than meat. Salty, maybe? Sweet?

A firm hand squeezed her own, Emily once again there to pull her from a spiral.

“You didn’t know.”

Amongst the screaming, the gagging, and the retching Venable sat, unmoved by the fires of fear rising around her. She didn’t smile, didn’t frown, didn’t show any reaction at all.

“For heaven’s sake,” she spoke with the same amount of annoyance she always addressed them with, a touch of boredom in her tone “Don’t be ridiculous. There are lines which can never be crossed.”

Something was glinting in Venable’s eyes, something that Em had seen many times before but could never properly place. The woman looked to Mead, “not eating people is off the first rank.”

Em’s voice sounded hollow as it left her, “Yet it is always the first taboo to be broken among the desperate.”

The thought of cannibalism wasn’t what alarmed Em. Cannibalism was deeply ingrained in human history — from burial rituals to a final stand against starvation. No. What frightened her was realizing she would do it again in an instant if it meant her survival. A fire burned in her as she looked to Venable, sitting there with a smug glow of victory. She had hated Venable before, but this made her blood boil at the sight of her. A revelation she did not want had been forced upon her and Venable’s eyes glinted as they met her own.

Her message was clear: Don’t rebel or you’ll be next.

#ahs fanfic #michael langdon #michael langdon x reader #michael langdon x oc

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fountainpenguin · 4 years

Note

Could you tell us more about the Reedfilter AU? What makes it different? Any favorite parts or ideas in mind?

Reedfilter Rules AU is basically as opposite as I can be from my Riddleverse Classic headcanons without contradicting the actual FOP canon (and without overlapping my other AUs, such as my “King Me” AU).

I like to think of it as “the AU that might have been my canon if I hadn’t found Wolbachia pipientis.” Delving deeply into Wolbachia was the thing that forced me to make ALL my FOP worldbuilding deep to balance it. Reedfilter Rules AU is somewhat deep, but sticks very close to show canon. It’s more detailed than the show, but not chaotically deep.

In Riddleverse Classic, there’s a pretty even balance between animal DNA and human-like DNA. In the “Little Imperfections” universe, animal DNA is played up and human-like DNA is played down. In Reedfilter Rules, human-like DNA is played up and animal DNA is barely acknowledged (the Fae in RR are pretty much just small humans with wings). These Pixies don’t have Wolbachia, so H.P. is not the Pixie holotype. He and Sanderson are just friends.

The RR AU is named after the Head Pixie who preceded our H.P. (Rani Reedfilter) since most of the pieces I’ve written for it are told from her point of view. Pixies are a long-established species in this universe, and are considered the oldest and most advanced of the Fae races instead of the youngest.

Certain aspects of my worldbuilding (such as gyne and drone biology, the Refracts, and the honey-lock) don’t exist in the R-Rules verse. The Anti-Fairies don’t have their zodiac culture. Again, the Rules-verse sticks close to show canon and isn’t too complex; you get evil Antis and busy Pixies while Fairy World is just as fluffy and air-headed as ever, haha.

[More under the cut]

The inner workings of Pixie World are the most fleshed out part of RR AU. The Head Pixie position is even more powerful here than it is in my Classic works due to the sheer number of Pixies in existence (we’re talking a hundred companies united under a single boss- Head Pixie XXXVI, Rani Reedfilter).

It’s a blatant dictatorship where the Head Pixie’s rules always go, no questions asked. Marriages are arranged, jobs are assigned, and you can only reproduce with permission. Laughter is practically outlawed because the image of a crisp, intelligent pixie is so important to their brand. Extremely cold, strict place. This is the world Fergus grew up in before he took over from Reedfilter.

Classic!Fergus is blatant with his manipulation. He’s loud, proud, stubborn, and would NEVER stoop to the sucking up that RR!Fergus does. In RR, Fergus Whimsifinado - or Head Pixie XXXVII - rises through the ranks of Pixies Inc. by flirting with Rani Reedfilter in a universe where all pixie marriages are arranged and the Head is forbidden to have a spouse. R-Rules Fergus ain’t as averse to kisses as his Classic counterpart.... If seduction gets him what he wants, he won’t hesitate. And he didn’t.

Obviously, my ‘fic Origin of the Pixies isn’t canon in the R-Rules universe. Fergus was born and raised in Pixie society as one of many instead of being raised in Fairy World as an oddball with a wing mutation. Ambrosine was never matched with another woman after he had Fergus, so he never had Emery. Instead, I allowed this version of Fergus to follow through on his childhood dream of naming his daughter Emery.

And a daughter he indeed had, following his fling(s) with Reedfilter. Little Emery has Rani’s green eyes, so it’s pretty dang obvious that Rani is (was) her mother, but who’s going to protest? There ain’t no Pixie Council to balance power. Gossip all you want, but the Head Pixie’s word is law.

(Looks a lot like his father in this ‘verse, doesn’t he?)

Classic!Sanderson is H.P.’s sassy, egotistical, easily-made-jealous firstborn. However, in the Reedfilter AU, they aren’t related at all. RR!Sanderson - AKA Ennet - is extremely high-strung. He has low self-esteem, constantly thinks himself a failure, and on top of that he’s a HUGE gossip.

Classic!Sanderson is arguably smarter than the other pixies, but R!Rules Sandy is VERY trusting and naive. He’ll fall for anything twice over and believes everything H.P. says (H.P. messes with him because it’s funny). Sandy didn’t come into the picture until after Fergus became Head Pixie, but as their friendship deepens he becomes H.P.’s ears in the hallways.

Rani was nice enough to pair Sandy with a wife despite his half-pixie / half-wisp blood, as she believed him loyal to the company and wanted to show her trust in him. Sandy respects her immensely because of that, and even respected her enough to attempt pregnancy with his match when instructed to (something he bailed out of doing when Fergus matched him up with a different lady). He was horrified by Rani’s death..... and extremely suspicious of his new boss.

Despite his concerns about his new boss, Sanderson envisions himself as H.P.’s loyal sidekick, oblivious to the fact that H.P. would stab him in the back without remorse if the situation required him to. But H.P. genuinely likes RR!Sanderson, probably due to the fact that he and Sandy are the only pixie/wisp crossbreeds in the whole company. He still teases him, but I like to think this version of H.P. is better at asking Sanderson’s advice for problems and his consent to being teased. He’s more likely to stop messing around if he sees Sanderson upset than Classic H.P. is. Not as big a jerk as you could have been.

It’s honestly a beloved AU of mine because... it’s really interesting to play H.P. and Sanderson as literal friends instead of the distant parent/clingy child relationship they have in Riddleverse Classic. Reedfilter Rules has female pixies, arranged marriages, and boring businessmen unapologetically plotting evil... What more could you ask for?

Anti-Fairy World is also different in this AU. Anti-Schnozmo was raised to take over Anti-Fairy World from birth until Anti-Cosmo, ah... “took care of him.” AC is even brattier in this AU than he is in my Classic universe (a lot like Foop). Additionally, the High Countess position doesn’t mean anything... No political power for Anti-Wanda in this universe :(

I thought it would be interesting if Anti-Cosmo’s Deadly Sin was still Lust, but the only reason he’s married to Anti-Wanda in RR!AU is because his mother arranged them. He tolerates Anti-Wanda, he even likes her, but he doesn’t truly love her and doesn’t care if she knows it. He has illegitimate children in this verse (this is where Eury and Talon fit in) because the honey-lock isn’t a thing. Foop is his only legitimate child and therefore the legal heir to the throne (High Count is balanced by the Anti-Fairy Council and he can’t declare an illegitimate child his heir).

RR!Anti-Cosmo and H.P. are rival rulers who barely know each other. After taking over from Reedfilter, H.P. starts flirting with AC too in an attempt to snag Anti-Fairy World from under him, blind to the fact that Anti-Cosmo is toying with him and intends to betray him right back. Or, Anti-Cosmo flirts with him in an attempt to swipe Pixie World. Who knows. I’m not sure how far that relationship goes, just that I can see the two flirting in RR universe to mirror the fact they fight all the time in Classic.

(....... Maybe they still fight)

I created Reedfilter Rules AU back in 2016, and I still write drabbles for it because I find the concept endearing despite its cliches. I love writing in this ‘verse because I love pixies, but I haven’t posted the main ‘fic due to the, uhhhhh... //Gestures at story that revolves around a creepy guy sleeping his way up the corporate ladder, probably seducing his rival on the side idk, is this really what you want to read??

Anyway, I adore Reedfilter Rules AU and think about it a lot, so if you guys want to see more, let me know. “Only an Idea” (#83 of the 130 Prompts) takes place in the R-Rules universe and tells how H.P. and Sanderson first met.

#asks #Anon #FAIRIES!#Reedfilter Rules #ridwriting #I'm wasp dad trash #We're Pixies!#Sanderson is neat #The bat with the hat #The toughest tag #apparently art #130 Prompts #screenshots #Fairy Idol #Long post #This is the third time I've tried to submit this please don't break again #If the Read More gets moved into the ask box I'm sorry; just view on blog if so

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raincloudinajar · 4 years

Text

Unrequested Film Watch: Ashes

Perfect set up with “Based on Actual Events”. Stereotypical awful acting associated with a mockumentary. The story is set up with a family who has moved in with the wife’s mother to take care of her, shown interview style. There’s brief moments of showing daily life outside of the interview. Then Aunt Marion, who lives in Ohio, dies, and the family is told they will be receiving her ashes. Cue stories about creepy Aunt Marion, starts small with forgetting to turn the tv on and pats on the head, then a story of the nephew scaring the piss out of her literally, and then how Marion pulled her own teeth out. But where to put the ashes now that they have them???

The wife has a nightmare about her dad, while watching old horror movies, where he had a message for her. She claims that she has these dreams regularly though. But she needs to get rid of the ashes. Family refuses because obviously Aunt Marion knew she’d end up with the family, so they compromise with the attic. Let it begin.

We’ve got noises in the attic during and old horror movie, we’ve got creepy fog machines, bloody noses (poor grandma) that lead to stroke, disembodied laughter, and this is just the first night. The mom and dad fully believe that it’s creepiness, while the daughters are like nope, just straight skeptics. Daughter A is moving out (because Aunt Marion’s ashes are creepy) and Daughter B is pregnant so let’s just throw in some good family drama! will this help the plot? Probs not.

Night 2 begins. Mom is scared. Daughter A is living with new boyfriend with old horror movies, and fight with boyfriend, who goes from nice to abusive and murdery in about five seconds. Straight up what the fuck? Cut to parents also watching old horror movies getting a text from Daughter A about psycho boyfriend. Dad to the rescue with shitty green lighting. Mom blames Aunt Marion, and now the rest of the family is on board. Daughter B has a miscarriage.

Day 3... Time to get rid of the ashes, except they drop them and drop the ashes. Mom pulls out excessive hairball after being covered in ash.

Day 4...Time to Vacuum Aunt Marion and watch more Old Horror movies. What could possibly go wrong. Mom walks in wearing a neck brace after falling. Gotta love the plot device of old horror movies. Semi convinced the mom is crazy at this point. Creepy fast moving camera through the house with disembodied laughter leads to Aunt Marion’s next move. Cue sleep walking and slamming doors.

Day 5... Let’s make a ouija board... what could possibly go wrong? Shockingly most things go wrong. Mom gets possessed and rips her fingernails off and bites her husband. So even after all of this, mom goes to play by herself.... and you can see Marion standing behind her. Mom asks for forgiveness and Marion says yes, and then good bye.

Day 6... Daughters are pissed. Time to get rid of the board. And now Marion’s friend shows up unexpectedly. And we find out Marion was into black magic, and her “special friend” had taken a picture of her dead body. Mom has a similar picture of her father...

Night 6.... Ouija board is back. Mom gets possessed and is banging her head against the board. Marion speaks through mom saying that “Am I funny now?” Don’t make fun of your family, folks. More disembodied laughter. Blood everywhere. Special friend commits suicide in the bathroom.

Day 7..... We’ve got terrible zoom features. The real question is... what’s happening to her brother??? The one who was really a dick to Aunt Marion.

Night 7.... More creepy zooming. More fast camera through the house. More disembodied laughter. More possessions. But this time with murder. Or at least attempted murder.

Day 8... Dad leaves. Understandable. He’s been bitten, and now shot. Time to bring in the paranormal experts. Paranormal experts turn out to be dude bros, who say things like “Royally Sucks”. Used to be in a rock band, almost died, yada yada yada. Cue hypnotism and more possession. Grandma dies... Aunt Marion laughs saying that Grandma deserved it for laughing at Aunt Marion.

Day 9... Again why is brother not being effected??? But let’s try a seance with blood letting. Again... what could go wrong? More possession. More apparitions. More grouchy Aunt Marion bitter about being laughed at and hating mom because her brother didn’t even want a daughter. Break the seance circle. Bleeding from eyes...Paranormal dudes leave

Day 10... Time for brother to come into the picture! yassss you’re gonna die dude.

Night 10.... Mom looking extra possessed screaming “They laughed at me”, brother has been stabbed. Repeatedly. The worst staged scream from daughters holding onto each other. Let’s throw grandma’s ashes at her to get away. And then hide in the bathroom. Not sure how so much blood got on the walls. Possessed mom comes in but leaves girls alone. Bye uncle jay...... Ope no knocked her out instead. Maybe killed her?

Day 11... Yup. Mom’s been cremated. Time to go live with Uncle Jay. Terrible acting and crying. and interview.

Night 11... You really think it’s over??? You fools!!! Ah yes.... a tennis racket is going to save you... Now Uncle Jay is possess and pours Mom’s ashes over them. But! Dad comes back!!! Cue happiness and now dead uncle jay. Did Dad shoot Jay?

Day 12. Another interview with terrible acting and a box of ashes on the table. End film with a disembodied laugh and dramatic Sarah McLaughlin style song.

Overall: Grade B. this wasn’t terrible. The acting wasn’t awful the whole way through. It wasn’t really scary, but it wasn’t not scary either. Lots of death.

#spoilers #ashes #film review

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thiskindofshootingstar · 5 years

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My thoughts on the finale

Okay so, I'm gonna try to keep this as a list and not go off too much, but basically my thoughts on the 100 s6 finale

Overall, found it pretty anticlimactic. ESPECIALLY the Madi/Sheidheda and Russell plots. It was just like, one second they're totally gonna rule everything and the next Madi is Madi again and Russell is arrested. Like.... Okay? That's it? That's how we're resolving what have been the two main villains of the entire season? Cool.

Octavia is the best and I will love her for all time and she better not be actually dead (I don't believe she is, but still). This is gonna need a sub-list so here we go: 1) she is the ONLY one to volunteer to go with Gabriel to save his people. They made it a point to show each and every one of spacekru not saying a damn thing, but it was Octavia who said no, I won't let people die if I can do something about it. She is still the ONLY character that tries to save EVERYONE regardless of whether or not they are "her people". Only after O declared she was going and entreated her brother, only then did the rest of them join. Because my girl is an inspiration. 2) her and echo, amazing, "I like those odds" and then echo grinning like I always knew I liked you. 3) she is a warrior queen! 30 on 3? Easy. Dude was hiding behind a shelf and runs out? Take down the bitch like it's nothing. Woman sets herself on fire to light up the building? JUST EFFING TACKLE HER. Iconic. 4) "Hope?" That one line and it was Confirmed that Octavia helped Charmaine raise little Hope in the Anomaly. Also she totally knew and accepted it and was there for her, I just. Yeah. 5) SHE IS THE KEY TO THE ANOMALY AND ACTUALLY ESCAPED IT AND SPENT YEARS IN THERE AND SHE SHARES HER NAME WITH THE FINAL SYMBOL AND JUST AHHHH SHE IS LITERALLY MAGIC THIS SEASON I LOVE IT SHE EVEN TURNS INTO GREEN SMOKE AND INSTANTLY STOPS THE ANOMALY SPREAD WITH HER "DEATH" LIKE COME ON IT'S LIKE THIS ENTIRE THING WAS SET UP FOR HER, and we've got this mystery villain dude who sent Hope to kill her as the only way to save Charmaine, of course because he Knows O will come for her and to destroy him, she is too powerful to let live. Lexa knew it, azgeda knew it, literally everyone who has ever opposed her knows there is no stopping her unless she is killed or incapacitated. This is also why I def don't think she's dead because girl has taken a lot worse and been fine so one little stabby stab ain't gonna be enough. She a Bad Bitch, you can't kill her. (I think she was actually like sent back into the Anomaly or something along those lines, maybe it's a parallel dimension/timeline/astral space whatever that she sort of merged with or something)

I'm still not okay with Bellamy for two reasons: 1) they still treat him like he's the moral authority which is still laughable. I hated Clarke asking him "it was worth it right?" for multiple reasons (the above, and because it always seems to be women asking men for moral judgment as if they are the authority and I'm not about it. I'm def a lot more sensitive about this one since got though so that may just be me) and 2) because they keep trying to show the Blakes as okay and soft and trusting with each other again even though BELLAMY HAS YET TO APOLOGIZE! He literally tried to kill her and told her to kill herself half a dozen times in the (show-time) past week or so. That is not okay. Moving past the fact that Octavia is the only character in the show's history that has had to earn her forgiveness/redemption, she has multiple times over and Bellamy still can't apologize for telling her to go die when she felt like a monster and like life had no meaning and I will never accept him trying to act all easy around her until he apologizes for that. So yeah, I didn't like his "side by side. Like it was meant to be" because one: he wasn't gonna go with Gabriel until Octavia said she was, he doesn't get to have equal credit in this, and two: he literally left her to die two days ago and didn't fully forgive her when she bared her heart and soul and apologized to him.

The flame. Besides the fact that in trying to "defeat a monster", in replacing Osleya/Octavia/Blodreina with a child commander they didn't know whose family had hidden her away to avoid this very thing, Indra Gaia and Bellamy created an even worse monster in Sheidheda is so ironic and they didn't even mention it at all that those three were responsible for turning Madi into this. Besides the fact that Gaia and Indra literally plotted to kill Madi. Besides the fact that Raven found a magic kill code not in Becca's notes to remove Sheidheda and the flame but then it subsequently uploaded something so we'll probably get Sheidheda as Alie 2.0 because this show can apparently only come up with 3 storylines and simply recycles them. I'm glad that the flame is gone (for now). I was sick and tired of that storyline. It should've been over and done with in s4 but hey better late than never (even though they're definitely still gonna use it in some manner but hopefully no more commander bs). But for real why was Raven of all people the one like "but it'll delete the flame" like yeah bitch, delete all of it, you have literally no connection to this whatsoever you should have absolutely zero compunctions about it what was that?

Did I mention I love Octavia? Because I do, her storyline was the only one I really cared about this season (mostly because it was actually different and not the same recycled storyline from five years ago) and I'm glad that going into the next season it will kind of all be about her. I just hope it's not all Bellamy and the gang trying to find her and we don't see o for the majority of the season. I want it to be two simultaneous storylines of o in the Anomaly trying to save Charmaine and take out this mystery kidnapper, and then Bellamy and Gabriel and co figuring out how to save O. But one things for certain, I NEED OCTAVIA AND DIYOZA TO REUNITE! I need my dream team back, it was taken too soon.

Jordan wtf? Where did you get that stupid chip. I swear if I never see another damn chip or infinity symbol in my life it will be too soon.

Why does no one in Hollywood understand that SPACE IS A VACUUM?! Clarke would've been dead, and so would everyone else anywhere else on the ship that wasn't behind an airlock because as soon as she opened that door all the oxygen would've been sucked out and they would've frozen to death if they didn't die of asphyxiation first. It just bugs me so much that it is the year 2019 and sci-fi is still so dumb about space still. I would've forgiven if it they had at least tried to show a little of the effects, like no sound or frost gradually growing on Clarke or her at the very least being very weak/hard to catch her breath afterward, but literally nothing. She just plopped right on up and ran off like nothing happened. It just irks me.

Emori rocks that look and if she wanted to keep it forever I would support her.

Gabriel's solid. I like him. I think he's the first accurate portrayal of a scientist that has that curiosity and excitement but still cares about and values life, but may be a little reckless sometimes in the pursuit of solving a mystery. Also, he likes Octavia so I will hoard my in-show Octavia defenders to the end.

Well, I tried to do an even 10 but that's all I've got. Overall I thought it was all a little anticlimactic and a lot of characters kind of fell by the wayside or were downright ooc (Jordan, Niylah and Echo to some extent for the former, raven and Miller for both but mostly the latter) all season. We are finally rid of Kabby and the flame and for that I am grateful, but if the cost is Bellamy's continued misrepresentation as the moral authority of the show when he has never had to seek redemption then I'm not sure it's worth it. This season strengthened my love for Octavia, got me back onto respecting and liking Clarke, and turned Bellamy (who used to be my favorite character) back into my least favorite (like he was beginning of s1) so we'll see how it goes with s7.

But ultimately, bring back Diyoza and Octavia!

#ignore me #the 100 thoughts #I'll tag it as #antibellamy #so hopefully stans dont try to start shit again #octavia blake #the 100 spoilers #the 100 finale

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tomionekinkmeme · 6 years

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Samhain 2k18 - In Dreams

A/N: Modern Muggle AU

Tick. Tock. Tick…. Tock….

The clock was mocking her, she was sure of it. Why call it the face of a clock afterall? If not to represent the laughing, taunting nature of father time.

Hermione Granger had been awake for 5 days straight, her body vibrating with energy in defense of mounting exhaustion. She did not suffer from insomnia or some other sleep disorder. Yet she haunted the house like a wraith, silently drifting from room to room, always moving. She was not cramming all day and night for exams or crying over a failed relationship. No, the reason why Hermione refused to close her eyes, to lie down in any position resembling horizontal, was that every night she went to bed, she died a horrific death.

Well, maybe not literally, but in dreams she witnessed the last hours of countless victims, a passenger seeing through their eyes as they met a grisly end. Every dream was so vivid, each victim and murder unique.

The nightmares began about a month ago or was that two?

The days now ran together in her dazed state, time a viscous liquid that she waded through so slowly, she often wondered if she was moving at all. She would fight the siren call of sleep for as long as she could, drinking coffee, energy drinks, exercising, but eventually she couldn’t help but to give in to it’s honeyed promises of peaceful slumber.

She could still remember the first dream like it was yesterday, it all started with a girl named Ginny.

Flashing white bulbs and neon colored signs competed for attention everywhere she looked. It was as if she were submerged under water, the lighting diffused with a soft glow. The evening held a dreamy quality to it, the wind whipping fiery red strands into her face that she pushed behind her ear. Sounds though sharp, were muffled and distorted, the noise putting her on edge. Various songs blared from worn out speakers as they passed, people all around were talking animatedly and laughing.

Her arm was entwined with a young man who had messy black hair. His green eyes crinkled when he smiled at her, the lights glittering off the round wire glasses that sat high on his nose. He was amused by something she’d said as he pulled her further into the crowd toward the ferris wheel. Oh no, she hated heights, Hermione wanted to yell at the mystery man, but she couldn’t speak. She could only watch in apprehension as her body walked up to the carney, handed tickets to the man and got into the rickety cab of death.

The ride wasn’t quite as terrifying as Hermione had anticipated, there was a sense of security she received from her companion, a warm feeling that flooded her gut. He had a muscled arm wrapped around her and she leaned into his warmth. The evening was a blur of faces, friends chatting, snacks eaten, rides enjoyed. She could lose herself in the nostalgia this outing at the carnival invoked, it felt more fun and carefree than she remembered experiencing in a long time. The girl’s boyfriend had stepped away to use the loo as she leaned against a nearby wall.

The restrooms were located quite far from the main carnival setup on the grounds. You had to practically walk back to the parking lot just to get there and it was poorly lit too. It looked like a scene right out of a horror movie, the young perky innocent girl, all alone in the dark, waiting for her murderer to come. She was looking down at her phone, the bright screen illuminating her face, when she heard a faint sound.

She moved toward it and Hermione felt her fight or flight instincts kick in. This woman didn’t seem to possess Hermione’s same sense of self preservation and walked around the dim corner to investigate. Suddenly strong hands gripped her from behind and pulled her into a tall firm body. Within seconds she felt the prick of a needle go into her neck. The girl struggled desperately to get free, but with each wild flail of the arms and kick of her legs, she could feel her body was shutting down. She cursed her bad luck as she slipped into unconsciousness.

She couldn’t see anything, a course strip of cloth biting into her face. She went to remove it, but couldn’t move her wrists, in fact, her whole body felt tied down to a hard cool surface. This can’t be good, Hermione chided, doesn’t this girl know you should never go alone to check out a strange noise? This setup so cliché, Hermione internally rolled her eyes, trying to remember her tv history and if that included too many episodes of cold case files or some halloween slasher marathon. She couldn’t recall, though at the moment, she had more pressing matters to be concerned over.

She knew how this would play out and would much rather wake up, before the final act was performed. Wake up, wake up, wake up, she chanted, as she heard the creak of a door. The girl was trying to spew obscenities, but her mouth was gagged, as a man chuckled and ran a hand through her hair, playing with a strand between his fingers.

“I’ve been patiently waiting for you, my little lamb. Tonight is a very important night.” he trailed off as he ran the same hand along her cheek and cupped her chin. He leaned down to whisper in her ear. “You should feel very special, I’ve chosen you as my first and one never forgets his first time, as the saying goes.”

Tears were trailing down her eyes and her breathing was becoming erratic.

“Oh, sweet Ginerva or is it Ginny? You do seem to prefer being called Ginny, don’t you? Well, don’t you worry, you have nothing to fear. You were destined for greatness. I will make you famous, immortal even. Long after you’ve left this mortal coil, you will forever live on in the tales of this night. This story, our story will be on the tip of every tongue, burned into the hearts of anyone who hears it. Or maybe, and this is just me being entirely selfish, maybe I don’t want to share what we have with the world. What do you think?” He paused, then walked around the table, leaning down to her ear on the opposite side.

“Would you like to know a secret, my pet?” Here, he finally removed the object that kept her from speaking.

“I don’t give a shit about what you’ve got to say, you sick fuck! Let me go this instant. Harry will be looking for me, you idiot. I’m sure someone must’ve seen you with me and I don’t know if you’re aware, but I come from a long line of cops and my family will not stop until they find me.”

“Oh, sweet Ginny. Of course, I expect your family to find you!” He exclaimed, clapping his hands together.

“First they’ll find your two hands, then they’ll find your torso, that pretty little head of yours, the lovely lower half, and lastly your two legs and feet. Seven pieces to make you whole once more.”

“Untie me this instant! Give me a fair fight, you fucking coward!” She screamed.

“Such a filthy mouth,” he sighed, shoving the gag back between her lips, “I was hoping for a civil conversation, but I see now, that won’t be possible. I was going to serenade you with all the reasons why I chose you Ginerva, seven letters first name and last, seventh child, I could go on and on about why seven is the most powerful number and how you perfectly embody the number in walking, talking, human form, but the moods been ruined, hasn’t it? I suppose it was too much to ask for you to be excited about this journey we’ll share together. I get it, maybe I’d be less thrilled if I were in your place, but Ginny, can’t you at least appreciate that, in a sense, you’ll be living on forever. Forever Ginny!”

This man is clearly insane, Hermione deduced. I mean, where is he going with this monologue? It sounds to me, even he’s lost the plot. The room went silent and she couldn’t feel his presence hovering over her anymore. She wondered if he quietly slinked away, or was he just standing there unmoving, staring like a predator in wait. Each second that passed, felt like an hour, several hours, when out of nowhere there was a prick against her stomach, that was pushing with more pressure, and Jesus Christ, is this what it felt like to be stabbed? Ginny was now letting out muffled screams and sobs, as Hermione witnessed this terrible act. The pain that Hermione felt was numbed, but she knew it must’ve been agonizing as Ginny thrashed and cried against the assault.

Beep…! Beep…! Beep! Hermione jolted upright in bed, blinking, eyes madly darting around the room. She sighed, it really was just a dream. I knew that, she reaffirmed, dragging a hand down the side of her face.

Increasingly disturbed come morning as she awoke from each new and gruesome death scene, Hermione was determined to overcome these strange recurring night terrors. She had started to keep a dream journal after maybe the third or fourth night, with detailed recounts of everything she could remember. It was therapeutic writing it out and she felt a bit lighter with each swipe of the pen.

There had been a pretty blonde with wavy hair that giggled too much, named Violet or was that Lavender? She was sure it was some purple flower name. He had grabbed her from a dark alley as she was reapplying her lipstick, eyes glued to her compact, already wasted and barely standing. A little prick to the neck and Hermione was greeted with darkness once more. He was not fond of Lilac, he flayed part of her arms and legs, his sick manic laugh ringing in her ears along with the poor girls wails. Iris periodically passed out from the pain only to be waterboarded awake.

Then there was another blonde with straight hair and more of a plain face that went by Hannah. Hannah Abba, she’d actually created a last name for once. Hannah was terrified and begged continually to be spared. He who had no name, snickered at her naivety.

“Do you imagine yourself in a situation that warrants you to just walk away if you ask nicely enough?” His smooth deep baritone caressed as he cruelly cut off her air supply by shoving a thick cloth into her mouth and pinched her nose. He sighed as her face turned varying shades of pink and red.

“I’m doing you a favor, you know? You’re the human equivalent of stale white bread. No one cares about you, no one would remember you if you got hit by a car tomorrow. Not your so called friends, or peers. Not even that beta male boyfriend Neville. Sure, they may think fondly of you for a week, but after that, your memory will be gone with the ether. That’s how little your very existence impacts the world around you.”

As her skin tinged purple then blue, he released his hold on her nose. He pulled the cloth from her mouth as she took deep gulping gasps. She flinched when she felt him near once more, his breath upon her face.

“So you see, I’m saving you from a fate worse than death. To be forgotten, to have never been. No, the world will remember you, sweet Hannah as a tragic character, sure. A cautionary tale, maybe. But they won’t forget, no, they’ll always recall this very night, the night which you became a legend.”

He switched it up with a male victim another evening. Colin was tall, skinny and homely looking. When he smiled, his teeth looked about 2 sizes too big for his mouth. Colin was strangled with a plastic bag over his head. He who had no name was choking poor Colin over and over until finally he took pity on the poor sod by mounting him, and snapping his neck with a hard twist of the chin.

Hermione felt crazy, how could she be normal and create these grotesque visions. No well adjusted person fantasized about murder to the degree that she lived it every night. She researched the meaning behind dreams and the symbolism of the unconscious mind. Was there some hidden underlying issue that needed to be addressed?

“Honey, you look like death. You really shouldn’t stay up so late at night.”

“Thanks mother, I’ll try that in the future.”

We have retired F.B.I. Profiler “Mad Eye” Moody on the show today, “Mr. Moody, what would you say drives a serial killer such as the self proclaimed “Death Eater” or “Voldemort” that has eluded police capture for the past 6 years.”

“He’s been at large for 6 years, but he’s been inactive for the past 4, only recently re-emerging in the past 3 months.” Moody gruffly spit out.

“Mom, why do you watch this garbage?”

“The news? Honey, current events are important, you could stand to be more informed, you should sit down and watch with me.”

“The news is nothing more than depression inducing and fear mongering. I’ll pass.”

No, Hermione had much more important matters to ponder than brainlessly learning about what common household items give you cancer or which celebrities were having a baby.

All of her most recent dreams were about blondes, did she have some deep seated hatred for fair haired individuals. She couldn’t remember any particular trauma from her past that would result in her wishing for the death of blondes. Then again, the first victim she saw had vibrant red hair.

She consulted several sleep therapists in person and online, only to be disappointed with them spouting off the same information she had dug up herself already. In desperation, she even tried taking sleeping pills in hopes of blacking out, but those too failed to safeguard her from the haunting images.

Nothing helped and nothing changed. So she settled into her current cycle of staying awake for as many days as humanly possible, mind of over matter and all that, followed by crashing for a day, day and a half, repeat. At least then she was only faced with the horrors of her mind once a week, rather than Every. Single. Night.

~O-O~

Tick. Tock. Tick…. Tock….

Is it just me or did the clock just wink at me? Hermione blinked her eyes, staring harder at the enemy. She didn’t want to know the time, to know that it was god awful early in the morning and she should really be asleep right now, rather than standing in line for coffee like these other early bird bastards.

Hermione was tired, dead tired. What was that line from Fight Club? “This is how it is with insomnia. Everything is so far away, a copy of a copy of a copy.” That line epitomized her current state of being as she stumbled through her order, “No, it’s Hermione, H-e-r-m, ugh, just write G, it’s for Miss G. Thanks.” She muttered walking away to stand off to the side.

“I’ll have a coffee, black.”

Hermione whipped her head toward the sound, that voice. The pitch and tone of that man instantly gave her chills and her legs threatened to buckle beneath her. Luckily she was near a wall and was able to lean against it nonchalantly as her mind raced a million miles a minute. Could this be the man in her dreams, was that monster real? Was she even awake right now?

“Miss G, order up!”

Hermione took a deep breath and headed toward the counter. She raked her eyes over him, tall, dark, and handsome. His hair was artfully windswept, his gait confident, he smelled like money. Some understated cologne that lingered pleasantly in the air and made your eyes follow the source.

He held himself with an air of ease as if everything just came to him, yet the coldness he radiated made him seem unapproachable, untouchable even.

He noticed her instantly, leaning heavily against the wall as if she could melt into the shadows. Her eyes kept darting toward him, she was not as subtle as she imagined. It stirred the predator inside, she was so damn skittish, beyond normal attraction or nerves. She was dripping neurosis, with her twitching and constant subtle movements. Her hair was curly and wild, it seemed to reflect her agitation. She invoked the thrill of the hunt in him, which was odd to say the least. Intrigued he put on his friendly face.

She was staring off into the distance again, only realizing too late that her line of sight settled in his direction. He flashed her a grin with his dead eyes. She almost dropped her coffee.

“I’m so sorry!” She blurted out, blushing profusely. “You just look so familiar, I was trying to place you, but I can’t seem to figure out where I would’ve seen you before.” Or heard you, demon spawn.

“Tom, order up!”

He grabbed his coffee turning towards her, hand outstretched. “It’s ok, I get that more often than you’d think.” This time, the smile reached his eyes.

“I’m Tom.” He said tipping his coffee toward her in salute.

“I’m Hermione and really, I didn’t mean to stare. I don’t suppose you attend Hogwarts Uni and I’ve seen you around campus?” She blurted the first nonsense small talk she could think of.

“Oh no, dear!” He said with a hearty laugh. “I’ve been out of University for about 10 years now.” He invited her to join him.

“I shouldn’t, I couldn’t.” Hermione stammered, adjusting her messenger bag, wondering if he would chase her should she bolt for the door.

“Nonsense, come, sit”

“Um…ok.” She sat down gracelessly, bumping her bag into the table and knocking some of her books and papers from inside the bag onto the floor. Fuck, I’ll never get out of here now.

“I’m such a klutz lately, sorry. I feel like I can’t stop apologizing to you.” Please be annoyed and send me away.

“It’s fine, it’s early and you haven’t had any of your coffee yet. You have an excuse.” He offered charmingly. Tom bent down to help her gather her things. Hermione Granger displayed on one of her cover pages. “You mentioned you attend Hogwarts? And majoring in…” he looked down at the textbook Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience and a paperback Dreams and Nightmares: The Origin and Meaning of Dreams.

“I’m going to take a stab and say, psych major?”

Funny you should say “stab”, seems you have a propensity toward violence even in your everyday speech.

“It was a fair guess, but no. I’m a pre-med major, I have an academic interest in psychology, hence…”

She seemed friendly enough, but there was something in her eyes. He could see fear in them if he looked hard enough. She recognized him, which was absurd as he’d never seen this girl before. She held herself surprisingly steady, considering her instinct to flee, her body was facing the door and she held tension in her legs to jump up and run at a moment’s notice.

Fascinating. He wanted to splay his hand on her knee to hold her still, he wondered if she would faint if he touched her. Or would she fight him? Would he have to wrestle her to the ground and use his body weight to hold her down. He was getting excited just thinking about her underneath him.

“Is old Slughorn still teaching Chem?”

“So you did go to Hogwarts?” She countered, eyebrow raised. Liar, liar, pants on fire. What else are you lying about sweet prince?

“I did, but ages ago.”

They talked about some of his old professors that still taught, about some of her classes. The conversation flowed freely and Hermione found herself being lulled into a false sense of security the more she listened to his opinions and thoughts on current medical practices and some of the recent breakthroughs his research firm had made in cancer cell analysis.

Was she being paranoid in thinking this highly educated well to do man was a serial killer just because of the cadence of his voice. Of course she was being paranoid, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t quite right about him.

“I should get going, classes and all that.” Hermione was never good at a natural exit strategy.

Tom smiled warmly. “I’d love to see you again, allow me to take you to dinner tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? Tomorrow night?” She choked, catching herself from a look of horror and forcing a pleasant expression on her face. This is it, this is the moment that I’ll regret my life choices once I’m lying blindfolded and tied down on his table.

“I’d love to, but I’m just swamped with midterms coming up and I have this research paper due on Tuesday…”

“Give me your phone. We can exchange numbers and meet up the next time you have a few free hours. I’d love to pick your brain on stem cell theory, you’re more enthusiastic and knowledgeable than my current interns. It would be great having someone like you on board.”

Now this posed a unique opportunity. Getting close to him, she could find out if her suspicions were real or merely a fantastic coincidence. Surely if he was a murderer, he wouldn’t be dumb enough to piss where he eats, wait, what was that saying? Don’t take a piss in the yard? Don’t piss where you sleep?

“Hermione?”

“Hm…?” Shit, I didn’t hear what he was saying.

Tom’s hand was outstretched, her phone in his palm. He placed it in her own, playing with her fingers in a surprisingly intimate way. He stood and leaned toward her ear.

“I look forward to our next meeting, Hermione. I can’t wait to get to know you better.” he breathed, then swiftly walked away.

What the fuck was that?

~O-O~

Hermione slept like a baby. Sweet, sweet peaceful REM sleep, no night terrors, no lingering feelings of disgust and horror upon waking. I haven’t felt this good in what feels like forever, she mused.

A couple weeks passed and she fell back into routine easily, school, study, work, repeat. It seemed like the nightmares and sleep deprivation were a thing of the past. She didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, so she put the disturbing dreams behind her, locking them in a box within the deepest, darkest recesses of her mind.

“Hermione, can you pick up a prescription for your father tomorrow afternoon? I thought I’d be around, but Barbara filled the cancellation spot, so it looks like we’ll be in the office most of the day.”

“Of course mom, it’s no problem.”

Parts of Hannah Abbott were recently found buried in multiple shallow graves on the shore of the Thames by Reading. Seven graves, each containing a piece of her body. Police suspect this is another case of the self proclaimed “Death Eater” or “Voldemort” serial killer. He is known to stalk, torture, and kill his victims, disposing of their body, by cutting it up into 7 pieces.

Hermione stared at the tv, her eyes getting blurry and a high pitched ringing filling her head. Hannah Abbott, Hannah Abbo, Hannah Abba. Why did that name sound so familiar?

Ding.

Hermione looked down at her phone.

Hey, it’s Tom. We met at the coffee shop. How did midterms go? What are you doing this weekend? Want to have dinner?

Her stomach dropped.

Hermione ran to her bedroom grabbing her dream journal and flipping open her laptop.

“Honey are you okay?” Her mother called from the living room.

“I’m fine Mom, I just felt a headache coming on. I think I’m going to lay down.”

She furiously typed Hannah Abbott into google and opened the first article with a picture of a plain faced blonde smiling back at the camera. She typed in “Voldemort” seeing thousands of articles pop up in the search, scrolling down the screen names like “Ginny” “Lavender” and even “Colin” jumping out at her. This serial killer had been active on and off over the past 6 years, with his victim count suspected to reach as low as 23, as high as 48. The room started to spin and she was hyperventilating, this was real, all her dreams really happened.

She passed out.

~O-O~

Now that she thought about it, the dreams stopped around the time she met Tom. She felt like an idiot for not making the connection sooner! This had to mean something. She felt fear, yes, of course, but she also felt purpose and duty. Hermione was meant to prove his guilt and somehow stop his murderous killing spree, she just knew it.

Hello, Tom. It’s good to hear from you. This weekend sounds great! I’m available Saturday night, just let me know when and where. I look forward to seeing you soon. :)

#tomione #t #samhain2k18 #submission #avasafari

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inkstainedfanfics · 7 years

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The Gods’ Apprentice: Dreaming Past the Waves - Part 2

Summary: Two lovers are intertwined, their fates meant to be nothing more than mere toys of the universe meant to entertain the gods of old. But when they find themselves torn apart, separated by both distance and stolen memories, they fight to rediscover who they were together before time destroys the very echo of their love. Fate and the gods may have their plans in place, but these two have faith in more than just prophecies.

Word Count: 2,390

Pairing: Newt x Reader

Tag List: @dont-give-a-bother @ly--canthrope @myrtus-amongst-the-stars @caseoffics @benniesgalaxy @whatinbenaddiction @studyforthreehands @thosefantasticbeast2 @red-roses-and-stories

Part 1

EIGHT YEARS LATER

Newt stands unsure, eyes bleary from sleep. He seems to be on a beach of some sort given the sand sinking between his toes and the sound of waves nearby. He blinks twice, and the scene suddenly becomes clear in front of him, glistening as though seen through a kaleidoscope. Deep blue waves crest and fall, breaking against the golden sand lining the long beach. Birds poke at crumbs of dropped food and a whale leaps into the horizon, its huge figure nearly touching the full moon that’s hanging just above the water line. The smell of the sea and wind drifts across the quiet beach, and a warm breeze ruffles Newt’s unkempt red hair. He blinks again, trying to understand why he’s here, what’s happened. Is this a new job he had forgotten to finish before lying down for the night?

A warm hand wraps around his own, tugging on him though he startles and flinches away from the touch. “Newt, darling, do you hear that?”

He’s face-to-face with the most stunning woman he’s ever seen. Her eyes are sparkling with life and joy, and she’s smiling up at him like he’s her lifeline.

His heart leaps in response as some fragment of him hidden deep within his chest rejoices at her presence, begging him to draw her against him and kiss her. He recoils from the sudden reaction, resisting the impulse to be near her. His head spins as he struggles to drag some memory of that face, those eyes, from his mind. Surely there was a reason to his reaction, right? Or was it magic, some foul demon corrupting him?

A bird call rings out, stretching like a song as it crashes in time with the waves.

The woman shuts her eyes, swaying along. “Oh, it’s so beautiful, don’t you think?”

Words break from his mouth before he can even think of them, too natural to be held back behind his heavy tongue. “It’s always beautiful around here, love.”

The woman blushes, ducking her head, and Newt wonders why those words seemed to fit so well for the moment.

“Darling,” she murmurs, her voice soft, “when will I see you again?”

He blinks in surprise. “I don’t… I don’t even know your name.”

She shakes her head, and a shell necklace draped over her collarbone clatters in response. “Impossible. That… that’s impossible.” This seems to distress the woman, and she suddenly grabs his hand with both hands, clutching them tight. “Newt, you must remember.”

“I’m sorry?”

She shuts her eyes, grip tightening slowly around Newt’s hand, warm palms pressed against his knuckles, sucking the icy cold from his calloused hands. “Please, please remember. You must. You must before it’s too late.”

Newt blinks again, stepping away despite the force drawing him near her, begging him to pull her toward him and never let go. “Do I… do I know you?”

A tear slips down her cheek, glistening in the fractured moonlight. She pushes herself onto her toes, pressing a warm, gentle kiss to his cheek, lingering only long enough for Newt to shut his eyes. The fleeting tail of a memory whips him, wakens him to the reality of the situation. Yes, yes he does know her.

He knows her quite well.

“Wait, you’re… you’re…” Newt squeezes her hands, trying to grip the memory.

There must be more than the warmth of a kiss, must be more than the glance of the eyes and the light touch of a hand.

“You remember?” The woman says, her voice trembling with hope.

“No, I…” Newt reaches up to rub his wrinkled forehead, but the action does little to quell the anger and frustration burning behind his eyelids. If only he could remember whatever it was, if only he could earn that small instance back.

Suddenly the bird’s song quits as a wave rises, not crashing against the beach but instead growing higher, swaying like a cobra.

Newt glances at it, sucking in a breath and pulling the woman behind him. “We need to leave—”

“No,” she tears her hand from his grip, “no, you need to remember it, remember me.”

The wave approaches quickly, the roar loudening as it neared, and then all that mattered was removing the woman, saving her. “We need to leave.”

“Newt!” She screams, tearing her hand from his when he tries to pull her away again, “Stop! It’s a dream, it doesn’t matter. You need to remember me!”

Newt stares at her, mouth open as it suddenly returns, as the memories begin flooding in.

Only one takes hold before the wave slams down on the two of them, choking him.

The salty smell of sea air drifts through the cottage, prodding Newt out of the deep slumber he’d finally managed to achieve for the first time in ages. Literally ages, he believes, as he sits up and stretches. His muscles are sore from the back-breaking work of plowing the fields the full day before, a punishment for daring to ask a question about the goal of his accounting. Though he’s supposed to stand right away and ready himself for another day of work, he takes a moment to run his finger over his cheek, the action returning some warmth to the cold vacancy that had taken hold of his heart in the past five years. The dream had seemed so real, so true…

Then the voice comes, demanding as it always does, a current of threats running under the pleasant words. “Now up we go, Newt. Too much work today to laze around!”

Newt rubs his eyes, rolling his shoulders as he stands and reaches for the customary button-down shirt always laid out at the end of his bed. So far, this internship was the worst. “Must you insist on interrupting my dreams?”

A man appears in the doorway, a grin splitting his face as he waits for Newt to finish readying. “How do you expect me to know you’re dreaming? It’s not as though I walk through your head every night. I have far more important things to attend to.”

“Yes? Like surfing?”

The man laughs, and it’s a big noise, round and low and filling the cabin with joy. “Ah, my brother, one day you’ll learn of the pleasantries of this job.”

Newt presses his lips together in response, slipping a mustard colored vest over his shirt.

“Come on, now, this truly cannot be the worst assignment you’ve had yet? I hear Apollo had you flying the chariot. Now that task is a lot of pressure.”

Newt shakes his head, yanking a splintering oar from where he stashed it under his cot the night before. It certainly wasn’t the most secure place for such a belonging, but Newt was unaware of anyone that would choose to steal the withering wood. It pricks his fingers as he tightens his grip, following the man out of the cabin, but he doesn’t readjust his hold. The handle is worn smooth in grooves, places where his fingers fit perfectly now whenever he must ready to row.

“You know, I never did hear about your preparations for the culmination on the morrow. Have you chosen a preference yet?”

Newt forces himself to focus, though his mind keeps drifting to the warmth that seems to remain on his cheek. It was just a bloody dream, no need to worry so much over the meaning. “I have not. I’ve plenty of time.”

The man whistles, though Newt notices his back muscles have tensed. “I’m not so certain about that, brother. A week is very little time. Are you certain you’ll have what you need?”

Impatience simmers in Newt’s chest, burning quietly like embers as the man continues to speak. He ought to know by now that Newt knows what he is doing, who he is choosing. Is there truly any doubt among them?

He can only hope his choice is accepted.

“If your choice isn’t accepted, you can always expect to find a place here in my cabin.”

Newt scowls. “I thought we discussed you digging into my mind.”

The man laughs again. “What’s the point of being a deity if I don’t have a little fun with it? Besides, you do know that you have quite interesting dreams, right?” Though the man says this lightly, as though he is merely telling another joke in which Newt is the punchline, Newt can’t help but notice the way he straightens, his sea-green eyes unable to meet Newt’s.

What is it about this dream that in particular seems to bother him so? “I was unaware,” Newt murmurs, trudging through a plot of sand. They’ve reached the beach finally, and the salty smell that eternally emanates from the tall man now fills the air, surrounding Newt. He sucks in a deep breath, eyes fluttering shut for a moment as he’s transported back to that beach, to the feel of the woman’s hand wrapped around his. Oh, how he longs for some companionship. Unfortunately, the most he’ll have for the coming week comes from this “deity”, a few fish, and an octopus, if Newt is lucky.

“That woman… this isn’t the first time she has been a part of your dreams, is it?” Newt’s lips thin as he stares at the back of the man—god—in front of him.

“Brother,” the god says, a current of command running under his tone, “I wasn’t asking an optional question. I would like a response.”

“Then I suppose you would say she is. It isn’t as if you’re blind to it. You always seem to interrupt before I can speak with her.”

The man stabs his own oar into the soft sand, surveying the crawling waves of the ocean that stretches in front of him, reaching toward the rising sun. “I know you don’t appreciate it, but it is for your own good. You understand that, right?”

Newt remains silent, passing the man, ignoring the deep tan to his skin and the sea smell drifting from him. He just strides until he reaches the edge of the ocean, until the sea laps at his toes, cleaning the sand from his bare feet.

The man sighs, “I truly mean it. There are some things you don’t want to remember.”

There’s that impatience, that anger, again, simmering, near boiling as it bubbles under his tongue, forcing him to respond. “I’d think a man should have the right to know as much about himself as pleases him.”

The man pulls his oar from the sand with a soft swoosh as the sand refills the hole left behind. He approaches Newt, stepping to his side. His voice is gentler when he next speaks. “Perhaps, but that isn’t our choice to make now, is it? What’s done is done.”

“But you could undo it,” Newt protests, knowing as he does that he will pay for the debate, “you could change this all, return what was stolen from me.”

“I cannot, and you know that. It is out of my hands.”

Newt’s mood changes swiftly, darkening like the storm clouds that seem to be building in the distance, preternaturally quickly, as though influenced by some divine force. “You could if you tried,” he still mutters, an acidic tone burning through the sound of waves.

The god, surprising Newt, just wearily shakes his head. “We’re stuck in this situation for now, no matter what you or I try to do to change it. I cannot help you even if I’d like to.”

Newt remains silent for a moment, contemplating the words. Cannot help. That’s what they all say, all of them except one.

The one he will one day be with for eternity unless his plan can be set into action.

That, though, requires surviving to the culmination, so Newt just slings his oar over his shoulder, stepping forward into the water, enjoying the cool water as it churns around his knees and thighs. “Well,” he calls to the god, “dearest Poseidon,” he spits the words down at the ocean, hoping to poison a few drops, ruin the god’s keep, “are we cleaning the ocean floor today or arguing pointless topics?”

Poseidon relaxes at this, flashing a jovial grin at Newt. “Cleaning. And I’ll let you have the filthy cloths. You know, to work on your arms.”

Newt sighs, rolling his eyes as he continues to step forward. “Fine.”

Poseidon sweeps forward, water gathering around his waist and tugging him in front of Newt. “You need to work on your traveling skills. The water won’t respond if you hate it like you seem to.”

Newt shrugs, stepping forward. The water swirls around his neck, grazing and tickling his chin as it laps past him. “I can’t expect it to respect me, can I?”

Poseidon follows Newt below water, their heads disappearing from view of the beach. “She’s a beast, but she respects those who earn it, brother. You ought not disappoint her.”

“At least she stays out of my head.”

Poseidon bursts into a laugh as they delve deeper into the dark. “True. She isn’t so meddlesome, at least, not when compared to my sister.”

“Which one?” Newt questions offhandedly, distractedly. Asking Poseidon about the other gods is sure to distract him and allow Newt to ponder the woman of his dreams. Who is she, and why is she so desperate to earn Newt’s attention? He needs the answers to these questions. The inability to recall anything, to remember the images and words locked deep within his mind drives him insane.

The only time they are released, the only time he is offered a momentary glance into the man he used to be, is during his sleep, and Merlin knows the gods take that from him as much as they are able. No, he must figure out another way to discover his past, and he must do it soon. The woman seemed impatient, worried, and if she is so rushed, then perhaps there is a reason, something the gods do not allow him to see.

As Poseidon prattles on about Athena’s latest argument with Hera, Newt reaches up. Even in the cool water of the lower ocean, the spot on his cheek is still warm.

Yes, the culmination is a week away, and when it comes, he will regain his memories.

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mittensmorgul · 7 years

Text

It’s Spirals All The Way Down.

I’ve been thinking about this since I made this post last night (but honestly I’ve been thinking about this since 10.23…), about how this show uses imperfect mirrors and parallels and what level of the text and subtext is actually telling us the full story here.

(and really Metatron looked directly into the camera and TOLD us this in 9.18)

But s12 especially has been structured on the foundation that ALL THE STORIES ARE WRONG. All the mirrors are flipped or broken or distorted somehow. All of our preconceived notions are fundamentally flawed. EVERYTHING in s12 is operating from this premise that “the story became the story,” even if it wasn’t TRUE. Even if it was based on a partial truth, or an extrapolation of something that someone believed was true. We’re finding out that underneath it all, none of it had ever been the FULL story.

Perspective matters. Point of view matters. Context matters. Having the entire story matters. The facts matter. And understanding all of that CHANGES the meaning for everyone.

What we believe to be true, when confronted with a new point of view or new information, makes us question the basis of our beliefs and reassess everything we always thought was true.

That’s what Mary coming back has done.

Under a cut because long, but not as long as I was expecting because Lizbob saved me typing a lot (there’s a link to her notes at the point I stopped typing to read instead... :P)

(AN: cut removed during the 2018 Tumblr Nippocalypse)

I’ve been seeing this play out all season and tagging it various things from “the story became the story” and “lies and damn lies” and “revenge of the subtext” and all the “another way” screeching, and the Rashomon Effect. It’s all about the same thing, really. And on about nine different meta and subtextual (and even surface text) levels, it describes EVERYTHING that happened in 12.20.

(seriously my brain is exploding trying to hold it all)

I think the easiest way to convey even a small part of just how fucking meta this episode was is to explain the various mirrors and parallels the episode demonstrated to us-- from the very obvious surface level story to the extremely deep-layer character and emotional stuff. Because NONE OF THE MIRRORS MATCH UP RIGHT. Because the story became the story, and all the cards are shuffled, and all the mirrors are cracked.

(it’s fucking brilliant, is what it is)

I’ll try to go about this in an orderly fashion, but knowing me, it’s gonna turn into a jumbled mess. Then again, maybe that’s metaphorically appropriate.

So here’s me just kinda going through the whole episode chronologically and pulling all the parallels.

Tasha at the beginning seems to be doing some normal things hunters do. She checks into this hotel (a lovely place on the surface, the dude at the front desk is all polite and all, but ick the woman winding yarn in the front room is >.>... which Tasha lampshades by offering to clear up her “muddy aura” for her).

Tasha even drives a green “green” car. She’s a vegan. She’s a “natural witch” who was born with her powers. She’s healthy and organic and good. Yet she’s there to look for a “borrower witch,” who got powers from a demon and is using them in evil ways. Her spell she performs lets her follow this glowy-purple representation of her own powers into this dark and dank storm cellar where she discovers something horrifying, and she’s stabbed in the back before she even has a chance to react.

Meanwhile back at the bunker, Dean is explaining how WRONG Cas seemed the night before. He’s wracking his brain trying to come up with a way to find and help Cas, because he believes Cas has been “sock-puppeted” by Lucifer Junior. In the same scene Sam unwraps the broken Colt and they discuss whether or not they can fix it… Unlike Cas who’s hopefully still in there and “whole,” the Colt might need to be rebuilt from the ground up.

A phone buzzes, and neither Dean nor Sam owns that phone… and they assume it was left behind by Mary. (and now I’m CONVINCED that phones never lose their charge in the bunker. The place came complete with free wifi and anti-gps tracking. I think at this point Tesla was a Man of Letters who built a small Wardenclyffe Tower over the bunker. Heck, it was supposed to be an old power station right? Maybe that’s more literal than we expect…)

Sam answers, and it’s Alicia calling for Mary. She’s surprised to hear Sam’s voice, and I’m thinking it’s because last time she talked to Mary she’d been trying to call DEAN, but Mary answered and went to help her instead, because Sam and Dean were “missing.” I think Mary may not have bothered to tell Alicia and Max that she’d ever “found” her sons. Nice, right? That probably leads to some of Alicia’s assumptions about the relationship between Mary and the boys that she asks Sam about later. (she’s not a hugger-- and we then see Alicia immediately exchanging a hug with her own mom to highlight that difference)

And here the parallels and mixed bag of mirrors begin to shift around.

Alicia, at the very beginning here, seems to be the very clear mirror to Dean 1.01. Max is the clear mirror to Sam in 1.01. But even this is a skewed interpretation. Because who would that make Sam and Dean? In the pilot episode, they had no one to call for help in looking for John. They had no one willing to drop everything and be with them through that. All they had was John’s journal that he left behind for them with a set of coordinates that would lead them on a mad scavenger hunt.

Sam even lampshades this parallel by telling Dean their mom’s on a hunt and hasn’t been home in a week, recalling some of the first words Dean ever said to Sam in 1.01. Which makes a weird double-mirror as Alicia and Max as a UNIT a mirror for Dean calling for help, and Sam and Dean as a UNIT a mirror for Sam in the pilot of reluctantly agreeing to go along despite having other pressing personal concerns (protecting a loved one who may be in peril if left alone-- Jess in the pilot, knowing Sam had dreams of her death days before it happened, and now Cas in 12.20-- having a potentially life changing interview for law school, or a potentially life-changing job of repairing the Colt)

While Sam gets ready to go, Dean calls Mary to tell her about Alicia’s request for help on a case (since Alicia had been trying to reach Mary in the first place), but then he breaks down and asks to just talk to Mary about his own personal issues, because he’s “spun out” about them. What have we seen him distressed about throughout this scene? CAS.

He was arguing with Sam about running off to help Alicia when all he wanted to work on was the Cas issue. Sam gives him a very well ordered and thought out list of reasons they’d already done all they could about Cas for the moment-- an APB to Jody covering three states, even! So Dean relents, but he’s so unhappy about it he is willing to open up to Mary about it.

But the very next scene sees another shift of those already imperfectly aligned mirrors. Accidents don’t happen accidentally, and all that. First we need to check in with the other half of our story, Mary and the MoL.

Ketch is “interviewing” a shifter who’s taken on Mary’s appearance, and is creepily talking to “Real Mary” while looking “shifter Mary” in the eye, and he has NO HESITATION in torturing her, either way. Mary very pointedly refers to the shifter as “he,” despite it looking just like her, while Ketch even MORE pointedly calls the shifter “IT,” and believes IT deserves what he’s doing to it and a whole lot more. If only Mary knew what her father had been up to back in s6, torturing monsters for info on Purgatory. But this time, the information Ketch is trying to get is on the location of the shifter’s FAMILY. It’s become PERSONAL in every way.

As soon as Sam and Dean meet up with Alicia and Max, the mirrors begin to flip. Alicia is suddenly paralleled to Sam, while Max is paralleled to Dean. But the mirrors are so imperfect. Alicia talks about how Max and Tasha have a closer bond because they’re both natural witches, and how she feels a bit left out. Sam compares that to Dean and John’s bond over hunting and how he’d always felt left out there. Meanwhile Max and Dean bond over the fact Max got the bartender’s phone number, thinks Dean’s car is “major,” and admires his grenade launcher.

And can we pause for a moment here to see the same progression from grenade launcher (NO!) to what they really need in this situation-- witch killing bullets-- that the post it notes in 12.11 led Dean to? Okay. Moment over.

Alicia asks Sam, after he talks about growing up with John, “What about with Mary?” And he stumbles over how to answer that, literally stutters over using the word, “vanishes” to describe how she disappears from their lives while hunting. She doesn’t seem like much of a hugger (which we find out Tasha and Alicia ARE in the next scene).

Creepy unfriendly guy by the creepy storm cellar… I’m sure that’s not plot-relevant.

(aside to mention that Sam has been trapped in those sorts of cellars before-- notably in 12.01-02 while being tortured by Toni Bevell, but also waaaay back in 1.12, which was another episode that dealt heavily with faith (hence the title) but also the manipulation of life and death)

Our four intrepid hunters enter the hotel and are greeted by the flower-wielding desk clerk before Tasha notices them and asks what they’re doing there. Max is like “yeah, told you everything was fine,” and Alicia is just happy to see her mom (with the hug).

***At this point, Lizbob just posted her rewatch notes, and I’m reading them and seeing just how much she already covered, so I don’t just go on randomly repeating stuff you can read elsewhere, because these notes are already approaching 2k words and I’m like a quarter of the way through the episode…

**** YEP, okay, I’m just gonna direct y’all to Lizbob’s notes, save myself loads of typing and y’all’s eyeballs lots of reading… and just leave a few notes here to expand on a couple of things. So at this point, please go read this: https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/160349267153/12x20-watching-notes-reblog-if and then think about these few additional items:

Even the decor inside this hotel is an illusion, the fake trees and vines when outside is the real thing. Inside the hotel, things might look real on the surface, but really it’s just wallpaper…

Dean rolled his eyes at the idea of wine SEVERAL times, and yet didn’t make fun of the repeated mention of vegan food. I guess he can respect people’s lifestyle choices. BUT HE WAS EVEN ALL READY TO EAT THE VEGAN FOOD.

The Mary-Ketch Battle Royale: All season we’ve talked about how the MoL are coded in the same way as the angels. The strict structure, the OBEDIENCE above all, The Code being their Word Of God, and Ketch lampshades all of it by telling Mary that Enochian Brass Knuckles only work on angels… she points out that brass knuckles are still brass knuckles, and humans are just as vulnerable in tender places to just getting walloped with a heavy bit of metal, magic or no. :P

The witch: What a ridiculous Cain parallel. Not only did she want to “pass on her burden” in a way, she also silenced Dean in a really similar way to how Cain silenced Crowley. Plus they both had the same sort of general attitude. :P

And then at the end, Max is a mixed bag of parallels… with bits of both Dean and Sam’s current issues. He regrets not listening to Alicia’s concerns that something was wrong, and didn’t examine Tasha a little more closely to notice something was “off” about her. (Like Sam currently dismissing Dean’s passionate assertion that Cas is not acting under his own free will now. That Cas WOULDN’T ditch them, nor would he disable his phone, like Tasha did.) But he’s also brought back Alicia as a twig person, because while it’s still sort of her, it’s definitely not the original (like Sam working on the Colt, but also like the both of them have done for each other over and over again,)

But this is the way the entire SEASON is being told, through a shifting series of mirrors and callbacks to the past, but applied in different ways to different characters.

The two Mytharc plots of s12 are being told like concurrent, overlapping Monster of the Week stories, where the “case of the week” is more of a vehicle for Sam and Dean to step back and evaluate, to look within themselves and process the lessons of the Mytharc episodes. It’s like after 11 years of constantly escalating apocalyptic-level problems to deal with, s12 is giving them a whole YEAR to step back and reevaluate.

And yes the BMoL is a Big Bad, and so is Lucifer and Lucifer Jr., but the narrative is treating them like overgrown MotW monsters just in the way the plots are structured.

Everything is a slightly out of focus mirror for everything else, and it’s freaking brilliant.

#spn s12 spoilers #spn 12.20 #parallels #seriously though why doesn't everyone just trust dean's gut instincts it's like he's got an uncanny magical gift here...#sam vs reality #winchester family dynamics #castiel winchester #mary f. winchester #men of letters vs hunters #the witch twins #the rashomon effect #the story became the story #lies and damn lies #face your past head-on and find another way a better way #it's spirals all the way down

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gldngrl7 · 7 years

Text

Karamel Fic: Edging Toward Synchronicity (6/8)

Author: gldngr7

Rating: Explicit

Began: March 11, 2017

Chapters: 8

Feedback: Encouragement and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

Author’s Notes:

We’re back to it. This is a smut chapter, folks. The first half is plot though.

Tagging: @mon-kai-el, @actualpuppychriswood, @pwettypwita, @contygold86, @karamelizedlove, @kelbottumbles, @starcrossed-comets, @emarasmoak, @fangirlintheforest, @ships-sailing-in-the-night, @lostin-the-desert, @somos-poeiraestelar

Oh lights go down

In the moment we're lost and found

I just wanna be by your side

If these wings could fly

For the rest of our lives

--Birdy – “Wings”

Chapter 6/8

“But that wasn’t your wife,” Ral’s voice reassures him gently. “Nor was it your child. You know that, right?” His brother places a hand on his shoulder.

“It was so real,” Mon-El says, shaky hands wiping away the salty streams of tears on his cheeks.

“And so it was,” Ral explains. “But it wasn’t your story.”

“But it was Kara and she was….”

“In dreams our mind mixes up all sorts of things. It’s like a subconscious….” Ral searches for the right word. “What’s that children’s party game with a stick and the candy?”

“Piñata,” Mon-El supplies.

“It’s like a subconscious piñata. Hit your brain with the sleep stick and there’s no telling what goodies might spill out…all in a glorious mixed up mess. Your mind is trying to process a lot of information right now – some of it new and some of it very old, but freshly remembered. Memories with a new coat of paint,” Ral chuckles darkly, “but no less ugly.”

“Trel Gand,” Mon-El realizes. “And Gata Fal-Ur.”

“Yes,” Ral confirms. “At least…most of it was.”

“But…were those my feelings or his feelings?” Mon-El wonders.

“Probably a little bit of both. Or a lot of both.”

“It was so real,” he breathes, slowly gaining control of his emotions. “The terror, the rage, the love…all of it. So real.” A shiver he can’t control races down his spine.

“Remember when we were kids and we found the chest with their personal effects—the ones that survived the Purge?”

It had been a single chest, hidden away by someone who had hoped the disaster of Trel Gand and Gata Fal-Ur might one day be forgotten, but couldn’t bring themselves to destroy what parts of them were left. Hidden away by someone who must have loved them, despite the stories that circulated. “I remember.”

“We found the letters inside. And the journals. They were real paper, remember? So their communications couldn’t be intercepted on the Daxcess. That’s probably why they survived,” he suggests. “No one was looking for them.”

“We were just boys, looking for treasure,” Mon-El recalls. “I hoped the pages told stories of battles. Glorious stories of Daxamite victories over the evil Kryptonians.” He felt mortified on behalf of the bloodthirsty boy he’d once been, before being confronted with the truth of death and loss and the cost one’s soul must pay to learn of such things. “I wanted to impress Father.”

“That was before we learned the truth.”

“And when you lived for making trouble.”

“Those letters and journals were how I learned of love,” Ral reminds him. “I dreamed of finding a mate like Gata. Someone who would see the obstacles to loving me and laugh in the face of them.”

“You were obsessed,” Mon-El pointed out. “You tortured me by making me read the damn things out loud until I begged you to let me stop. I just wanted stories of glory and…heroic deeds.”

“Well,” Ral sighs. “You were just a child at the time. You didn’t have your priorities straight. And you needed the practice reading.”

“I was a year younger than you,” Mon-El counters, affronted on behalf of his childhood self.

“A year can make quite the difference, huh?” Ral shrugs, dismissively. Only the sparkle in his green eyes betrays that he’s teasing.

“You were always softer than I was, Ral. Father would say it was your mother’s influence.”

“Mother would say you grew up with a skewed sense of self. You had to keep things inside.”

“She wasn’t wrong,” Mon-El replies, sadly.

“But Earth has done wonders for you, brother. Cracked open that shell you built to protect yourself from his expectations. Who’s the soft one now?”

Mon-El snorts, throwing Ral’s words back at him. “A year can make quite the difference.” It may have been closer to half a century since they’d actually stood in a room together, comparing and contrasting each other’s faults with good-natured jibing, but it felt like only a short while ago—thanks to pod stasis.

“Maybe in some ways Kara is right. Perhaps Rao brought the two of you together to…make up for what happened to Trel and Gata. A second chance at reunification.”

“You don’t believe in Rao,” Mon-El reminds him.

“I’m you, brother. I believe in what you believe. Make of that what you will.”

Mon-El considers the implications of Ral’s declaration for a moment before forcing himself to move on. “What’s left to reunify?” he questions. “Both of our planets are gone. Krypton is in pieces and Daxam a wasteland of solar storms and nuclear winter if the reports are accurate. There’s just…us.”

“Exactly,” Ral rejoices. “You’ll have things so much easier than Gata and Trel. None of that palace intrigue and back-stabbing traitors nonsense. Seems like Rao has conveniently removed most of the obstacles.”

“Most of them?”

“Well, there have to be some obstacles,” Ral lectures, as though this should be obvious, “otherwise it wouldn’t be any fun.”

“I’m having difficulty in seeing where the fun is in the extra vivid memories of Daxam’s destruction, Ral—of your…death. Oh! And the added bonus of dreaming about the tragic story of two people I’d never even met.”

“Fun might not have been the right word,” Ral backtracks. “But obstacles, and overcoming them together, makes you stronger. So that you can face anything together.”

“I don’t want her burdened by this,” Mon-El laments.

“We take on the burdens of those we love,” Ral counsels. “It’s our right…our privilege. Their hurts become our hurts, their scars our scars. Wouldn’t you do the same for her?”

“But she’s never said that,” Mon-El shakes his head. “She’s never mentioned love.”

“And neither have you. Does that make it less true? Would you hesitate, even for a moment, to take her pain as your own?”

“I wasn’t how we were taught,” Mon-El adds. “How we were raised. To love one’s mate is unnecessary.”

“But we learned it, brother. We learned it in their journals. We saw the other side, and how loving someone can be its own kind of glory. We saw the lengths Trel went to in order to ensure that their love endured. You read his last letter, don’t you remember?”

“Loving someone can also be the key to your own destruction.”

“A risk worth taking,” Ral insists. “Would Trel not say the same, I wonder? If he were here right now.”

“Not if loving her…destroys her.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic,” Ral groans, melodramatically. “She’s made of steel. She can handle it. Don’t let your fear dictate what happens next. No one’s ever made a decision steeped in fear that they didn’t regret later.”

“If she does…you know….”

“Love you?”

“Yeah, that. If she does…then finding out the truth…about what Father did. That could destroy her,” Mon-El says, twisting the hand towel between his fists until it threatens to split in half. “That could destroy us both.”

“Or maybe you’re not giving her enough credit. Look, brother, splash some water on your face and get back to bed. You promised her you’d wake up with her in the morning and sunrise isn’t far off.”

Despite the dream, he’d managed to get about four hours of sleep, more than he’d cobbled together in the last few weeks. Mon-El heeds Ral’s advice and splashes a few handfuls of cold water on his face, until the red rims around his eyes begins to clear.

“And can I just say…before we go back to radio silence…congratulations, brother! She truly is a gift…from Rao, if you like. I never would have taken her for a nestling in bed.”

“Her surrender…her zeal…was a pleasant surprise,” Mon-El boasts.

“The caretaker role suits you, Brother…especially when your heart is engaged.”

“I just want to give her what she needs.”

“Tell yourself that all you like, but it’s more than that, and you know it. As a child, your instincts were always to take care of people. How many cliffs did you pull me back from, huh? Then you spent nearly two decades trying to deny that part of yourself – trying to find peace in excess and debauchery--”

“Because I knew I’d never find it any other way,” Mon-El interjected.

“Now you have the chance to be true to yourself, both in your relationship and in the outside world. Makes it hard to not believe in a greater plan at work, my friend. Your needs are perfectly matched to one another. She needs a caretaker, and you a nestling. You both find it arousing…fulfilling. And what’s more…I’m not sure you even realized how much you needed to be a caretaker…excuse me…a ‘Daddy’, until you heard that word come from her lips. A hole inside of you closed up when she called you that.”

Mon-El studies himself in the mirror, his body already reacting to Ral’s words. He wants to go back out there and wake her. Make her his again, in ways they hadn’t even tried yet. His cock, a moment before just a limp, dangling appendage, is already halfway to hard.

“But…Princess?” Ral asks, his expression one of dubious certainty. “Wasn’t that a little on-the-nose?”

“It’s what they say here when they practice Dexaris,” Mon-El rationalizes. “Or one of the pet names, at any rate. It’s no more literal than her use of a term commonly associated with one’s father.”

“Okay,” Ral intones, but in that frustrating way he has in which he implies he doesn’t believe the tale that Mon-El is spinning. “Whatever you say.”

Mon-El uses the facilities and washes his hands before flicking the light switch and slipping quietly out of the bathroom. Though he doesn’t know why he bothers – despite her super hearing, she sleeps like the dead. Somehow, by some miracle, a genuine scream for help will wake her, but he could sing the Daxam Anthem at the top of his lungs to no effect.

She appears not to have moved an inch since he left her in the bed nearly half an hour ago. A glance out the window reveals that light pink horizon that promises sunrise in the making. He slips under the comforter with her, his arms itching to tug her into his embrace, but afraid doing so may disturb her so few hours left for her to slumber. Instead, he rolls away from her, settling on his side with his back towards hers while he orders his rapidly heating blood to cool down.

Mon-El closes his eyes and attempts to find a calming tempo for his breath, in hopes that he can get a few more, hopefully dreamless, hours of sleep.

*****

In her sleep, she reaches for him, and when she comes up empty, her eyes shoot open. Had it been a dream? Falling asleep in his arms? Slightly disoriented from sleeping so heavily, Kara looks around taking stock. Her bed is a shambles, her headboard cracked and off kilter. She is most definitely stark naked, her body still feeling as though it has been well used.

‘Definitely not a dream,’ she breathes a sigh of relief.

A sliver of light spills from the bathroom and Kara opens her mouth to call for him when she hears the mumbling sound of him speaking. Without thinking, she turns up her hearing to listen.

“What’s left to reunify?” She hears him ask. Who is he talking to? Reunify what? “Both of our planets are gone. Krypton is in pieces and Daxam a wasteland of solar storms and nuclear winter if the reports are accurate. There’s just…us.” He’s talking about her…about them.

“Most of them?” After a brief pause he continues. “I’m having difficulty in seeing where the fun is in the extra vivid memories of Daxam’s destruction, Ral—of your…death. Oh! And the added bonus of dreaming about the tragic story of two people I’d never even met.”

Ral! Kara gasps. Wasn’t that the name of his step-brother? The one who died on Daxam? He’s having a conversation with his dead brother, she realizes, covering her mouth to hide the sound of her shock. Perhaps he’s just dreaming. Sleepwalking? Kara’s mind tries to convince her of this possibility but the sinking feeling in her gut tells her the truth she wishes she could un-hear. Mon-El sounds completely lucid and comprehensible. He’s…hallucinating.

She continues to listen, hearing what she now knows is only one side of a two-part conversation. Each of his answers revealing the deeper insecurities that lie hidden in his psyche.

“I don’t want her burdened by this,” Mon-El’s voice laments. He’s worried about the flashbacks and, as she now realizes, his hallucinations. How long has this been going on?

“But she’s never said that. She’s never mentioned love. I wasn’t how we were taught,” Mon-El adds. “How we were raised. To love one’s mate is unnecessary.” Her heart cracks open at his words. Of course he’s never mentioned love either, but she always thought…hoped. There had been some uncertainty in the beginning, but she’d thought they were working through all of that. That choosing each other meant something more. He’s always seemed so open to it, which is why his words sound incompatible with his behavior.

“Loving someone can also be the key to your own destruction.”

“Not if loving her…destroys her.”

“If she does…you know….”

“Yeah, that. If she does…then finding out the truth…about what Father did. That could destroy her,” Mon-El says. “That could destroy us both.”

She decides to listen no more and powers down her hearing, squeezing her eyes shut as if that’s going to help shut out the things she’s heard. There’s something he’s not telling her, something he’s afraid will destroy her…and by extension…him? She isn’t entirely sure since she can only hear half of what’s going on in his head. If only J’onn could read Daxamite minds, she might be able to get some insight.

What had his father done, and to whom? And what could have possibly been so bad that it even now, so far removed from Daxam, it might threaten to destroy them both? Her mind races with more questions than she can possibly answer. She worries over the secret he clearly doesn’t want revealed, but her mind keeps coming back to the hallucinations. Her mate is having full-blown hallucinations of a dead person and, first things first, that needs to be dealt with.

When she landed on Earth and went to live with the Danvers, she had grieved. The first step, denial, hadn’t been an option open to her. No one was coming for her. No ship would breach the sky to retrieve her, to tell her there had been a mistake and that Krypton had survived after all. From space, in her swiftly escaping pod, she’d seen the bright flash of Krypton’s core overtaking the planet until it exploded, she had felt the shockwave strike her ship.

Transplanted to Midvale USA, Earth, Kara Zor-El spent many nights, in that shared bedroom crying into her pillow, screaming into her pillow, even unexpectedly bursting into tears at the slightest reminder of home and family. On her worst days, sweet Kara Zor-El acted out in ways that could only be defined as a desire to spread pain, and then swamped by guilt, she made promises to Rao that she would be the best possible girl she could be, if only He would bring it all back. Bring them all back.

But Mon-El had been allowed none of that.

Was it because he hadn’t allowed himself to grieve, or because he hadn’t been given the freedom to? Kara recalls in the early days of their acquaintance, after attempting to send a distress call back to Daxam, had shaken off ‘dreary’ thoughts in favor of more diverting activities. At the time, she had dismissed this action as the frivolous behavior of a typically boorish Daxamite, rather than the act of man in an intense state of denial.

He’d been given neither the room nor the time to process the sheer enormity of his loss. Is it any wonder that his mind would find a way to force it, even if it was only internally?

Why hadn’t she seen it for the mask it really was? Perhaps if she had, his grief might never have progressed to this dangerous state. A nightmare likely drove him from their bed to seek sanctuary in the bathroom, where he could converse openly with his hallucinatory step-brother while she presumably slept. These are the types of signs for which Eliza warned her to be on the lookout.

Out of her depth in this arena, Kara recognizes that she will have to seek help in the morning, from J’onn and her mother, and even Alex. Perhaps together they can determine a plan of action.

Kara hears the toilet flush and the water in the sink turn back on, moments before he emerges from the bathroom, at last. Lifting the comforter, he slips into the bed, and she waits for him to pull her back into the warm shelter of his arms, but he doesn’t. Instead, after a few moments hesitation he rolls over, turning his back to her. When he clearly needs her most, he eschews even the simplest comfort she has to offer in a ludicrous, and frankly hurtful, effort to keep her at arm’s length from what he’s suffering.

Still and silent, Kara sends a prayer a Rao, seeking His guidance and some sign of where to go from here. She could be angry, she knows, about the things he holds back from her, about the lack of trust and faith he has in her – after all the trust she’s bestowed upon him. She could rage and rant about all of it, but a voice whispers inside that such actions would solve nothing and serve only to push him further away. And she can’t afford that.

Right or wrong, for good or for ill—broken or whole—she loves him, and it’s a love stronger than she could have ever imagined in her girlhood fantasies. Even if that love may not be returned yet, she places her faith in Rao that someday it will be. That his love is a fait accompli…meant to be…and so she will move forward into the future as his ordained mate.

As his stardust.

Tomorrow she will seek help, but tonight she can offer the kind of comfort of which she has endless amounts. Even while ostensibly sleeping. Eyes closed and trying to give her movements the appearance of shifting in her sleep, Kara thrashes about as though searching for his warmth. She butts up against his broad back, pressing into him so that her naked skin seals against his. Placing her forehead between his shoulder blades, Kara breathes into him, breathes him in, relaxing into his solid form as she tucks her legs against the backs of his and snakes one arm around his chest. Slowly, their breathing synchronizes until they’re both back on the edge of sleep.

Everything will start getting better tomorrow, she tells herself. Help is just a phone call away. She needs to make him see that she’s here for him, no matter what. Once he understands that, they can get him on the road to recovery. Kara feels the fingers of one of his hands interlace with hers, and she takes it as a sign that he accepts her offered comfort.

His hand now in hers, Kara allows sleep to overtake her once more.

When next she opens her eyes, the morning sun streams through the floor-to-ceiling windows of her bedroom, high in the sky, but not too high. A quick glance reveals that her alarm clock is twenty-three minutes from total meltdown. Her body is already needy because sometime during sleep, their positions had reversed and Mon-El now spoons behind her, one of his legs wedged between hers, his lower thigh pressed to her gathering heat. One of his hands cups a breast like it’s the touchstone anchoring him to this reality, as his steady breath tickles the sensitive crook where her neck and shoulder meet. His cock is like a red-hot poker sandwiched between her ass and his pelvis, so she’s acutely aware that at least part of him is awake.

Kara rolls her hips, simultaneously teasing his cock and riding his knee until she can feel the heat banking within her. Catching her bottom lip between her teeth, she attempts to bite back a greedy moan, and fails miserably. Kara reaches for his thigh, urging it upwards to provide more pressure to her increasingly sensitive core.

She knows the exact moment Mon-El comes fully awake, because his grip on her breast tightens and his knee takes over some of the work of pushing her to the brink. His mouth latches onto her shoulder, nipping and sucking at her skin, working his way up to settle at the shell of her ear as she rides his knee with masochistic languor. “Does my little nestling need me this morning?”

“Yes,” Kara sighs, her hips continuing their drive, as she grows wetter and wetter. She maintains her arousal, like stirring a pot to keep the concoction from boiling over, but she wants to wait for him before letting go. Her need for him is a conundrum, because the more she has of him, the more she desires, like a boundless gluttony in the face of an unending banquet. Each time they finish, sweaty and sated, she believes her desire quenched, only to have it return more quickly than she could have imagined and with twice the fervor. Is it like this for everyone? Or is it simply because the yellow sun radiation constantly replenishes their energy stores?

Mon-El bites down on her earlobe hard, eliciting a gasp from her and driving her shoulder up protectively towards her ear. “Yes…?” he growls, expectantly.

“Yes…Daddy,” she provides, the smile that lazily crosses face uninhibited and completely reflexive.

“Good girl,” he purrs. She can practically hear his smile as he tucks his face into her neck and cants his hips into her ass, rubbing his cock into the crease between her cheeks. With his thumb and forefinger, Mon-El pinches her nipple, drawing the bud out with a tug and a sharp twist. The initial pain she feels, causing her to moan, settles into warm charge that travels straight to her core, providing another gush of lubrication. Her body prepares the way for him each and every time, and with very little effort on his part. “I need you now,” he rasps.

Mornings are an all-fire rush for him. He can exhibit the same kind of control he usually does, but there’s something about surrendering to his body’s primal urges first thing in the morning that he finds particularly satisfying. And judging from the warm, wet heat on his thigh, she requires no further cajoling.

“I need you, too, Daddy,” she mewls, her voice barely above a whisper. “All the time,” she confesses. “It never stops.”

“I know, Princess. It’s the same for me.” Abandoning her breast, his hand slides up and clasps her chin, turning her face to his waiting mouth. Kara opens for him even before their lips touch and they taste of each other, dinking down each other’s flavors like it’s the rarest of wines. “Every time,” he tells her when he’s capable of prying his mouth from hers. “I only want you more afterwards.”

Twisting her torso a bit, Kara reaches behind her, in between their bodies and locates his hardened length of patient steel. Her fingertips tease but don’t grasp and the sensation is so staggering that his throat swallows reflexively and he must force his hips to remain still so that they don’t demand more than she’s willing to give.

“I like the way your cock feels, Daddy.”

“Do you, Princess?” His hand still cups her chin, encompassing her lower face, fingers on one cheek, while his thumb strokes her bottom lip.

“Mmm-hmmm,” she replies, licking her lips and catching a taste of the tip of his thumb. “Like velvet.” A pout forms on her lips and a crinkle grows between her eyebrows. “I wish there could be nothing between us.”

“I know,” he commiserates. “And you felt like heaven around my cock the one time there wasn’t. Gods, you are so perfect, Kara. Soon,” Mon-El promises. “One way or another.” He imagines taking her when she’s ripe with his child – as ripe as she was in his dream.

“One way or another,” she echoes. “You’ll fill me up, won’t you? Fill me with you?” A mischievous twinkle lights her eyes before she sucks his entire thumb in to the warm cavern of her mouth.

Like giving his thumb a blowjob, she sucks and sucks, bobbing her head up and down, her tongue swirling around the tip, until he’s finding it difficult to think straight. “Hand me a condom,” he orders quickly, before the raging beast inside that wants to fill her with his seed—wants to breed her—takes over.

Lest he change his mind, as if he would, she scrabbles for the box in the open drawer of the bedside table at speeds invisible to the human eye. “Stay right where you are,” he commands, taking the package from her and shifting to his back just long enough to roll the condom down his shaft and secure it in place.

Losing access to the pressure of his thigh between her legs, she burns for him even more now and leans into him when he rolls back into her. Skin to skin, she can feel him from head to toe, his back against her back, his massive, muscular thighs pressing to her toned, but far more delicate ones. She heaves a sigh of relief when she feels the head of Mon-El’s cock line up to her covetous entrance, the burn for him becoming nearly more than she can handle.

“Will you—“ he begins.

“Yes, please!” she interrupts.

“If you won’t let me ask, then tell me so I know I have your permission.” His fingers at the base of his cock, he teases her with the tip, sliding back and forth through the slick seam, from the entrance to clit and back again, over and over as her hips writhe with anticipation. “Say the words.”

“You know what I need, Daddy,” she pleads, her breath coming hard fast as she throws her head back.

“I do,” he concurs, “but I will never take you without your word. Our games can be tricky, Princess. I need to know you want it as much as I do, every step of the way.”

“I do,” she whimpers, nodding her head. “I want it so bad. I need you inside me. Fuck me, Daddy. Please? Please, fuck me?”

Mon-El loves to hear her beg, loves that high pitched tone only he gets to hear, but has no desire to torment her. At least not this morning. He enters in one slow stroke, as deep as he can go in this position. Spooning from behind, on their sides, this position isn’t about depth, it’s about proximity. It’s about being close to her, their bodies aligned from head to toe, her pressing back to meet his thrusts as he whispers filthy things into her ears.

Her body remembers him, welcomes him into her like a he’s a soldier come home from war, jubilant and reverent at the same time. Their position prevents the deepest penetration but the sensation of his hot breath on her ear and the way his hand snakes under her arm and grasps her shoulder for leverage helps to compensate admirably.

Mon-El pumps in and out of her slowly at first, just enjoying the searing heaven of her slick, clasping clutch. The same muscles that grasp at his cock as he retreats provide an excruciating resistance upon his return that is nothing short of sublime.

Kara turns her head looking for his mouth and he is only too happy to oblige, feeding her his grunts of effort while rapaciously dining on the mewling whimpers of her unguarded pleasure. He savors her inarticulate pleas as she devours the fruits of his labor and for both, it is a gluttonous banquet of the richest cuisine.

Words of encouragement or instruction quickly become unnecessary as they’ve learned to read between the lines of each other’s body language. The way her body tenses, her legs and thighs quivering, fingers clamping down on the comforter like a vise grip tell him that all she needs is the final push over the edge.

His grunts vibrating into the skin of her neck and shoulder begin to resemble to long, purring growl of a predator on the hunt and his thrusts turn feral, so she knows he won’t last much longer. Kara bends her outside leg, pivoting it upwards and lifting it closer into her body, opening herself up more for his hungry cock. Sliding a shaking hand between her legs, she dips two fingers into the wet seam of her exposed folds and locates the swollen bundle of nerves that cries out for attention.

Mon-El slithers his bearing arm between her head and the pillow, wrapping it around until it crosses her neck and clasps onto her opposite shoulder. His free hand bats hers away, which was busily manipulating her clit to very little effect. “I’ve got you, baby,” his voice grates like sandpaper against her ear, sending a shiver down her spine. “You just let go.”

And she does. Kara’s body melts into him, allowing herself to be ridden by the rhythmic pounding of his cock, the sensations of fullness, of heat racing through her veins and sparking her nerve endings, and of something inescapable washing over her like a tidal wave. Everything goes white and bright behind closed eyelids, her mouth opens wide for a scream that is silent but no less…there. Kara hears his voice praising her.

“That’s…my…girl,” he raves, fucking her through the climax, prolonging and amplifying it. “So tight…gods…your clutch wants my cock so bad. Do you want my come, too?”

“Yes,” she cries.

“I’m going to fill you until your womb can’t hold anymore.” Finding something inside of himself he never before could have imagined was there, Mon-El’s hand slips from her snatch and settles on her belly. “Do you know…what it…does to me?”

In his heightened state of arousal it would not have taken much to send him reeling, but just the thought of it, of his child growing inside of her, does the trick. A streak of searing electricity causes his heavy balls to constrict, like drawing taut the band of a slingshot before letting loose its ordnance. “Fuck!” he curses when he finally lets go, his pelvis bucking into her backside with stinging force. Reflexively, his arms tighten like a vise around her as he empties the rest of his load with three more thrusts. Each plunge is more debilitating than the last, as if every release passes something integral from him over to her, leaving him utterly enervated by the time he finishes.

With the last shudders of his orgasm Mon-El’s arms go limp around her, and he has just enough lucidity remaining to kiss the back of her neck and along her shoulders. Reverently, in the bubble of communion their lovemaking has created, he showers her with the love he feels but cannot yet say.

As always, separating from her is a near-traumatic experience for the both of them, but as he must for now, he carefully withdraws and rolls onto his back, his body spent. His mind, however, experiences a brief, post-orgasmic moment of clarification that will fade all too soon as his heart rate returns to normal and his body enters its refractory period.

Perhaps he can blame it on the nightmare, the emotional conversation with Ral afterwards, or waking up with her in his arms and the sun peeking through the windows, but something about the morning sex with Kara has taken its toll on him. Physically and emotionally. Learning that she could be pregnant, a phenomenon unseen on Daxam since Gata Fal-Ur and another seven generations before her, and then seeing it so vividly in his dreams, had stirred up emotions he had never imagined himself capable.

He remembers, like the itch of a phantom limb, the way their son moving under her skin felt against his palm and he wants to weep with the incomprehensible loss of it. But despite the desolation, there had been emotional profit in the dream as well.

Growing up, he’d always known that siring a child, continuing his bloodline, was a duty he would one day have to fulfill—would be forced to fulfill, one way or another. To say he had been preveniently resentful of any future offspring would be an understatement of galactic proportions. The very thought of having a child, of giving his father exactly what he wanted, was abhorrent to him. Mon-El had actively taken measures to prevent siring offspring, both by receiving secret injections of the male hormone suppressors that would prevent his seed from taking root, and by purposefully choosing women with who to cavort that his father would view as genetic undesirables.

But those feelings of resentment are gone now, evaporated like an ice cube in the face of Kara’s heat vision. Falling in love and letting go of the reasons that, brick-by-brick, built that resentment, means that he can see the possibilities that lay ahead and look forward to them. Even if he and Kara aren’t quite ready to dive in head-first.

Kara rolls to her back next to him, not quite willing to muster the energy to shift all the way to her side yet. She splays an arm across him, the back of her sifting through the patch of hair on his abdomen, so that she can maintain an intimate contact with him. So addicted to him, to his attentions, it’s emotionally difficult for when he has to pull away. “What are you thinking?” she asks.

A flash of concern strikes her and she wonders if he’s seeing or hearing from his hallucinatory step-brother right now. Kara stuffs down the bubble of jealousy that rises within her. She doesn’t want to share him when they’re like this, but at the same time…it doesn’t make sense to be jealous of something that isn’t real. It’s a waste of emotion, her brain tells her. Too bad her heart doesn’t seem to listen.

Mon-El removes his condom and ties it off as best as he can, curling it into his fist, because he’s not quite ready to crawl away from her. Reaching up, he tucks his other hand under the back of his head. “I never wanted children,” he says. “The idea was…well…repugnant isn’t too harsh of a word.”

Kara’s breath comes to a full stop, and her stomach clenches involuntarily with dread.

“But the reasons for that are all gone now.”

“They are?” she asks, trying not to sound too hopeful. Though he doesn’t explain, Kara thinks she understands what he’s saying. That his promises the night before of being in this together were about more than mere lip service. And something happened between then and now to make that more concrete for him.

“Huh,” he says, a notion popping into his head fully formed, liked being handed an infant from the birthing matrix, without having watched it grow or develop.

“What?”

“Losing Daxam didn’t take everything from me,” he declares, feeling a piece of his shattered soul reform and shape into something new. “Losing Daxam gave me some things, too.”

“Like…what?” she urged softly. She didn’t want to press too hard, or force him to say more than he was ready to admit.

“The freedom to find out who I am without being told.”

“Krypton was like that, too,” she commiserates. “Birthing matrices were more efficient and resulted in fewer anomalies and mutations. So they thought they could shape us into what they wanted, what they thought society needed, before we took our first breath.”

“And what did Krypton make of you?”

“My father was a scientist—a seeker—and my mother fought for justice.”

“So reporter and superhero….”

“I guess I never tried to fight my nature,” she comments.

“Because it’s a noble one.”

“What did they want to make of you?” Kara wonders.

He sighs, wondering if the time to tell her the truth is now, but knowing that he doesn’t have the courage, at least not completely. Not while he’s this naked…this vulnerable. “A breeder,” he replies.

“I don’t…understand.” Finally, she finds the energy and the wherewithal to shift her body towards him. For the most part because she sends a wave of ennui pouring off of him in waves. “Why would they want to breed a palace guard?”

“I have good genes.”

Kara grins and places a flirty, suggestive kiss on his pectoral. “I can’t argue with that.”

Her joke draws a smile from him, helping him to shake off his lingering melancholy. “Anyway…no one’s telling me what I have to want anymore. I’m making my own decisions. Or trying to…anyway. It’s sad I had to lose my whole planet to gain that. And I know that I want you and everything that comes with you. I want a life and a partnership and a secret identity and a suit,” he chuckles.

“And…the other?”

“Whenever it happens…however it happens. It’s not just something…I’m here for. It’s something I want to be a part of.” His hand slips out from beneath the back of his head and seeks hers, their fingers interlacing. “Something that would…honor me.”

It’s another reason to feel that sense of relief, because the pink elephant hasn’t stopped weighing down her since that night in DEO gym and not just because of the bad timing of it all career-wise (for both of them), or because it’s so early in their relationship, but because of something far more worrisome and potentially sinister.

“What if…?” she begins, second-guessing whether she should share this burden with him – plant this seed on his already haunted mind.

“What if…what, Kara?”

“What if they won’t let us?” she asks.

“What if who won’t let us?”

“There’s a Senator in Congress, the one who submitted the bill for Alien Registration,” she explains. “Alex heard rumors that she’s working on something new. Something that will make it legal to take away our reproductive rights.”

“Can they do that?” he queries. It seems excessively cruel that he could be taken from a planet that tried to force its reproductive agenda upon him, only to end up on a planet that might seem determined to vote away his right to parenthood. He and Kara both come from dead planets, they should have the right, if not the duty, to salvage of that what they can.

“They can try,” Kara replies. “But, honestly…the government isn’t what worries me the most.”

It doesn’t take Mon-El long to connect the same dots that Kara already has. “Cadmus,” he breathes, a red-hot fury rising up within him, utterly destroying the post-coital cloud upon which he floated only a moment ago.

“After the lengths they went to capture me just to get some of my blood. It frightens me to think what lengths they would go to just to get their hands on our child. What they might try to learn from her…or him. How they could….” She can’t bear to finish the thought, let alone the sentence.

“That is never going to happen,” Mon-El vows, rolling towards her and taking her face in his hands, his Teflon-eyes boring into hers, sharp like knives. “I swear to you…if anyone ever tries to harm our child, I will burn down the world to end them. It may not be what Daxam taught,” he adds, “but it’s what my heart knows is right.”

Ending anyone, even the worst of villains, has always been a last resort for her. Bringing death and dispensing justice are not the same things, because sometimes death is too pat an ending for those who toil in the service of harming others in the name of power. People like Lillian Luthor.

But this is different. This isn’t about being a superhero or playing by any set of rules designed to keep the general public safe and to maintain their trust. This is about adhering to a set of rules designed to keep one person safe and an authority higher than she can possibly overrule instituted those rules. These new rules are primal and unassailable and she knows that she is only getting a glimpse of the true allegiance they will compel.

“We’ll figure something out,” she says, quirking one side of her mouth in a smile meant to be reassuring. “If I’m pregnant we’ll find a way to…hide it from the public.”

“Hide it?”

“Well, yeah,” she replies with a shrug. “Private Citizens Kara Danvers and Mike Matthews can have a child, but Supergirl and Valor should probably keep things professional. Lillian Luthor is savvy; she would make the connection easily, especially based on what she already knows. If she hasn’t already.”

“You don’t think your adoptive father would have…?”

“No,” she shakes her head. “Never. Not after everything he’s done to keep me safe.”

“We’ll find a way,” he promises. “If I have to change my name again, change my disguise, and change my job…I swear to you, I won’t let anyone harm our Kryptamite.”

Kara’s forehead creases with a mixture of humor, confusion, and intrigue. “Kryptamite?” she echoes, a smile slowly spreading across her face. “You didn’t want to go with Daxatonian?”

Mon-El chuckles, remembering the blissful moments of the dream as if they had been real moments from a long-lost past between them. “No,” he tells her. “Kryptamite sounds better.”

Kara nods and smiles. “I think so, too.”

TBC

#karamel fic #hanging on letting go series

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robyduncan · 8 years

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Astronauts Who Won’t Fly and Killers Who Won’t Kill: William Peter Blatty and the second Exorcist film that wasn’t.

Overshadowed by its Exorcist siblings, the middle child of Blatty’s “faith trilogy” pries darkness out of the Devil’s hands and stabs it into the heart of men. __________

The Ninth Configuration is a special sort of triple-threat we don’t get to see very often in film: it seizes control of your visual field, bangs on your funny bone, and while doing so, raises questions about life, sanity, and faith that are hyper-relevant to our times. Now, this is a bold statement, given that most people have never heard of the film, much less seen it, and it ought to come with some sort of back up, so it doesn’t read like a bunch of pretentious, movie review hyperbole, right? Well, that is exactly the thing that makes this film so tricky… it is hard to capture in language. We’re all familiar with the concept of The Elevator Pitch: you try and trim all the fat and gristle off the concept of a story, and drive the remaining sharpened bone-spike directly into the mind of the person you’re talking to, in the hopes that it will stick. Usually, it is a pretty simple X-meets-Y-with-a-pinch-of-Z affair, but not with this film. The Ninth Configuration is a movie that seems very comfortable laughing in the face of every reasonable attempt to contain it in an elevator pitch. “It’s a film about the lunatics taking over the asylum. Only they aren’t lunatics. The staff are. Sometimes. Maybe.” Or perhaps “It’s an anti-war comedy, set in a gothic horror locale. With guys in Superman costumes. And… bikers.” Or maybe even “It’s the film that was supposed to be in between The Exorcist and The Exorcist III, but it was written before The Exorcist, and then rewritten after, and then filmed. But it’s about faith… and war… and astronauts… and… mistaken identity. But still about faith!” Given enough time in said elevator, attempting pitches to summarize The Ninth Configuration, one could reasonably expect to be carried off in a straightjacket, still talking about dogs performing Shakespeare and Superman rescuing Julius Caesar from assassination. And not only would it would all be true, it would somehow be oddly understandable to anyone who’d seen it. So, we can safely say The Ninth Configuration is a strange film. I don’t mean strange in the usual artsy, incomprehensible way, that leaves you feeling dumber and less hip for having watched it and not understood . It does the dance of a late ‘70s/’80s anti-war comedy while infesting the plot of a military insane asylum story, being filmed on the set of a gothic vampire movie, where the director is having gaseous LSD pumped through the vents at intervals. And it appears to be all of these things in a tight, competent way, but I say appears because at its twisted heart, The Ninth Configuration is really a film about faith, inner demons, and maybe redemption. Maybe. But the consistent “What the Hell am I watching?” quality of the film can easily blind to you to the complexity going on under the surface. And… can, and has, made it hard to popularize via word of mouth.

On a first viewing – and this is definitely a film you should give yourself at least two runs through, if only to be sure you don’t miss anything while you’re laughing, cringing, or theorizing—Configuration seems to be a dark comedy about a military mental hospital full of officers who have either mysteriously lost their minds, or who have faked mysteriously having lost their minds: either way, the Pentagon wants answers to the “what”, and more importantly the “why” of their condition. Unsurprisingly, the military doesn’t like officers they can’t send to the field. We enter the story to find a veritable vaudeville cast of crazy patients, all awaiting the arrival of the new head psychiatrist for the facility, one Marine Colonel Hudson Kane. Kane, masterfully played by Stacy Keach (known for his role as ‘80s TV detective Mike Hammer, and more recently for roles in Prison Break and The Bourne Legacy), manages to be calm, genial, and restrained, while also being tense, monotone, and menacing- he’s the ultimate blank slate that not only the patients, but the audience, winds up projecting their theories and interpretations on to… at least for the beginning of the film.

A Monty Python-esque cast of crazies create a dark burlesquey backdrop for the interaction between Kane and the bombastically mad Captain Cutshaw, an Air Force astronaut who cracked in the capsule while waiting for launch on a moon mission, and had to be dragged screaming from the launch pad. Cutshaw is an amazing character, manic and cunning, played by Scott Wilson (who has been remarkable in everything from In Cold Blood to The Last Samurai, and currently plays one-legged Hershel Greene on The Walking Dead), and has set himself up as the ringleader of the circus that is the asylum. He enters into a hilarious and infuriating therapeutic relationship with Kane, in which the more Kane manages to coax him out of his madman routine and get him talking, the more Cutshaw and the rest of the patients-slash-inmates of the asylum begin to suspect that Kane may be the least sane out of all of them.

A perfect example of this is what we’ll call “The Hammer Scene.” When Kane stops an enraged, hammer-wielding patient from knocking holes in a stone wall to find out what he is doing, he doesn’t bat an eye at being told that the wall’s molecules are disobedient, and therefore need to be punished. Instead, Kane responds by suggesting that the hammer is the source of the problem, and requests in a creepily calm, unphased monotone, that he be allowed to take it for study. In that moment, we see the line between sane and insane start to blur: is the patient really demented or just a faker? Is Kane just playing along to get the hammer, or is he really considering the possibility of disobedient molecules? The only answer we get is a silent stare at the camera from the now hammer-carrying Kane, and a building suspense that pushes us closer to the edge of our seats.

THE HAMMER SCENE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi5D03-KARM

As the film plays on, Kane and Cutshaw’s states of mind are revealed to us a piece at a time: tense and heavy dialogue here, a psychedelic visual display of delusion there, and a dream sequence, or is it a flashback, fitted in to keep our heads spinning. Through it all, the story of Cutshaw’s launch pad breakdown is pieced together, and the cracks in Kane’s stony façade begin to grow, until we wind up caught in a disturbingly funny vortex of mistaken identity, demented therapy techniques, battlefield trauma, and an absolutely brutal biker gang bar brawl. What start out as chuckles at the antics of the inmates begin to become nervous, slightly uncomfortable laughs: slowly, a scene at a time, the realization dawns that nothing is quite what it has seemed. A story that felt familiar, about how man’s actions can destroy his psyche, and how helping others might be able to repair it, begins to become something else. Give the film a second watch, and the pieces start to fall into a different pattern… especially if you know a bit about the making of the film, which is arguably as crazy as the plot itself.

Written and directed by William Peter Blatty, best known for having penned The Exorcist films, or at least the original and third, The Ninth Configuration was written before, and rewritten during, the writing of The Exorcist. Like The Exorcist, it was originally written as a script, even before the novels were written: Blatty was a screenwriter first and novelist second, quite literally. This is extra-weird, because according to Blatty, The Ninth Configuration should really be viewed as the “middle-child” of his Faith Trilogy, sandwiched between The Exorcist and The Exorcist III, two straight up horror films with little of the comedy we see in Configuration.A former co-writer on Pink Panther films, Blatty manages to bounce from horror to comedy and back artfully, which winds up making Configuration a sort of a “film negative” version of the concepts at work in The Exorcist. Rather than a film about boundless supernatural evil directly impacting the lives of innocents until faith and sacrifice save the day, Configuration is a film about personal evil, how one copes with it, and how personal sacrifice can sometimes save a person’s faith. Or at least, it might be that, depending on how you hold it up to the light, and how hard you shake it. Where William Friedkin’s direction of The Exorcist conveys Blatty’s plot and theme with a needle point, Blatty’s direction of his own work in Configuration is a more spastic-with-a-shotgun affair, which he still makes work.

Armed with these details, the movie hits the mind’s eye differently. The insane Captain Cutshaw (rumored to be the same astronaut character that Devil-possessed Regan from The Exorcist told he would die “up there” ) fights tooth and nail to avoid talking about why he aborted his trip to the moon, all the while deflecting by harassing Kane for his open Catholic faith. To Cutshaw, Kane seems deluded: the old classic problem of evil, of how there can be good in a world so full of violence and suffering, makes Kane’s quiet faith seem ludicrous. To Cutshaw, strapped to the top of a rocket, staring up at the dark, the stars and spaces between are not some beautiful, almost-out-of-reach features of Creation… but a cold, lonely place to die.

WHY WON’T YOU GO TO THE MOON: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfHH6mWPTRY

Kane, who has his own tortured reasons for being obsessed with the healing of the patients at the asylum, sees care for others as the only path away from evil, and potentially the only path to redemption out of his own darkness. Watching the comedic banter fly back and forth between them, we get to see Blatty recreate the essential trying-not-to-crap-your-pants tension from The Exorcist, but without the need for a Devil or God at all. Both men have inner demons aplenty to drive the plot, and the weapons used this time around are wit and banter instead of Bibles and holy water.

Managing to be funny and brutally honest at the same time as being deeply philosophical and chillingly creepy is a Hell of a hard thing to pull off, but Configuration pulls it off. In addition to all the mental fuel you need to get your brain spun up and twitching, you also get a script full of almost endless quotables, trippy visuals, and a deviously twisty plot. Totally worth the time invested to take it in, but remember, you’ve been warned: try not to explain it in elevators.

#william peter blatty #exorcist

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missaliceofadlington · 7 years

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Evidence AGAINST the Two Ciel Theory?

The 2CT is a much discussed theory throughout the black butler, with people whipping out their microscopes each month to find a fragment to support it. But what about the evidence AGAINST the 2CT? 1. It doesn’t fit in which Madame Red or Elizabeth’s Memories

Ciel doesn’t appear in either Madame Red or Elizabeth’s memories. You would think a mention of another Ciel, that died would be appear in Madame Reds memories, when she mentions the people she loves, thinking back over her happiest times, and well as the mention of the twin’s instead of just Ciel’s birthday, and a mention of the nephews (plural) that died in a fire.

 At the very least Elizabeth would have mentioned it in her private memories, in which she spills all her raw emotions, and the reasons for her actions of which she never told anyone.  Elizabeth would have known about, and have been upset that one of her cousin’s died, and would have wondered and mentioned how this death affected her fiancé.

1. Why doesn’t the twin appear in any photos? (the following is a snippet from darkspellmaster's blog) http://darkspellmaster.tumblr.com/post/158771227510/so-is-there-a-connection-between-the-image-between

The most significant pieces of evidence for the 2CT come from images of Ciel seeming to be stabbed and alive at the cult sacrifice scene. However, other theories, noticeably the Worthy Ciel theory can explain this: Ciel was resurrected by the Grim Reapers having been judged Worthy of having an impact on humanity (which he certainly does, stopping bad stuff from happening being a very effective Queens watchdog). (more on this --> https://missaliceofadlington.tumblr.com/post/160550217113/the-worthy-ciel-theory )

Another piece of ‘evidence’ is the scene in which Ciel dreams in the Green Witch arc. This is also a cinch to provide an alternate reason for: The second Ciel represents Ciel’s subconscious, the Ciel that he was before he died, and formed a contract with a demon, causing him to reject those around him knowing that he was going to die, and was meant to die, and as he genuinely cares for them and doesn’t want to see them suffer, he acts as unlovable as possible. The second Ciel is purely metaphorical – the representation of his previous, innocent character that was sacrificed, and taken out of him by his experiences with the cult, and having to grow up and resume large amounts of responsibility at a young age. He sacrificed who he was to become a demon of sorts.

Ok evidence part over, personal rant time:

But even ignoring the evidence one big question you have to ask is: What value is added by having an extra family member die in this incident? According to the 2CT he was sacrificed, and this doesn’t really add anything to the plot, or development of Ciel’s character. After all, the goal of his revenge is explicitly stated to be FOR HIMSELF, it doesn’t matter, there are things you cannot bring back. He applies this logic to the deaths of all his family, including Madame Red. Things would still be the same, he would still think the same if an extra person died in the incident, ESPECIALLY if, as according to many 2C theorists, the twin was very sickly, so he was expecting his death anyways. The second gripe I have with the 2CT is it’s It's universal acceptance I’m tired of seeing only THIS as an example of the potential plot twists. No one has the creative energy to think of any other possible reason. Literally anything could be on those pieces of paper. Perhaps the Undertaker is included in the family photo, proving Ciel’s unique bloodline. But no one is willing to see or discuss any other alternative when the 2CT is “pretty much canon”. Who burn the photo anyway? In the spoilers, Ciel looks shocked to see it, so he didn’t do it. At any rate, given the wide scope, and the many scientific advancements, characters, and supernatural beings/ and elements in the show you would think there would be a variety of different ideas out there, but it seems the fandom is made out of 0.1% thinkers, 99.9% sheep. As of chapter 127 I certaintly wouldn’t say the evidence we’ve been given is enough to confirm the 2CT (or any Black Butler theory I’ve heard of) But the majority of black butler speculators seemed to have taken it as God’s (or Toboso’s) word the second they’ve heard of it.

However I will admit the 2CT isn’t impossible. But Yana Toboso better come up with a good explanation as to why Madame Red and Elizabeth don’t remember or mention shit. Though I suppose the kuroverse, with it’s still largely undefined supernatural elements (does anyone truly know the limits of demons and grim reapers in the kuroverse) wouldn’t actually have a hard time coming up with something to fill it. The Undertaker has messed around with cinematic records (though I wouldn’t think he was on the level at that point in time to erased specific people from memories [and photos]). If the 2CT is true I would say Sebastian is the most likely culprit for messing with the memories, as he seems to have control of his cinematic record when Grell stabbed him, and we have no confirmation that he can’t do it yet.

#black butler #kuroshitsuji #kuroshitsuji theory #black butler theory #thinking out loud #two ciels theory #Worthy Ciel Theory

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itsfinancethings · 4 years

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In a fishing village on the eastern coast of Tsushima, I find myself atop the roof of a small hut, taking note of the smattering of enemies wandering the camp. One by one I pick them off, and slink back into the shadows. By the end of my silent killing spree, the last remaining invader spots me, along with my handiwork, and flees in terror, allowing me to return the village to its original inhabitants.

In Ghost of Tsushima, these tactics are considered cowardly, spineless, and dishonorable. But if that’s the case, why does it feel so right?

Ghost of Tsushima, created by Sony studio Sucker Punch for the PlayStation 4, is an open-world adventure game set in the 13th century, on the Japanese island of Tsushima. You play as Jin Sakai, a samurai part of a larger defending force that suffers an absolutely crushing defeat against the Mongol army attempting to take over Japan. Thanks to a thief who rescues you from certain death, you manage to survive, and commit to rescuing both your new accomplice’s kidnapped brother, along with your own imprisoned uncle. But a single samurai against a battalion of soldiers isn’t exactly a fair match. So what’s a lone wolf going up against an army to do? Fight dirty, of course.

Unfortunately, the Mongols aren’t the biggest problem Jin faces. That would be his own cognitive dissonance.

You see, Jin, an honorable samurai, becomes a man conflicted. It’s in his eyes after you complete the first of many assassinations, a taboo when it comes to the samurai code of honor. Instead of facing the enemy head-on, he sneaks around a Mongol encampment, killing a warrior without looking him in the eye—a no-no according to his uncle, commanding officer, and shogun-appointed steward of Tsushima, Lord Shimura. But it doesn’t stop there. The deception, sabotage, and subterfuge continue throughout his quest to retake his home, and serve to spread the legend of “the Ghost,” a fallen samurai who has risen to exact revenge on the Mongol army.

Devoid of context, Jin’s turn to more dubious tactics is quite understandable. Of course you’d need to sabotage an encampment’s defenses, distract a few archers, and take out lonely sentries before charging in—you’re just one guy with a sword and a dream. Who among us wouldn’t resort to using every trick in the book when your homeland is threatened and your people are enslaved, especially when the tricks are oh-so-satisfying?

Ghost of Tsushima is one of the rare games in which the mechanics are so perfectly suited for the story, making every move feel like one Jin is performing, rather than one you’re puppeteering. All of the plotting, scheming, and sneaking lends itself perfectly to the narrative of a man compromising his own morals for the greater good. Attacking a farm taken over by Mongol soldiers? Multiple avenues to victory await you. Stick to your samurai code and face your enemies in a straight-up standoff, a game of chicken in which you slaughter opponents one-by-one using your katana, bow, and other weapons (like powder bombs and kunai). Or channel the growing legend of the Ghost and slip through windows to stab enemies in the back and slip away unseen. Throw bells to distract one guard while you slit the throat of another. Toss a smoke bomb into the fray to disorient enemies while you assassinate them one at a time in the confusion (or use that bomb to mask your getaway route should you be overwhelmed by opponents). Boss fights occur in the form of duels against opponents with their own set of swordsmanship skills. Only patience, parries, and striking when you see an opening will ensure your victory.

In true adventure game fashion, there are a variety of items to gather, skills to unlock, and armor sets to acquire and improve, turning the samurai with broken dou at the game’s outset into a 13th century hypebeast with a penchant for destruction.

To upgrade your arsenal of weapons, improve your armor, and purchase ammo like arrows and smoke bombs, you’ll need to scour friendly villages and enemy camps for supplies while you sneak (or massacre) your way through Tsushima. While acquiring new duds via specific quests with is always a treat, the slog to afford any improvements is both frustrating and distracting, and made me wish I could just unlock new upgrades the same way I unlocked new samurai techniques: by completing missions for the residents of Tsushima and ridding the island of invaders, rather than look around every nook and cranny in town for linen bundles and kunai left in some fisherman’s attic. Like, I know why he has them, but I’m unsure if stealing his tools after saving him from a beheading is the best way to go about arming myself for battle.

While the liberation of towns and forts is rewarding, it does get repetitive. Luckily, the game balances all the adrenaline-fueled action with loads of low-stakes activities. You can practice your swordsmanship on bamboo striking posts throughout the island, follow foxes to hidden shrines and pay your respects, soak in hot springs, and even compose somewhat customizable haiku, all of which prepare you for the encounters ahead in one way or another.

You can mark spots on your map to explore and use the environmental directional cues (in the form of gusts of wind that bring the landscape to life) to get where you need to go. Still, the option to fast travel is available, and I suggest you use it if you don’t feel like cutting open half a dozen throats every five minutes as you visit familiar places. But you might want to take your time exploring the island, because you’ll be awestruck by its majesty.

Indeed, Tsushima’s beauty is absolutely astonishing. The island, verdant and lush with foliage, is teeming with colors. Bamboo thickets with thick, green trunks blot out the sun. Forests of Palmate maple trees cover the island, their leaves seeming to fall forever, creating a feeling of perpetual autumn. On horseback, Jin runs his hands through what feel like endless fields of white pampas grass (that double as camouflage from enemies). In an era where many games have adopted a color palette more appropriate for a ditch on the side of a highway, scaling mountains to offer prayers at shrines often gifts you a gorgeous panoramic view of the surrounding areas, lush forests and burning farms included.

Even in its duels against Mongol generals, guardians of ancient treasures, or greedy ronin looking for the same mythical talismans as you, the art direction is impeccable. Ghost of Tsushima’s visuals are strongly influenced by the work of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, and it shows (there’s even an Instagram-like “Kurosawa mode” filter that transforms the world’s vibrancy into a grainy, black and white homage to the filmmaker — it’s a gimmick, but a fun one). It even offers a Japanese voice track, though the character models still move their mouths as though they were speaking English, a real disappointing misstep.

From start to finish, its story is engrossing, if a bit predictable. But Ghost of Tsushima’s denouement still brought tears to my eyes, a first when it comes to video games, and real surprise to me. I didn’t realize I was literally on the edge of my seat, watching Jin come to terms with the consequences of his actions until the credits rolled, leaving me with a wet beard and desire to finish what Jin Sakai started.

#IFTTT #Blogger

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systemmalfucktion · 7 years

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oc asks stuff i stole and didnt proof read

1. What’s their full name? Why was that chosen? Does it mean anything?

ollie petrov, i chose the name ollie bc i liked it and pretrov is just one of the most common surnames in russia. the meaning isn’t important to his character at all

2. Do they have any titles? How did they get them?

nah

3. Did they have a good childhood? What are fond memories they have of it? What’s a bad memory?

he had a decent childhood and grew up in a high income family but suffered the Neglect from daddy. his fondest memories are w childhood friends, bad memory would be Neglect from daddy and mommy and living in fear

4. What is their relationship with their parents? What’s a good and bad memory with them? Did they know both parents?

he loved his mama lots until she walked out on him, he didn’t understand why and he resented her A Lot, when he came to understand why she did it he thought she was a coward and resented her A Lot More. he never forgives her for it over the course of the entire story

he cared for his dad maybe when he was younger but after his mom left he was basically sent off elsewhere. he made no efforts to talk to his dad over the phone or ask for visits bc he was completely content with not seeing him. after a bit he literally just hates his dad bc of Plot Related Issues, when they have their own fucked up version of Dad to Son talk later he word vomits every thing he hates about him and the dads like “ya i figured this would happen the moment u came outta mamas pussy. dammit”

5. Do they have any siblings? What’s their names? What is their relationship with them? Has their relationship changed since they were kids to adults?

no sibs

6. What were they like at school? Did they enjoy it? Did they finish? What level of higher education did they reach? What subjects did they enjoy? Which did they hate?

he was really good in school and used it as an outlet to pour all his attention into bc he liked the satisfaction it gave him when he got good grades, he planned on going to college until Plot Related Issues derailed his life. he liked the English Language and didn’t care for like science n shit

7. Did they have lots of friends as a child? Did they keep any of their childhood friends into adulthood?

when he was growing up he was just a friendly nice only kid so he liked to treat friends like his family so he was well liked, when he moved away he lost all contact with anyone there. friends he makes in russia when he first moves there are mostly also left behind, hes Big on leaving places thats 4 sure

8. Did they have pets as a child? Do they have pets as an adult? Do they like animals?

no pets as a child, he likes animals and is a cat person but didnt see a reason to get a pet

9. Do animals like them? Do they get on well with animals?

animals are probably chill with him, i imagine any instance with animals is probably just a chill one

10. Do they like children? Do children like them? Do they have or want any children? What would they be like as a parent? Or as a godparent/babysitter/ect?

same w animals, hes just chill. kids probably would like him bc hes relaxed and not strict. he likes the idea of being traditional and starting a family but he truly doesn't see it happening for him given Plot

11. Do they have any special diet requirements? Are they a vegetarian? Vegan? Have any allergies?

nope he eats whats put in front of him almost always

12. What is their favourite food?

probs like a soup or something warm and filling

13. What is their least favourite food?

Get Those Damn Avocados Away

14. Do they have any specific memories of food/a restaurant/meal?

when he went out to restaurants with his ma and pops as a child, or when way later his roommate Matt cooks for him when he was goin thru sum shit

15. Are they good at cooking? Do they enjoy it? What do others think of their cooking?

he doesnt cook anything complicated at all, when shopping for himself its a lot of instant food bc hes cheap and doesnt care to put a lot of effort into his food. others either dont care or thinks its unhealthy

16. Do they collect anything? What do they do with it? Where do they keep it?

ive thought of this a lot and its mostly momentos, not that it matters bc every item he gets from someone is eventually left behind when he leaves russia as Symbolism. the collection serves almost no purpose bc of how often he Jumps Ship when it comes to relationships w other human beings but thats kinda the point

17. Do they like to take photos? What do they like to take photos of? Selfies? What do they do with their photos?

hes fine with pictures like selfies w ppl or scenery until hes in america, where he is convinced any pictures he takes or pictures hes in will end up being the reason hes found out. but in russia he liked taking silly pictures of just stuff around him. its like on instagram u dont know what someone looks like until u looked at what they were tagged in kinda, crappy over filtered pics of stuff around him like trees or windows. 1 of those instagrams....

18. What’s their favourite genre of: books, music, tv shows, films, video games and anything else

he likes those shitty kind of john green novel types with the manic pixie dream with the wallflower type, indie music, documentaries or crime related, video games that are story driven rather than multiplayer. just ur average Introverted Bro

19. What’s their least favourite genres?

sci fi or anything BORING like that

20. Do they like musicals? Music in general? What do they do when they’re favourite song comes?

doesnt care for musicals but likes music, he gets really focused when his favorite song comes on bc he wants to appreciate it if its on and hes not focused on it he will play it over again to Appreciate it.

21. Do they have a temper? Are they patient? What are they like when they do lose their temper?

he has a temper but hides it well but if u manage to get him to actually lose him temper he will glare at u until its his turn to speak and argue u 1 response before he Fucks Right Off meaning if it doesnt end right there Boy’s Got A Grudge. it doesnt happen often bc hes not huge on confrontation, the reason why goes from social anxiety when he was 14 to PSTD when he was 16

22. What are their favourite insults to use? What do they insult people for? Or do they prefer to bitch behind someone’s back?

i dont know about favorite insults but he manages to stay polite in the face of people, and bitches about them to sergei when he can

23. Do they have a good memory? Short term or long term? Are they good with names? Or faces?

good memory and with faces for sure

24. What is their sleeping pattern like? Do they snore? What do they like to sleep on? A soft or hard mattress?

he doesnt stay up very late all that often until he has a reason to (heists n whatnot) he sleeps on an old mattress twin sized, p soft

25. What do they find funny? Do they have a good sense of humour? Are they funny themselves?

hed probably have normie humor b4 he met the shitpost that is (i had 2 rename her bc i forgot her fuckin russian name kms but this is a name on doulingo a lot so i wont forget hopefully) vera, her humor is like my mains shitposts so hed find that stuff funny after a bit. he doesnt make many jokes

26. How do they act when they’re happy? Do they sing? Dance? Hum? Or do they hide their emotions?

hes good at hiding emotions but when hes happy abt something (thankful for ex) he’ll make it known to them, good times w friends he’ll basically mirror what they’re doing, happy when he’s by himself would be a jittery smiling Fool

27. What makes them sad? Do they cry regularly? Do they cry openly or hide it? What are they like they are sad?

lots make him sad, his daddy issues, roommate issues, mental health n shit. he cries a few times and tries to be secretive about it, over time he’s not that ashamed to cry in front of sergei given that he’s seen him cry a couple times. when he’s sad he’s even more quiet and sulky. if u made him sad and said u were sorry he’d say he accepted the apology but like the mood wouldn’t lighten up at all.

28. What is their biggest fear? What in general scares them? How do they act when they’re scared?

1. big fear is probably getting hurt/attacked and being helpless (after the Great Stab), after that era he’s basically all up in self defense knowledge to prevent that turn out again. he’s scared of the ppl he deals to and eventually is scared of anyone he doesnt know well (in america, thats everyone outside of matty, joe, and austin) bc of the threat of getting caught by work peers who are looking 4 him.

29. What do they do when they find out someone else’s fear? Do they tease them? Or get very over protective?

if he were to find out someones fear he wouldnt put it against them, if a situation came out where he could protect them from it he would try to do so casually. Nice Guy

30. Do they exercise? Regularly? Or only when forced? What do they act like pre-work out and post-work out?

he doesn’t exercise but if there were a case of him doing so pre would be a motivated Bro ready to get pumped and post would be tired dead man

31. Do they drink? What are they like drunk? What are they like hungover? How do they act when other people are drunk or hungover? Kind or teasing?

he drank a bit in russia, hes the Underage Ollie. Underage Ollie is really clingy to sergei, the only guy he knows in the group of Bros around him, he tries to have a good time and laugh w everyone. hungover he’s sick and pitiful, boo hoo woe is me i feel like shit kinda way. when ollies around drunk sergei imagine this season of morty dealing with rick, like fed the fuck up but caring uknow?

Not Underage Ollie is a lil more fun, he went 2 sum clubs w austin only a few times ;) ;), hungover he was a less whiny version of Underage Ollie. he’s less caring when others are drunk around him bc its austin and austin drinks irresponsibly and is also is ex so SHRUG

32. What do they dress like? What sorta shops do they buy clothes from? Do they wear the fashion that they like? What do they wear to sleep? Do they wear makeup? What’s their hair like?

he dresses comfort over fashion and owns like 3 shirts basically. clothes shopping is not really a priority for him at all, but he does appreciate some aesthetics just not on himself. he sleeps in his panties (undies) with a shirt, doesnt wear makeup. his hair is a mousy brown i guess? its not tamed at all hes got that anime boy protag gohan/luffy/ash hair

33. What underwear do they wear? Boxers or briefs? Lacey? Comfy granny panties?

boxer briefs

34. What is their body type? How tall are they? Do they like their body?

hes a slight young twink man, and in his youth hes like 5′5 and it caps at like 5′10 maybe when he’s an adult. he’s ok w his body but everyones got insecurities

35. What’s their guilty pleasure? What is their totally unguilty pleasure?

guilty pleasure are the john green type shitty novels and the ungulity pleasure is idk! slime vids or something

36. What are they good at? What hobbies do they like? Can they sing?

he’s good at writing i guess (4 school, in english n russian), he likes 2 read, and he can sing but its like generic male voice singing. its just ok

37. Do they like to read? Are they a fast or slow reader? Do they like poetry? Fictional or non fiction?

he likes 2 read and he’s fast i guess, n like i said the genre he likes is that shitty poetic adorkable fictional stuff

38. What do they admire in others? What talents do they wish they had?

he likes when ppl are assertive, not really when assertive @ him, but when they can be assertive in general. he would love to be able to hold any power in any conversation he’s in between ages 0-18

39. Do they like letters? Or prefer emails/messaging?

emails and messages

40. Do they like energy drinks? Coffee? Sugary food? Or can they naturally stay awake and alert?

he can stay awake without any energy boosters for a while

41. What’s their sexuality? What do they find attractive? Physically and mentally? What do they like/need in a relationship?

he’s gay, he likes Boys. he likes nice friendly boys who basically carry out social interactions and are good at not letting things get awkward (this goes for austin and matt and even vera). he needs a lot of space, like an unhealthy amount of space, Like Mayhaps There’s Something Wrong amount of space.

42. What are their goals? What would they sacrifice anything for? What is their secret ambition?

goals: get outta the bis!

sacrifice: friend’s safety/livelihood!

secret ambition/guilty subconscious: get in bis and succeed 2 make papa proud! its a job handed to him that makes BANK and is basically a fallback if his goal doesnt work except he wont admit it to himself

43. Are they religious? What do they think of religion? What do they think of religious people? What do they think of non religious people?

no religion basically, he would probably not be an asshole about it but be kinda an asshole abt religion in private

44. What is their favourite season? Type of weather? Are they good in the cold or the heat? What weather do they complain in the most?

he loves the winter bc he likes being bundled up, overcast sky, he’s good in the cold and he complains abt wet weather (rain and snow)

45. How do other people see them? Is it similar to how they see themselves?

like he’s a troubled navie kid, and he’ll come around when it comes time for him to work. ollie doesnt know about the work he has to do when he’s older for a while, all he knows is that everyone is Preparing him for something. he knows he’s troubled but he doesnt think of himself as stubborn like other ppl do.

46. Do they make a good first impression? Does their first impression reflect them accurately? How do they introduce themselves?

no, most of the time he’s kinda awkward. it reflects him p good :(. he basically just goes “hey im ollie” and depending on who it is he’ll explain what he’s doing like “i have your coke” or “im austins friend. thanks for taking me in”

47. How do they act in a formal occasion? What do they think of black tie wear? Do they enjoy fancy parties and love to chit chat or loathe the whole event?

he’ll act mannerly and polite like he usually does, he likes getting dressed up fancy and being in a fancy space. not one for chit chat but he’s not Hating it

48. Do they enjoy any parties? If so what kind? Do they organise the party or just turn up? How do they act? What if they didn’t want to go but were dragged along by a friend?

he doesnt care for parties i guess, he turns up at them to supply the good stuff and he tries to act like it’s a job, except usually the person he deals with is like ??? y so serious bitch? he’s dragged along by sergei p often, he doesnt complain in front of others but throws fits with him before or after

49. What is their most valued object? Are they sentimental? Is there something they have to take everywhere with them?

Daddys Jacket. its just a winter coat that he wears a lot

50. If they could only take one bag of stuff somewhere with them: what would they pack? What do they consider their essentials?

accurate to what happsn in canon. his clothes, phone, chargers, wallet, and i think that would be it. hes pretty minimalist and doesnt want to be held down by stuff cus when he went to america he did so Swiftly.

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