#he is still a kind soul and still has a heart - Beckett not

[ellena-asg]

"potc is a story focused on pirates and from their pov so no surprise that people hate guys like Beckett, Mercer or Norrington"

me: Sunshines, whoah, whoah, stop. If you mean old Norrington (Lawrence) - agree. But Norrie? Jamie?! Just look around, please. So many people love him. It's our guy. Some of us love him as much as we love some pirates (well, he was a pirate too, wasn't he). And for sure there are some pirates we love less than him.

Why is he even compared to Beckett? He's not like Beckett, he's Beckett's opposite (what he proves in the story) and that's one of many reasons why we love him ♥️

[bunysliper]

Fic prompt- the “how did you not lose hope” scene, after the hug/cuddle on the edge of the bed Caskett share an intimate moment. Kissing, making love, etc. you pick!

Hi Anon! I hope you like this.

Dismantle. Repair.

The silence stretches on long enough that he begins to think she's fallen asleep. Not that he would blame her; from everything he's seen – everything he knows about Beckett (and oh, does his heart throb hard against his sternum when he thinks about being the reason for her dogged determination) – she probably hasn't slept more than a couple hours a night since the last time they perched together on this bed. The two nights before they were supposed to be married.

They're supposed to be married right now. Hell, they should've been married for two months at this point. Instead, he holds his fiancée's slumped form against his chest as she sniffles quietly and reacclimates to having him beside her again.

She shouldn't have to reacclimate to his presence.

The sigh slips out of his mouth before he can manage to trap it and quash his disappointment.

"What?" Kate asks, her head snapping up from his chest, on alert immediately. "What's wrong?"

The frantic edge to her voice cleaves his heart in two; his partner, fiancée – wife, damn it she should be his wife – is so damn resilient, but she shouldn't have to be. She shouldn't have to shove her own despair away to worry about his.

"Nothing," he manages, pushing her hair – now so much shorter than it was before – behind her ear. "I'm okay. Nothing hurts-" physically anyway "-everything's… as okay as it can be."

She exhales, nodding. Still, her hand lands on his shoulder, tentatively brushing against his collarbone through his robe. There's more on her mind, he can tell, but she purses her lips instead and does exactly what Kate Beckett always has when she doesn't want to bare her soul to someone: she focuses on something else.

"You should get some rest," she says, straightening up. Her hand swipes over her face, clearing any remaining tears before he can brush his own knuckles over her cheeks.

"I think we could both use some," he says, glancing back at the pillows in careful suggestion and no small amount of invitation.

He wouldn't blame her if she decides to sleep elsewhere, but honestly, it might just rip another piece of his heart from his chest if she does.

"Yeah," she says, blowing a long breath out. "Yeah, we could."

It's agreement enough for him and he wastes no time in getting up, killing the lights, and moving to his side of the bed. Beckett follows at a slower pace, wearier, but she slides beneath the covers just as he does, sinking back onto her pillow beside him.

Their bed isn't that large, but with the distance between them, it might as well be huge.

Silence settles between them, but he's keenly aware that she hasn't fallen asleep yet. Her breathing is too loud, too uneven, too stressed, and he shifts onto his side to find her in the dark.

"I love you, Kate," he murmurs, watching her chest stutter and her eyes drop closed. "I don't think I've told you since…"

For him it was just a few days ago, but for her…

She rolls onto her side – toward him, he's thrilled to find – drawing her legs toward her chest and dipping her chin. He slides over without a word, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and curving his body around hers. They make a lopsided kind of yin-yang, not quite fitting together as they should, but he'll take it; she's here, he's here, and she's letting him hold her like this.

"I love you," he repeats, dusting his mouth to the crown of her head. "And I'm not going anywhere again, I swear."

A sob bursts from her lips and she curls into herself tighter. Castle bows his head, his eyes slipping shut. He bends his knees to touch hers, connecting them, keeping himself curled around her.

Soft sounds slip from his lips, not quite words, but it seems like they're soothing enough to get the point across and lend her some comfort as her long-held fear and uncertainty finally spills out of her.

"I thought you were dead, Castle," she croaks after a few minutes, her voice thick. "During the worst of it, I was prepared to find your body, to have to bury you. And then to find out…" She sucks in a breath. "It looked like you'd been gone because you wanted to be."

He doesn't remember anything, but he sure as hell knows that wasn't the case. It couldn't be.

"And that," she continues without giving him time to protest or placate her, "that actually might have hurt even worse."

His heart sinks, slamming heavily into his gut.

"If you were dead, it wouldn't have been your fault; you were taken against your will, you were hurt; maybe you mouthed off to the wrong person at the wrong time-"

He struggles not to chuckle at that; she does have that right, but this is not the time to remind her of his penchant for being a smartass.

"And I-I know how to handle that. I've handled that before with my mother. But to have it all laid out that you were just off somewhere on a camping trip? Paying off mobsters and jaunting cheerily down the street? Doing who knows what else? It was just… "

She clears her throat. "It's going to take some time," she says, and he can feel her trying to force the words out, "it'll take me some time to-"

"Believe in me again?" It's said with no small amount of bitterness. Not at her, though; she doesn't deserve his ire, his recriminations. She didn't do this to them, he did.

"Work through the feelings," she says, swiping her eyes. Her breath stutters again but she sinks deeper into the mattress, making no move to vacate their bed. "I can't make it all go away overnight."

His chin dips, agonizing helplessness pressing down on his chest once more. "And neither can I."

"No," she admits, sniffling. "No, you can't."

"What can I do?" he asks, tightening his arm around her. The fact that she's still here gives him hope. She could be gone; she could've left after their little family welcome back party and gone back to her apartment for the night; she could've packed her bags and left the loft entirely; but she's here. His chin lands on her head. "What can I do, Kate?"

She exhales, pressing her forehead to his neck. He shivers at her nearness, at the heat of her breath drifting over his skin.

"This," she sighs after a few minutes. She shifts closer to him, giving him the gift of her warmth, the weight of her body, trusting him to keep her – to stay with her – as she starts to drift off. "Just keep doing this."

"I will," he swears against her hairline, pressing a ghost of a kiss to her head. "I will."

She nods. "I know. An' Castle?" she asks after a beat of silence. "I love you, too."

With those words, he finds himself relaxing and sinking deeper into the plush of their mattress. It's salvageable, this mess that their lives have become; he'll make it right for the both of them.

[piratesgiftexchange]

The Flying Pearlman - Shipping Two Ships - This, Too, is Yuri

by beemovieerotica, for @thisshrimpisfryingrice

PROMPT: “ Anything with actual ships (sailings ships)”

WORD COUNT: 6,096

It was in the aftermath of the guns blazing, smoke-filled finale of the fight against Lord Cutler Beckett (may he rest in pieces) that something strange began to transpire aboard the ships.

The Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman, two ships ever-destined to shape the course of piracy and the nine seas, were sailing side-by-side away from the slowly-dissipating maelstrom wrought by the goddess herself.  Into the churning waters had gone the HMS Endeavour and all her terrible men.  Down to the depths of the ocean went the cursed body of Davy Jones.  And in his place, standing proud at the helm, was the young Will Turner as ferryman.

The crews were still in states of celebration and joyous chaos as the English fleet receded into the distance.  Their freedom was secured, for now, and at least for a good while longer.  Will looked to his new crew with the fresh wound above his absent heart stinging in the cold sea spray, and then he looked across the water to the Pearl where his dearest friends—and his wife—now stood.

“On this day,” Will began, courage booming within his chest, “there is a new ferryman.  One who will not forsake the souls of the dead!”

Cheers and cries rang out from the crews.  Barbossa and Jack looked on, more proudly than they ever had before.  The threat was behind them, the future clear and promising.  Elizabeth took the moment to stand up and carry the moment with him.

“We will forge a path forward,” she called out, “united as Brethren for the cause of freedom!”

Feet stomped, pistols fired off into the air, and blood ran hot from the fight that was shaping the world before them.  Too hot, perhaps.  The crews threw their arms around one another and kissed each other on deck, with no regard for rank or sex.  It might be excused later as a celebratory whim in the heat of the moment—but for now, none were ashamed.

The enthusiasm flared on, and it was enough to drive even the most reticent bystander to passionate action.  Action of whatever kind might appeal to him, so to speak. 

It could even drive to such heights of passion, as would soon become clear, entities no one thought capable of doing so… 

The Dutchman groaned beneath the crew’s feet, dipping slightly into the water.

“No pirate need fear the yoke of the empire,” Elizabeth went on.  “For they should fear us!”

As the crews continued to cheer, the sails on the Pearl fluttered: they did not hear her creak in reply.

“Every man and woman deserving of the same life and liberty!” Will added.

It was Gibbs who first noted that something was going awry.  The Pearl’s wheel was beginning to list precariously toward the other ship, and as he hurried to right it, he paused, his brows furrowed, and then struggled against the wood.  It would not budge.  He looked across the shrinking distance between the ships, then back to the obstinate wheel, then back to the approaching Dutchman, who—it suddenly seemed—was also listing their way.

“Captain!” Gibbs cried.

Jack and Barbossa both turned in unison toward the frantic first mate. 

Orders were shouted and the uplifting speeches delayed, and five men attempted to turn the wheel as the two crews scrambled into action.

“Something must have caught on the rudder!” Gibbs supplied.

“Ours has been disabled too,” Will said to his crew.

“That’s not possible,” Maccus cut in.  “If the wheel won’t turn…it’s because she don’t want to turn.”

A hush fell upon them.  The men, in all their decades of service aboard the cursed ship, had never known the Dutchman not to obey her captain.

“We need to abandon ship…” Elizabeth began, her voice tight in her throat.  “All men, abandon ship!” she cried.

It was chaos: every pirate flinging themselves into the water as the ships veered into one another, never to be halted, sails billowing in phantom winds to bring themselves together.  Will cast his gaze wildly toward the nearest spit of land to which all the pirates were now desperately swimming, and in the final moments before the collision, he wrangled himself a longboat, dropped it into the water, and dove in.

The Pearl and the Dutchman hit each other with the force of battling whales.

Battling—or so the crews thought—for who could possibly know the minds of such inhuman, fate-filled things?  Will looked back over his shoulder with the oars tight in his white-knuckled fists to see the two ships pushing each other down beneath the sea, bows dipping into the deep blue, their decks filling with water.

“Good God,” he whispered.

It was as the very top of the final mast plunged out of view that he felt a cold shudder pass through his body.  What terrible god had he crossed now?

The two crews stumbled up the sand of the tiny island, wheezing from exertion, wringing out their sleeves and kicking off their heavy waterlogged boots.  Pintel and Ragetti had flopped onto the ground across from one another, and they were trying to help pull off each other’s boots in unison with little coordination and little success.  Elizabeth turned and squinted out over the water to see Will’s longboat bobbing behind.

Will was the last to arrive at the beach, having been relegated to rowing all by himself, and finally the boat slid up to shore.  Maccus and Palifico ran down to help drag it up the sand, and Will let the oars fall to the bottom of the boat, and he heaved a weary sigh. 

“Sit tight, captain,” Maccus said, and he gave one final push to lodge the boat up on the dry beach.

The first mate looked to Will with a satisfied nod, and Will returned Maccus’s gaze with heavy eyes.  “I’m not going anywhere,” he said tiredly.

Elizabeth had hurried up to the boat, but she stopped a few paces short, her brows stitched in a question.  Will read the hesitation in her eyes.

“I think this would be a special exception in which the rules don’t apply,” he began.  “I don’t think the ferryman’s oath ever accounted for the Dutchman flinging her own crew into the sea.”

Elizabeth shook her head with a snort and came to the boat’s side, but she did not enter, and instead sat in the sand beside it.  She gave Will a tight smile.  “Just in case,” she said, folding her hands in her lap.

Jack and Barbossa were each in the process of subtly checking their pistols for shot.  Not a moment of tension passed where they didn’t re-evaluate the tried-and-true solution of simply shooting each other.  The two briefly glanced up from their mutual plottings at exactly the same time, caught each other’s gazes, and hurriedly looked away. 

All were uneased, but none more so than the Dutchman crew, who very rarely ever planted their feet on dry land.  But above all, beyond the disquieting feel of sand between their toes, they had looming existential questions to answer.

“So, is that it, then?” Penrod asked slowly.  “We’re done?”

There was a long, harrowing silence. 

“What,” Maccus said, “you think there’s going to be no more ferryman of the dead?”

“There can’t be a ferryman without a ship,” Penrod said.

“So the contract’s broke, then?” 

All eyes turned to Will, the only one capable of answering that question.  He opened his mouth in a stutter.

“He’d be able to step on land if it was!” Ragetti chimed in.

This…was true.  Very slowly, and ever-so-tenderly, Will withdrew his hand from his lap and lowered it toward the sand.  His fingers twitched, and his eyes did not blink.  All watched with bated breath as his fingertips approached the earth. 

There was a sound like a crack of thunder from the heavens, and nearly everyone let out shrieks of surprise.  Will recoiled, his hand trembling against his chest, and an almighty and powerful voice boomed over the island.

“ARRÊTE!” 

The furious voice of Calypso reverberated across the sands and sea.  It was a sound that was borne out of the waters themselves, out of the air, out of the trees, that went rattling inside their skulls.  It continued to echo and hiss within the cavities of their souls, and everyone’s mouths fell open in wonder.

Their eyes turned up toward the heavens in reverence.  A long silence passed.

“Holy hell,” Pintel breathed.

The two crews looked back at Will, who was shivering like a tiny dog.  Everyone except him seemed to be utterly bewitched by the cosmic occurrence.

“Do it again,” Ragetti said. 

Will shook his head emphatically, and it was Barbossa who strode over, and in a fit of scientific curiosity, he wrenched Will’s hand from his chest and brought it down once more toward the sand.

The deafening, godly voice called out again from beyond as Will’s fingers brushed the earth.

“RESTE!”  Calypso cried.

Will wrestled his wrist free of Barbossa’s grasp with a hiss of displeasure and crossed his arms across his chest.  The crews took a moment to feel the last echoes of the word passing through their bodies before they began to converse in low whispers.

“So the oath remains,” Barbossa said.  “The Dutchman, and possibly the Pearl, are still one with this world.”

“Then how do we get them back?” Gibbs asked.

Barbossa lifted his hands in a hopeless gesture.  “We wait.”

The crews watched him as he removed his heavy coat and folded it up to drop onto the sand.  He undid the buckles of his belts and slid his holster and scabbard off, letting them fall with dull thuds beside his feet.  He had just begun to strip off his drenched socks and shake loose his flowy sleeves when Jack let out a snicker.

“Putting on a show for us, aye?” Jack asked.

Barbossa rolled his eyes and turned away.  “We’d best start gathering food,” he said over his shoulder as he stalked off up the beach.  His foot caught in a dip, and he stumbled for a moment before righting himself with a sniff.  “Who knows how hungry we’ll all be before the ship decides to come back!”

The crews all looked to one another in terrible, frightful suspicion.  

——

They found food, gratefully.  The island was lush with coconuts, as well as a population of very plump, very slow birds which were totally incapable of flight.  Their little stunted wings flapped uselessly at their sides, and their bald faces went aghast as the crews picked them up, as easily as corralling crawling babies, to make their ample dinner every night. 

“Never seen a bird like that what’s so eager to get eaten,” Pintel said, sucking the end of a bone.

“Wonder why we haven’t seen them anywhere else,” Ragetti added.

The crews retired to the beach to sleep, laying out long mats of palm leaves in the warm tropical night.  Will was still in his longboat, naturally, and he’d managed to make a slightly more comfortable stay of it by piling the crews’ extra coats and shirts together as cushioning and pillows.  He laid his head down, then abruptly lifted it back up, sniffing the air in distaste. 

“Not a single good-smelling pirate to be had, eh?” Maccus asked.

The first mate had come up beside the boat to check in on the Dutchman’s out-of-work captain.  Will gave a defeated sigh and readjusted the crumpled clothing beneath him.  “It’ll do for now,” he muttered.

Maccus sat down in the sand beside the boat and leaned back on his hands.  He cast a glance inside the boat at the curled-up captain, and then up across the sand toward the flickering bonfire where Elizabeth was gazing into the flames.

“Terrible shame, being so close,” he said quietly, “but not being able to do anything at all.”

Will gave a hm of reply.  Crickets chirped from the treeline.

“I’m sure you have a lot of feelings and…frustration, naturally,” Maccus went on.

The waves washed over the shore.

“I’m sure you’d like to have somebody to shag.”

Will’s eyes shot open.  “I beg your pardon?”

Maccus gave a hacking cough and pounded his chest, clearing his throat loudly.  “Oi, who said that?” he asked.

Will sat bolt upright, fixing his disbelieving gaze on Maccus’s shadowed face.  Maccus returned it with a simple shrug.  “Just saying.”  He looked to the sky.  “A good first mate always finds a way to be of help to a captain in need, they say.”

“Help?”

“Oh, use your imagination,” Maccus said.  “See, Jones was a man with an imagination.”

Will blinked very hard several times, opened his mouth once, closed it, then opened it again.  “You and him?”

“Ten years is a very long time to never go ashore, you’ll see soon enough,” Maccus replied.

Will cast his gaze over toward the bonfire, and his eyes were momentarily speckled with firelight.  But with the slow dawning of sorrow, he turned back to the first mate in the dark. 

“Did you love him?” Will asked.

Maccus let out a sound like one of the many birds they’d wrangled that day: a great guffaw of surprise—too loud, too insistent—and beneath it all Will sensed a clawing need to be believed.

“No, no, not at all,” Maccus said, his voice becoming suddenly dry.  “No, it was simply functional.  Purely mechanical.  Not a thought to it, save our mutual relief.”

Will nodded very slowly, and Maccus watched him, needfully, in more ways than one.  “No love at all,” he insisted.

“Right,” Will said.  He leaned back into the boat and gave a loud sigh, shuffling his shoulders into the coats for comfort.  “I’m going to sleep.  Good night, Maccus.”

He heard the first mate let out a sniff, and Maccus stood and turned from the boat. The voices of the others chattering at the bonfire drifted over the beach.  “Give it five long and lonely years,” Maccus grunted, “and you’ll be wanting a piece of this pie.”

Will heard the sound of a hand smacking thick, jiggling flesh.

Maccus left the tired ferryman alone, stalking away across the sand.

The situation at the bonfire was decidedly more open to rash and unconventional pairings.  Or at least it was from the view of everyone else seated there except the two people it actually involved. 

Jack and Barbossa were on opposite sides of the fire, once again engaged in incessant bickering.

“—All I’m saying is, the Pearl has technically sunk under your command, which means you are no longer captain, which means she’s fair for the taking by anyone else.”

“She wasn’t sunk.  She was pulled down by a supernatural ghost ship what passes between this realm and the next, so that can hardly be called a conventional sinking—nay, it smells of divine intervention—”

“Call it whatever you will, she’s under the bloody sea, mate,” Jack said.  “What sorry ship on the seafloor hasn’t been sunk?”

“And after she sank the first time with you as her captain, you claimed her, again, which refutes the entire argument you’re trying to make in the first place!” Barbossa spat.

Maccus sat down heavily beside Elizabeth and nodded in the direction of the two men.  “When are they going to give this up and go at it?” he whispered.

Elizabeth was chewing her nail while staring off into space, and she shrugged absently.  “I’ve been asking myself that same question for two whole years,” she murmured.

The crews continued to tolerate the captains’ non stop arguments before finally wandering off to go to sleep.

——

Weeks passed.  The stupid plump birds on the island were plentiful and slow enough to continue making good meals for the crews.  Temporary shelters had been built in the absence of any sign of the two ships, and all were grateful for that semblance of comfort—with the exception of Will, who remained in his little longboat, growing ever more bored.

It was unfortunate indeed that all the other ships in the Brethren fleet had gone their separate ways immediately after the fight had ended, not daring to linger a single moment more so close to the English fleet.  And as they had watched the distant Pearl and Dutchman go underwater—her flailing crew too distant to be seen—the only thing anyone had said was, “Oh.  I guess both of them can do that, then.”

Who could be blamed for believing such a thing of the infamous Black Pearl?

The stranded crews moped around the island, inventing games and diversions to pass the time.

“What if you pelted my bollocks with coconuts?” Ragetti asked, squinting through the sun.

Pintel stopped cold in the sand and cast him a disbelieving glance.  “Seriously?  In your balls?  Why on earth would you want to do that?”

“I dunno.  It’s something new.  Want to try it?”

A moment passed, and Pintel gave a shrug, and the two set off in search of hard fruit.

Will took frequent dives into the water, needing to move his limbs, refresh his mind, and get out of that tiny, cramped space.  Maccus and the other Dutchman crew joined him on occasion, but it was Maccus who stuck by him the most.

“Sorry for being a pest,” Maccus began one day, their heads bobbing above the water.  “I don’t have an excuse for that.”

Will rubbed a hand across his eyes, clearing them of seawater.  “You’re not a pest.  I appreciate the sentiment, I know you were only trying to help.”

The tropical sun cast sparkling rays through the clear sea—Maccus continued to tread water slowly, drops trickling through his dark brown beard.  “Are you feeling alright?”

With a great sigh, Will swiveled his neck in a circle, letting out a series of loud and painful cricks.  “The oath may free us from ever needing food or drink, but it doesn’t do anything for a stiff neck.”

“Ah,” Maccus said.  “Shame, that.”

The two continued to tread water awkwardly before one another.  Maccus sniffed loudly and cleared his throat.  “So, anyway—”

“Would you mind—” Will gestured at his own back and neck, and swiveled around in the water to look back over his shoulder, “—loosening me up here?”

Maccus raised his brows.  “Oh.  Right.  Of course.”

The two men made their way as far up toward the beach as they could without invoking Calypso’s wrath—they had discovered through a great deal of trial and error that Will could just barely touch his toes to the sand, with his chin above water, and not yet be considered to be “on land”—and from there, Maccus stood behind him and clasped his hands on his shoulders.

“So just…ease up a bit, like that.”

He worked his way around Will’s shoulders, massaging and coaxing the muscles, digging his fingers into the knots made by weeks of uncomfortable confinement.  His rough hands had been worn to a leathery quality through over a century of service, but Will didn’t seem to mind.  The captain was, it seemed, melting under his touch.

“Mmm…right there,” Will murmured.

Maccus worked him into a state of moaning relaxation, Will’s mouth now underwater and letting out a stream of bubbles as his muffled noises urged Maccus on.  The first mate cast a furtive glance toward the beach, a bead of sweat upon his brow.

“We’d best get you back to the boat, I think—”

Will’s mouth surfaced from the water.  “Keep going,” he groaned.  “I need you.”

Maccus drew a deep and shaking breath.

“Need…um…this,” Will mumbled, the correction coming too late. 

Maccus swallowed hard and continued to massage the captain’s sore shoulders, now staring fixedly off over the sea.  He did not dare to look down.  Could not let himself see how Will’s mouth hung open, how gentle sighs escaped his lips, how his lashes fluttered with each flex of Maccus’s strong hands—before he realized his thumbs had been unconsciously making tender circles on the soft skin of Will’s neck.

And one of his forefingers had brushed up to trace the sharp line of Will’s jaw.

Will’s eyes opened slowly, glassy with a deep pleasure, and they fell upon Maccus’s face to hold him there.

Maccus quickly withdrew his hands, clearing his throat with a cough, and Will let out a long sigh as if emerging from a dream.  The captain hadn’t said anything.  Hadn’t drawn his attention to the fact.  He had seemed—oh God—immensely moved by that rare, gentle contact.

“I’ll head back to catch some more birds for the other crew,” Maccus said quickly.  He sloshed up ahead through the water, forcing his limbs to move as quick as possible, as Will stared after him without a word.  Three weeks, Maccus thought.  Holy hell, that was fast.

The first mate found Jack and Barbossa first by the sound of their raised voices, and he came upon them in the forest arguing between two trees.  Jack was shirtless, his back and arms now sunburned over the inscrutable text and charts that made up his full body tattoos, and Barbossa was hatless and raking his great long nails across his belly under his loosened shirt.

“It is your archaic insistence on hygiene that makes you oh so delectable to the palate of our tireless friends, the sand fleas,” Jack began.

“‘Tis the modern way,” Barbossa snapped, scratching incessantly.  “A clean body makes for a clean soul, and who knows what refuse and grime clings to you, poisoning your body all the more?”

“Aye, but it was this body that caught your wandering eye the other night, was it not?” Jack said.

Barbossa rolled his eyes.  “Words spoken under the sway of two and a half fermented coconuts hold no bearing on a man’s taste—nay, a man’s soul, at all.”

“You keep telling yourself that, darling,” Jack said, and he gave a coy wink.

Maccus pressed on through the trees, searching for anyone with a shred of sense.  He soon found Elizabeth, who was wrapped up in something involving the hunting party, tapping her finger on the page of an open book in her hand—it must have been on her when she jumped ship. 

“I don’t think these birds exist anywhere else,” she called out.  The hunting party did not appear to be listening.  “There were records of them from the journeys of sailors on the island of Mauritius—” squawking noises came from the cornered birds “—but a breeding pair of them must been brought over as a prize, or a food source, or perhaps part of a lost cargo—”

The sounds of crunching and wringing drowned out her voice, and Maccus looked between her and the birds with a wince. “—So I believe these may be the last population in existence,” she finished.

“Pirate King Swann-Turner,” Maccus cut in, “a word?”

“Yes, Maccus, what is it?”

The sounds of birds being tossed into woven palm leaf bags with heavy thumps momentarily broke the man’s concentration.  “You and your husband,” he began cautiously, testing the waters, “are you quite open?”

Elizabeth frowned.  “I should say so,” she replied.  “We speak our minds to one another.”

Maccus bit his lip.  “What I mean to ask is,” he swallowed, “are you two open to…to the openness of others?”

Elizabeth blinked, and then she gave a curious tilt of her head.  “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“Can he—”

“I think this is the biggest one we’ve seen yet!” Ragetti called out.  He was swinging a bird about by its legs like a windmill, its feathers fluttering through the air like snow.

“I’m so sorry, I need to attend to this,” Elizabeth said.

“Right.  Understood,” Maccus replied, forcing a smile.

——

The crews found themselves gathered once more around the bonfire on a quiet, breezy night.

Jack was nowhere to be seen, and for once Barbossa was enveloped in a grateful, encompassing silence.  He had brought his palm leaf mat up near the flickering light and lay on his side, bringing chunks of bird meat to his mouth to chew in thought.  But there was something about the absence of the other man that seemed to—no, it couldn’t be—cast a certain melancholy on him?

When Jack returned to the bonfire, Barbossa sat upright, and then abruptly checked his own visible enthusiasm.

“Where in God’s name did you get that?” Barbossa spat.

It was a fair question.  In Jack’s arms was a lute, utterly pristine with all its strings. 

“Found it,” Jack said, unhelpfully.  “Must have washed ashore.”

He sat down upon a sandy mound at the head of the fire and strummed a little chord.  The crewmen who had been conversing quietly turned their attention to him, having gone without the gracious sounds of music for far too long. 

Jack plucked a simple tune to accompany his meandering words.  “When I first laid eyes upon the Pearl,” he began, his voice slipping into the fond softness of memory, “I knew there would be none other like her.”

The crews listened, their breaths slowed, as the melody drifted through the night air.  “‘Course, back then I called her the Wicked Wench,” Jack went on with a chuckle, “which was unkind, in hindsight.  For there was not—” his tune picked up “—a wicked board upon her.”

He began strumming in earnest, his fingers flying across the strings, and all eyes were upon him as his voice rang out over the beach.

“There once was a ship that stole my heart,

I wished that we might never ever part.

So grand was she and our love so strong

if she’d sink I’d gladly go along!”

Barbossa let out a hearty chuckle, and a ripple of amusement went through the crews.  Jack licked his lips.

“Soooon came a terrible man,

a short old cunt with a white wigg’d head.

‘Work for me and you’ll earn your bread—

or you’ll hang until you’re dead!’ ”

The trees fluttered along the shore, and Gibbs shook his head in disbelief.

“I worked for him, and I worked three years,

breaking my back for pennies and tears.

A cargo came that I couldn’t abide,

whom I freed at the risk of me hide…”

Faaarewell, you beautiful boat!

He sent her down into Neptune’s throat.

I turned my tail, and I ran from land—

with a bright new burning brand.”

Jack sniffed loudly as his fingers continued to strum.

“I’d bear every lash of the bo’sun’s whip

to see her again a sailing ship,

but things in this world just can’t be pursed

lest you deal with the man with the curse.”

Will was listening in the distance from his longboat, and his head rose from the wood.

“Jooones waved his tentacled hand,

and brought her back upon earthly sands.

There she was, my glorious girl—

my love—my new Black Pearl!

Jack gritted his teeth and kept his eyes upon his flying fingers.

“I’d kill for her, I’d die for her,

I’d gut every one of you miserable curs.

But now she’s gone and we’re all trapped here,

so heed this very one fear:

Keeep watch whenever you sleep!

I’ll send you down to the treacherous deep!

No reason to live nor a reason to die,

when you’re dead, I’ll hardly cry!”

Jack strummed the last chord with an extravagant flourish, swinging his arm around to let it hang in the air, his chest heaving, with a toothy, ecstatic grin upon his face.

A moment of silence passed—and then Barbossa leapt to his feet, his eyes swimming with tears, applauding like a man at the most prestigious opera house in the world.  The crews joined in with howling cheers, and Will’s distant applause came from the shoreline.

“Thanks very much,” Jack said, setting the lute down upon the sand.  “I meant it all, too.”

Something had been irrevocably changed in Barbossa’s attitude that evening—the passion Jack bore for the Pearl no doubt rang true for every captain that loved his ship—but it was his ship too, that he had come to need so dearly.  When Jack returned to his spot across from Barbossa, the old captain’s eyes did not once leave Jack’s face.  There was an unfamiliar softness in them: a knowing stare.

“Beautiful,” Barbossa said quietly.

The night wore on, and Maccus was the only one who noticed that when Jack left for his little wooden shelter down the beach to sleep, Barbossa waited a few minutes, engaged in pleasant conversation, and then he excused himself to depart in that very same direction.  His little shelter rested on the other side of the forest.

Maccus turned to look over his shoulder at the lonely little longboat whose hull was now kissed  by the rising tide. 

He made his excuses and wandered off a way down the beach before circling back in the dark through the waves.  He came up beside the longboat quietly, peering in, wondering if he should have to wake Will—but he found the man seated on the floor of the boat, his back resting against the bench, his eyes glinting through the dark.

“Ah,” Maccus murmured.  “Do you need anything?”

Will lifted a hand in Maccus’s direction.  He did.

And a first mate always helped his captain.

——

Two unlikely pairs of men awoke in each other’s arms the next morning—though the two captains of the Pearl falling together had never been too unlikely.  Maccus gave a great yawn and opened his eyes to find Will’s arms looped around him, the man still snoring against his chest.  Best to let him rest.  He seemed so comfortable, which was rare, given the tight space.

The sun was already a few fingers above the horizon, and Maccus sighed pleasantly.  Maybe they could take a swim together—look at the reef and the bright fish on the other side of the island.  It was as Maccus was daydreaming these possibilities, with Will’s chest rising and falling against him in quiet sleep, that he heard shouts coming from the beach.

“They’re back!“

Will startled awake and the two men sat bolt upright, their heads popping up like petrified birds over the sides of the longboat.

But nobody seemed to notice or care, as Jack and Barbossa also rolled out of their singular shelter hurriedly replacing their clothing, and the two crews ran down the shore to assemble beside Will’s longboat to gaze out over the water with their jaws agape.  Jack secured the last button of his trousers and squinted out across the sea—and he gave a yelp of surprise.

“My ship!” he gleefully cried.

There they were, the Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman, as if no time at all had passed.

“She’s at full sail,” Gibbs breathed in disbelief.  “It’s like she never went under.”

The Pearl’s three masts were fully intact, and her hull sat high upon the water.

“What’s happened to her, then?” Elizabeth asked.  “Could it have been Calypso’s doing…?  A curse or…a jest?”

Maccus had slunk unnoticed out of the longboat like a stray cat and was standing in the sand, feigning having just arrived, his arms folded over his chest and a look of affected curiosity on his face.  He brought one hand up to rub his beard in contemplation.  “Maybe she was, ah, giving the ship a good look over,” he said.

“Why?” Elizabeth pressed.

Her question went unanswered as Ragetti leveled a finger toward the water behind the two ships, his fake eye quivering.  “Look.”

There was something—or several somethings—trailing in the waters behind the two ships that could not yet be seen.  The only evidence they had that it was there was in the two ships’ unnaturally long wake: the water behind them was carved through for fathoms more than it should have, but they were still too distant for the precise shape of the thing or things to be made out.  The Pearl and the Dutchman continued on slowly like two swans upon a lake.

Jack and Barbossa dug into their pockets and produced their spyglasses to press them to their eyes.  Their mouths hung open, struggling to discern the nature of the Pearl’s second miraculous resurrection.

“Ha!  She’s fully seaworthy and nautically capable with nary a scratch upon her,” Jack said.  His tone was somehow completely un-mystified by the supernatural happenings of it all and filled instead with glowing pride.  “Name a single ship in the world who could weather a sinking twice.”

“The Dutchman,” Will said.

Jack snorted.  “Doesn’t count.  I tell you, you make a man a captain for one day, and he acts like the hottest whore in the brothel.”

Will’s voice caught in his throat, and he did not reply. 

Barbossa continued to squint through his spyglass, and it was as the ships began a slow turn to port, bringing their bows about in the direction of the island, that his eyes went wide.  He staggered around the group and came up alongside Will’s little beached longboat and thrust the glass into his hand.  Will didn’t need any coaxing to stand up on the bench and look for himself at the ships.

His face went pale. 

Wordlessly, he turned toward Maccus who took the glass from his hands and peered out at the sea.  A hollow, strangled choke came from the first mate’s throat.  He lowered it slowly and handed it off to the next man.  One by one, the glass was passed among the Dutchman crew, and one by one, they fell silent, pale-faced, and would not dare to look at one another.

“What?” Elizabeth asked.  “What is it?”

Through all of this, Jack had hoarded his own spyglass and was currently distracted by a pair of very green parrots in a distant tree.  He let out a low chuckle.  “The things birds will do!” he mused, tittering in amusement.

“Oh, for the love of—”  Gibbs snatched the glass out of Jack’s hand, and Jack let out an indignant yelp, which he flatly ignored.  He looked out over the water, closing one eye to see.

“Mary, Mother of God,” Gibbs breathed.

The things following after the two ships, now that they were properly in view, were five identically sized, supernaturally propelled, fully autonomous longboats.  Their seats were empty.  Not a single oar graced the water from their sides.

“Let me see,” Elizabeth pressed, taking the glass for herself.  Gibbs’ hand remained hovering in the air, empty and frozen in disbelief. “Oh sweet and christened Christ,” Elizabeth stammered.

The five little longboats were of varying colors in a mix between the Pearl and the Dutchman.  One black, one with a shimmer of brown, two fully brown, and one that had a patchwork of colors dappled across its shiny sides.  Elizabeth lowered the glass from her eye, and she seemed to find it very difficult to breathe. 

“Did they…?” she began.

No one knew how to reply.  It was Maccus who brought a hand to his mouth with a faint Oh, and a realization dawned on him. 

“I—” he began, and the group all turned to look at him.  “I had heard some things when I went swimming underwater by the reef.  Big noises.  Quaking thuds.  Thought it might have just been some distant shipwreck settling, so it wasn’t worth mentioning, but…”

He could not finish the thought. 

The crews continued to stare at the strange thing before them—the miracle of life—or wooden life—there really wasn’t a word for it at all.  Jack’s hand had settled over his heart, and he let out a heaving breath.

“Never thought I’d be a stepfather,” he said, tearing up.  “I’ll raise them as if they’re my own flesh and blood.”

The crews looked to him with strained expressions of kindness.  And for once, Barbossa did not open his mouth to bicker.  Maccus looked down at Will with a wince.

“Kind of makes you a dad, too,” he said.Will’s face went pale, and he did not say a word.  He could never, ever have anticipated the strange and unexpected gifts that a life of piracy would bring.

[ari-the-arotistic]

59 Sparrow & Norrington

Title: The tragic irony of Commodore James Norrington

Author: James Norrington(Ari_the_Arotistic)

Rating: General Audiences

Pairings: James Norrington/Jack Sparrow

Summary:

James has found himself stuck in the locker. An unlikely rescuer comes to save him

-

Prompt 59: No way out

-

James sighed softly as he looked out across the endless waves of the sea, the scorching sun beating harshly down upon him, piercing through his uniform, and practically boiling him alive with its heat as he sat on the edge of an infinite desert, trapped here for all eternity. Davy Jones' locker. He never would've believed it was real, had he not been sent there himself upon his death on the Flying Dutchman. There were still times when it was hard to believe that any of the strange, mystical things he had encountered since he met Jack Sparrow nearly two years ago had been real. Had it been two years? Or longer? He couldn't tell. He had long since lost count of how long he had been trapped here, sitting on the edge of a desert, waiting for salvation or death, neither of which seemed likely at this point. It could have been mere hours, or even decades. It was all a blur. There were times where he could see the Dutchman sailing across the horizon, ferrying the souls of the dead, and he would feel a spark of hope that maybe, just maybe, it would come and rescue him from this prison, but it never happened, and he would watch, crestfallen, as it sailed out of view once more. It was a torturous cycle, but deep down, he knew he deserved it for every wrong decision he had made when he had still been alive, starting with following Sparrow into that hurricane. That didn't make it hurt any less. With another sigh, James laid back in the dry, hot sand, closing his eyes, and hoping that if he laid here long enough, the locker would swallow him whole. He had no idea how long he laid there for. It could've been minutes, or hours, or even days. However long it had been, it had been enough time for someone to row ashore, and walk over to him, all without him noticing until they were standing right in front of him, their shadow blocking out the blinding sun, giving James the first taste of shade he had gotten since he died. Slowly, he cracked open one of his eyes, and was pleasantly surprised to see none other then Jack Sparrow standing before him.

"You look awful, mate." Jack huffed in that drunken drawl of his, and James' heart flooded with joy at hearing that familiar voice once again.

"Jack!" James cried happily, sitting up so fast it made him dizzy. He wasn't sure if Jack was really here, or if he was just some illusion to torment him, but at the moment he didn't really care. He was a welcome distraction, real or not. "What are you doing here?" He asked eagerly as Jack held out a hand and helped him get to his feet. Instead of answering the question, Jack pulled James closer to him, their faces practically inches apart as Jack's obsidian black eyes bore into James's sea green ones, his breath catching in his throat at the action.

"Was it worth it?" Jack asked suddenly, catching James even further off guard.

"What do you mean?" James asked in reply, not quite sure what kind of answer Jack was looking for.

"Don't play dumb, Commodore." Jack growled, pulling James just a bit closer in his anger. "Giving the heart of Davy Jones to Beckett. Was it worth it?" The pirate repeated in a slow, contemptuous voice, his obsidian eyes glowing like embers beneath the scorching sun of the locker. Despite the heat, James felt himself shiver.

"I did what I had to do to regain my honor." He replied in a quiet voice, the words tasting sour on his tongue, though he did not back down.

"Thousands of innocent people died because of you. Is that what you'd call honor?" Jack hissed in reply, his tone practically dripping with venom. James frowned at that, the words piercing through his heart like a spike of ice.

"Is that why you came here? Just to rub it in my face that I'm a terrible person? Because if that's all you wanted, then you can go ahead and get back into your boat, and leave." He snapped sharply, his voice heavy with emotion. He quickly pulled away from Jack's grasp, and turned away from him, before starting to walk down the shore line, away from Jack, the rowboat, and his own guilt.

"And what about you then? How are you going to escape this place if I'm gone?" Jack called out after him as he jogged to keep with James, his face soon coming into view.

"I'll find a way." James huffed in reply, not slowing down as he tried to put more distance between the two of them.

"There is no way out, James! Not if you don't know what you're doing!" Jack exclaimed, reaching out to grab James' arm to slow him down, and something in James snapped.

"Then why the hell are you here, Jack?!" He yelled in reply as he came to a sudden stop, yanking his arm away from the other man. "If it's not to insult me, and it's not to rescue me, then what do you want?" He asked in a low growl, trying to figure out why Jack even came to the locker in the first place.

"What I want," Jack began in a low tone, poking a finger into James' chest, "is closure. So I'll ask again. Was it worth it?"

"Of course it wasn't!" James snapped in reply, all of his guilt coming to a boil, and coming out in an ugly rage. "Betraying you was the worst decision I ever made in my entire life! Are you happy now?" He asked venomously, fighting the urge to pull Jack close like the pirate had done to him just minutes before. Jack sighed softly, the fire leaving his eyes, and being replaced by something that James couldn't quite place.

"No." He replied simply, and James opened his mouth to make a scathing reply, before Jack continued. "But I do forgive you." He added softly, and James snapped his mouth shut, taken off guard again.

"I don't deserve your forgiveness." He replied in a small voice, shifting his gaze to the ground, unable to meet Jack's eyes.

"Well, you have it anyway." Jack replied with an awkward shrug, before the two of the fell into a strained silence. "Alright, come on, let's you get you out of here." He said with a soft sigh after a few minutes, before grabbing James' arm and dragging him back over to the rowboat. James just smiled softly, and let himself be dragged, glad to finally be able to leave this prison.

[nancydrew-mysterycrew]

Theory time!

OKAY so, Kaitie (@naancypants​) and I spent a while on this post trying to figure out what this piece of paper that was revealed at the end of 3.03 says: 

and we’ve def gotten pretty close, i just wanted to gather all of my ideas in a new post since our original thread was on someone else’s post and i don’t wanna keep hijacking it 😂also just need to organize my thoughts since we might get some answers tonight!! 

so my current hypothesis for what it says is this: 

- Hippocratic Corpus

- drain systems / bootleggers

- protection ritual

- Benjamin Dow 20th ME 

     August 29th, 1862 

C. H. Dow, accompanying

The first three lines look very faintly crossed out to me, making it feel like a checklist of sorts..

Many of us have guessed that the note was revealed by a ghost at the historical society, likely a Woman in White. My personal guess is Martha Marvin, simply because she’s been mentioned several times by name this season and it would make sense if she’s trying to connect with her descenent, Bess. 

The reason I think the last name on the paper is “Dow” is also because they’ve mentioned a “Dow” by name this season, namely Beckett Dow, the maker of the soul-splitter and the cage that held the heart freezing creature. 

SO my theory is this: I think that Benjamin Dow is Beckett’s brother or son or father or something, AND I think he was married to Charity Hudson, Temperance’s daughter. This is kinda a crack theory but hear me out!! C. H. Dow COULD BE Charity Hudson Dow - a lot of women back then kept their maiden name as a middle name after they were married! 

I’m thinking there was a meeting at the Dow household or maybe just held by Benjamin Dow and his wife Charity Hudson Dow (hence the accompanying part) on that date in 1862. Perhaps the meeting had to do with the three items on the list that were crossed out, and they were crossing them off as they discussed them.

Maybe something happened at this meeting that is somehow relevant to the crew’s current adventures and Bess is supposed to do some kind of ritual to see what happened at the meeting? Or the list will somehow help them in another way? 

The Hippocratic Corpus is a collection of Hippocrates’ works, so could it have something to do with a medical issue? The next item is “drain systems/ bootleggers” which seems unrelated to that. No idea what that could be about unless it has to do with the secret tunnels under the historical society? Then the third thing is “protection ritual” which we’ve already encountered through Bess, via Martha Marvin (or Temperance Hudson, depending on who you believe) so that points another finger towards this having something to do with Martha or Charity or both. 

I’m not sure we know the year that Temperance was “killed” by the WIW but if this takes place after that, why would Charity be meeting with the WIW? So maybe it’s not a WIW meeting, but rather one about them? Or maybe about something else entirely and the WIW just want Bess to know about it? Who knows. 

I still find it odd that the paper was revealed to Bess while she was distracted and so we still don’t even know if she saw it... has the paper just been sitting on the desk this whole time unnoticed? I must know lol 

Anyhoo I think that’s all my thoughts, I really just wanted to get my crack theory about Charity Hudson being the C. H. Dow on the paper out there 😂

One thing that could throw a wrench in this is: does anyone know if Charity was real? Or was she just Temperance pretending to be her own “daughter” since the WIW killed her? Cuz it was very unclear in 2x18 honestly lol if anyone has insight.. let a bitch know ok

Anyone who wants to please feel free to add on! And thank you Kaitie for being my partner in this mystery 🥰 here’s hoping we get some answers soon!

[moviemunchies]

I feel like this movie’s trying too hard.

Okay so the story everyone knows is that the first two Pirates of the Caribbean sequels were shot back-to-back and so they could be released quickly one after the other. But there’s also this other story, that after the unexpected smash hit success of Curse of the Black Pearl Disney asked the team to produce a couple of sequels. They had some trouble coming up with solid ideas though–they had IDEAS for scenes, storyboards for large action set pieces, and pieces of script, but not a completely coherent whole. Eventually Disney got tired of waiting, and demanded that they either get started soon or the whole thing was canceled. Verbinski and Bruckheimer responded by launching the movies into production right away without a finished script.

I think these movies make a lot more sense with that in mind.

Dead Man’s Chest goes like this: apparently several years before the events of the movie Jack Sparrow made a deal with the immortal Davy Jones, the captain of the Flying Dutchman, in order to be captain of the Black Pearl for thirteen years and then Jones will get his soul. Well that time’s running out and Jones is planning on collecting, so Jack’s after the Dead Man’s Chest, a chest containing Jones’s heart, the only way to kill him (or, as Jack hopes, blackmail him). Except Will and Elizabeth are also drawn into this, because the East India Company (under Lord Cutler Beckett) has arrested them and won’t let them go until they bring him Jack Sparrow, and his compass, because Beckett wants to find the Dead Man’s Chest himself.

When I say that this movie’s trying too hard, I think it’s trying to play up the elements that made the first movie popular. There are a LOT of callbacks to gags from the first film, many of which I believe were improvised, and so with so many of their presence here it doesn’t feel as genuine. But more than that are the characters themselves. Watching the movies back-to-back the way I did, it makes me think that Jack Sparrow in particular has been hammed up, his whacky traits turned up to eleven.

Jack Sparrow was whacky, yes, and he came up with improbable plans. But after rewatching Curse of the Black Pearl a dozen times, I always got the impression that he knew what he was doing when he improvised, and most of the time his plans actually work. When they don’t work, it’s because of some unforeseen circumstance that he really couldn’t have guessed was going to happen.

From Dead Man’s Chest onward, the reason Jack survives is not just his ability to improvise, but also because of sheer dumb luck. Most of his plans don’t work. Look at his escape from the cannibals, in which he kind of fails his way out of captivity. We are of course, meant to be seeing Jack Sparrow at his most desperate right now, in even crazier circumstances than before, so of course things aren’t generally going his way, but to me it does seem like he’s not as competent this time around. That, and his humor is much more over-the-top and in-your-face. Not that he was subtle in the first movie, but he seemed wittier, saying clever things at the opportune moment, rather than actively trying to make memes.

Mind you, he is still very funny in this movie. In general it’s a pretty funny, but Jack’s a highlight.

Despite being a very serious situation, there are also scenes which didn’t feel like they were very dangerous, when they absolutely should. When Jack, Will, and Norrington are all dueling on Isla de Cruces, despite waving around swords I never really felt like any of these people were in danger. And sure, it’s not like you watched the Jack vs Will duel in the first movie thinking that they were going to kill each other, but that’s at the beginning of a movie, and you see that they’re going to get to know each other. Besides, in that duel, it’s pretty clear that Jack doesn’t want to kill Will at all, he wants to escape and Will’s in his way.

And the fights towards the end of the movie with the crewman of the _Flying Dutchman_ are just confusing, because those men can’t be killed.

[Also TV Tropes seems to think the crew members of the Flying Dutchman can be killed? I don’t think that’s the case. We see one disemboweled and another decapitated, and basically walking those injuries off. They can be hurt, and severely inconvenienced, but nothing supports the idea that they’re killable.]

Big sequences and set pieces sort of start or get kicked off without enough setup to feel quite right. Cannibal island comes to mind. The three-way sword fight towards the end as well–why do they immediately draw swords, especially Jack and Will, since their intentions are not mutually-exclusive wishes? And there’s also Will challenging Davy Jones to Liar’s Dice after apparently watching it for minute. It definitely FEELS like they storyboarded big scenes without working out how to make them smoothly fit the narrative.

I also have some thoughts on Cutler Beckett, but I think I’ll save those for when we get to the next movie. It mostly boils down to: he’s underused and under developed.

There are some things that I do really like about this movie though? Davy Jones is a fantastic villain, and both he and the crew members of the Dutchman have spectacular designs. It’s something that’s unique, memorable, and also feels like it fits completely within the established world. Watching them move around in the world is an interesting sight for the screen, and the CGI for the most part still holds up pretty well.

And then there’s the kraken. The kraken is an amazing addition to the story, which again fits perfectly into the world they’ve built and raises the stakes considerably. There are a few shots in which the CGI doesn’t quite hold up as well today. But overall I think the the sequences in which we see a crew fighting the kraken are the best in the film. We see the heroes fighting an impossible battle against a creature that cannot be beat, and have to come up with unorthodox solutions on the fly. Killing off the kraken off-screen between movies was a crime.

The music is outstanding? Hans Zimmer wasn’t able to fully commit to the first movie because he was making music for The Last Samurai and he’s back and he goes all out. Again, “The Kraken” stands out as a great piece, but the music throughout the film is amazing and I can happily listen to it over and over again.

And I like the tone of this movie. I like that we’ve gone full-on fantasy in this movie, rather than just a couple of fantasy elements like the first movie (albeit, the fantasy element in the first movie–the curse–is a large part of the story). I would have liked some parts of the backstory, particularly Jack’s relationships with Jones and Beckett, to have been more explicitly fleshed out, but overall the way that the movie builds the lore of the setting are great and I love it.

So no, it’s not smart, it’s not as good, but it IS an entertaining movie. I remember seeing it in theaters, and while I didn’t like it as much as Curse of the Black Pearl I definitely had a good time. It’s a solid popcorn flick. There are lots of things to like about this movie, so if you adored the first movie (which is quite excellent) and you feel as if you need more, maybe this will do it for you. But at the same time, it’s clearly inferior to the first film in most respects, and doesn’t leave me fulfilled in the same way. It’s not bad, and it’s certainly very entertaining, but it’s not that stroke of brilliance the first film was either.

[pollylynn]

Title: Errant WC: 800 Episode: Heartbreak Hotel (4 x 08)

She doesn’t expect the murder of Sam Siegel to leave her ruminating on bravery. She doesn’t expect the murder of Sam Siegel to leave her doing anything other than feeling annoyed that she is being isolated, tested, and—yes—punished, no matter how Gates tries to spin it. Bravery seems to be the last thing the murder of Sam Siegel would have her thinking about.

The crime scene itself screams cowardice. Castle may have written the scene at an abandoned warehouse too many times to be vulnerable to any attempt to lure him there, but Sam must have lived that scene countless times, and still he swallowed the hook.

That speaks of desperation. The fact that Sam didn’t bother to grab his gun speaks of a known quantity, a murderer who knew his victim well enough to trade on that that desperation, to get up close and personal and shoot a man dead with a gun that was probably small enough to conceal until the last fatal second. For all the hot and cold running testosterone flowing through Sam Siegel’s Godfather-adjacent world, there’s nothing brave at all about his murder.

It’s Nadine Espinoza who first has the question of bravery swimming up to the surface for her. That’s a reality she has to scramble to keep to herself. Nadine Espinoza stole ten million dollars from her employer. That’s certainly not admirable in any way. It’s certainly not brave. Except it turns out that it is. Nadine was not acting out of greed. That’s shocking to her—the idea that this act that she sees all the time, though not necessarily on this scale, is remarkably brave in this instance.

Nadine Espinoza was protecting her parents from the machinations of bad, cowardly man. She wonders—Kate wonders—if the woman’s parents’ ever even knew the trouble they were in, or if Nadine’s bravery extended to preserving her parents’ peace of mind entirely, never letting the faintest hint of trouble make its way to them.

She wonders in her own, not-so-secret heart of hearts to what lengths she would have gone to protect her own mother, if she’d had the slightest inkling of the trouble she’d been in. She thinks relieving a predatory waste of skin like Sam Siegel of ten million not-so-hard-earned dollars would have been the least of it.

She wonders carefully and in the privacy of her own head. And she’s glad for Nadine that even if she did lift the burden from her parents’ shoulders, she didn’t have to bear it entirely alone. She had Daniel Sullivan, and there’s another brave soul. He, even more than Nadine, must have been privy to the Sam Siegel well beneath the loud shirt-and-tie combos and the image-rehabbing charitable donations, and still he devised a plan to free Nadine—to get her and her family out of harm’s way for good. Still he bravely stands up to Tommy Moretti.

She’s on hand for that part. She and Castle are both on hand, and she’s impressed with the awkward-by-nature young man. More than that, she’s heartened—in so many senses of the word—by both him and Nadine.

Love makes the two of them brave. It’s such a greeting card idea that she has the instinct to tamp it down almost as hard as her admiration for the way the two of them turned the tables on Sam. That admiration is not exactly a sentiment that’s becoming of an officer sworn to uphold the law. Love makes you brave is a legend fit for a Precious Moments figurine—it is not at all something that should be rattling around in the head of Kate “Just Being Practical” Beckett.

But it’s not really rattling around her head. It’s rattling around her heart, and she can’t ignore it. She doesn’t exactly want to ignore it, because she realizes that all this reflection on bravery hadn’t started with Nadine at all, not beneath the surface. It had started with her—with Kate JBP Beckett.

She has been brave. She has, unprompted and without any real kind of plan, stepped up to defend Castle to Gates. She has defended him against the charge of being a distraction and stepped up to the plate for Team Facts Are Nothing Without A Working Theory, However Crazy It May Be. She has been impolitic at best and foolish at worst in tweaking Gates about her enthusiasm for the Queens property as central to their case—a line of inquiry that Castle was the first to argue for.

She has stepped up, over and over again, these last two days. She has acted as his champion, and she can’t get the thought out of her head: Love makes you brave.

A/N: Home again. Home has some morphousness. This has no morphousness a'tall.

images via homeofthenutty

[fundielicious-simblr]

(This is going to act as an update post on Zoe and her family, I'm trying to be more proactive about talking about the other kids in the 'heir' families that aren't the main characters. This also makes it so that I can do smaller updates when I do the big holiday family updates, so that the post itself doesn't become a dissertation 😂)

(Zoe's POV)

How fast time flies! Life in Oasis Springs with little JJ has and is fun, over time he’s made leaps and bounds with all of his learning and potty training. Whilst I helped teach my siblings, it definitely feels different with your own child. Every spill and accident means we’re just that much closer to having him be fully potty trained, which will be a big win for the both of us! We’re working on fluency with colours and letters, and after those are down we can start with bible memory!

(rest is under the cut! - got too long 😂)

With Francisco going off to work during the day, it took awhile for me to get used to being alone when we first got married. After having JJ it made it easier because I could just dedicate all my time to him during the day, my sister Priscilla moved closeby, so we’d see each other whenever we had the time. Now she’s got a baby of her own, we’ve been having to coordinate schedules to see each other. Annette comes down to see Priscilla for some twin time, and while she’s in town she’ll drop in to see JJ and I. It’s great getting to hang out with my younger sisters and being able to invest in their lives and keep our sister bond strong. Annette isn’t married yet and has no one she’s interested in, so she keeps herself busy with babysitting for the mothers in our church as well as investing in the lives of others and volunteering at various church camps. When she isn’t doing that, she’s visiting the siblings that are spread out everywhere, soon she’s planning a trip to see Beckett and Mandy out in Selvadorada on a short missions trip.

It’s great getting to sit down with Francisco when he comes home and getting to hear all about his work day. Obviously there are loads of things I don’t understand about his work with the military, but he’ll tell me what he can whilst explaining the complicated jargon. Sometimes he’ll get sent on short training expeditions out into the desert which have me worried sometimes, as you never know what can happen out there, but he always reassures me that he’ll be back safe and sound.

I’m still working on my music, I play at our church on the weekends so I’m always looking for ways to arrange the hymnals. In the new year I’ll be teaching at a music camp hosted by my parents church, so I’m working on different pieces for that. I’m almost done arranging a piece for a new recording that I’m doing for a small hymnal EP, so when JJ is doing his extended play time, I’m practicing on the keyboard that is in his room. Sometimes he’ll come and watch me play and is captivated by the music, it’s such a blessing to see his little eyes light up at the sound of music, I can’t wait until he’s old enough to begin learning.

Francisco and I had talked about expanding our little family and were excited to see what the Lord had in store for us, there were 2 or 3 times that I hoped I was pregnant but received a negative pregnancy test. To be really honest, it was very hard to want something and get a negative test result. I’ve spent time calling my mother and having her comforting voice was such a blessing to me during my quite teary phonecalls where I’m sure she could barely understand a word. After seeing my mother have baby after baby every year, and now seeing my sister and sister-in-law have children quite easily, admittedly it was hard to be content in my struggle whilst also being happy for everyone else. There were many times I ran to the Lord in prayer for contentment, and for patience as I wait for what he has in store for me, and it helped calm my heart.

It’s been great seeing Francisco as a father, he’s in love with parenting JJ and being a good example for him. He takes initiative with both correcting JJ and having a good teaching moment, as well as being the fun dad who loves to play outside. He tries his hardest to make sure he can come home and read JJ a bedtime story, but if he can’t make it then I gladly read to JJ at bedtime. 

My sister Annette was over visiting when I felt like I should take a pregnancy test, and praise the Lord it was positive! I’ve prayed and prayed over again for this moment, and now that it’s here I feel overjoyed! Telling Francisco was the best part, he was so excited for us to grow our family. We took these pictures to announce to our friends and family about our new addition that will be joining us this winter.

With the joys of pregnancy come the trials, and by that I mean morning sickness. I’ve got it much worse this time round than I did with JJ’s pregnancy, meaning that on bad days Francisco has had to step up and do things that I would usually do. Good thing his mother made sure that both her boys knew how to cook and do their own laundry when they were teenagers or else this would be another trial for us to endure 😂

Another new thing I’ve had to get used to with this pregnancy is the size of my belly, with JJ I only really started showing in the 2nd trimester which is standard with your first baby. With this baby it seems that I started showing as soon as the pregnancy test came out positive, and since we know there’s only one baby in here, their positioning is more frontal that JJ was. 

This pregnancy came right on the tail end of our time here in Oasis Springs, Francisco got his new orders and he’s being stationed out at a base near Windenburg! He got promoted right before his time here was done, so we all got to dress up and head to the ceremony, I must say, I love seeing him in his uniform! Living by Windenburg means I’ll be close to my sister Amira who lives there with her husband, I love that being able to move around every 2 years means that I get a chance to see different friends and family more regularly as the years change. When we’re on our way to Windenburg we’ll be stopping by newcrest for Harvestfest with my family, it’ll be so good to see everyone again before we head out to our new home for the next 2 years!

                                                            💛

(AN) The accidental irony in this post being military themed wasn’t planned but is unfortunate considering the recent events. This post would’ve gone up on Saturday the 28th, but unfortunately time and circumstances meant I couldn't bring myself to do much for a bit as well as not having access to my laptop. Early on saturday morning I found out that a girl that I knew was one of the marines killed in the Kabul attacks. I’m not in the military, I’m not even American, but she was stationed at the base in the country where I live and were deployed to Afghanistan from here not too long ago. Being a civilian I wasn’t as close to her as some of her fellow soldiers but we saw each other when my friends and I would hang out with our military friends on the weekends, she was truly a kind soul and her death as well as the others have shattered everyone’s hearts. It’s so jarring having to deal with the fact that a person that you used to see almost weekly is now gone, I jumped back into tumblr as a form of distraction and am hoping this helps keep my mind busy. My condolences go out to all the families and friends of those who lost their lives this weekend, and to everyone affected by these losses, please reach out to get help if you need it. May they all rest in peace. 

[brooksdavis]

Hiii Lolo!! 💕 This is for the favorite fics ask game! I got a little carried away because I was so interested/excited...here ya go! 😊 🎭 😱 🥰 👩‍👩‍👧 👩‍⚕️ 🎲 ♾

If you don’t want to answer them all that’s completely fine!! Thanks in advance! Love ya!! Hope you’re having a lovely day because of course you deserve it!!! ☀️💓

(THANK YOU FOR SENDING ME THIS DEAR. i wanted to wait to respond until i could do some deep diving and give you a real answer. as a fic writer myself, i do tend to reread my own stuff, but i don’t want to me indulgent or anything so none of it is here but sljgksg i hope YOU are having an amazing day and i’m so flattered that you cared to ask.)

😊 a fic you like to read when you’re happy

drinking salted water by grimgrace (THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN)

this fic is so familiar to me it’s like a warm, spidey scented hug. one of the first fics i read over and over because it was simply perfect with just the right amount of bittersweet. happy endings and spidey kisses? i’m S O L D

Poster Boy by MilkshakeKate (THE MAN FROM UNCLE)

milkshakekate is simply the best and my favorite tmfu writer, which is saying a lot because that is a dedicated writing fandom there and i owe them my life. anything they write is incredible, but something about the secret rendevous mid mission and all the uniform stuff really uh. got me.

Gwen Stacy and the Wonders of Spider-Sex by Jenetica (THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN)

i’ve read this so many times i could not tell you. the relationship growth? the intrigue? THE HOT SPIDEY OF IT ALL! never been and never will be disappointed by this fic.

B O N U S

the language of touch by moodyreindeer (CLOAK AND DAGGER)

alright this section of ao3 & fanfic.net is tiny for one of my favorite pairings but i fell in love with this fic the first time i read it and have never fallen OUT. it’s so genuine to them and i love it sm. idk. read it, it’s GREAT.

🎭 a fic you like to read when you’re sad―either to cheer you up or because it matches your mood

Reckless by ninemilestogo (THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN)

a truly detailed tasm au where my kids are ANGSTY but end up happy and also the best use of the comic book villian chameleon ever. although to be fair, i haven’t read enough of them.

😱 an angsty fic

may i feel, said he by sugargroupie (ONE TREE HILL)

on the surface this is smutty, but it’s my favorite naley fic OUT THERE in these streets. the writer does teenage nathan so well i yell a lot on the inside. i don’t know how many times i’ve read it.

The Man, the Mystery, Richard Castle by RachelCAstrid (CASTLE)

one of the first castle fics i stumbled upon after my rewatch and it has my whole heart!! it’s sweet and angsty and in depth, and you can’t lose by reading it. DO IT. i dare you.

B O N U S

the sole relentless tenderness by satellitesonparade (YOUNG JUSTICE)

wally and artemis will make me cry for the rest of my life, and this is one of the best writers for it, so yeah. gift yourself. read it. sob saltily.

🥰 a fic for people in love

She thinks it’s funny that they’re awkward in bed by Emma_dghc (CASTLE)

this just makes me swooooooooon. i love intimacy and little moments a lot in my fics, it’s what sells me on relationships between characters, and this did an incredible job! one of my favorite fics set in season five, which is a fic fave for me i suppose with this pairing.

by any other name by FreshBrains (DIRTY DANCING)

after i watched and fell in love with the movie i combed through the archives and THIS was my favorite one in the whole place! it’s just so, so lovely. i find that with older films it’s harder to find things that feel written true to character, and this knocked it out of the park.

Bodies at Rest by PollyLynn (CASTLE)

at this point in my life i have a read (read: a LOT) of caskett fanfics in my time and there are many more in my future, but this really stands out to me as one of my favorites. their burgeoning relationship season 5 is truly - chefs kiss - and it’s the first (or second?) fic of @pollylynn ‘s that i ever read, and without it i wouldn’t have begun to work my way through all of their incredible stuff! check them out, they are a gift.

👩‍👩‍👧 a fic that makes you your appreciate your (found) family

The Team by loveJLforever (YOUNG JUSTICE)

the og young justice crew is one of my FAVORITE found families and i envy anyone who can do GC format because that shit is taxing as hell. this is hilarious and in character and i’ve read it through multiple times.

👩‍⚕️ and a hurt/comfort fic you like.

Teach Me To Live by dontoutchthefics (PHANTOM OF THE OPERA)

at this stage in my life i kind of set up a house on ao3 and rarely dare to venture to my old place on fanfic.net, but for this story it was absolutely worth it. it’s a gorgeous phantom of the opera modern/coffeeshop au that still has singing and this authors prose is STUNNING. it was a fic i stumbled across simply due to @ilustrariane ‘s INCREDIBLE commission which i highly suggest you also check out.

🎲 one fic that made you change something about your life, and what: 

Lessons for the Lost by KayMoon24 (MULTI-DISNEY)

this was literally the first and only time that i actually connected enough to email back and forth with any fanfic writer online! their prose and respectful + in depth taking on different topics just blew my mind for a disney fic and it’s still top tier in my head. it inspired me so much i started my own (which, ain’t as good at all), but this is the best one of its kind. wherever you are kay, ilysm!

B O N U S 

The Horizons Saga by njsafkbj (link is for Part I of VII, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON) is a gorgeous fic written before we even knew there would be another HTTYD that is so well done about Toothless and Hiccup recovering from the events of the first movie and growing and yeah.

♾ one fic you tell yourself not to reread because it makes you feel SO MUCH but you always end up going back to it

the world fits inside your arms by flyingthesky

one of the first works i ever bookmarked on archive of our own, possibly the one fic about real people that i love. it’s so lovingly written, and i see it as i guess a sort of real life au idk, but i reread it whenever i’m feeling bittersweet and angsty because it sends me right back to 2013-14 when emma stone and andrew garfield owned my life and had no clue.

B O N U S

The Next Great Adventure by brella

hands down best young justice fic i have ever or will ever read. season 3 of young justice exists in a different universe to me, this is the best fix it fic ever, and i reread it once a year to put myself through hell and back, not unlike wally in the speedforce.

HONORABLE MENTIONS NO ONE ASKED FOR

royally flushed by satellitesonparade (YOUNG JUSTICE) princess diaries wally/artemis au

Mistaken Messages by MistyMountainHop (THAT 70′S SHOW) jackie/kelso soulmate au

Acts [1-5] by lone_lilly (CASTLE) castle/beckett smutty goodness

so bad but he does it so well by greenconverses (PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS) percy/annabeth college punk/princess au

Poor Unfortunate Soul by makapedia, Peregrine Williams, witchynick (SOUL EATER) maka/soul succubus au

and the camera flashes (make it feel like a dream) by ladililn (BROOKLYN 99) jake/amy celeb photographer/celebrity au

Silent Still by yaba (ONE TREE HILL) brooke/julian ANGSTY FIC set in 6.23

[robotslenderman]

How Rowan/Rose met Ilias

Oof so I had some headcanon on how Rowan (AKA Rose) (I’ve been fiddling with her, sorry, hence the messing around with the name) ran into Ilias

and that was BEFORE I found out who Ilias USED TO BE INVOLVED WITH HOLY SHIT and now this encounter looks a whole lot more terrifying yikes.

But here it is -- what happened to Rowan after leaving the Tremere, and how she ran into Ilias and started crushing on him.

So -- Rowan was the name of the Tremere whose identity my Salubri took on when she went to the New World. Obviously, that identity’s last name is not Elensdottir, but I had to differentiate her from ESO!Rowan as they’ve become two entirely different characters. After a while Rowan was tired of lying to herself about her ability to one day bring back the Salubri, and had learned -- she felt -- everything she could learn with the Tremere without risking exposure by using her abilities.

So she left. She wrote a letter to Strauss and left it in her room in the Chantry, telling him the truth of who she was and what she’d uncovered about her clan in the process of being with the Tremere, and left it behind. She wasn’t going to risk telling him in person. She hoped that maybe Strauss wouldn’t bear her such ill-will he’d kill her on sight, and that maybe she’d plant a little seed of doubt regarding the reputation of the Salubri in his mind...

... but she didn’t hold her breath. And that was why she left a letter instead of telling him in person.

Once she’d vanished from LA, she took on the name Rose d’Eleanor. Rose was the name she was born with, and d’Eleanor was in honour of her mother, with whom she’d been very close -- “of Eleanor.” She traveled around using various names and posing as a different clan here and there, but as a Salubri she was always Rose.

It was good to be Rose again.

(I like to think she met Matthew from Beckett’s Jyhad Diary. That they’d met at Castle Hunedoara, or however you spell it, and both had survived and promised to meet again. The first other Salubri she ever met, well over a century after her own Embrace. I like to think they were brother and sister.)

She traveled. She didn’t want to stay in one place too long in case she got revealed or had trouble maintaining an identity. Travel was very hard, since she couldn’t use Disciplines around other Kindred, money was very difficult to come by, and she couldn’t exactly use Protean like Elisa did whenever the sun was getting awful close to rising. She had a much harder time than Elisa did, and she had many mornings where she regretted leaving the Chantry at all and wishing she’d just kept on lying to her friends and family there because it’d mean shelter and relative safety.

But she’d burned that bridge by telling them what she was, so she couldn’t go back.

In New York she heard about Elias Athanasios’s collection of art and historical artefacts.

She didn’t have an invitation, so she broke in.

She used what Tremere magic she knew and broke into the gallery one night when it was closed to other Kindred, and used that blood magic to get around the wards.

Not all of them. Only the ones she knew how to find. Ilias noticed there was an intruder immediately and found her. I mean, dude’s nine hundred years old, he probably has a shitton of tricks Rose has never even heard of.

Now, Rose immediately went oh SHIT because she’d tried so hard to avoid pissing off other Kindred, and she just got caught by the gallery’s fucking owner no less, breaking into his gallery. Expecting her ass to get curbstomped, she stutters her apologies and promises to leave without any drama.

Ilias calmly asked Rose who she was and what she was doing there.

Rose introduced herself with one of her identities -- Jane the Caitiff. She said, she badly wanted to see the exhibition but as a Caitiff who was just passing through she could never hope to secure an invitation, so she just... thought she’d have a look herself. And again, she apologised profusely and said she never wanted to cause any trouble or conflict, she only wanted to have a look and then leave.

(She didn’t quite get to the point of begging for her life, because that would just piss off a lot of Kindred and disgust them, but it was heavily implied.)

Now, this could be totally out of character because I don’t know Ilias from anywhere other than BJD.

But in my head, Ilias offered her a tour.

I don’t know if he believed her. I’m pretty sure he would have been suspicious about her story -- what Caitiff introduces themself as Caitiff, let alone without being asked? What kindred gets confronted by another and immediately backs down and rolls over like Rose did? And he must have been certain she was breaking in to steal the artefacts, not actually look at them.

But in my head he still offered her his arm, and said he’d give her a tour.

And Rose is like... if I accept this I am TOTALLY going to get destroyed.

But, well, she thought Ilias was a Toreador who could easily outrun her if she tried to bolt (yay Celerity), and she really did want to see the historic artefacts... so she accepted. Fully accepting that yeah, he’s probably going to try and kill her at some point.

He was probably going to destroy her whether she ran or not, may as well have the tour first.

So he showed her around. Showed her the art and the historic artefacts -- noticed that she seemed most interested in the history than the art, so he directed most of his attention there, and noticed that she actually had more knowledge of history than the average Kindred. She seemed to be very well-educated, especially for a Caitiff (not that he asked, because that would be Rude and Tzimisce do not DO Rude*), so I think he quite enjoyed talking to her and teaching her -- filling in little gaps in her knowledge.

* I mean, nobody ever described torture as rude now, did they?

I think he actually found her quite fascinating. She’s allegedly a Caitiff who, for some reason, was apparently open about her identity as one (immediate thought: “she’s actually from a clan worse than Caitiff”) and has a lot of education. And when she admitted she got that education from rifling through Tremere libraries (an apparent Caitiff) that just fascinated him even more because holy shit, you broke into Tremere libraries??? (not that he said that, rather subtly encouraging her to elaborate. She didn’t.) And he found it endearing that she was quick to assure him she always put the books back in the same condition as she found them, because most Kindred wouldn’t specify that.

“Jane” clearly was on her own and valued knowledge highly. Any suspicion he had of her at first that she was incredibly dangerous ended up ebbing because she was just so sincere.

Rowan/Rose was absolutely delighted by this tour and what he taught her, and let down her guard a bit because “well he’s going to kill me anyway.”

And then he didn’t.

When the tour was over and they’d had a good long chat afterwards about his exhibition, he just took her to the door and let her out.

And she was like, “What, you’re not going to destroy me?”

And he was like, no, you’ve given me no reason to.

“I broke into your gallery. Isn’t that enough reason?”

And he points out she was quite gracious and polite, trespass notwithstanding.

So she’s... really touched. And she thanks him, and leaves.

And develops a monster crush on him whoops.

A while later she writes him a letter -- apologises about lying to him about being a Caitiff called Jane, but that it was for her own safety and that given how kindly he treated her, she honestly does truly regret lying to him. She doesn’t regret hiding the truth, because she has to for her own survival, but she does regret lying to him.

She thanks him sincerely and from the bottom of her heart for the kindness he showed her, explains her interest in history (the Salubri, especially) and gives him the letter her sire gave her. It’s old, it’s yellowed and almost falling apart, and the ink has faded quite a bit -- but it’s still legible.

Part of Rose’s letter is this part:

It’s nothing, compared to the artefacts you have. It’s just a letter from one Salubri to his orphaned childe, and isn’t important at all in a historic context.

But you thought I was Caitiff. You thought I was a clan lower than dirt, and I’d broken into your gallery, and you still showed me a tremendous amount of kindness that I’ve never, ever seen from any Kindred.

I’m giving this to you because I can never repay your kindness. I’m a Salubri constantly on the run from those who think I want to devour their souls, from those who’d kill me on sight the second they saw my third eye. I have nothing to give you. I will never be able to repay you. I will always have nothing.

But I do have this. And this means everything to me, just as your kindness did -- and so I repay you the best way I can. The only way I can.

I know it must be worthless to you, but it means the world to me. So please take care of it. It’s falling apart because over the years, there have been periods where I haven’t been able to preserve it properly, preserve it as it deserves, but if you decide to keep it I know you can treat it right.

Thank you, Elias. For everything.

Rose d’Eleanor

Clan Salubri

(childe of etc etc etc)

Again, dunno if it’s in or out of character... but in my head Ilias was actually deeply touched that she gave it to him, because even though it’s no magical artefact it was obviously such a personal thing, and also a little disturbed and sad that she’s so unused to kindness that her first response to being shown any is to throw at him the thing that means most to her in the entire world.

And in my head he preserves it in glass and puts it in his gallery, along with the letter she wrote him. Strauss will see it one day and be like “hang on a sec, I know that name...”

also it pisses off Aisling Sturbridge so that’s just another bonus of putting it in his gallery

Again, I’m probably taking liberties with his character, but I think it inspires Ilias to start looking at historical artefacts from a personal perspective, afterwards. Like instead of just collecting art and the Big Important Artefacts, he starts collecting things like letters and keepsakes of Kindred who are long gone, making history a little more personal.

and I like to think that having those letters in his gallery plants a bit of a dormant seed in the Kindred community. A seed that says “maybe the Salubri aren’t what the Tremere made them out to be.” A seed that says, “hey, you guys, remember how the Tremere are utter bastards? Maybe they’re the bastards here yet again!”

anyway that was BEFORE I found out that he was Sascha’s lover and that he’s probably just as fucking evil deep down, at which point I peed a little on Rose’s behalf. WOO. BECAUSE THE ONLY THING ALMOST AS TERRIFYING AS BEING STUCK IN A ROOM WITH SASCHA VYKOS IS BEING STUCK IN A ROOM WITH SOMEONE WHO WAS IN LOVE WITH THEM YIIIKES.

Oh Rose, of course you fucking glommed onto someone who might be genuinely horrible because they were nice to you.

and now I’ve made myself really really sad, because the whole Salubri lot in unlife is sad. :(

[scottishoctopus]

Day 1: favourite ship (pairing).

Okay! Let's get started because I've been so excited for this week to come and now it's finally here and I get to share all the stuff I love about this awesome franchise.

My favourite ship/pairing?

That would be Captain Jack Sparrow with the jar of dirt, and Captain Barbossa with an apple.

There. I'm done.

Okay so obviously not! Though that ship is one of my favourites, but my all time loved one would be Davy Jones and Calypso/Tia Dalma.

You probably saw that one coming because after all, I am a Davy Jones fan account! And I love everything about that character. But I'm not here to talk about how great he is, that speech will come on another day.

Why do I love this couple? Well lemme just type out all the reasons why this ship is my OTP in the POTC franchise!

Firstly, it's such a tragic mythical love story, kind of like Romeo and Juliet but just 100x more sadder and it also rips your heart out your chest and stabs it afterwards. I mean seriously, I love this god damn fictional couple to death!

A pirate falls in love with a goddess of the sea, and that's ironic because he loves the sea and it turns out that the sea loves him back. And because that goddess loves him so much, she gives him the task to help the people who died at sea and aid them to the afterlife. It does come with a cost and that is he can only see her once for a day after ten years.

And then on one particular day that the two would never forget, she does not show up to see him, and we get that explanation in the future when they meet again. "It's my nature." And the pirate feels betrayed, tricked into becoming a servant for her, and that snaps his heart into two (not literally but you get my point).

And he wants revenge...by betraying her in return.

The pirate decides to tell the Brethren Court of her secrets, of how they can control the sea by binding the goddess to a human form. And he persuades them to do just that. And the goddess becomes stranded on the shores, stripped of her power and disconnected from the sea.

The pirate thinks it was the right thing to do, but he still has that agonising pain in his chest, radiating from his heart. And he could not cope with the pain after what she had done, and after what he did in return.

"The pain that cause him was too much to live with, but not enough to cause him to die."

He removed the pain, by removing his heart from his chest.

And that turned him into a monster. The pirate never aided the lost souls to the afterlife anymore. Instead, he collected them. Forcing them to serve on his ship for the rest of their life, their humanity vanishing as time passed.

Eventually the pirate and goddess meet once again, one final time. Both are separated from eachother by iron bars that contained the goddess bound to a human form. And on the other side, the pirate who transformed into a monster. He wants to express hatred for that betrayal that had happened so many years ago, the pain in his chest was still there next to the empty space where his heart should be. But he still loves her, and so does she.

"And what of your fate, Davy Jones?"

~ ~ ~

Sorry for the long paragraph of sadness and heartache. I love how it started with me saying that's ironic that he loved the sea and it loves him back, and then it all turns into that crying mess. I loved including all the little quotes too. I would of made gifs, but it turns out that I am actually crappy at making them! I literally tried making that scene from At World's End but it ended up being too dark and pixelated.

Um, anyway back to why I love this couple.

The two only interact in one scene, and it's that scene in At World's End. And it is such perfect ness! Even though, I would of liked it if there were flashbacks to a younger Davy Jones without the tentacles, the movie is pretty long and it gets much hate for being that.

(Disney please make a prequel movie that's about Davy Jones and Calypso I am begging you)

The scene starts with Davy Jones expressing his hatred of her betrayal, and it ends with him telling Calypso/Tia Dalma that his heart belonged to her. And honestly, I wanna scream so much everytime that scene comes on. HE STILL LOVES HER AND SHE LOVES HIM AND THEY WERE GONNA BE TOGETHER WHEN ALL THIS BECKETT SHENANIGANS WAS OVER BUT NOPE, HE HAD TO BE KILLED OFF.

But at least they could finally be together, right? Even though I really didn't want him to die, and he just goes and does it anyway.

Hopefully Disney does make another POTC movie, I think they definitely will be because they are wanting Johnny Depp back as Jack. (And they also need to send a damn apology to him while they're at it too.)

And it turns out that Davy Jones might of been resurrected judging by that post credit scene in DMTNT! I mean come on, Calypso/Tia Dalma resurrected Captain Barbossa so she definitely could of done the same to Davy boy too! Yes, I'm calling Davy Jones by that name now. Maybe she did that for a reason as well. Maybe there's gonna be some over powerful god and Captain Jack Sparrow is gonna have to team up with Davy Jones to take down said god! I think Davy Jones will also be wanting his ship back, Will.

I mean the Flying Dutchman by that. Not an OTP. I don't know what couple he would ship.

I'm getting curious now...

Okay. I think I've ranted on long enough now. Because this is just turning into a Film Theory at this point. I hope this was enough to make you guys happy! My fingers are hurting so much for typing all this down on my phone. Hope you guys enjoy #pirates of the quarantinean , and I am really excited to start this week off! I'm going off to look at everyone else's OTPs now, hopefully somebody ships Barbossa with an apple too.

Stay safe you guys, and see you on the next day which will be about your favourite actual pirate ship!

Edit: So I've tried posting this a hundred times and it never comes up on my profile. It started off with GIFS and it wouldn't work, then I tried posting off my laptop and it still wouldn't work. I'm trying to post off my phone again, this time without the GIFS.

Edit 2: Okay it successfully posted finally! Sorry for getting all annoyed!

[drakewalkerfantasy]

Tastes like Sex on the Beach (Ethan Ramsey x Diana Haynes)

This is part of the @blackcatkita margarita drabble challenge. Somehow this got out of my control and got itself into full-blown fanfic. Honestly I have no idea in which category to place it. As this is kind of not smut, but also I would this call fluffy or angsty. Somehow this probably all from each of them. Thank you for @fluffy-marshmallow-heart​ for letting me to set this in Flames of Yesterday universe, I tried not to give up too much of what may happen in there. And I hope you will love it. I tagged everyone who originally tagged in Flames of Yesterday tag list, but if you don’t want to be tagged in nothing else except of series themselves please let me know. 

Word Counts: 1723

Author’s Note: I’m so thankful to my friend and co-writer @fluffy-marshmallow-heart​ for writing Ethan’s memory for me as this was part of one scene that will be later in Flames of Yesterday. To not reveal too much here will be small part of it only.

When Ethan entered the pub it was crowded as never before. Before leaving the hospital he heard that some surgical intern has a birthday party there. And he also knew that Diana will be here. Against his better judgment he went to the pub all the same in hope to see her, in hope to finally be able to speak with her. Ethan knew already that all this years Diana was free and maybe… just maybe she also reciprocated his feelings… the once that inflamed with renewed power since the day she seen her again. He also knew that this never meant to be as she was still his intern. But all the same here he was. Sitting at the bar, drinking his fours glass of scotch, neat. His eyes fixed on the blond girl playing the pool. Her short skirt running up her tights and some intern’s hands unceremoniously landed on them, pressing into her too intimately for his liking. One hand sliding upfront grazing the skin of her flat belly, while another taking her hand in his setting a precise aiming angle for shot. In the dim light of Donahue’s their eyes met… and in that moment… in that exact moment he knew that he cannot resist her anymore. His blood pumping in his ears, and his lips are dried out as is his throat. He watch her unblinkingly making a shot, her eyes not leaving his, her tongue running along her upper lip, her breasts pressed firmly to the table grinding her ass against the guy’s crotch. He can bet everything on it that the guy is hard as rock from the way her little body writhes on the pool table before she raises up. He can feel how his own hardness stretching the material of his pants.

Lost deep in thoughts, he fails to notice how Diana make her way across the dance floor toward the bar, leaning on the counter near to him.

“Can I have a tequila, please,” she shouts to the bartender trying to out voice music. Her eyes shoot toward Ethan, mischievous smile spreading her lips, before she continued. “Make it two.” Pushing the bouncy blonde waves of hair to one side she turns to face him. “Soooooo… Dr. Ramsey, will you just sit there and ogling me or you will do something about this.” She moves closer to him, her lips brushing his earlobe and Ethan can feel her hot breath on his cheek. The subtle scent of ocean breeze mixed with the sweet fruity wind and a hint of vodka enveloped him making him drunker than he was already. Subconsciously he starts to wonder, how would she taste if he would kiss her.

“I thought…” Ethan’s voice low and laced with desire failing him for a moment. His hand brushing her tight not able to resist the temptation to touch her. He clears his throat before continuing, “I thought you were quite enjoying yourself already. Or did you not?”

In a moment her eyes widen and realisation hitting her, making her laugh loudly, throwing her head back. Her eyes sparkling in the dim light.

“Did you… did you thought that something was going on between me and Bryce?” Diana asked incredulously placing her hand hesitantly on his tight. 

“Isn’t there?” his eyes wandering from her hand placed on his tight to her luscious lips finally meeting her cement grey eyes. His gaze is intense burning deep inside her soul, the blood roaring in his ears.

When the bartender places two tequila shots in front of them they both simultaneously reach for them: their fingers brush lightly and their hearts speed up in unison. Ethan could see the sparkles of mischief forming in Diana’s eyes while they still were burning with flames and her lips curled in a smirk. The small dimples forming on her cheeks the once he noticed all this years ago across the dance floor, while her body was brushing against her best friend. The once that fascinated him and mesmerised every time when the smile reached her eyes. Ethan breath hitched and he swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.

“I have an idea how we can make this much more interesting,” she purred, her body leaning closer to his and he could see the contours of her firm globes through the neckline of her blue top. “Or are you too afraid?” she murmured her hot breath against his ear, lips grazing the earlobe.

“I’m not afraid of anything,” he retorts. “And you are too drunk…”

“I’m not drunk,” Diana interrupted him, placing her finger on his lips shushing him, before he could finish the thought. “Tipsy the most. So I want…”

“What do you want?” Ethan asks in a low hoarse voice. His eyes almost black with lust. His fingers itching to touch her, to grip her hips and move her on his lap grinding her against his hardness, to kiss her deep tasting the sweetness of the cocktail she drunk. But instead of this, he grips the tequila glass firmer trying not to be tempted by his desire.

“I want you…” Diana smirked watching how his eyes widened from her confession before continuing to speak. “to do a body shot with me.”

“Diana…” he growled, warning lacing through his voice. He could see the boundaries were slipping from them, he knew how dangerous it becomes. He knew that this… this can ruin her career and less than anything he wanted to do this. But somehow he couldn’t find the willpower to say no. The voice of Diana’s friend slipping inside his mind, the one he tried to ignore all these weeks, but somehow now his voice was louder than ever.

Ethan chuckled lightly. “I guess I wasn’t paying attention.” Beckett rose an eyebrow. “Yes, you were. You’ve had jealousy written all over you since we started at the hospital. You assumed we were together, and therefore didn’t pay attention to anything else.” Ethan opened his mouth to argue but Beckett cut him off before he could. “I’ve seen the way you look at her. I’ve seen the longing, the respect, the passion, the…” Beckett paused a moment. “The love. My advice? For what it’s worth…don’t waste time denying your feelings. If there’s anything I’ve learned today…time is precious. You’re not going to know how she feels until you say something, do something. I wasted three whole years not introducing myself to Oriana. The two of you already know each other. There’s still chemistry after five years of not even knowing each other’s’ last names. Tell her. She may be more receptive than you think she is.”

“So… what would you tell?” she asks breaking him from the haze of memory to the present. He nods hesitantly, taking the lime in his hand and gently giving it to Diana, watching her take it between her teeth.

“Collarbone?” Ethan spoke, watching Diana shake her head, taking the shot in her hand and placing it between her breasts. Her eyes never leaving his, and her hand brushing along the firm velvety skin of them, showing the place for him to sprinkle some salt.

“Diana…” he breathes out, his voice barely audible in the loud atmosphere of the club. And he is thankful for the dark corner in where they are sitting, the one that hides them from everyone’s curious glances. He moves closer to her, his eyes lingering on her breasts before looking her in the eyes. “Are you sure…” he whispers, his breath brushing her neck.

“I’m sure… just do this. Please…” her voice more like a moan, her eyes pleading with his. And he knows that he cannot resist her anymore, at least not today… at least not at this moment. His ocean blue eyes met her crater grey ones in the dim light before he bend closer to her. His hands resting on her hips and his tongue lightly flickering over her breasts at first one side, than the other before sprinkling some salt on them. Despite the fact that the pub was loud he could hear a soft moan escaping Diana’s lips and his eyes meet hers again not letting go of her gaze deliberately slowly licking off the salt from her breasts. After he done with this he grabbed the glass from between Diana’s breasts with his mouth. Finishing the shot by tipping back his head before meeting her eyes. He swallowed hard, his eyes darting to her lips holding the lime, his face moving closer to hers. His lips closing on the lime brushing hers, feeling how the tangy fruit disappeared inside his mouth and they lips meet. When their lips met everything seems to stop existing around them. And before they knew it their lips where pressed firmer to each other, deepening the kiss. He could feel the mix of smooth salty mixture with notes of butter, caramel, and spices with a subtle hint of sweet taste of the Sex on the Beach cocktail. One of his hand run along her back cupping the back of her head, his fingers woven into her hair moving her closer to him. The other hand gripping her hip firmly. Diana could feel how his kisses quickly became eager and demanding. Pleasure zigzagging through her, pooling in the warm pool of desire. Their tongues massaged each other in frantic caresses, deep and impatient. They both groaned with desire pulling on each other making the space between them non existent. Moaning and groaning between kisses before finally breaking apart for an air. They breathing is heavy, their lips swollen and bruised, and their eyes clouded with desire.

“Di…” starts Ethan, his voice hitched in his throat and he feels soberer than he was moments ago.

“I know,” she whispers before taking her shot of tequila quickly, their eyes locked on each other while she emptied the glass and bit on the tingly flesh of the lime. 

Hitting the glass back on the bar with a thud she stands up from the stool. She put a fake smile on her face, the one that never reached her eyes, the one that never put the dimples on her cheeks. Winking at him she moves quickly toward the dance floor not saying a word to him before disappearing in the crowd.

Tags: @annekebbphotography @gardeningourmet @zigortega4life @eileendannie @alesana45 @thequeenofcronuts @friedherringclodthing @mfackenthal @coffeebeandragon @drakewalker04

@emerald-bijou @feartheendlesssummer @elainew13 @the-soot-sprite @brightpinkpeppercorn @paisleylovergirl @dottie-minerva-mikas @emichelle @symonde @kendrasgue @pbmychoices @flyawayboo

@elles-choices @lilyofchoices @boneandfur @queen-among-writers @walkerismychoice @hopelessromantic1352 @confessionsofabrokegirl @msjpuddleduck​ @desiree-0816​ @lapisreviewsstuff​

[loveistrueblue]

A Past of Pride

Summary: “You hit me,” Beckett whispered.

Pride ignored him. “Get out. If you like those light sides so much, go find them. See how much they really care about you.” Pride crouched down. “Because when push comes to shove, they don’t give a shit. About you, about me, or any of us. You’re alone, Beckett.”

Pride stood back to his full height, looming once more. “You’re gonna wish you’d listened to me after all.”

Warnings: Mild violence, mentions of past trauma, mild philosophical discussion concerning goodness and badness. 

Pairings: None explicitly shown.

Word Count: 3,020

Fic Type: Commissioned 3k fic for @eat-moar-veggis.

Notes: I was commissioned to write a 3k fic in response to the prompt, “flint has a talk with beckett and finds out he has history with the dark side named pride, and an emotional conversation results.” None of the characters in this fic belong to me, but are all Riley’s OCs. You can find more about them on their sideblog, @ask-villegas-sides.

I had such a great time with this prompt and writing this! Thank you to Riley for commissioning me to use your awesome characters. ❤

Beckett’s hands were shaking in the darkness of the mindscape and he tried to still them in his lap, carefully avoiding eye contact with the side looming over him. It’d been a while since he’d spoken to Pride. If Pride asked, it was because Beckett was busy. He had a lot of duties to do all in the name of keeping Riley safe, of course.

However, if he was being a little more honest with himself, it was because he was frightened, in some small way, of Pride. The way he held himself like Beckett was nothing but scum at the bottom of his shoe. The way he’d yell and scream when things weren’t going as he wanted them to. The way he just… loomed over Beckett and made Beckett feel two feet tall.

“Have you done as I asked?” Pride said, his voice just as strong and unwavering as ever. His hair was pushed back, revealing piercing eyes that felt as if they were scanning Beckett’s soul- finding every little dirty secret tucked away in the corners of his mind.

“Yes,” Beckett said. The lie felt acidic and sour on his tongue. His hands still shook, and he pressed them harder against his knees.

Pride raised an eyebrow, leaning back a fraction. “All right,” he said. “Any success?”

“Look, Riley doesn’t want to hurt their friends. If they do this, they’re going to hurt their friends.”

Pride scowled. “Riley deserves to be recognized. Riley deserves to win.”

“But…” Beckett swallowed. “Riley doesn’t want to be recognized or win if they’re hurting their friends in the meantime.”

“You’ve been spending too much time around Lev,” Pride snarled.

“No!” Beckett rushed to say. The chair under him felt like it was vibrating. “I’m just telling you how Riley feels. Not how I feel!”

“Do you want Riley to succeed or not?”

“I do! You know I do, but this course of action… look at me.” Beckett was trembling so hard that it felt like his teeth were rattling. Something felt horribly wrong, horribly off about the whole situation. Pride looked more agitated than ever. “It’s gonna hurt Riley in the long run.”

“No, you’re just a coward,” Pride said and took a step back. “Riley’s going to hurt their friends occasionally. It’s inevitable.”

“You’re going to have a hard time getting them to purposely do it though.”

Pride turned to Beckett; his face was so full of rage that Beckett flinched back. “We are not physically harming their friends, Beckett.”

“But emotional harm-”

“Shut up!” Beckett obeyed, teeth snapping together. “You were supposed to make Riley anxious. Make them anxious about losing. Make them anxious about their reputation being ruined by their friends winning and not them. Not the other way around.”

“I tried,” Beckett said. “I really did, but Riley just- they’re not the kind of person to just screw their friends over.”

“How do you know that?” Pride asked, voice dangerously calm. “If everyone would let me influence them a little more, maybe Riley would feel differently.”

“It’s not my fault they don’t listen to you that often.”

“I’m starting to think you’re lying,” Pride said smoothly.

“I’m not,” Beckett said, heart freezing in his chest. “I’m not lying.”

“I’m starting to think maybe you don’t want me to be listened to either.”

“Pride-”

“Shut up. You’ve had every opportunity this week to influence Riley in my favour. But you haven’t. You’ve put it off and off. I’m starting to think maybe you don’t want me to win after all.”

“I do, I just-” Before Beckett could get another word in, a loud smack echoed in the darkness. Beckett’s cheek stung and he tasted blood from his teeth hitting the inside of his mouth. He cupped his cheek with a trembling hand and watched Pride wring his wrist out, gaze unwavering and cold.

“You hit me,” Beckett whispered.

Pride ignored him. “Get out. If you like those light sides so much, go find them. See how much they really care about you.” Pride crouched down. “Because when push comes to shove, they don’t give a shit. About you, about me, or any of us. You’re alone, Beckett.”

Pride stood back to his full height, looming once more. “You’re gonna wish you’d listened to me after all.”

Beckett shot up with a gasp and tossed aside the covers on his bed. The air around him whipped then stilled as he took deep breaths in and out, reminding himself where he was. The night was still young, and his room was bathed in almost total darkness. Usually, he really wouldn’t quite mind the darkness. Matter of fact, he could enjoy it. But the remnants of his dream seemed to cling tightly to his skin like a leech and with a deep sigh, he flicked on his bedside lamp.

The room filled with a dim light and Beckett ran a hand over his face, then over his arms. He took a few more deep breaths, standing up and beginning to pace.

“Pride can’t get to you here,” he whispered. His hands were shaking again as if his body refused to believe the words coming out of his own mouth. “Pride can’t get to you here.”

The floorboards outside of his room creaked and Beckett found himself flinching back violently, knocking over a photo frame on his wall.

“Idiot,” he hissed to himself. “You’re acting like a child.” He took a deep breath and carefully placed the photo frame back on his wall, quietly filled with gratitude that it hadn’t broken as it had been a gift from Reese and meant a lot to him.

Beckett glanced over his dimly lit room once more before determining that his room was out to get him and was the cause of his anxiety, therefore, it only made sense to leave it immediately. (Flint would be proud of him, using logic and reasoning like this- or he’d just be super disappointed that Beckett was looking at everything so black and white again, but whatever.)

Carefully, with all the caution in the world, Beckett opened his door and slid out into the hallway. He pulled his nightshirt tighter around his body. The air felt thin and cold and served only to make him feel excessively vulnerable.

Feeling half in a trance, Beckett stumbled into the kitchen, flicking on the light, eyeing the darker corners of the room warily. Pride usually wouldn’t be so… foolish as to pop up randomly where any of the other sides could catch him. Still yet, Beckett checked each possible hiding spot, then checked them again. Satisfied with the lack of Pride or any other possible threats, Beckett turned around to head to the fridge.

He let out a small shriek, immediately slapping a hand over his mouth as soon as he saw who it was. Flint stood in front of him, left eyebrow raised in calm perplexion. Beckett laid a hand against his rapidly thrumming heart as if he could physically slow it down, and steadied himself carefully before meeting Flint’s eyes.

“What are you doing up?” he growled, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides in a nervous rhythm. Flint looked him up and down, then crossed his arms, lips twitching into a gentle smirk.

“I needed some water,” he said, tone matter of fact. “Which, as you are well aware, is not unusual for me. While your state of being awake is not particularly unusual, your presence in the kitchen at this hour is. And so is your… scrambling about, as if you’re looking for something.” Flint’s eyes softened. “What are you doing?”

Beckett swallowed and tried to force his muscles to relax, despite the tension carried in his back still. He ran a hand over his face, hoping that maybe Flint would take pity on him and let him get away without having to answer the question.

No such luck. Flint stepped forward, dropping his arms in a placating gesture. He smiled dryly, his eyes shining with a familiar look. The one he got whenever he was piecing together an especially difficult puzzle or when he was trying to assist Riley in solving a problem that was more distressing than others. It was almost clinical, in a way- at the same time, however, Beckett knew it came from a place of genuine concern and care.

“You are sweaty,” Flint began. “Your hands are trembling and when I came down here, you were looking quite upset, like you were looking for a threat. This all leads me to believe you have suffered a nightmare of some sort and are still feeling negatively from it. Am I correct?”

Beckett’s heart felt weirdly jittery in his chest- like he’d been busted in the middle of doing something wrong. But Flint wasn’t looking at him like he’d done something wrong. His gaze was neutral, not accusatory in the slightest, but still firm and expectant.

“You’re correct,” Beckett mumbled.

Flint’s lip twitched upward once again, a bit of smugness washing over his face. “Of course I am. I heard you in your room earlier when I was going to the bathroom. You sounded very upset.”

“The floorboards,” Beckett whispered, feeling his body relax the slightest bit.

“Ah, yes. I wasn’t as quiet as I had hoped to be.” Flint walked over to the refrigerator and opened it. “Is there anything I can get you?”

“I’m fine,” Beckett mumbled.

“Water?” Flint persisted.

Beckett sighed. “Fine. Water’s fine.”

Beckett watched Flint as he grabbed a pitcher of water and set it out on the counter. He grabbed two glasses, filled them with water, then walked over and handed one to Beckett, taking a long drink from his own. Flint glanced at Beckett, then slowly sat down on the floor. Beckett eyed him curiously and Flint gestured to the spot in front of him.

Beckett settled down on the ground, careful not to spill his glass of water. He situated himself then looked to Flint who was eyeing him expectantly.

“I have found,” Flint began, “that it often proves to be beneficial for one to discuss things which are troubling them.”

“Nothing’s troubling me.”

“Beckett .”

“Flint.”

Flint sighed, long and frustrated. “Perhaps it would feel relieving to discuss the contents of your troubling dream.”

“Or maybe it’ll just bring up a bunch of unpleasant memories.”

“Sometimes, to deal with things, you must deal with a few unpleasant memories.”

Beckett ’s shoulders slumped. “It uhm… it was about Pride.”

“Ah. Him.” Flint took a drink of his water. “What did this dream concerning him entail?”

“It was about uhm… the night I came to stay with you guys.”

“You mean Reese, Lev, and I?”

“Yeah.” Beckett fiddled with his water glass. “Pride had told me to do something. And I dunno what it was- I’d done all sorts of crappy things for him before. But I’d been hanging out with you and Lev and Reese more and it felt wrong to do what he told me to do. So I didn’t do it and he lashed out. He hit me and kicked me out.”

Flint nodded solemnly. “I remember that night well.”

“It was a horrible night,” Beckett said. “Traumatic.”

“I would assume so.”

“And it just seems too good to be true that he’s left me to my own devices. That he doesn’t come up at any moment and punish me. And sometimes I feel guilty that we hid him from Riley for so long- for trying to suppress his influence. Like, maybe, if we didn’t do that, he wouldn’t be so… bitter.”

“You know, just as well as I do, Beckett, that when Pride gains too heavy of an influence on Riley, serious consequences can result.”

“But Riley can’t just block out a big piece of themselves like that. Pride isn’t always bad.”

“Correct,” Flint said. “There are moments when a healthy amount of pride is a good thing. Pride for a job well done, pride for others, pride for yourself. It is all important, yes. But there is such thing as too much pride and what Pride has been suggesting from day one is an excess of pride. He suggests Riley gain a position where they are above others, figuratively squashing them in the process of getting up there.”

Beckett fiddled with his thumb, sighing quietly. “I can be too much sometimes too though.”

Flint nodded. “Reese can be too much as well. So can Lev. Even… I can be that way sometimes. We are flawed. However, we choose to try to do good more often than not. That counts for something. Pride does not desire to do good. He doesn’t try.”

“Sometimes I don’t wanna try either.”

“Yet you try despite that. And when you don’t, you recognize the wrong you have done and apologise. You-”

“I didn’t use to!” Beckett snapped. “Look, it’s easy for you to tell me all this when you weren’t there with him. I slept in the room beside him; we stayed up at night and talked to each other. He called me his best friend on a good day. I did things for him, things that I knew would hurt Riley in the long run, but I did them anyway because Pride told me to, and I thought he was right.”

“But was he?”

Beckett startled. “Was he what?”

“Was he right?”

“Of course not! I certainly found that out the hard way.”

“You were wrong back then. You were… deceived and tricked into believing Pride’s propaganda. And yet now, here you are. You recognize the mistakes of your past and attempt to not repeat them. Your history with Pride… it does not define you.”

“But what if it does?” Beckett felt tears burning like acid in his eyes. He roughly dragged his shirt sleeve over his damp eyes and took a deep breath. “Your actions define you. You don’t just do something bad if you don’t somehow really want to.”

Flint folded his fingers together and leaned over so that Beckett couldn’t avoid meeting his eyes. “We all have done bad things. Not all bad things define who we are.” A tear slid down Beckett’s face and Flint’s eyes looked gentler than they ever had before. “Think of it logically here, Beckett. A toddler tells a lie to their mother with a selfish motive in mind. The toddler later comes to recognize that this lie was wrong and apologizes. Would you consider that toddler a liar? Incapable of redemption?”

“No, but… I’m not a toddler, Flint. I know the difference between right and wrong-”

“And yet you still ignore that there are areas of grey to be brought into consideration. Not everything is a difference between right and wrong- black and white.”

Beckett clenched his fist. “But what I did to Riley was wrong.”

Flint huffed out a breath, looking exasperated. “Yes. However, that one wrong action does not make you, as a whole, wrong.”

Beckett fell silent, lips pressed together. He was shaking again. “I don’t want you to be right,” he whispered.

Flint raised an eyebrow. “Why’s that?”

“It’s easy to blame myself. Comfortable to put me in the sole position of a villain. Trying to rationalize and understand that I can be redeemed, and my past actions don’t define me? That’s… a lot.”

“I know,” Flint said.

“I don’t want Pride to hurt Riley again. I don’t want him to have an influence on them. I wish… I’d never met him.”

Flint sighed. “I cannot guarantee to you that Pride will never hurt Riley again or that his influence will never again be too much. But I assure you that we all will keep him in check. He won’t be able to hurt Riley without getting through us first.”

“I’m still… scared of him sometimes. I know he’s angry with me. I feel like I can’t relax ever since he revealed himself to Riley. Like he’s going to pop out at any moment and shut me up.”

“We won’t allow that to happen.”

“You can’t be with me every single moment of every single day to make sure it doesn’t. You can’t be sure it won’t happen.”

Flint frowned. “Beckett. Even if it did happen, we would come to assist you and help you. You are a valuable member of our group- a valuable part of Riley. We would notice if Pride tried to pull something.”

Beckett swallowed, feeling more relaxed than he had all night. “You… would?”

“Of course. I understand that it is difficult for you to understand, but you are not alone anymore. You don’t have to keep these things to yourself.”

“I just feel like I don’t want to burden any of you with my past.”

“We are your friends,” Flint said, his voice calm and sure. “There is nothing wrong with seeking one of us out when something is troubling you. Reese, Lev, me, or even Riley. We’re here to listen. To assist where we can and support you where we can.”

Beckett felt a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Thank you, Flint. I know I get so caught up in the past sometimes… it’s. Hard to think reasonably when that happens. Thanks for always being there to help me out when it happens.”

Flint gave a tiny smile in return, one so quick that Beckett would have missed it if he hadn’t been looking. He stood up, set aside their glasses, and extended a hand down. Beckett took it, pulling himself up with Flint’s help.

“I would suggest you attempt to get some sleep. It isn’t unreasonably late. You still have a few hours.”

Beckett nodded. “Thanks. I… I really appreciate it. I do.”

“I know. Good night, Beckett.”

“Good night, Flint,” Beckett said quietly. He began making his way down the hall, heart finally not feeling as if it were about to jump out of his chest at any moment. He took a deep breath and opened his door, the darkness of his room greeting him once again.

For once, it didn’t intimidate him.

[mazojo]

Today is zombie apocalypse ask day! Aright, so you're a scientist working in a pretty fancy lab. Your two favorite LIs are your personal assistants and you three are developing a zombie cure. However, in a freak accident while doing some testing, you all got bitten by zombies. You were able to develop a cure, but it will only work on one person. For whatever reason, that person can't be you. Which LI do you give the cure to and who do you keep by your side as both of you die a tragic death?

omg @lady-kato I absolutely love these!! you cured my boredomness siss xD so bare with me if this goes to a long ass answer of me rambling lol

Okay so first of all I am so sorry to the poor souls that have to work as my assistants because like, I suck at science and, I would probably be the one who brought the zombies to life soooo ✌🏻 fake it till ya make it am I right??

lmao no no but now on to a more serious notee

oooof okay so the hardest part about this is actually deciding on my top LI’s because this girl’s second name is indecision first name weak and oh boy I love them all sooo I've narrowed it down the following way;

My favorite love interests are probably Beckett, Maxwell, Ajay and Jaime (honorable mentions to Mr. Sinclaire and Bryce ;w;). Tom is also really up there in the list but for the sake of not putting him through yet another horrible scenario *cough cough* ilitw *cough cough ilb *cough* lets say he is unavailable loll anddd Noah is also pretty high but as he isn't an official LI (pb if you are reading this, I hate you

So it comes down to choosing between Beckett, Maxwell, Ajay and Jaime.... my heart hurts.... And I think I would go with probably Beckett and Jaime, I am pulling Ajay out because he is a famous broadway director and he ain’t no job here as a scientist (look at me making excuses for fictional characters #lame xD) and Maxwell will also be pulled out... for now...

My. heart. Kato. 

Anywaysss if you are still here to read my internal monologue congratulations! now I have to choose between my two loves of my life’s, Beckett and Jaime! I hate it! (I dont, I am living for this angst because I like suffering but let me be dramatic for a sec lmaoo).

So

As my final verdict (inserts super dramatic music) I would probably give the cure to Beckett and die a tragic and super dramatic death with Jaime.

Okay so hear me out here

Beckett is a full blown n e r d (I love him) and if he sees two of his companions die this super tragic death without him being able to do anything about it, he would be determined to find a cure and fix this mess, home boy would crack those study sessions and save the damn world because he is that powerful (also he has magick and he would go all Harry Potter on us and save all ‘em muggles lolll)

Also not gonna lie that dying this super tragic death with Jaime he would probably have the right thing to say and we’ll both go out in a super cutesy way and, uh, poetic cinema... I probably shouldn't be saying that about dying by a zombie apocalypses now that I think about it but its 2 am and I am living for this

aaanywaysss to sum it up; Jaime and me would be /kill by zombies whilst magick boi Beckett cracks the cure to the zombie apocalypses and we all live happily ever after (well, um, except me and Jaime, bUT all for the greater good tsk tsk)

xDD I hope my answer was worthy because it kind of feels like I bubbled too much and ended up looking like a trainwreck lmaooo thanks so much for the askk! I adore this (as you can see from my long ass essay exposing myself as choices trash as if everybody didn't already know that before) loll ^^

[playchoices]

Inside Choices: The Elementalists

Boo! Halloween's almost here, and at Pixelberry, we're celebrating with new spooky and spellbinding stories. On Wednesday, The Elementalists launched with its first chapter. Now that Chapter 2 is out as well, let's chat with The Elementalists writers... But make sure you've played Chapter 2 first!

I know you can't spell out everything that happens in The Elementalists, but can you tell us a little bit about it?

Chelsa: This project has been a dream of mine ever since I started working at Pixelberry two years ago, and it's still hard to believe they actually let me take the reins on this one. I won't spoil anything, but I can tell you that the whole team - writers, art, QA, everyone involved - put many, MANY long hours and their blood, sweat, and tears into this project. So basically, if you don't like it, I'll cry.

Maya: Well, if you've ever dreamed of being sucked through a portal and spit out at a magickal university, your dreams are about to come true! Essentially, you're pulled into a world you don't believe you can be a part of at first, but it doesn't take long for your powers to start revealing themselves. But if you didn't know you could do magick, what other mysteries about you have been hiding just beneath the surface?

The Elementalists is our newest fantasy story. What about this fantastical world are you most excited for players to encounter?

Chelsa: We've got a lot of new features and art in this book that I'm very excited to show off to players! The cool spell graphics and amazing new backgrounds are just the tip of the iceberg. And of course, learning spells...

Maya: Magick! Magick in The Elementalists feels so welcoming to me. The friends you meet are so excited to introduce you to the world, and there's something wonderfully intuitive about the magickal system we've created...

Emi: Honestly, I think I'm most excited for readers to meet the main cast and watch them grow. Every good fantasy has a core group of friends fighting for what they believe in, and I hope players fall in love with ours as much as we have.

How did you tackle worldbuilding for The Elementalists? What was the inspiration for the element attunement system?

Chelsa: This is definitely something I've spent a loooong time thinking about (see question 1). I wanted to create something familiar, with all of the elements that fantasy fans love about a fantasy school book, while also creating something that feels entirely new. This book is a frankenstein of things that I love, things that got the team excited while we were brainstorming, and things that we thought the fans would go crazy over. One of the first things that I decided was that Penderghast would be set in our world, current day, but hidden. The Attuned understand technology, are involved in Attuneless politics, and live alongside the Attuneless -- though of course, they still have to keep magick a secret to maintain the status quo. It's the very best of both worlds!

Maya: We wanted to create something familiar and accessible, but not wholly done before, so we talked a lot about things we've seen in fantasy that we enjoy, as well as things we wished to see. I think this world is so dear to us because it's an amalgam of so many things we cherish, imbued with our own magickal spark.

Jessica: So when I was a wee child attending Chinese school (shoutout to all the Asian American kids who had to go to Saturday school!), I learned that Chinese words all have core components called 'bushou' -- wood, heart, power, etc. During Elementalists brainstorms, we riffed on the premise of having a core something as the base for creating meaning, or in our case, magick. We settled on the classical elements as the foundation, and threw a few of our own into the mix as well. To perform magick, you have to channel the elements, and of course, everyone has an affinity to one or two -- kind of like having a college major, but also general education requirements!

Emi: While building the Attunement quiz, I spent a lot of time delving into the history and uses of elements in different cultures... You should see the number of research docs I made! I wanted the Attunements to feel linked to the classical elements, but to also have their own unique spin. We spent a couple brainstorms figuring out the quiz answers and how they related to their elements. We tried to create a quiz that players could answer honestly, without necessarily guessing which answer is linked to which Attunement.

And of course, what's your attunement?

Chelsa: Air-Att 4 life!! (I am also a libra, so it's very fitting.)

Emi: I'm a Metal-Att! Let me make a detailed and organized plan to tackle any challenge!

Maya: I was expecting to be an Earth-Att, but was pleasantly surprised to find out I'm a Wood-Att instead!

Jessica: Earth, which is weirdly fitting for me. I feel called out.

Do you have a favorite character in The Elementalists? Which character do you relate to the most?

Chelsa: My absolute favorite character to write is... one that I can't talk about yet! But aside from CHARACTER NAME REDACTED, it's definitely Beckett. He's just such a pain, and I love writing people who are difficult to get along with.

Emi: Aster is my girl! I love how excited and eager she is to learn about the world. I just want to give her a big hug. As for character I relate to the most, probably Beckett. I was 100% that over-achiever in school who was always showing off.

Maya: My favorites to write are hands down Zeph and Beckett. They seem so different, but neither are as put together as they'd like you to believe (#relatable). Though there's also something about REDACTED'S personality that speaks to my soul...

Jessica: I can't stick with one fave, so I'll say Shreya and Griffin. Shreya's just a whole lot of fun, and someone I would want to date IRL. And I love seeing Griffin, this chill Sophomore, thrown into the trials and tribulations of all these hapless Freshmen.

Any final tips for readers about to embark on their Penderghast adventure?

Chelsa: You'll have many opportunities to gain new spells throughout the book. My tip is to try to learn them all. You'll never know what a situation will call for...

Emi: Your Attunement will play a role in how you use magick and how you react to the events of the story! I recommend playing to your strengths.

Maya: Watch your back... Danger lurks in the shadows.

Bring on the magick! What's your elemental attunement? Let us know! And follow along online for sneak peeks of what's next in Choices... a journey back in ancient history!

-Shae

[shimmershae]

Why do showrunners always try to fuck up the best thing(s) they got going for them?

That gif-set I just posted of Luke and Lorelai from Gilmore Girls got me to wondering about this. 

 So.  Luke and Lorelai.  They were friends that lived in the same town.  Luke was a handsome curmudgeon with a shallowly buried heart of gold that looked out for Lorelai and her daughter Rory and got drawn closer and closer to Lorelai's sun and fell in love with her. 

 They got together on the show.  TPTB didn't even make fans wait all that long comparatively and they were good together.  It seemed like we were going to get to actually see them live out their happy middle together onscreen but ASP just couldn't have that.  She threw a long-lost, out of nowhere daughter in the midst to force some angst where it wasn't really needed, IMHO, and drove Lorelai back to an old love's arms.  Eventually, Luke and Lorelai found their way back to each other, but did they actually need to be apart to tell an interesting story?  Really? 

 What about Scully and Mulder, huh? 

 Most everybody knows how they started out.  Scully was assigned to spy on Mulder, only she grew to respect and care for him.  He grew to respect and care for her.  They were colleagues then friends and eventually everything to each other, but not without CC putting them through all sorts of hell and trying mightily to keep some kind of plausible deniability about the whole thing. 

 I mean, I know there were noromos out there for every shipper, but think about it.  Would it have really hurt the narrative if CC hadn't thrown roadblock after roadblock between them and just owned up to the fact that they were endgame?  Nobody else even made sense.  You knew these two were going to end up together in some capacity.  They could have gone through all that angst as an actual romantic couple, nothing vague or ambiguous about it, and CC could have really capitalized on all that chemistry.  Then again.  This is CC we're talking about.  Twenty years later and he was still too chicken shit to stop pussyfooting around their most definitely nonplatonic feelings for each other. 

 Finally you have Carol and Daryl on The Walking Dead. 

 Now I know Daryl's shipped with anything that has a pulse on the show, but there is no single character on the canvas, IMHO, that he has as much chemistry or history with than Carol.  No one.  Nada.  Zilcho. 

 They've been making heart eyes at each other since Season 2.  Don't believe me?  Look up Cherokee Rose.  Yeah, Carol's primary concern is her missing daughter, but if those aren't the encyclopedia definition of heart eyes, well then.  I think some of ya'll need glasses. 

 They were two broken souls that recognized each other before they grew into friends.  Each experience that they have shared onscreen and those hinted offscreen have only enriched their relationship to the point where, like Scully and Mulder, they're everything to each other.  She can't lose him.  Just the thought, just the very suggestion, robs her of her breath.  Nothing and nobody else makes sense. 

 Now you might argue they don't have a romantic bond, that Daryl in particular doesn't want her that way, and I'll concede the possibility that you're right exists.  But it's a slim one and I'll tell you why. 

 He can't lose her either.  Really.  New Best Friends anyone? 

 The history's there.  The chemistry's there.  The story's even there if somebody would surgically remove SG's and AK's heads from their posteriors.  But nope.  Do they give it to us?  Do they capitalize on the magic that pretty much fell into their laps when Melissa McBride and Norman Reedus first shared a television screen? Of course not. 

 Why?  Why are showrunners like this? 

 At least somebody out there was smart enough to really go for Roslin and Adama.  And John and Aeryn.  And Castle and Beckett.  And so on and so forth. 

 But there are too many out there like CC.  SG/AK.  ASP to a lesser extent.  They'd rather fuck around with what works in an effort to demonstrate their brilliance don't you know?  The end result usually falls flat when it showed so much potential before. 

 I don't know.  Just some late night/early morning flu-induced thinky thoughts.