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cyndalyssa · 4 years ago

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Name: Rosella Macawber

Age: She’s about five years younger than Morgana; heavily depends on how you think supernatural beings age

Gender: Female

Species: Monster/Fae Duck

Occupation: Waitress (and occasional gardener/landscaper) at Shadow Chateau, Superheroine in Training

Super powers: Earth Magic (Geokinesis, Animation of Stone, Petrification, basically any spell that involves dirt, stone, minerals, etc.)

Weaknesses:

Silver

Cast/Wrought Iron (typically manifesting as allergies, though they also weaken her magic),

Water (erodes at her strength until she can barely move, she also can’t swim and sinks like a rock; however, she can drink it just fine, she’d just rather not take a dip in it)

Appearance:

Tiny twig of a woman with a terrible case of baby face.

Brown feathers, prehensile green hair done in a single braid (typically behaves like tentacles when unbraided) with a hot pink daisy at the base, rose pink eyes (which can turn red when she’s in attack mode).

Teeth are selectively sharp and claws are retractable (usually borne when she’s angry).

Typically wears a green sleeveless tunic, brown capelet with a hot pink rose pin, string belt holding a tan magic pouch to her left hip, brown leggings and darker brown flat shoes.

Personality: Optimistic, excitable, curious, and friendly; quite independent, but also lonely to the point of stir craziness; tends to be stubborn, prideful, and a little fiery, especially when she feels her identity as a person is threatened.

Relationships:

Morgana Macawber (cousin, big sister figure)

Tuffy (her cat made out of rocks; BFF)

Mattias Macawber (father, lukewarm relationship)

Undine Macawber (eldest quadruplet sister, hostile relationship)

Ashmay and Zephra Macawber (other two older quadruplet sisters, lukewarm relationship)

Darkwing Duck (ally, mutual annoyance but begrudging respect)

Launchpad McQuack (friend, usually the one to educate her on Normal stuff)

Gosalyn Mallard (odd friendship where they’re kinda kindred spirits but with opposite tastes; occasionally Rosie babysits her and it’s wild)

Liquidator (enemy, will absolutely NOPE out of Dodge upon seeing him)

Quackerjack (enemy, there’s a stupid mutual grudge between them)

Bushroot (some kind of weird complicated friendship despite being on different sides)

Biography:

Once upon a time, Mattias Macawber went traveling for a few years, only to return to Transylvania with four eggs that he quietly admitted were his, and that the woman he produced them with was dead. He spoke little more of the matter, despite everyone’s curiosity, and just sought to raise the children like any other monster.

Rosella was the last of the girls to hatch, and at first, she seemed like a regular monster, looking like she’d be a witch with animated hair. However, as she grew older, it became clear that she just couldn’t fit in. No interest in their macabre society, no desire to be scary or gross, and no magic ability save for manipulating dirt and pebbles. It grew worse when upon stumbling into Normal territory, she discovered their colorful flora (a far cry from the deadly and scary plants monsters grow), among other things, and immediately took a liking to it. She was already bullied by the other monsters for being weak; having adopted a cute and colorful persona, she was now tormented for being the odd duck of not just the esteemed Macawber Family, but all of monster society.

By the time she was an adult, she was shoved to the outskirts of monster society, and often even excluded from her own family—her only friend was a cat (named Tuffy) she made out of rocks and endowed some of her life force into. Not many visitors came her way, and when they did, it’s usually just to grab something from her magic stone/crystal/sand collection and run before she can offer them tea. So, her life was full of loneliness, filling time with gardening, making artisan crafts, and practicing her earth magic—it was enough to make her a bit stir crazy. Still, as much as she yearned for acceptance, she held a stubborn pride in who she is.

Things started to change when her cousin Morgana sought her help in landscaping around her restaurant, the Shadow Chateau. It was initially meant to be a temporary affair, and they’d part ways after the work was done. But, things took a turn when the fairy bounty hunter/hitwoman Goldenrod captured the Macawbers at the restaurant--save Rosie, who was ditched by the other members of the family and left to figure out which magic door at the castle led to the manor in St. Canard. She helped Darkwing Duck and co. rescue them, and then angrily chewed out her kin for leaving her behind and overall treating her like dirt.

Realizing that Rosella was unhappy with her life, Morgana felt pity for her, and offered her a job and a change of scenery. Despite said job being a waitress for the restaurant—involving being dressed to match an aesthetic she cares little for—Rosie ecstatically accepted (albeit with the condition that they transport her garden to a new plot of land, so that no vandals destroy her hard work when she’s gone), seeing it as an opportunity for a fresh start in this strange land of St. Canard.

This fresh start would involve the insanity of superheroes and supervillains, supernatural forces following her and Morg to the city, aliens, spies, mutants, and more… but hey, her life’s more interesting, and she’s starting to make friends.

Open to RP: If anyone cares.

Random facts:

Her mother is a faerie, and only two know (her father and a local doctor (who was confirming the girls’ relation to him, given that he just randomly showed up with eggs; Mattias paid him to keep quiet about their other half)).

However, everyone else does sense something off about Rosie (and her sisters, but she sticks out), enough to theorize that she’s actually a faerie changeling (well, they’re kinda close?). Some of Rosie’s peers had even taken to calling her “fairy princess”, which infuriates her.

She has a scarily extensive knowledge of geology—after all, if you had the power to command the earth, wouldn’t you want to better understand your element? She has a rock collection to boot.

She’s an avid homesteader, given that she’s been taking care of herself for years with various home skills like gardening, cooking, textile work, etc. As interesting as St. Canard is, living in the city gets her a little on edge, and she hopes to someday live independently in the country like she did before (that said, she doesn’t want to go back to a friendless life and would love visits).

Whatever you do, do not threaten her garden. She will throw boulders at or sic golems on you at best. At worst... let’s not think about it.

Though she has a distaste for the spooky, gross, and freaky things that are mainstream in monster culture, she ain’t gonna complain about the food--she actually enjoys it, her faves being the bug dishes. Otherwise, with Normal food, she has a ravenous sweet tooth, dislikes salty foods, and everything else ranges from okay to pretty good.

Character created by and belongs to @cyndalyssa

Bio Template nicked from @duckverseoc

#darkwing duck #dwd oc #rosella macawber #character bio #lyssa does a thing i guess

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moonlightreal · 4 years ago

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Fate episode 4

Welcome back to Fate Elemental Academy! Or should I call it Fate: The Elemental Academy Saga? Fate: Tales From Elemental Academy? I kinda wish I had an actual following now, we could push changing the name all over the fandom. Fate’s a bad Winx show but it’s not a bad show.

When we left our cast Beatrix just murderized a dude, Terra was suffering, Musa was finding love, Stella was mysterious, Bloom was destiny-ridden and Aisha was getting bored with it all! What will happen now?

Also, is Rosalind evil? I assumed she was the “she” who got rid of all the Burned Ones and thus was a hero, but she’s got some serious resting evil face.

Episode 4 opens with a gorgeous shadowy shot of Alfea in the twilight of day twelve-ish I assume. In Dowling’s still badly lit office the adults are investigating Callan! Whose real name was Callum, I think, but he’s dead and so won’t mind what I call him. But Dowling says he hasn’t been seen “for days” so we’ll jump to it being day twentyish. They’ve searched Callan’s room and found “metal-amalgam” which seems to be mercury, which someone would use to try to get past the trap on the door to the undercroft. Harvey charmingly starts a lecture on its properties before realizing Silva and Dowling want to get on with the infordumping. Dowling says Callan wouldn’t have known about the mercury, it’s “archaic fairy knowledge” and he’s not a fairy.

But couldn’t anyone study the lore even if they don’t have powers? Dane was doing potions/chemistry in the greenhouse with Terra and he’s not a fairy. There’s usually some magic stuff that muggles can do just by having an enchanted thingamabob. Fate, your worldbuilding leaves much to be desired.

Silva guesses Callan had help. And Harvey’s made magical fingerprint mist! He’s got a pitcher on a stick and smoke is coming out to track the magic used in the room! Does that make Harvey a fairy?

The smoke outlines Callan’s vanished form, where he was sitting paralyzed before Beatrix zapped him.

Dowling: “At least we know where he went.”

Silva: “And that there’s a murderer in our school.”

The murderer herself is looking at her phone, scrolling through Bloom’s social media selfies. Bloom’s online name is bloomerang04 which is a dumb online name. Of course the fact that we pick our online name at age 15 or thereabouts means most of us have dumb ones. Riven asks B what she’s obsessing over and Beatrix says, “Your fault for spreading it around that she’s a changeling. She’s now the most interesting person at school.”

WHAT is it about changelings?!

Riven says everyone will move on in a few days and asks Beatrix if this is “one of those movies where you dye your hair and take her life...” and Beatrix looks… hmm.

Do I smell Plot or am I imagining it? But then Riven decides to claim Beatrix’s attention in smoochy ways and I’m pretty sure they’re Doing The Sex.

Opening!

In the cafeteria, people stare at Bloom as she gets her breakfast!

Aisha has taken over Callan’s job to snoop on what he knew! Bloom “suggested” she do it. Or more like, begged. And thought Aisha is such a suckup she’d do it just to get brownie points with the headmistress.

The vibe of this scene is like nails on a blackboard. Bloom, you are awful people. And Bloom wants to eat breakfast in here to avoid the stares because she’s a changeling.

Musa comes in cheerful, “Bloom still pretending she’s not upset by the gossip?”

Bloom: ‘still pretending you’re not dating your roommate’s brother?”

And Terra comes in right in time to almost hear that. Bloom, you are awful people. But Terra’s got her own gossip: Stella’s mom is coming! Stella is “dreading being outshined by her mom” and Terra is kinda loving it. For which I can’t entirely blame her since Stella is also awful people even if my suspicions are right and there are circumstances that made her that way.

Bloom tries to be non-awful and says the girls don’t have to come eat breakfast with her “like I’m some kind of loser-mess. I’m fine.” Friendship music plays. The girls smile. Then Bloom heads off to finish her “poison paper” before the assembly. Musa says, “For the record, she’s not fine.”

In the arched walkway above the cafeteria Riven, Dane and Beatrix and talking about changelings! B: ‘Changelings were a way for pissed-off fairies to get revenge on the first world. Swap a fairy for a First world baby and wait for it to wreak havoc. Changelings are bad news. That’s why we stay on their good side.”

One of the boys had asked about “is that true about changelings?” presumable Dane, since Riven knew enough to spread the truth around. So not everybody knew all this.

FINALLY! Thank you, show. And, this is neat! Those would have to be some very pissed-off fairies to sacrifice their own baby, what’d the first worlders do to them I wonder! Though it still doesn’t explain why Bloom should be “bad news” any more than any other fairy. Does growing up in the human world make for more powerful fairies? I mean, that IS the lore, human food, human milk, human soul… but did the writers of Fate know that? I’m not trusting the writers of Fate to know much of anything at this point, even if they did get all those Yeats episode titles.

But we get interrupted by teen drama, Dane sees Terra down below and goes to see her. Sigh.

But then to muddy the waters, riven says Dane “believed all that changeling bullshit you just fed him!” but B says it “isn’t all bullshit, changelings can be dangerous. You did everybody a favor.’ warning them about Bloom, I assume she means.

Show, I hate you now. WHY are changelings dangerous? What was true and what wasn’t? Bloom’s changeling nature is the central bleeping worldbuilding of this story and we get dragged around?

Next I see black SUVs, tell me it’s Silva and his army people coming to do cool competent stuff so I can like this show again!

Nope, it’s Stella’s mom. Stella and Sky are waiting to greet her, Sky says it’s only half a day and Stella says, “Half a day of everyone adoring her like she’s literally the sun.” Sky says, ‘She is the queen of light.” which is an awesome title. She’s here to do an assembly about Burned Ones… what, like those PSA assemblies we had about the dangers of drugs? Hahahaha! That kind of PSA might be more apt, I’m pretty sure there’s more drugs at this school than there are Burned Ones.

But Stella is terrified, I think, behind her Stellaishness. Says her mom is really here to “check on my progress.” Sky suggests getting the rest of the girls to be a buffer but Stella says, ‘I don’t need them. I have you.” But Sky can’t stay physically, he leaves Stella to meet her mom alone

Stella is wearing a long coat of pale pink with gold and diamond star barrettes in her hair. I would love it if at the end of Stella’s character arc when she grows past whatever it is that’s squeezing the life out of her, she’ll switch to bright bold colors and teenage rather than middle-age fashion to celebrate her freedom. At the moment it makes sense that she dresses rather dumpy and too-mature, she’s dressing under pressure.

The black cars, they’re not all SUVs, pull up. there’s a flag, faded blue above, red below split by a diagonal line with some kind of crest in the middle. Solarian flag? No yellow, no sun or moon.

Stella’s mom looks noting like Queen Luna, she looks like a middle aged lady with brown hair, her hairdo and clothing juuuuust like Stella’s! In season 8 the real Stella designed a dress after her mother’s gown out of love, but I think this Stella dresses like her mother because of pressure. Also there’s nothing queenly about the queen. She’s wearing a business skirt and jacket, big chunky necklace, no crown. Political royalty not magical royalty. She gives Stella a kiss on the cheek and says, ‘You look stunning.” and Stella grins.

In the greenhouse Harvey, Terra and Sam hang out. Where’s their mom? Harvey wears a wedding ring but no mom in sight. Harvey is working on a special project, filling a vial with something. Terra asks if she can help but Harvey says he’s got this.

Dane comes to see Terra. Both her family members give Dane a serious Look. Heh.

Terra: “Whilst I appreciate that it is the historical perspective of the patriarchy to save women from upsetting situations, I’ve got this.”

Props to Terra’s actress for delivering that in a not at all groan-y way. Every time this show tries to be woke it is groanworthy and awful and they should just not, but every time the actors pull it off.

So Dane says “You didn’t answer my texts… you’ve been really great to me...” and Terra shuts him down! “Yeah I have. I’m a good person, Dane. I think you are too, but I’m not really sure I care to find out. Anymore.” and leaves him with “A word of advice. Be careful who you trust.”

Sam: ‘Still kinda want to punch him.” Heh.

Harvey gets a text and takes his project off to meet the queen. When he’s gone Terra immediately goes to his workstation to check out what he’s up to.

The queens party goes to Callan’s office, which is now Aisha’s office. Aisha greets the queen, whose name is actually Luna! And she knows Aisha’s name, but does not need any help. The adults go into Dowling’s office to talk.

Aisha accidentally knocks some papers off the desk then, grumpy at this spying job she’s taken on and isn’t having any luck with, slams a filing cabinet door. And finds something. A mechanical ring the size of a jewelry ring, stuck in between two parts of the filing cabinet. Aisha thinks it’s part of the cabinet, but then it begins to whir and she hears voices. It’s the receiver for a bug! Callan bugged Dowling’s office and now Aisha can listen in on the adults!

Only she… hides the receiver back under the cabinet?

The only thing she overheard was the fact that Callan is dead. Seems that Dowling’s telling everyone he left for a family emergency. Aisha tells Bloom this and Bloom is even more keen to get at those old records, from before Dowling became headmistress. Maybe they’re in the east wing, and everyone’s going to be at this mandatory assembly so now would be the perfect time!

Aisha says it’s a bad idea. Bloom says it’s a better idea than getting stared at by everybody and “I can’t just sit and listen to people make stuff up about me.”

WHAT are they making up?! I wanna hear these rumors!

Anyway Aisha is finally convinced to cover for Bloom, say she was too sick to come to the assembly. But for reasons of Plot Beatrix was right above them on the upper walkway so she knows where Bloom’s off to.

Gorgeous outdoor shot of the castle. Pardon me while I look it up… it’s a stately home! You can go there, they have a farmers market and everything! Ok, mark that down on my travel list between my Lost Crown tour of Polperro and my Higurashi tour of the real Hinamizawa…

Whilst I dream of seagulls and cicadas, Bloom is back in the dark east wing past a keep-out looking for clues. Sky catches her!

Beatrix is outside looking for Bloom. Riven catches her. She says, ‘mandatory assembly’s a mandatory ditch.” they pass a keep-out sign on some big doors as rain begins to fall.

Mysterious big doors in the school! Another Winx Club sort of thing here at Elemental Academy.

In the cafeteria benches have been put in for the assembly, Lots of students chat and the adults talk together. Outside the arched windows we see bright blue sky. Are the windows enchanted? That’d explain why I never know if it’s day or night around here!

Queen Luna walks in her heels on a sort of stage in front of the windows. She holds up her hand and snaps her fingers and the light in the room goes purple and the sunlight streaming in from outside dims as if dusk has fallen outside.

Stella, wearing a brighter pink coat and double star pin, sits in the very front between two of her mother’s bodyguards. The pin could be just because of Stella’s name, but in Winx Solaria does have two suns. I like this pin, for Escape to Witch Mountain reasons, so I looked it up. Stella’s pin is gold but the silver version is… oh dear… three dollars on amazon! Methinks this show spent its whole budget on the Irish castle!

Terra and Aisha admire the queen. “Massively powerful fairy, zero ego, boss goals. Bet it drives Stella crazy?” Stella glances back. She can hear them.

Musa and Sam are knee-nudging each other, it’s pretty cute. They text with phones on laps, sam asking if Musa’s into all the sneaking around hiding their relationship from Terra. He asks, ‘is it a kink?’ and Musa texts back, ‘Meet me after the assembly, you’ll find out.” Tell me you two aren’t dumb enough to start Doing The Sex in the same suite Terra lives in too! Maybe they’re just gonna hang out and make out.

Hilariously Queen Luna is saying, ‘I’m here to treat you like the adults you are” as these two plot that most teenage of plots, meeting up to have a good time! Luna says she’s here to talk about the Burned Ones, it’s been years since one was sighted…

Terra nudges Musa. “What’s Stella going through right now? She’s miserable, right?” Terra has noticed what I’ve been suspecting! Poor Musa, distracted from flirting with the cute guy, sighs a little and says a polite, ‘Please wait.’

She turns her powers to read Stella’s emotions… but there’s interference. Dowling is walking by and she’s using her mind powers as well! Musa says, ‘This assembly isn’t just about the Burned Ones. Something else is up.” Harvey is standing in the audience and Dowling takes a position among the students also

Queen Luna is talking about, “...for decades, families and villages suddenly torn apart by one of these monsters that left our world in chaos...”

The teachers are here to scan for Callan’s killer, I assume. Since it’s a mandatory assembly every student will be present… except for Bloom and Beatrix, who ditched! Gee, I hope Beatrix doesn’t try to pin it on Bloom! But how could she when Dowling can read minds?

Back with Bloom and Sky, Bloom says she was born in 2004—the year Winx Club was first broadcast, seventeen years ago! Our beloved show, may it survive to see eighteen. Bloom’s idea is to look for pregnant teen fairies in the class photos, and she has oddly specific details to look for: baggy clothes, girls holding books in front of bellies.

There’s some conversation about how Bloom is tired of being whispered about and wants to yell at people they’re all assholes, and Sky agrees that most people are but you have to find the good ones.

Then he finds a picture of adults. His dad is in it, along with Rosalind, Dowling, Silva and Harvey. Bloom says, “you look like him” although we don’t really get a good look Andreas at the photo. Sky mimicks Silva’s accent, “And act like him, and maybe one day if I work hard enough I can be half the warrior he was.” Heh. Bloom also giggles at the accent.

Sky also said, ‘his commander was a woman” presumably Rosalind. So Rosalind was a leader of soldiers. Was she a fairy or a specialist?

Bloom asks if it’s weird that everyone knows his dad better than he did, and Sky says ‘Alfea’s been my home my entire life” so I guess he grew up here with Silva being much more father than mentor. Wonder what happened to Sky’s mom. They’re having a nice moment and here come Riven and Beatrix to join the party!

Back in the assembly, Musa scans the adults. Dowling and Silva are on edge, and Harvey is really scared. Terra says her dad was making something with the crystals from the vessel, so he was putting crystals in a little vial. A magic tracking device. Now Dowling’s got it.

Queen Luna is saying, ‘conflict is now on the horizon! We are tracking at least five Burned Ones throughout Solaria. The threat is serious. And growing.”

Back in the vaults B says, “people who think history is rubbish are rubbish. Don’t be rubbish” Ah Beatrix, there’s the like 10% of your personality that I like! Then she reverts to the other 90% and suggests Bloom and Sky were down here to have The Sex. Riven says nah, Sky’s not that interesting. Bloom, who heard all that, says ‘But we were alone and that was pleasant.” Heh.

They find a locked door. Sky says he can ask Silva what’s behind it but bloom wants to get through now.

Riven: ‘The more you say no the more she wants it. Give in.”

Beatrix: “Do we need to have a talk about consent?”

The more this show throws woke verbiage into random conversations the less woke it looks. 9_9

Bloom sensibly: “Why are you guys down here, again?”

Anyway Beatrix says she’s on Bloom’s side, which I do not believe for a minute. Bloom says no thanks, don’t need help from someone who posted a nasty video about terra, Beatrix says she was an innocent bystander which I do not believe for a minute, and says Bloom should be mad at riven for starting the Changeling rumors. Bloom and Sky look at Riven.

Riven: “Not exactly the way I thought you’d screw me today, B.”

Sky if it’s true, Riven flees to escape a lecture from “Saint Sky” and Sky goes after him to deliver the lecture.

And he does, out in the rain. Riven says he really likes Beatrix, that B is the only one who likes him the way he is. That Sky thinks he’s better than riven. And that Sky should maybe not be talking about bad life choices while he’s chasing Bloom while still having Stella. Sky says that’s not what’s really going on and Riven says that’s what everyone else sees, including Stella. And Riven says, ‘that’s probably why she told me Bloom was a changeling in the first place.” And he walks off, leaving Sky in the rain with the knowledge that Stella is mean-girling Bloom. Unsurprisingly.

Sky of Elemental Academy is having just as much trouble here as his animated counterpart keeps having with Diaspro!

Back inside the girls haven’t figured out what the adults are after. Terra finds it hard to believe they have “some big ulterior motive.” and Musa says, “people have more stuff going on than you’d think, especially parents.” Heh. Then she takes off for a snog session with Sam! Sam says he’s like to make their relationship public, but Musa likes the secrecy. If everyone found out, she’d have to feel everyone’s reaction, ‘good bad, positive or negative.” Sam says she has to feel it bu does she have to care? And says being an empath seems to suck, which it sure does seem to!

Would “everybody” even care that they were dating? I mean Terra would but at a school full of teenagers dating how many people would care?

I read a book… Burning Glass, about an empath so powerful that when a starving mob approached she let them in the gates because she forgot she wasn’t one of them, caught up in the mob’s need to get in to where the food was. She didn’t just feel people’s emotions, she acted on them because she couldn’t tell which of the things she was feeling were coming in from outside. I keep thinking the writers are trying to imagine Musa like that and failing completely.

Over in the east wing Beatrix guessed that it was Rosalind who left bloom in the human world and Bloom realized that Beatrix lied the night of the party about not knowing who Rosalind was. B says Rosalind was “a fierce bitch.” I’m still feeling this great big hole where someone should say “Rosalind destroyed the Burned Ones in the war with her great magic.” or something and nobody says it. Bloom knows Rosalind was headmistress before Dowling and is dead, we viewers know Rosalind is not dead, did something important with the Burned Ones, and has an evil face. I dunno, like the changeling thing it feels like there are these weird blanks in what the show is giving us.

Beatrix suggests Bloom light the locked door on fire as a way to get it open. She knows Bloom’s powerful enough. Bloom says power is not the problem, lighting the whole school on fire is the problem. Then sky texts and Bloom lies and says she’s not down here anymore which will definitely be back to bite her later. She suggests she could “fry” the hinges off the door, but Beatrix has already picked the lock.

With a machine custom made for picking locks, not with bobby pins.

On the other side of the door they find… a war room. A round sand pit that, when B enchants it, the sand lifts up to create a miniature of the school. Beatrix calls it, “A place where dangerous, shady-ass people decide who lives and who dies.”

Dowling is giving Stella a magic lesson. She creates an arc of colored light between her hands, mimicking the chains on her brooch.

Queen Luna is not impressed. A little mini rainbow is not much of a display of power. Luna and Dowling proceed to ignore Stella and talk over her head. Luna sent Stella back to be “fixed”--the same word Stella used about bloom after she taught Bloom the way of the Sith—after the “incident with Ricki.” Dowling says rehabilitating magic is a process and it takes time. Luna: “would you like me to recite the list of threats we’re facing while you take time?”

Me! I would! 1)Burned Ones 2)??? And how much can one fairy do about them?

Stella tries to interrupt and Luna says, “Do not speak when I’m speaking. Solaria is the strongest realm in the Otherworld, she is its heir, an extension of that strength.” Stella protests that it’s working, she is getting stronger, and her mother just snaps at her not to speak again.

Stella says she blinded a Burned One and Dowling has her back, praising her for how skillfully she did it.

Queen Luna makes a full illusion, disappearing the room and leaving Stella in a VR forest. With wind-howling sound effects, not sure how light did that! Stella is terrified.

Queen Luna: ‘when you control light you control what people see. And despite what anyone says matters in this world, appearance is everything. You know that better than anyone, Farah. Especially given my efforts to help you maintain them.”

Dowling just says they’ve both done a great deal to preserve Solaria’s reputation. Hmm! That’s interesting! And she lets Stella go.

Outside the office, Aisha is working at her desk. She asks Stella if she’s ok and Stella says of course she is, but Aisha’s using the listening device again! She overhears Queen Luna basically threatening to have Dowling removed as headmistress!

Outside in the still cloudy day, Sky is taking his mood out on a punching bag. He gets a text from Stella saying, “She’s a monster.” before Sky can go give her some much deserved sympathy Silva walks past demanding an update. On what?

In the greenhouse Harvey is worried. His magic bottle, which is very pretty, didn’t work. Terra comes to ask if everything’s ok and he yells at her, then apologizes. Terra turns to go then turns back and asks, ‘if there was something going on you would tell us wouldn’t you?” and Harvey lies and says of course he would.

Aaaaaaaand now I’m looking up potion bottles on amazon wondering if this prop is also something I can have. Not obviously.

Terra, Musa and Aisha are talking about it in the suite. Aisha is sure the grownups are doing what they think is best. Terra would rather just be told there’s a secret rather than be lied to. But they do work it out. The crystals read magic, there’s a dead person, the adults were looking for someone who kills by magic but didn’t find them.

Then Sky bursts in looking for Bloom. The girls ask if Silva told him what’s up, but Sky is out of the loop.

Terra: “Dowling’s assistant died, the faculty think a fairy did it. They held the assembly to find out which fairy, but they didn’t because he or she wasn’t there, so now we don’t believe or trust literally anyone.”

Sky: “Shit.”

Sky, smart cookie that he is, realizes immediately that it’s Beatrix.

The murderess and Bloom are reading scrolls in the war room—in the DARK, everything’s shadowy how are they even reading?

In 2004 Rosalind was “leading the crusade against the Burned Ones” Beatrix says so finally there’s that laid out.

Bloom was born December 12 2004, just like the real Bloom. Beatrix seems oddly interested in that fact. I’m beginning to have a suspicion.

Bloom’s phone is blowing up with messages but she’s busy reading. Beatrix stealth zaps bloom’s phone to break it so she doesn’t get Sky’s warning call.

Rosalind was in a place called Aster Dell. This also seems to interest Beatrix, who suggests they just go there right now. She knows where it is, it’s not far. Bloom has a rush of common sense to the head and hesitates to leave school with someone she barely knows but Beatrix points out that they’ve already broken into a secret war room and maybe now is not the time to stop before they get somewhere. Not completely without a point there, so Bloom agrees.

Sky finds Riven and demands the whereabouts of “The unstable sex addict who’s been leading you around by your dick.” Pfft! Also, not very understanding after Riven admitted he really does like Beatrix and feels accepted by her. But Riven doesn’t know, anyway.

Stella bursts in, “I sent you twenty texts and you’re here looking for Bloom?” And Riven gets to say, ‘Have fun with that!” as he escapes. Sky blames Stella for starting the changeling thing, Stella says, “I didn’t want to hurt her.” which is not true.

Sky: “You say you don’t want to be like your mother but all I see is someone who treats others exactly the same way that Luna treats you.” And he says he’s done with this.

Harsh but true.

Beatrix stole a car. Bloom is very impressed! Heh.

The other three girls have had a rush of common sense to the head and gone to Dowling to tell her about Beatrix. Dowling’s first response is to ask why Bloom was down there but Terra pulls out their deductions and says “can we please drop the bullshit?” and when her father tries to stop her she calls him out for putting them in danger by not telling them! Go Terra! Silva comes in to tell them someone knocked out one of the queen’s guards and stole an SUV.

Beatrix must be extremely badass to take out a bodyguard! we’re only in episode 4 but I don’t think she’s planning on coming back to school after this.

Black SUV drives on a dirt road between trees. I do love how there seem to be no other buildings and no paved roads in the Otherworld. I guess I’ll take what worldbuilding I can get.

Bloom and Beatrix have arrived at an absolutely stunning location, a cliff over the sea. Bloom wonders if this is the right place. Isn’t Aster Dell supposed to be a town? Then she realizes there are skulls at her feet among the heather.

But no time to ponder it, Beatrix is getting lightningy! She throws lightning—shorting out an invisible barrier concealing ruins. Aster dell was a peaceful town until it was attacked by Burned Ones and “a military unit from Alfea” decided to go all scorched earth on the place and killed everybody. Queen Luna set up the illusion to hide the ruins. “Leader of our realm tried to cover up a war crime.’

Beatrix says this is where she was from, and where her family died. Two days before Bloom’s birthday. This is where Bloom is from. Rosalind rescued Beatrix too, and gave her a memory of the Alfea adults destroying the town. Rosalind was the only one of the adults with a conscience about killing innocent people.

Bloom protests, the adults are lying but they aren’t monsters. I’m skeptical too, because us viewers know that Beatrix is Beatrix and has said all sorts of things.

On the drive back Bloom asks Beatrix if she’s a changeling too, but no. Rosalind left B with “a close friend” and Bloom in another world. Bloom asks why Dowling would recruit her as a student after killing her family and Beatrix says she doesn’t think Dowling realizes yet what Bloom is, and Bloom shouldn’t tell her.

Bloom: “Which is exactly what you’d say if you were making this up. To keep us from comparing notes.” go Bloom! Beatrix asks what she has to gain from making up a story about murderous teachers, and the two of them can work together to find out more. Rosalind is alive and imprisoned at Alfea, and Beatrix came to break her out.

...for “him”? Mysterious “him” not mentioned yet. And where does the return of the Burned Ones fit in? Hmm. I admit my main reason for not believing Beatrix’s story is that it’s Beatrix telling it.

Also in these sorts of stories the birth parents are never dead.

But no time to ponder it, the teachers are here! They stop the car, Dowling slaps some magical cuffs on Beatrix and Silva and Harvey grab Bloom. They deliver her back to Alfea into a group hug from her suitemates.

The girls were worried that Bloom was off with a murderer but they heard that from the adults who Bloom just heard are liars and murderers themselves. We know the adults are telling the truth about Callan but Bloom doesn’t. Sky is there, also worried that she’d been kidnapped by Beatrix—but Silva calls him away. Paranoia intensifies.

As they head for bed Terra rants about her dad lying to her and acting like it was for her own good. Terra ends with, ‘you don’t lie to people. Not if they matter.’

And Musa feels guilty and spills the beans about her and Sam! It’s been weeks! Terra bursts into giggles and hugs Musa and says Sam looks just like their dad and he went bald early.

Looking down from the walk they see the queen’s guards rolling Stella’s suitcases towards the door. The one thing the two Stella’s have in common apparently is their love of lots of luggage! Yep, Stella’s been moved out.

Stella is in the car. Back home her mother will teach her.

Stella: “You could’ve let me say goodbye to my friends.”

Luna: ‘”They’re not your friends, Stella.”

Which, evil mum kinda right. Apart from taking out a Burned One together, every interaction between Stella and the others has been nasty and catty and mostly Stella’s been avoiding them whenever possible. They aren’t friends. They might be later, but they sure aren’t yet.

Beatrix has been thrown in a cell.

Silva locks the door—with Sky there watching, and I’m sure Silva’s trust in Sky will come back to bite him later.

Then interesting conversation. Silva asked Sky to keep an eye on Bloom, and now he wants Sky to get all the details of what just happened out of bloom and report back. Silva actually says the “a soldier’s job is to take orders” and “your loyalty is to me, no one else.” which, I like you Silva but that is the wrongest tack you could take right now! Silva is very scared and it’s making him make bad choices.

Bloom has gone to Dowling’s office to ask what she did to Beatrix. The cuffs were “runic limiters” which prevent a fairy from using magic. Bloom says ‘They were barbaric” and “You tore her skin open.” which I guess the cuffs did kinda burrow into her skin.

Dowling is just worried if Bloom’s ok and then asks what they talked about. Bloom says it was just a joyride, she and Beatrix talked about clothes and boys. Bloom leaves.

Dowling immediately phones up Bloom’s parents on Earth and says Bloom’s been having a bit of trouble and would they please report to her if Bloom says anything weird.

Sheesh. Could these otherwise smart, capable adults who have years of experience with teenagers be handling this any worse?

Well that was… something. Terra is badass. Stella’s mom is exactly like I expected her to be. Beatrix spilled a lot of important Plot and I’m sure some of it was true and some of it wasn’t.

Next time on Elemental Academy! Will the girls rescue Stella from evil mum? Will Bloom bust Beatrix out of the dungeon? Will Sky be forced to choose between his father figure and his crush? Will Bloom’s parents accidentally betray her? And what’s Riven gonna do now that his smoking and boinking buddy is under arrest? Half the cast is being set up to make some really dumb life choices! Tune in next time!

#fate the winx saga

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tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors · 5 years ago

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Face to Unfamiliar Face

Leith stepped calmly across a gap to the next branch, and he reached out magically to bend the next into his path.

“Berry, calm down.”

“I will not calm down until he stops following us.”

“Is he?”

“He’s up in the trees.”

Leith’s next step disturbed a cluster of leaves, and they fluttered down to land behind the changeling and his imprint. The human looked back at the leaves and glanced up. Leith bent a branch to hide himself from view, pointless as it might be.

“Why’s he following us?”

“If I knew, I could probably get him to stop.”

Leith continued to follow them - he’d encountered them on their way into this forest, and they’d had an argument full of significant looks and double-edged words. Leith had very nearly left them to do whatever it was that they were in the forest to do, but at the last moment, he was overwhelmed with the urge to know. They kept walking for several moments before the pair below him came to an angry stop. The changeling whirled around and snapped his fingers. Leith’s branch suddenly disappeared beneath his feet, and his heart leapt into his throat - then his bottom hit the branch and he skidded down to the forest floor.

“What was that?” He blurted.

“A slide,” the changeling said curtly. “Why are you following us?”

Leith regarded him for several moments. “I was bored.”

The changeling’s eyes narrowed as though searching for another layer of meaning, but eventually his face cleared.

“I suppose that’s an answer to be expected of a Seelie.” Leith scowled and reached with his magic for a root to swipe his feet out from under him with. He actually managed to catch the changeling off-guard, but then a low branch cracked with an unnatural deliberate-ness and came for his head. They exchanged a few rounds of tree-twisting and vine-entwining before the human finally cleared his throat. And just like that, they stopped. Leith found he was no longer annoyed by the changeling’s statement.

“I didn’t think there were many other Green Men at the moment.”

“I thought the same.”

“Call me L.”

The changeling blinked, as though he had never expected an introduction.

“I believe you heard my brother call me Berry already.”

“Guess that makes me Bug.” The human smiled, rubbing at the back of his neck.

“What are you in the forest for?” Leith resisted the urge to cast his glance over the changeling’s eyes and ears. Berry’s lips pursed, but he glanced to his ‘brother’. After he got a slight nod, he turned fully back to Leith.

“Something is…wrong with Wick Hills proper. We were hoping to find answers here…or at least to keep our heads down enough to avoid persecution. Because if the Sanders household has counter-charms, I highly doubt we’ll find anyone whose any better than apathetic to our predicament.”

“So you’re saying you’re lost.”

Berry’s lips pursed. “I did not say that.”

Leith conveyed his disagreement with a look, and Berry scowled.

“We were hoping to find a devil dog we know, as I trust her to have changed the least no matter what may be wrong with Wick Hills.”

“I sincerely doubt your hypothesis, but I feel I should inform you that you’re not going in the right direction for any devil dog.”

Berry’s scowl morphed to a frown as he looked around.

“What was that about not being lost?” Leith almost bit his tongue afterwards - he knew better than to try and be witty, even with another Seelie.

“I know where we are, I just -” Berry cut off the rest of what he’d been about to say.

“Do you?”

“Yes, it’s -”

Before Berry could finish, there was a rustling not far off. The cat that came through the bushes could’ve been any half-house cat, half-feral cat, except that Leith also knew where they were, and he’d seen the cat before. Leith took several steps back as the hunter that belonged with the cat stepped through the bushes. There was silence in the clearing, and Leith could not understand for the life of him why Berry barely reacted to the knife the hunter held loosely before him. Leith didn’t like the way the hunter’s eyes narrowed at all, flicking between Berry and Bug.

“Good afternoon,” Berry said, like he had a death wish.

“Afternoon,” the hunter said, his grip firming on his knife. His eyes kept going from Berry to Bug and back - Leith was fairly certain he’d have bolted if the hunter had attention to spare for him. Just because it was another Green Man didn’t mean he would stay to risk his life standing with the idiot.

“Looks like a party out here,” the hunter said cheerfully, taking a few steps to the side.

“If it were a party, everyone in town would be invited,” Berry quipped.

“Fair enough,” the hunter said wryly, still beginning to circle. After a moment, Leith could track why - the hunter was trying to get a clear line between him and the human. Leith didn’t say a word.

“I know why I’m out here, but why are you out here?” Berry said, his voice level.

“Take a wild guess.”

“Hunting, perhaps?”

“Not going to confirm or deny.” The hunter stopped moving, staring hard at Berry’s imprint.

“Then why invite me to ask?” Berry’s voice was tinted with exasperation.

“Because it’ll make you feel better.” The hunter made a small but somewhat violent ‘come here’ gesture - how did such a moron kill so many of them? He had no subtlety whatsoever. Bug seemed to see it, based on the furrow of his brow.

“It is not making me feel better,” Berry declared. The hunter made a bigger, less subtle gesture. Bug ignored him more blatantly and irritation settled into Berry’s posture.

“Ro, I’m right here, please don’t act like I cannot see you,” he snapped. The hunter shifted his stance, holding his knife more offensively.

“Let him go.”

“Let who go?”

“You know who!”

“Who, Bug?”

“Who’s Bug?” Berry made a frustrated gesture in the direction of his companion before planting his face in his hands.

“This isn’t right!” Berry exploded, monkshood sprouting violently at his feet. Leith stepped further back, knowing what monkshood meant for himself. “The house is full of counter-charms, you know Bug and not me - Virge hasn’t come, even though this whole time I’ve been -” he choked back his words and clutched at a charm on his necklace. “Something could be wrong with Pat, and I wouldn’t even know -”

“Berry!” Bug trod on the Christmas Roses that had been sprouting among the monkshood and clutched at his arms and then drew him into a hug that didn’t look particularly comfortable. Bug kept Berry tightly ensconced in his arms, shifting them so he could look at the hunter and talk to him.

“Look, Berry’s not going to do either of us any harm - I’ve been with him all day. Do you not know Berry?”

“No! Why would I?” The hunter demanded.

“Okay…so do you know Pat?”

“I’m assuming you’re talking about the kid with the siren voice.”

“Yeah.”

“I mean, I see him at school and parties.”

“That’s not knowing him.” Bug shook his head, biting his lip. “Why wouldn’t you know Pat? Why would there be so many counter-charms?”

“Why would you be hanging out with one of the Good Neighbors? Your grandma got replaced by a stock!” The hunter snapped. Leith saw Berry frown.

“…He didn’t mention you and your experience with replacement. He said ‘Good Neighbor’, not changeling.” Leith was sure that was mostly for Bug’s ears. Bug drew a hand up and down Berry’s back, frowning himself.

“Ro, can you just take a breath? Something really weird is going on, like Berry said.”

A tense silence fell. Eventually, Berry spoke, this time intending to be heard.

“The Sanders house is covered in counter-charms…Ro doesn’t know Pat…the last Fairy association you have with the Sanders is a stock…Ro either can’t or won’t identify what variety of Fae I am by sight…there is a Green Man our age I don’t recognize from the revels.” Berry eeled out of the hug and stood in the middle of all of them. “This sounds ridiculous, but I think we’ve stumbled into another timeline.”

“What, for real?” Bug asked, gaping at him. Ro looked about ready to stab him regardless of Bug’s opinion of him.

“It’s a bad one.”

“What? How bad?”

“Eirwen raised her son.”

Leith’s face fell in an instant. What was wrong with him? Why did Bug look suddenly horrified? Why was Berry looking at him so seriously?

V: HI ITS VIOLET AND IM GOING TO HAVE A WHOLE HEART ATTACK THIS IS AMAZING!!!

#laoft fic #not mine #i love it #longpost #submission #face to unfamiliar face

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hopeaterart · 5 years ago

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY SIS

@guardianofdimension: Here’s your present.

@ everyone else: here’s a jjba fantasy AU, I guess. If you’ve got questions about it, just ask me.

Jotaro sighed, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the salt and cold iron mix, sprinkling the mix of white and black power onto the cluster of small, colorful orbs within the tree’s trunk. Pixie eggs.

Pixies themselves weren’t that dangerous, even for humans, but their presence had the effect of attracting much more dangerous type of fairies, like faes. The tall man shuddered at the prospect. He was starting to think that maybe, just maybe, he should have come sooner.

He expected this kind of sloppy work from Joseph, but Jonathan should’ve known better than the leave the forest alone.

He jumped back down, landing in a low crouch and letting his eyes scan over the trees, trying to spot anything suspicious in his immediate surroundings. Now that he was out of town, his sharp senses were an asset, informing him of everything that was out of place, rather than an hassle, bombarding him with information.

A far-away crunching sound brought his attention, snapping his head in that direction. He snapped out of his trance, getting up and running at fast as his legs could carry him, the fall of his heavy boots muffins by the earth under his feet. Since he was a powerful Hunter with powerful legs, that meant he could run fast.

He stopped as he arrived to the source of the sound. The smell of pixie blood hung strong in the air, and his sixth sense was screaming at him that something was here. He looked around for anything suspicious, before spotting a crouched down figure, all in green except for the bright red hair on top, and that’s when he realized with a wave of relief that oh, it’s just Kakyoin.

Jotaro was pretty sure that Kakyoin was a forest witch. He certainly fit the description: lives alone in a cottage, spends a lot of time in the forest, sometimes goes into town to sell handmade trinkets that are supposed to keep malevolent beings away, knew the basic rules of interacting with non-humans (the prime one being never introduce yourself with your full name ever), had something simmering under his skin, stuff like that.

And while witches could be a danger that needed to be ridden of, his mother taught him they were in the same category as Hunters and Changelings: basically humans but three steps forward and a little bit to the left. So he allowed himself to enjoy the company of the redhead.

“Hey, Kakyoin.” The redhead startled at the sudden noise, before wiping around. He visibly relaxed upon seeing Jotaro. “Everything alright?”

“Yes, Jotaro?” The slender man asked, fluidely getting up from his position and turning a little toward the Hunter. He was holding something in hand.

“You’ve seen any pixies around her? Colorful little things with bug wings that like playing tricks and shit?” He asked, cocking his head.

Kakyoin blinked in surprise. “Wait, these things are dangerous? I thought they were basically magical mosquitos.”

“They are, but you need to do pest control once in a while to make sure their sheer number doesn’t attract other types of fairies. Also, they’re so harmless that very few creatures go out of their way to hunt them down.” Jotaro sniffed the air just to make sure. “And I can smell pixie blood right now, which means that something vicious is around. So? Saw any pixies?”

Kakyoin seemed to think for a moment. And then: “Well, I’m not sure if this counts, but…” He then opened his hand, showing Jotaro a very munched on pixie corpse. - Noriaki looked at Jotaro, waiting for him to react and almost praying that his glamour wouldn’t fall down now. The guy was giving him enough problems as it was, goddamnit!

Both of the town’s local hunters were too busy with the ongoing vampire/werewolf disaster to have noticed that the slightly weird redhead that lived near the forest was far from being human, while this guy, who was apparently their cousin, immediately noticed something was off about him.

Luckily for Noriaki, two things saved him from being found out and killed on the spot for being a wild fae: one, his glamour was strong enough that it effectively screwed up Hunters senses, at the cost of his more powerful magic. Two: Jotaro had a hopeless crush on him.

He didn’t know if it was due to hanging out with him so much while they were doing their own thing in the forest and Jotaro was starved for affection or if the Hunter just had a thing for redheads, but Noriaki had noticed the numerous glances he sent his way, and how he seemingly softened in his presence.

Now, if Noriaki had been part of a court, he would immediately have taken the opportunity to scan him out of his name, make him his slave and rise within the hierarchy with threats of letting his shine new toy loose as he slowly siphoned out the Hunter’s energy.

However, he wasn’t part of a court. He actually was a wild fae thanks to hating the prospect of taking orders from anyone. He did, however, have a plan for what to do with Jotaro:

Step 1: Bond with Jotaro enough that the two of you start dating Step 2: Tell Jotaro he’s not a forest witch but a wild fae Step 3: ??????? Step 4: Noriaki now has a very strong Hunter who’s in love with him and ready to fistfight both Fae queens for him Step 5: Profit.

“Hand me that.” Jotaro asked, extending his hand for Noriaki to put the corpse in. He brought it close to his face, narrowed eyes almost glowing under the cap of his hat.

The redhead tip-toed close, feigning curiosity as he looked at the corpse. “What’s the verdict, mr Jotaro?”

“Definitely a Fae, probably wild. It’s either an especially vicious and malicious one, or a starving one. Either way, it’s dangerous. And since my dumbass cousins are too busy with trying to stop Dio…” Jotaro groaned at the prospect, pulling a snort from Noriaki (which helped with hiding his panic at the thought of being hunted by him). And then, an idea struck him. An idea that would

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

Jotaro looked at him, surprised. “I… if you could tell me when you go to the forest, that’d be great. This way, I’ll get out there more often, and I can intervene if you ever find yourself in danger.”

Noriaki wanted to laugh at the absurdity of anything in this forest harming him. He settled for a giggle, sending a sly look at Jotaro that made him blush and look away. “If you want me to~” He then linked one of his arm around the Hunter’s. “Maybe you could start by escorting me back home?”

Jotaro just made an affirmative noise, leading the redhead out of the forest, the two talking about whatever was currently going on in town. The sun was starting to set as they finally arrived in front of Noriaki’s cottage. The redhead almost considered inviting the Hunter in, before deciding that Jotaro freaking out on him for whatever reason wasn’t necessary.

He walked to his front door, separating himself from Jotaro just as he reached it. “Alright, thank you for bringing me back home. Here’s your reward.” He then reached up, gently cradling Jotaro’s cheek, and pressed his lips on the other side of his face as his other hand stealthily snatched the pixie corpse from his hand.

The taller man froze on the spot, his face turning red and his eyes wide. Noriaki snorted at his reaction, before Jotaro straightened, pulling his hat over his eyes. “Good grief… no need to thank me. Just call me next time you go to the forest, okay?”

“Alright.” Noriaki then watched Jotaro walk away, back toward the town before he went back inside of his cottage. He sighed, sagging a little against the door, letting his glamour fall apart just a little bit. He then lifted the corpse up, feeling the magic still seeping from it, smiled with far too many teeth, and bit down.

#writing #My writing #jojo #JoJo's Bizarre Adventure #Jojo no Kimyou na Bouken #jojo bizarre adventure #JJBA #Jotaro Kujo #Kujo Jotaro #Kakyoin #Jotaro #Noriaki Kakyoin #Kakyoin Noriaki #jotaro x kakyoin

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faejilly · 5 years ago

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Shadowhunters (TV) Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Magnus Bane & Magnus Bane's Mother Characters: Magnus Bane Additional Tags: jack and the beanstalk, tragic backstory, Canonical Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Angst Summary:

The beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning?

Magnus and his mother and a handful of magic beans.

There were only a few truths Magnus knew for sure. They were poor. Most people were cruel. His mother loved him.

His mother was afraid.

Of him or for him, he wasn't sure. Perhaps both.

Half their neighbors thought he was a changeling. The other half thought him the by-blow of some noble who’d stopped at the Inn where his mother had worked before he was born. Before a young single girl had shown up pregnant and been fired for her supposed sins.

Magnus’ mother never talked about his father. Magnus tended to suspect the noble theory, if only because otherwise one of the curses he’d attempted to cast on the Inn over the years would have worked, right? One of his attempts to heal the cough his mother got every winter would have worked.

But then he’d see his mother staring at him out of the corner of his eye, see her flick her gaze away as soon as he turned, and he wondered.

Maybe he just hadn’t found the right words, the right thoughts, the right blessing or curse. Yet.

But even without curses or blessings they usually scraped by all right. They had a roof, even if the walls were thin. They weren’t starving, though they were both too familiar with hungry.

Until the summer the rains didn’t come, and the grass withered, and the bugs dug deep, and the chickens scratched but couldn’t find enough to eat, and the cow stopped giving milk, and his mother kept slipping all her food to Magnus, until she was thin and fragile and pale.

They tried to sell the cow. No one would buy her.

Eventually they ate the chickens, tough and thin and stringy though they were.

And then they waited. For rain.

For starvation.

For something to change.

A trader came through town, an older man with a strange accent who never took off his hood, and Magnus decided it was worth one more try. He offered the trader their cow.

The trader offered him a handful of beans. He claimed they were magic, which was ridiculous, and Magnus rolled his eyes and turned to go.

But the man grabbed Magnus’ arm, and before Magnus could rip it away, could yell or fight or swear, he dropped the small bag in Magnus’ hand, and Magnus could feel them. A buzz like lightning under his skin, a warmth like fire between his bones.

He almost dropped the bag.

The trader laughed, and reached for the cow’s reins, and Magnus let him take her away.

Magnus took the beans home, and poured them into his mother's hands, and asked if she could feel it.

"No," she whispered, but he didn't think she meant the beans. "No, no, no."

He reached out, tried to take them back, and she screamed, loud and shrill and wordless, and shoved the beans in her mouth. She swallowed, hard, choking and spitting, and then collapsed to the ground, her body jerking as if with a seizure, her hands clawing at the dirt, her joints cracking as if they couldn't stand the pressure.

He tried, he did, turned her on her side and ripped off his jacket to put under her head as a pillow and prayed for the first time in his life, true and honest and desperate, tried to find a blessing in his blood instead of a curse, please, he thought, just this once, just this once, but nothing worked. Nothing helped. Her lips turned blue and her eyes rolled back in her head and she died right in the middle of what had once been their garden, on top of dry cracked earth and the dead remnants of weeds and vegetables.

Something snapped inside him, now that it was too late, and the evil he'd always suspected lived in his blood broke free; fire and heat and rage and grief. When he could pay attention again he was surrounded by flames and cinders, his mother's body nothing but ash and splinters of bone, his house a smoldering ruin, even the lean-to for the cow and the coops for the dead chickens burned away.

Everything was gone.

He stayed there, kneeling on the scorched earth that had been his mother's final resting place, face wet with tears and soot and snot. He stayed there as the winds picked up and the fire started to spread, catching on the dry grass and dead trees out beyond their small plot of land. He stayed. He wondered if it would spread all the way to the village, wondered if he'd taken out the Inn at last, and the farmers who'd always sneered at him as he passed.

And then it started to rain.

Heavy rain, steady and cold, enough to put out the flames, to cool the embers, to kill the wind.

Enough to save everyone but his mother.

And him.

He spent the night there, kneeling in the mud and ash as rain poured down, soaking his clothes, his hair, his skin, 'til he felt as slick and fragile as a soap bubble, as heavy and cold as a late spring snow.

He didn't sleep, but he wasn't really aware either, not until the air started to lighten, even through the rain, as the sun came up behind the clouds.

He blinked down at the ground beneath his knees, the mud covering his legs, his hands, squeezed his eyes tight shut to push the water out of his lashes. He shook his head, waterlogged hair sticking to his temples and the back of his neck, his shirt clinging to his back, his toes gone numb in his shoes.

The rain was lighter now, more a mist than a downpour.

He supposed he should move, at some point, or else accept that he never would.

He wondered how long it would take for his body to give out if he just... stayed here, like this.

He'd been hungry and tired for so long, and now, this. He didn't think it would take that long.

He wondered what his mother had been trying to prevent, what the beans would have done, what the fire and the rain meant...

He wondered if it meant he really was evil, somewhere deep in his blood where he'd never be able to get rid of it, or if she'd just been too afraid for too long to know what it was safe to risk.

He wondered why she couldn't love him more than she hated his father, whoever or whatever he had been.

He wondered what it made him, why it took complete and total destruction for the magic in his blood to come to life. He wondered why, when it finally happened, it was with fire.

He rolled his head around, stretching out his neck and shoulders. It felt nice. Nice enough he maybe wanted to try more?

He lifted his head, and opened his eyes, and stopped.

His fingers dug into his thighs, and he couldn't even make himself blink, despite the water trying to drip into his eyes.

The beans had sprouted.

And grown.

While he was kneeling right next to them, and he hadn't...

He swallowed.

They'd formed an arch, twisting vines around and around each other, up and up, then curling back down again. He could look through it, see the charred center beam of the old coop half-sticking out of the ground at an awkward angle.

He could look through it, and see somewhere else, somewhere with a blue sky and piles of white clouds and bright sunlight, dust swirling into spirals caught in the beams of light.

The light wasn't quite the right color.

The light wasn't his light, wasn't his world.

But could it be?

Why not?

There was nothing left for him here, no one left he'd miss, not really.

He made himself stand, slow and painful.

He took a step forward, unsteady from stiff muscles, from the slick slide of wet ash and mud beneath his feet. He wondered for once, about what might be, what might be different, what might be better, if he got a second chance. He wondered, and it didn't hurt.

He took another step, and another, and let his new-found power flare as he walked through, so no one and nothing would ever think to follow him.

He smiled, and the arch flared up behind him, fire so hot it was blue and white, sparks flying for the length of a heart-beat, maybe two, before settling down into the ash, disappearing just as completely as he had.

#shadowhunters #magnus bane #fairy tales #jilly writes

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junkerburner · 5 years ago

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Listen up kiddos and gather round the rug, i have a story to tell.

i have come here to tell a tale of a game i wish to make, so here! have lore!

all art is by me! and so is the map, with a help of a website.

Welcome to the land of mesura.

This continent has two nations, Melebrinea, and the forest of ivor.

Melebrinea is a medieval nation, while the forest of ivor is more or less a collection of warring tribes.

The universe itself works on laws of light and dark magic.

Light magic mainly affects the physical world, say, casting a fireball or healing a wound. To use magic in the physical world and manipulate it into spells.

Dark magic mainly affects the conscious, thinking world. Things like souls, karma, astral projection, manipulating the mind, or turning thoughts, feelings and emotions into physical energy to put into spells.

These two kinds of magic were created by two “gods”

Synthesis, “god” of light magic and the creation of worlds

Hades, “god” of dark magic and the reincarnation of souls.

I say “gods” because unbeknown to the world of mesura, these two beings are not gods, but corrupt CEOs with the power of the multiverse under their greedy thumbs/hooves.

Shhhh, don't tell anyone this….

The main races in melebrenia are

Melebrineans; pm this world’s humans, colorful eyes and darker skin, with freckles the colors of their eyes.

Elves: they’re elves. Thats...pretty much it. fair skin and hair and clear skin.

Then there's the rarer species.

Fairies; very rare, insectus animorphs. A bug like race, very skilled in magic. They mainly all reside in the kingdom of florentia. they usually are albino, with wings and more limbs the higher up they are. they also have wing like appandages on their head, that work as ears/antenna.

Changelings; a shapeshifting race who’s true forms are very sensitive to light. So some live in caves. Most however, take on the forms of other races or animals, just pretending. their true form has purple skin, and slightly...slimy-

Half-breeds; they are a cross of any humanoid species and animorph species. They mainly live free in the kingdom of arrowmouth, or are enslaved in other kingdoms.

The forest of ivor is made up of entirely animorphs.

They are anamorphic animals, essentially.

Although, in this universe they still carry many feral traits alongside their human traits.

They also look much more animalistic, but bipedal. They can however, move on all fours as well.

There are mammilia, reptilia, avicien, amphibious, aquatic, and insectus.

of course, there are other races and mythical beasts, but these are what are the races usually seen!

The environment of melebrenia/ the forest of ivor is on the colder side. During the winter, the sun will never rise, and the seasons feel a bit like new england.

Melebrinea

Once apon a time, a magic mirror was brought to earth by angels. This mirror allowed people to use light magic with ease all over the nation. A society soon rose up because of this. It was named esvye lenora, ruled by two leaders.

soon, fights broke out because of this mirror between the two leaders.

One said that they had to get rid of it for good, as it was too powerful.

The other said that it must stay, because the nation was founded off of this magic source.

Soon the fight got physical, and they both fell into the mirror, shattering it and killing them both.

Esvye lenora fell with it.

Although, people could still use magic by putting the shards of the mirror in objects, and using those items to cast spells or distill potions...ect..ect..

Now, 8 kingdoms have risen from the fall of this empire, each with their unique trades.

Pinezus, with their rare gemstones and weaponry, along with building materials

Arvern, a deep temperate jungle with mysterious plants and animals to retrieve goods from.

Swampburn, with many herbs and freshwater fish for potion making and other witchery.

Savona, the point where routes from all of the above mentioned kingdoms meet, and thus get a ton of goods.

Deermore, a jack of all trades, although corrupt.

Aquilea; the capital for art and books, along with seafood and ivorian goods brought by ship. Plus ivorian slaves.

Arrowmouth, a kingdom made of the freed slaves from melebrenia and ivorians who immigrated to melebrinea. Full of ivorian goods.

Florentia; a mysterious kingdom of fairies...not much has been documented yet.

There is also the order of vectis, a group of rouges from all kingdoms, who found out if they imbed the magic shards of the mirror into their own flesh they can use magic like the good old days (although overexert yourself and you'll turn into a bloodthirsty monster with no turning back). So now they are trying to take over every kingdom, and unite it by force.

Vectis is led by the only human in melebrenia. They were supposed to be a prophet to put the mirror back together and reunite esvye lenora...but they went mad.

The kingdoms are fighting back in whatever way they can...but…

Also, melebrineans practice light magic and worship synthesis.

The forest of ivor

The forest of ivor is a magic woods, where everyone is the size of mice compared to the environment.

This is because that on this island resides the granddark beasts, mysterious beings who hide deep in the woods.

There is

Ulmos, beast of the dark winter

Suros, beast of the thriving summer

Cykais, beast of the sun, moon, and all that is in the sky

Thasteus, beast of the earth, stone, and all that is growing

And qahtis, beast of wind, water and flames.

The mortal beings who live here are animorphs.

They live in tribes scattered around the island.

The avicen and amphibous live in the trees, and hunt the animorphs and reptillia who live on the ground and in the caves.

The animorphs and reptillia hunt the monsters that live in the woods, basically animals who aren't aniphorphiszed

The hunters use ranged weapons and tamed beasts while he hunted defend their tribes.

The hunted are well, hunted to their bones, furs, basically every part of their bodies can be put to use. (forest of ivor, ivory, bones, eyyy)

they wear light leather and thin metal armour, with the hunted use squared off, thicker swords to defend against an onslaught of arrows from the hunters.

There are neutral parties, the insectus and aquatic. The insectus live in fields with dense grass and the aquatic live underwater.

The people of ivor mainly worship hades and practice dark magic.

They do not need shards from the magic mirror to do so.

#melebrinea #my art #artist #furry art #lore #og stuff #og story #game #storyscape #worldbuilding #forest of ivor #story #original characters #oc roleplay

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the-arg0naut · 5 years ago

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Snowberry

hi okay so @tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors i wrote a thing for english class and i actually really like it so ee

quick thing tho it is an AU, where virge was never put under and the boys just Exist

durant doesnt exist bc he doesnt deserve rights

~~~

Everyone in little Wickhills, Ohio, knew about the Sanders’ changeling boy. The whole town had been called on that night. They knew about the fae woman who’d tried to trade her son for theirs, and was then refused either child by Dot, their mother. Most townsfolk didn’t approve, thinking it was “bringing the enemy into our midst.” However, everyone in Wickhills also knew to keep their mouths shut, unless they wanted to find themselves wandering into a fairy circle and never wandering back out.

It was on Halloween night. The Sanders boys were about 16, and were elated to finally be allowed to go trick-or-treating without their parents hovering behind them (well, it was more Thomas who was excited. Logan didn’t much see the appeal in dressing up and asking strangers for candy, but it made his brother happy). Thomas was dressed in his favorite Spiderman costume, and Logan Frankenstein’s monster. Even with the prosthetics and makeup, though, it was still impossible to ignore Logan’s pointy ears and quicksilver eyes. That was the only thing differentiating their appearances; changeling children take the form of the child they replace. Since he was never given back to the fae woman, he just passed off as Thomas’ twin. Closely enough.

They’d left Mrs. Coughenour’s house with the weirdest candies they’d ever seen. Wrapped in bits of parchment paper, they smelled of some strong floral flavor.

“I think it’s lavender. This one is, at least.” “Lavender? Why would there be lavender candies? Who makes those?”

“Mrs. Coughenour, apparently”

Logan popped said lavender candy into his mouth. He would never admit it, even once fully grown, but those were his favorite. They relaxed him. Sometimes it just seemed to serve as yet another reminder that he wasn’t human, but he tried not to think about that.

“Whatever. I just hope Ms. Gage has good candy.”

“It’s Ms. Gage. She’ll either have really good candy that Roman will hijack, or, as you say, ‘old people candy.’”

“Okay, look, it’s always the old people that have those caramels. I’ve never even seen them at the store, so they’ve gotta just appear in their candy bowls once they hit 80.”

“Ms. Gage is seventy.”

“Close enough!”

They continued to bicker back and forth, as brothers do, as they walked down the road to Ms. Gage’s house, unaware of the two bright purple eyes watching them from between the trees.

After they had been walking for a good twenty minutes, Thomas muttered a little suspiciously, “Haven’t we been walking for just a little while longer than it usually takes?”

Logan paused. He was right. Usually, the walk was only ten to fifteen minutes max, and they weren’t by any familiar landmarks.

“Logan, what time is it?”

“12:02 AM”

Thomas shuddered. “Midnight.”

At this Logan rolled his eyes. “Come on now, Thomas, sure it’s late, but even if one of the Good Neighbors is playing a trick on us, it doesn’t make it any worse that it’s midnight. It’s just a time of day, arbitrary to even the fair folk.”

Thomas nodded, unconvinced. “Can we just walk a little faster then? I wanna get to Ms. Gage’s”

“If that’s what would help ease your fear, then of course.”

They quickened the pace, Thomas clinging close to his brother. Five more minutes without anything they recognized, Thomas was beginning to get a little hysterical, spouting off all kinds of things that could happen if the Good Neighbors had decided they had done something to offend them. Logan did his best to dissipate and alleviate those fears, but truth be told, he was starting to feel some of them himself, especially when they turned a corner and found themselves upon the street they had just walked off.

They had just passed under an old street lamp when they saw it; a silhouette. It was impossible to see any physical features in the dim light, but they somehow knew that it was watching them. They blinked and it was gone.

“Well, that was a bit alarming.”

“Yeah, you think?!” Panic was quickly rising in Thomas. “We’re stuck in an endless loop of nothing but,” he glanced at the street sign, “Morningside Drive, and we just saw someone or something staring at us and then, poof, gone. I think we’re well past ‘a bit alarming,’ Lo-”

Logan cut him off, pressing a hand to his mouth. “Quiet for a second. Listen.” Thomas listened. Muttering against his brother’s hand, “I don’t hear anything, Lo. Have you gone completely bonkers?”

Logan muttered something about humans and poor hearing before grabbing his hand and running. “Logan! What’s going on?”

“A hunt, I could hear the horses! Just run!”

Oh god, why tonight, why when we’re just the worst equipped ever- oh gosh I can hear it now oh gosh we are so dead, we can’t outrun horses, what do we look like, fae? Well, only one of us, and even then what the hell am I supposed to-

He tripped over a tree root, sending him sprawling across the ground. Logan pulled at his arm, telling him to get up, but it was no use. The hunt was upon them. Thomas just curled up in a ball and waited for the inevitable. Logan wrapped his arms around him, trying to shield as much of him as possible. The whoops and hollers of the fae were deafening and that was all they could hear and could they please just get it over with-

And then there were screams. But it wasn’t their screams. Logan tilted his head up in confusion. A figure (was it the same one we saw earlier? Logan thought) was standing over them. When Thomas later recounted the story, he said that the shadows themselves seemed to morph and shift, surrounding the hunters, sometimes killing them, sometimes just vanishing them into thin air with the mysterious figure seemingly controlling all of it. Logan could only sit and stare, his arms still wrapped around his brother.

Before long, the whole hunt had either run away or been killed, leaving the shadowy figure standing alone in front of them. It turned, revealing those same purple eyes. It crouched before them, speaking softly so as not to scare them any more than they already were. “Are you two alright?” Logan seemed unable to form words, so Thomas stuttered out a “Y-yeah, we’re good. Who, if you don’t mind me asking… who are you?”

The shadowy figure pulled their hood down, revealing moonlight pale skin and sharp, pointed ears, the same as Logan. Both boys immediately knew they were in the presence of another fae, as if the previous display hasn’t already convinced them enough. The fae boy (Was he really a boy though, Thomas later argued, because fae are immortal. He could’ve been a thousand years old! Logan had rolled his eyes, saying He appeared as an adolescent, even by fae standards.) smiled at them, saying “You can call me V.”

Logan, regaining his ability to speak, said, “Well, thank you V, for saving us. Had you not appeared, I believe we would have been, in the modern vernacular, ‘toast.’” V laughed at this. “Yes, I do believe you two would’ve been ‘toast.’ Come now, I’ll help you get where you’re going, without any more… Rude interruptions.” He held his hand out, standing. The twins shared a look, doing their “mind-reading thing,” as Roman always put it. Then, simultaneously, the reached their hands up at him, Logan’s perhaps imperceptibly shaking a little more than Thomas’. V’s hand closed around theirs (Gosh, he had a big hand -- He was tall, tall people just naturally have larger extremities. Although perhaps his fae nature only assisted in that), and they seemed to melt into the shadow, reappearing behind a tree near Ms. Gage’s house.

V released them, gesturing towards the little cottage. “Go on now, and don’t let me see you running from any more fae.” It would’ve sounded like a threat, but he was smiling, and Logan couldn’t even fathom how he would be scared of him. Thomas laughed a little, a little stumbly from the ‘shadow-melty-transportation,’ as Thomas phrased it, saying “No promises. C’mon, Berry!” He ran (kinda) off towards the cottage, but Logan hung back. “Berry? What a cute name.”

“It’s not my actual name, of course, we’re not that dumb as to give you our real names, and neither are you. Berry is simply a nickname for me, just as Bug is my nickname for him.”

“Good. You two are smart. Use those smarts next time, and bring iron. Or,” and he paused, casting a smug eye on him, “Perhaps not. You are fae, are you not?”

“Couldn’t tell from the pointy ears and silver eyes? My, perhaps it was a good choice to not give you our names.”

“Ah, don’t get too smart with me now. I did save your hides.” “That you did, and I am eternally grateful, your majesty, let me shine your shoes and kiss your hand, blah blah blah, I’m going now.”

“Very funny, very funny.”

Logan turned to go, V silent behind him, before saying

“...Will I see you again, Snowberry?”

He paused at the nickname, turning a little pink. “... I suppose I could not stop you if you visited me. Though hopefully not under such dire circumstances again.” “One can hope.”

Logan smiled a little and nodded in farewell. V waved a little, and Logan turned, walking towards the cottage. V sighed, watching till he was out of sight, before melting into the shadow.

#i know im the op but im soft tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors also this had nothing to do with the prompt i was given in english class lol

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guardiancherisher · 6 years ago

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Netflix’s Hilda Fanfiction Time! (outlined ideas only) (free use) (Please give credit)

David AUs

Secretly the son the bug queen

Turns out he’s a changeling

Queen’s child

Amnesia Hilda AU

AU rewrites first meeting of the great raven

Hilda loses memories while climbing mountains

Would have died if the raven didn’t save her

The raven tries to help her regain memories

Meanwhile her friends and family are looking for her

Hours turn to days turn to months

Finds scarf but not Hilda

The raven grows protective of Hilda

Amnesia Hilda has started living with the raven in his nest

She wants to do something for him to say thanks and goes out on her own to do so.

This ends with a troll or giant kidnapping or coming after her.

The raven saves her just in time, but she is injured.

He doesn’t understand human wounds and she ends up getting a fever on top of things

He’s so worried and doesn’t know what to do

That’s when he goes to find a healer

Alpha?

Nissa?

Random healing spirit?

Who is Hilda’s father?

Crossovers

Rick Sanchez

Blue hair

Stanford Pines

In the first episode, she is basically sketching a mythical creature like Ford has done.

Perfect personality mashup between Ford and Mum

Flaw: doesn’t explain blue hair

Maybe it makes her a prophecy?

Died as a kid and bringing back from dead is blue hair side effect?

She was going to die, but by looking for a mythical creature they were able to save her.

But at what cost?

Cursed?

As a baby, played with one of Ford’s dimensional thingies and now has blue hair forever

Mum: “Ford clean up your inventions! I don’t want them lying around where the baby can get at them.”

Ford: “Don’t worry. There’s no possible way she’ll be able make them work with the safeties on.”

Baby Hilda:

1. –too smart for safety-

2. –puts science in mouth- -sparks-

Mum: “FORD! –panics-”

Ford:

1. –panics-

2. HOW!?!

OC’s

Random blue haired/bearded guy

Looks like a woodmen?

Business men?

Bad father faceless father montage

Refer to Treasure Planet

Spy? Adventurer?

Reason he’s no there

Lost at sea?

Turned to gold while exploring an old temple

Indian Jones type?

Random traits

Abusive

Mum escaped to the woods because of him?

Abandons Hilda and Mum

Dead

Ghost dad

Mum is a teenage pregnancy

Dad is magical creature

Centaur

A spirit of some kind

Water

Air

Rain

Ocean

Lake

Forest

Humanoid of some kind or can transform from human to beast

Merman

Kitsune

Blue dragon

Blue beast wolf thing

Typical beast

Male Snow White

Prince of the forest

King ruler person

Alien

Mum has memories erased of husband

Because he had to go away and it was easier cause he knew Mum was stubborn

Danger

Random

Does Woodmen see Hilda as a kind of daughter?

Did he lose his real daughter? Family?

Cursed into woodmen form?

Woodmen finds Hilda as a baby and raises her

rude Hilda?

Wild Child AU

Aka Wild Hilda AU

Hilda raised by the creatures of the wilderness

Like Tarzan, but every creature pitches in

Woodmen

father figure

Mum dead or worse

Mum ghost?

Hilda Has Powers AUs

Hilda has superpowers

Communicates with the animals

Empathic powers

Can shapeshift into mythical creatures

Like Ben 10 or something

Alien powers?

Blessed by mythical creature?

Fairy?

Godmother?

Hilda has magic

Hilda the witch

Twig familiar

Elf summoning (Witch norm: Usually Elves are used as slaves)

The librarian is her teacher

Hilda with cape

Twig AUs

Hilda’s cursed brother or half-sibling (because magical forest dad?)

Twig talks AU

Twig familiar AU

Has a secondary dangerous form

Protector AU

Hilda long lost princess idea?

Blue hair

Father comes to take her back home

Or like Princess Diaries were she is last of royal family

Royal drama!

Sabotage

Assassinations

Ninjas

poison

Villains

Princess of Earth’s creatures

Diplomat

She may be immortal now

Alfur AUs

Hilda’s cursed brother

Elf Slave AU

Hilda to the rescue!

Plot: make elves free!

Crossover Needs

KND Hilda (#89)

89 is number form translates to “Hi” :3

make her Earth in another galaxy

space KND

Danny Phantom Crossover

Dimensional crossover

Hilda and Danny team up

Dimension Ghost villain

Hilda solves everything

Danny gets board

The Great Raven doesn’t like Danny very much

Danny can’t stop braking into accent

Danny: “It just slips out!”

Hilda: “Rude”

Hilda Falls AU

Hilda literally falls through rift into Gravity Falls

needs help coming home

When?

Young Ford?

need that father figure Ford fuel

Hilda really misses her mom

Before Weirdmageddon

Mabel and Hilda hit it off right away

mostly because of Mabel being Mabel

Dipper shipping

Hilda working in the Shack and being a natural

gives Stan ideas for exhibits

Runs into Bill moment

Maybe instead of Gravity Falls the rift just sends her to portal Ford and they go on adventures that way while still trying to get her home.

After Weirdmageddon

falls into icy sea

Stan twins rescue her

amnesia Hilda again?

Hilda Universe AU

Hilda and Steven universe fusion

Silda? Heven? Stelda? Hiven?

Hilda is a gem that Steven finds

Hilda is a gem/human hybrid

Her Mum is also a gem

Either Mum’s friend was a gem that turned into Hilda

Father left

Or Mum is human

Father was a gem, but he was flawed (hence being masculine)

Must be blue gem list

Lapis Lazuli

Aquamarine

Badass much?

Zircon

Eh more like Alfur if I’m honest

Kyanite

Blue Topaz

Sapphire

Oooo

Blue diamond

JUST KIDDING!!!!

Blue Pearl

So cute!

Gem placement

Belly

Chest center

Over heart

Hand

Forehead

In place of one ear

Disability if half human?

Knee

Back

Nose

Gem shape

Heart

Marquise

Trillion

Star shape

Pear

Briolette

Father flawed gem

Thunderbird shape

Weird shape

Shipping Hilda

Crossovers

Dipper Pines

They would work off each other rather well I think

Dipper could be lost in the multiverse or Hilda’s world could be isolated like Atlantis?

Dipper and Mabel dimensional travelers and documenters?

Dipper totally freaks when Hilda starts talking to him

He word vomits, trying to be discreet

Hilda shows him around

They go on a life threatening adventure

They fall for each other

Oh can they totally geek out when it comes to all the creatures together

In Hilda’s world

David

Eh kind of think he works better with Frida, but whatever

Trevor

Ew, but cute if he matures I guess? Maybe he turns himself into a werewolf or something because he’s stupid and Hilda has to save him?

Nightingale syndrome?

Human transformed raven?

Beauty and the Beast much?

Alfur? (pronounced ‘Alpha’)

–squee- little elf Hilda AU! In a little elf school! With a little nervous elf crushing Alfur!

OC’s

Mythical boys

Witch/magic boy

Siren (honestly because Ford dated one once)

Centaur

Changeling

Alien star child

Forest spirit

Superhero kid

Like Danny Phantom or kid flash powers

transforms into human…

Dragon

Phoenix

Unicorn

Kitsune

cute little trickster that doesn’t really understand what feeling so he lashes out or makes fun

Humans

Detective kid

Rogue kid

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0poole · 5 years ago

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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

Good God.

I finally managed to watch the final episodes of the show, and even though it wasn’t the most pitch-perfect ending ever (and even though I skipped like all of the final season), I still gotta dish out my thoughts on the whole thing. It’s not my tippy-top most favorite show, but it’s definitely the one with the most lasting impact on me. I mean, considering it created one of the biggest fandoms of all time, I’m pretty sure I’m far from alone there.

Obviously have to start from the beginning. I think I got into MLP around the 2nd season, maybe in the middle of it but definitely before the 3rd. I don’t exactly remember, since it was so long ago, but the first two seasons might hold some of the most saccharine, mindless nostalgia of all. Every single episode holds some spot in my memory, even the filler episodes with the cheesy notes to Celestia at the end of them. Honestly those were adorable, even if they were the classic kid’s show trope of “Let’s explain the moral to the kids who don’t have half a brain” but it’s actually pretty charming. That’s nostalgia talking, by the way. Obviously. If I found a new show today that did that, I’d roll my eyes a little, and I probably did when I was first watching the show.

But, it’s an understatement that this was my life. Of course, I was at that time of my life where one thing could very easily become my entire world, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t matter to me. The pretty solid, unchanging artstyle gave me an opening to try and draw it, and for years I exclusively drew ponies, and even when I had a human character, I’d only be able to draw them in pony form, so I ended up meshing their stories into fanfiction on how they could become ponies. My “Icon” character at the time, Satyr, was probably the first original character I drew, and I can still remember the exact drawing I made of him. Obviously a pony, he was sort of larger and masculine, conveniently blinking eye so I didn’t have to deal with that, basic hair/tail styles, and for some reason a jagged zig-zag pattern going laterally across his body, like those “How would a horse wear pants?” memes. I thought it was really good, so I kept going, and here I am ages later still drawing stuff. I couldn’t even bare to fully ditch the shitty characters I made (and I’m going to explain them without context because I just feel like it): Satyr got split into his immortal and prince-ly side; Diane, a manic serial killer, shrunk down but kept her impossibly anxious personality; Gaseous is basically all the same, except he doesn’t meet the rest of the crew in what parts of his story I know about; Sistenagon (here we go with the weird names, they don’t mean anything) still kept his (her? Don’t actually remember which I called it) wasp-y nature, except in the form of an insect-based fairy tribe leader; Stelerachyt, who I drew as a Diamond Dog, is still a big, fluffy, dog, but turned into a more regal and kingly type of person; and Myriad Alloy (the only one with an actual pony name) got a complete makeover, and actually became my favorite end result after all is said and done.

Like, I love ranting about these guys. They were basically my own Mane Six. And yes, Satyr TOTALLY dated Twilight. Why wouldn’t he? Main character a Main character. Plus, he was supposed to be me, and I totally wanted to hit that. I’m not ashamed to admit it.

I mean, I guess a big part of why I actually went down that path was because of the large fanbase. I didn’t begin with the beginning of the show, but I guess I came in with the first large wave, so all of the stuff I made got just enough attention to make me think people wanted to see what I was making. If I started out with OCs, no one would’ve cared, and I very well could’ve stopped.

Even apart from that, this show definitely kick started my downward spiral into femininity. I mean, it’s pretty self-explanatory. Everyone “knew” MLP as being something super shallow, only to be enjoyed by shallow little girls, then they pumped out Friendship is Magic and everyone else loved it, so I gave it a shot, and I loved it too. Obviously every fandom has the people who openly, irrationally hate them, but the whole thing was welcoming enough to keep it solidified in my mind, and bish bash bosh, it kept going and will probably keep going into eternity. It’s funny, even then I drew Satyr with the more feminine pony design (not entirely because drawing the male pony type was harder), so I was setting myself up for the future.

I guess this kind of gives me a window to talk about My Life as a Teenage Robot, because for as long as I could remember before actually watching the show, I seriously despised any instance of XJ9 I could find. If an image of her popped up on screen, I would close it faster than if it was porn found while around my parents. I don’t know why she was so harshly ingrained in my mind. You could argue I just hated “girly” stuff before I realized I actually loved it, and didn’t want to face my emotions, but I wasn’t exaggerating at all about that porn thing. I actually couldn’t look at her for more than a second. But, one day I decided to cave in and see what was up, and soon enough she became one of my favorite cartoon characters of all time.

Back to ponies, some of the content produced by the fandom also had some extremely fond memories in my mind. I think I still have some songs by The Living Tombstone and WoodenToaster on my MP3 player (partially because it’s just good stuff) and for some reason playing on MLP-themed TF2 servers was actually really fun too. Some notable fandom people reacting to recent episodes was a spectacle I always looked forward to, and I still am subscribed to Saberspark and Ratchet on Youtube after all this time, probably as well as various other people who are still there but haven’t posted anything since the settling of the fandom. I just remembered, Hotdiggetydemon probably qualifies for all that too, since his .Mov series was the talk of the whole fandom. That, and Friendship is Witchcraft. I had to re-look up the name of that one though, but I still loved it.

I guess I should play favorites, huh? Favorites was the one game everyone in the fandom played.

Favorite episode: Can’t not be a tie between the 2-parters of Season 2. Discord is a riot, and Chrysalis is actually one of my favorite villain designs of all time. I’m a sucker for both shapeshifters and bugs, so you can’t expect me to not like her. Glad she rode the villain boat till the very end, although reformed Discord is definitely fine too. Plus, the rest of the Changelings turned anyway.

Favorite song: You expect me to not tie things up here? The Flim Flam brother’s Super Cider Squeezy 6000 is great, as are the brothers themselves, and I also love This Day Aria, since it’s the focal point where people realized this show seriously wasn’t just colorful, cute ponies. The Art of the Dress is also pretty catchy.

Actually, just remembered. Under Our Spell might be it. Took me a while to remember the EQG stuff, but that song is seriously good, and unironically better than the generic dribble that somehow magically beat it.

Favorite background pony(ies): Vinyl and Octavia are a pretty cute duo, and with the killer duet in the Slice of Life episode, ya gotta love em. Funny thing, though: There’s this background pony that looks almost identical to my current self-insert pony OC, with purple hair and a grey coat, with a seemingly writing-based cutie mark and green eyes. He’s even a unicorn too. It wasn’t intentional, I swear.

Favorite CMC: Sweetie Belle is too much. Her little squeaks are too pure. I can’t take it. Applebloom has nice colors, though.

Favorite Princess: If you don’t say Luna you’re a cop

Favorite non-pony species: Obviously Changelings, but after their reformation the honors actually switch to the Kirins, just because of how cool they look. The Yaks are pretty fun too. Speaking of…

Favorite nu-Mane Six (or are they called the School Six? Whatever, you know what I mean): All Yona. And yes, I had to look up her name was, who cares? She’s adorable.

Favorite of the Pillars of Equestria: I honestly love that they made Starswirl an actual character in the show. For the longest time, people just assumed he would stay in the form of Twilight’s Nightmare Night costume forever, but then they actually made him real! That’s really cool.

Favorite Equestria Girls design: Once again, Sweetie Belle steals both this spot and my heart.

And, of course… Favorite of the Mane Six:

Honestly, it just depends on the mood I’m in. Not even remotely lying there.

Fluttershy would’ve been my answer way back then, since I was into the shy types. There’s definitely something still there. You can’t deny that she’s the most cuddly of them all.

Twilight might’ve been a tie for the top around then too, since I was also the too-smart-for-humanity type. That leads into you liking the “smart” ones. Plus, in the latter half of the series, she did feel like she was put one step above the rest of the cast. That kinda makes her feel slightly off, I guess. Still like her, though.

Pinkie Pie’s one of those that I can imagine liking, but if I ever actually had to deal with that much energy I might actually melt. And, not in that I’m-totally-in-love kind of melting. Literal, actual melting.

Rarity, in terms of concept, is easily my favorite type of character for the show. On the surface, she’s the generic fashionista type that every girl’s show has, but instead of her being someone who “just makes clothes” she’s actually seriously hard working and goes through all the regular motions you’d expect from an artist. Turning such a cliche on its head and giving it a much more realistic image is perfect for this show. Also, she’s purple. I like purple.

Not much really needs to be said about Applejack. She really seems like the most logical one of the group, even at the very beginning. That’s great to have when everyone else is acting like spoiled/sheltered brats (at least, when she’s not acting that way either).

But, I really gotta be honest… I’m never really in the mood for Rainbow Dash. She’s like the opposite of AJ, where she’s always some degree of arrogant, and even though watching her achieve her dreams is nice, her big head gets a little annoying for side gags. Also, if you showed me a plain picture of the Mane Six, I would’ve told you she was the main character instead of Twilight, just because she stands out so much more. I mean, the show isn’t called “Twilight Sparkle: Friendship is Magic,” but still.

If you really want a straight answer, I’m in a Rarity mood right now, so I’ll go with that. It’s probably the safest bet, because, like I said, I do love purple. Not just purple, but purple AND white put together. One of my favorite color combinations. Just add a little gold, and you’re, well, you know...

But… Yeah. All good things had to come to an end. I feel like its time came. Plus, they ended the show with the little story book thing they did in the very first episode, so as far as I’m concerned the series is complete. It did its job, anyway.

#mlp #mlp fim #friendship is magic #my little pony #rant #rambling #opinions #nostalgia #poole #cute #mlp 10th anniversary

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abutterflyobsession · 8 years ago

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Tiny People in Jars AU: Part 9

Part One/Two/Three/Four/Five/Six/Seven/Eight/Ao3

Happy Valentines Day, Strange Magic Fandom

“Marianne?”

“Don't look at me, I'm gross,” Marianne rubbed her cheek, trying to wipe away the grime and tears and salvage a little of her dignity. Not that there was much left to salvage, seeing as she was crouched on the dirty floor of a dark corridor, wings flopped in the dust, her face sticky from crying.

“I can guarantee I've seen worse, tough girl,” Bog said lightly from somewhere behind her.

“Huh. Let me know how I rate, then.”

“You haven't fallen into the bog so I really can't imagine making comparisons.”

“That does seem to be one thing I haven't done today. I've done just about everything else and have the bruises to prove it.”

“How have you survived so long?”

“Luck and a twenty-some year streak of not having my home invaded by tiny people. Also, wings are a huge handicap if you don't know how to use them.”

“Fair enough.”

A blanket dropped over Marianne's shoulders. It smelled like something from a spice cabinet and despite its soft flexibility she was pretty sure it was a leaf of some kind, her fingers tracing over the ridge of veins as she pulled the it closer. Whatever it was, she was grateful for something to cover the knotted and unraveling tears in the back of her shirt.

Still out of sight behind her, Bog shuffled his feet and Marianne could hear the unsettled movement of his armor and wings, “I . . . it's hard. To not be sure where you belong.”

“You talked to Dawn,” Marianne sighed.

“Hm. She talked at me, anyway.”

“Was she really upset?”

“A bit.”

“Ugh. I'm the worst. There had to be a better way to let the kid down easy . . .”

Marianne heard a sort of crunchy scraping when Bog sat down on the ground next to her. She shuffled around to face him, rubbing the edge of the blanket over her face, glad that the poor lighting probably hid the worst of the mess. Then again, Bog had navigated the dark easily enough that it wouldn't surprise Marianne to find out that goblins had night vision or something.

“Still think you're not a changeling?” Bog asked, folding his arms and leaning them on his bent knees.

“Yes? I don't know?” Marianne felt queasy with doubts, unsettled by facts that didn't line up in the pattern she wanted them to, “Isn't there any other possibility? You grow and shrink, turn from a tiny bug man to a huge stick man. Why can't I just be a human who got shrunk?”

“I've never heard of that happening. And Plum may be an irritation but she knows her business. She recognized you as a changeling at first glance and she has no reason to lie.”

“I see,” these new pieces of information settled like lumps of lead in the pit of her stomach, cold and undeniable. She diverted her energy from the issue of species and tried another tact, “Do you think I'm the princess?”

“Not sure,” Bog said frankly, “It's not impossible. That doesn't make it true, but it is possible. It's hard to see why they would make a changeling out of a princess. Or anyone, for that matter. Changelings are rare nowadays, they usually only happen during hard times.”

Bog's uncertainty was little comfort. It didn't matter if she was supposed to be a fairy queen or a fairy peasant, all that mattered was that she wasn't human. But there was still so much she didn't know about fairies, goblins, changelings . . . maybe there was a detail somewhere that would point her toward a conclusion that she wanted to hear. That she was human, that she belonged with her family, that she had nothing to do with this tiny, crazy world of magic.

“Tell me about changelings?”

Marianne leaned her shoulder on the wall of the corridor and tucked her feet up underneath herself. She trained her eyes and ears fully on Bog, trying to narrow the range of her senses to block out the singing coming from the dungeons. Bog fidgeted nervously under the weight of Marianne's undivided attention, but managed to answer after clearing his throat a few times.

“I don't know a lot. We—goblins—didn't do it very much. It's harder to pass off a goblin changeling as human than a fairy changeling. They're less . . . appealing to human eyes. Mostly the babies ended up being abandoned or killed outright. Mostly changelings were the children of fairies or elves, placed with a human family that could provide for them better than their fae kin. Sometimes they were switched with a human child--”

“Wait, then, you can shrink humans?” Marianne dragged herself up, hope propelling her.

“Ah,” black claws scratched the thorns on Bog's chin that seemed to serve as stubble, “only . . . only in certain cases. And only with the wee ones. It isn't something you could do to a full-grown human. Babies are more malleable and . . . it just doesn't work otherwise.”

“How do you know? I--”

“You've still got your wits,” Bog poked at Marianne's forehead, “Your stubborn beliefs. If you were truly human then bringing you into our world would have broken you. You wouldn't fit so you would have to be broken until you did fit and what would be left wouldn't be a pretty thing.”

“Oh,” Marianne deflated as another avenue of escape was blocked off.

“Princess or not, you are a changeling.”

“But . . . my family.” Marianne said, growing a little desperate, scrabbling around for proof of her humanity, “I—I have a social security number! A birth certificate! You can't just magic those up! I couldn't have just been stuck into my family and they never noticed . . .”

There had been papers.

She'd found them in Roland's things.

When she had found them it had just been creepy. She couldn't think of why Roland had been looking into her life as a newborn. Why he had not only copies of her birth certificate, but copies of letters her parents had written requesting a replacement for lost paperwork.

Paperwork riddled with little discrepancies.

Tiny things she had known about but never paid attention to. Nothing important, nothing that meant anything.

How she had been several years old when her parents had gotten a replacement for her inexplicably missing birth certificate.

The strange mix up with her social security number, that it was somehow the same as her brother's and there had been some difficulty getting it sorted out.

Just . . . little things.

Little things, piling up and slotting together in a way that made sense, puzzle pieces fitting together to form a picture she didn't want to see, forcing her to acknowledge that it was entirely possible that she was not her parent's daughter or her brothers' sister.

Roland's betrayal had been cruel. The possibility that she was not who she was supposed to be, that her parents had been actively lying to her for years, was devastating. Every memory of someone commenting how much she looked like, acted like her brothers, or her mom, or her dad, was like the stab of a knife now.

And Roland had known this. He had known who she wasn't so it was possible that he also knew who she was.

“He knew I wasn't human,” Marianne said, the words a stab at her heart because speaking them was admitting everyone was right, that she was a changeling, “Roland knew. That's why . . . that might be why . . . the only reason he ever looked at me twice.”

“He can't see past shine of his own teeth. That's not your fault,” Bog said, a strange gray anchor in a crumbling world, so certain of the facts and refusing to tiptoe around them.

“My parents. They've been lying to me--”

“No!” Bog said firmly, “As far as they know you are their daughter. It's part of being a changeling. You have to be accepted, thought of as their own.”

“Then they've been magicked into loving me? That's even worse!”

Marianne had barely begun to seriously consider this changeling business and already she wanted to reject it entirely, return to categorically denying every aspect of it. The idea was prying at the cracks in her life, ripping it away and leaving her floating in the darkness of the unknown

“No,” Bog said again, “There may be love potions, but none of them would make a parent love a child or a brother love a sister. It has a narrow range, a shallow effect. If a changeling is loved it is real. Otherwise there would not be so many tragic stories of changelings that are despised and rejected. It would not happen if the human parents could have been made to love their changeling children.”

Bog was being absurdly kind and it made Marianne feel worse. That didn't stop her from moving closer, her knee bumping his leg. She reached over and put her hand in the crook of his arm. She needed something to hang onto while her world was falling apart.

“I wonder where I'd be right now,” Marianne said, ignoring how still Bog had gone, “If I had never met Roland. I'd be home. Blissfully ignorant of all the tiny people living in the fields of our cottage.”

If only she could turn back time, change that one thing, never be caught between worlds, never have people trying to fit her into spaces meant for someone else.

“You'd never have caught a king,” Bog snorted, his ragged wings giving a nervous twitch.

“Oh,” Marianne's lips quivered at the memory of Bog dangling in the fly trap, gladly letting her thoughts veer away from the subject of changelings, “Now that would have been a shame. Never getting to meet you, crunchy.”

She let go of his arm so she could elbow him.

He jabbed back and got her blanket snagged on his spiky elbow.

Marianne laughed, a little wildly, but she did not cry.

“I can't imagine it will be hard for you, when you go back home,” Bog said, after they had separated him and the blanket, “It doesn't change anything. You'll have the same face, the one that they know. The one that fits. You get both worlds.”

Marianne had to credit Bog with hardly flinching when she put her hand back on his arm. Truthfully, she could really use a hug. But she also was repulsed by the idea of it. She wanted a hug from someone she trusted, someone who really cared, who understood. She wasn't sure if there was anyone like that in her life anymore. But just being near Bog was nice. He wasn't telling her she had to be this long lost princess. And he was listening.

“I don't get either world,” Marianne shook her head, “Not if this is all true. It doesn't matter if I still look the part, I would know now that it was never my part to begin with. They were all tricked into caring about me and I can't just go along with that if I'm . . . not even human.”

“Tough girl, you are so lucky to be able to look the part.”

There was a note of wistfulness in Bog's voice. A faint shadow of pain.

Looking at her pale fingers resting on Bog's dark armor Marianne ventured to ask, “Will you flip anymore tables if I ask about . . . whatever it was that made you flip the first table?”

Bog's sigh made his armor rise and settle.

“It isn't much of a story. I just don't . . . I don't look right. I don't look like a goblin. My mother says I look like my father, but . . . he must have looked very strange. I'm an unpleasant sight, to the eyes of fairies and goblins both, and there have always been stories. Stories to explain why I'm not . . . as I should be. For example, the slanderous rumor that my mother was unfaithful to her king and had dealings with a fairy lover.”

“Oooh,” Marianne winced, “Yeah, I put my foot in it. Sorry.”

“I'm sorry for losing my temper. You didn't know. I just . . . I wish you could understand that you have both worlds. You are wanted in both worlds. This is my kingdom, my world, and all my life I've been told that I don't belong in it. But you, you are wanted.”

“The person Dawn wants . . . isn't me. I don't want to be her. I want to be myself—or who I thought I was. But I can't. And even if I get magicked back to the right size of species I don't know if I can go back to my family and lie to them for the rest of my life.”

“Won't you even try? Won't you even fight for what you want? The fairy kingdom is yours by right of birth, the human yours by right of love. You are wanted and all you have to do is accept what is handed to you and protect it. Fight to keep it. I would fight. I have fought. The throne of the Dark Forest came to me from my mother, it's mine by right of blood and, freak or not, I won't give it up so easily as you would discard two worlds.”

Bog's hand had clenched into a fist and Marianne could feel the tension of it in his arm. She followed it with her fingers from the bend of his elbow, down to his wrist, then tentatively to the curl of his fingers. At her touch his fingers uncurled, his surprise distracting him from bad memories.

“It must be nice,” Marianne let her fingers play over the edge of his armor, where it gave way to skin, “to have something you know is yours. Have the right to it. The right to fight for it. I don't feel like I have that.”

“In my weaker moments I'd give it up just so I could look ordinary,” Bog laughed, “Not handsome. Just not wrong.”

“That'd be a shame. I'm kind of getting attached to how you look. Especially when I'm remembering how you looked stuck in a jar. It just wouldn't be the same with a different face glaring at me.”

“You're incorrigible,” Bog rumbled, looking away.

“You're cute.”

Marianne's horror was reflected in Bog's face. That comment had slipped out without her permission. It didn't matter that the Bog King's sharp profile was adorably expressive when he was flustered, she had not meant to actually say anything about it.

“Hardly,” Bog stood up, shaking himself free of Marianne's hand, “I know what I am, I know what I look like. I don't need pretty fairy lies.”

“Aw, do you really think I'm pretty?”

“Incorrigible,” Bog muttered.

The conversation lapsed and the singing of the lovesick prisoners quickly filled the gap, as about as soothing to Marianne's nerves as nails on a chalkboard. She tried to fill her head with something else, maybe speculations about this tiny world and its peoples, but a cloud of gray exhaustion blotted out everything but what was right in front of her.

So she watched Bog as he took a few paces back and forth along the corridor, muttering dark complaints about fairies and love. She supposed Bog did look odd, if you compared him to the other goblins. But she still would never classify him under the heading of hideous. Different, yes. Otherworldly, maybe. Yes, otherworldly. A cranky forest spirit from a fairy tale.

“You know,” Bog stopped pacing, standing far enough down the corridor so that Marianne didn't have to crane her head back to see his face, “You don't have to pick either world. Not right away, that is.”

“Oh?” Marianne prompted, studying the way Bog's pine cone shoulders attached to his torso. She wondered how he kept track of so many limbs, having to not only deal with the addition of wings, but with movable shoulders too.

“If you needed somewhere, neutral ground, to think and sort things out . . .” Bog turned slightly away, running a hand up and down his arm in a gesture of unease, “Officially, you've no ties to the fairy kingdom. There would be no objection—I would have no objection if you would like to . . . visit. Here. For a bit. While you cleared your head.”

“You're not going to let Dawn stick a crown on my head and whisk me off to the fairy kingdom?” Marianne laughed, shrugging the blanket higher.

“I certainly wouldn't let them take you against your choosing,” Bog's face darkened, “Especially not while that yellow-haired ninny is still rattling around. But, as I said, you could stay here if you wished.”

“While I'm getting my feet back under me?”

“Just so. I'm sure that Plum can find some temporary fix for your glamour, though, if you wished to return to the human world immediately.”

Marianne started a little when she realized Bog was waiting for an answer to his offer. She was probably being unforgivably rude by not acknowledging the generosity of the gesture. After all, Bog was a king, and his invitation must carry an impressive amount of weight.

“I . . .” Marianne tried to think of reasons either for or against staying. A conflicting tangle of reasons snarled up in her throat. She wanted to go home. But she didn't know if she could face it, “I think I'll wait. See how this whole love potion business goes over. I want to know where Roland is going to be before I make any plans.”

Bog gave a quick nod, “Probably best. I understand. The offer remains. No offense will be taken if you decline it.”

“Thanks. But aren't you afraid I might get into your wine cellar and go on a binge?”

“I will be sure to take every precaution, should you decide to grace us with your delightful personage for an extended period.”

“No fair, being all regal at me from up there. Give me a hand, I think my legs are asleep.”

Bog obliged.

Marianne wobbled on her feet and leaned against Bog for support, both physical and emotional. It helped that he understood, a little, what it was to be at odds with what was expected of you.

“I really do envy you,” Bog sighed, his hand on her shoulder to keep her balanced, “Though I do not envy the fairy court should you decide to go there. They are not used to disorder.”

“I am a force of chaos,” Marianne smiled, her hands resting in the crooks of Bog's arms. She leaned closer.

“Indeed,” Bog said, “You—you--”

Marianne slid her arms around Bog and hugged him.

He was rigid with surprise and the plates of his armor were unyielding. He was not a comfortable thing to hug, all points and edges. But Marianne hugged him a little tighter because . . . because he was kind. Because he wasn't pushing her into the role he thought she ought to take, but instead opened up space for her to breathe and think.

“Thank you,” she said, the ridge of Bog's chest plate was pressing into the soft flesh of her cheek, “Thank you for the invitation.”

“It . . .” Bog swallowed loudly, but kept his hand on her shoulder, even going so far as to give her a reassuring squeeze, “It's my pleasure, tough girl.”

((hey anybody remember this fic. Comments and reblogs give me life and the will to write. Ideas? Thoughts? Feel free to share))

#strange magic #spread the lofe #butterfly bog #tiny people in jars au #strange magic tiny people in jars au #my writing #fanfic

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fictionchronicler-blog · 8 years ago

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Alien Abduction and Folklore

Yes! There IS a Connection!

NOTE: Illustrations and gifs do not belong to me.

Just when you thought I couldn't get any weirder, one of my biggest childhood fears was not thunder, bees, or even the dark. I was legitimately terrified of being abducted by aliens. While I definitely get my love of mysteries from my mother, my fascination with the supernatural comes from my father. I have memories going back as far as age four of watching Unsolved Mysteries, Sightings, and In Search Of with Leonard Nimoy telling me all about Bigfoot. The stories that kept me up at night were alleged testimonials of people going up into a spaceship and being examined by extra-terrestrial beings.

But for how long have people been telling these stories? Longer than you think, actually. At first, I wanted to write about how aliens have been portrayed in pop culture over time, but my research led me in a different direction. I don't necessarily subscribe to what we're about to delve into, but I think it's thought-provoking enough for discussion. This is a primal fear for me, but writing about what we fear is a challenge, and I do love a challenge.

NOTE: This isn't a meta about aliens in general, and I will be calling them aliens throughout. This meta focuses on stories of abduction.

Lovable Gnome, My Ass

Elves: Step 1: Steal underpants. Step 2:....... Step 3: PROFIT!

Think about what you know on the subject of fairies so I can hurry up and disprove all of it. For one thing, for being called “fairy tales,” fairies aren't in too many of the stories collected by the Brothers Grimm. In European oral tradition, fairies are small, human-like creatures with magical powers that dwelt in the woods, most commonly seen around twilight. Already sounding a little other-worldly to you?

“Little people who come out at night. So what?”

Take a look at the above artwork. Fairies weren't depicted with wings until about Victorian times, and before that, in Orkney, they were described as being small and clad in gray. Even now, fairies are still portrayed as small and long-limbed with large eyes. And these were not the kindly wish-granters of Charles Perrault's “Cinderella.” These things messed with you.

“Tam Lin” is one of those not-kid-friendly fairy tales you won't see being adapted into a family film any time soon. It is about a woman who meets and falls for an “elf” in the woods, the eponymous Tam Lin who not only impregnates her, but informs her that he used to be a human. He was just out one day when the Queen of the Fairies abducted him. The rest of the story centers around how they will save him from the fairies before they tithe him to hell.

Tam Lin: (singing) While strolling through the woods one day/in the merry merry month of May/She’ll be taken by surprise/And I’ll face my demise/a really creepy love story starts today!

When it comes to virtually any other supernatural encounter, it is usually the supernatural creature coming down to the human's home court. God sends his angels to people to communicate with them, for example. When the supernatural creature takes you to its habitat, it usually means trouble.

So what would happen when a person saw a fairy? If a traveler didn't make it to an inn by nightfall, they would often see lights floating around first. Known as will-o'-the-wisps, these lights would lead travelers astray. And this isn't just an English thing. Sightings of mysterious floating lights in forests and marshes exist in Japan, Australia, and South America as well.

So now you're lost in the woods because you followed the bright, shiny thing. You are no smarter than a moth flying into a bug zapper. What punishment awaits you? Well, none just yet. It's a little unsettling being lost in the woods at night, but you hear some faint music, so there must be a camp nearby, right?

Oh, you poor soul. Turn back now.

You suddenly see little people dancing around in a circle, and the melody is pretty catchy. The term “fairy ring” usually means a circle of mushrooms or other fungi. These occur naturally, but ancient people believed they were more or less portals—gateways between our world and the world of the fairies, elves, goblins, pixies, sprites, Sidhe...whatever you want to call them.

The horror. The horror...

If a fairy saw you, a variety of things could happen. One is a “fairy stroke,” in which you are paralyzed or given a disease of some kind. In Ireland, there were tons of remedies and prayers on how to come away from this alive. But they would have smacked their foreheads first because you should have known not to go near a fairy ring. If you step into the fairy ring, you might start dancing with the fairies until you drop from exhaustion. You could also be sucked into their world as it is a portal, after all. Or you might just die young.

“What does all of this have to do with alien abduction?”

Well, it seems that fairies really get their kicks from abducting people. Think about it. It's night, you're alone, and then a glowing, big-eyed creature first paralyzes you and then takes you with them somewhere? I shouldn't have to go into the number of stories where time works differently in other worlds, where maybe years pass where you are but when you go back it's only been a few minutes, etc. You could spend a couple of minutes in the fairies' realm only to find out that several years have passed in our world. Those who study UFOs would call that “missing time.”

It all must come down to what people believed fairies actually were. The most popular belief was that they were fallen angels who now wanted to prey upon humans.

The forest was always a scary place for people, but once you throw fallen angels into the mix, all bets are off. If you live in a world where stepping inside a circle of mushrooms is bad news, it's not a stretch to believe that fallen angels can also just come right into your home. Legends of the incubus/succubus were popular at this time, too, demons that sat on your chest while you were sleeping, had sex with you (while you were sleeping), and took your, um, essence around with them, impregnating whoever they wanted. Keep in mind also that “brownies” were little people who lived in your house and sometimes helped you, sometimes made mischief for you, depending on their mood.

“But these are just Irish and Welsh weirdos going around saying all these things.”

Oh, we're playing that game, are we? The Ojibwe and Wampanoag had Pukwudgies, little people who lived in the woods and caused trouble. The Maori had Patupaiarehe, Hawaiians had Menehune, and the ancient Basques (parts of modern-day Spain and France) had Laminak, little people who are also kind of mermaids. Stories of little people living out in the woods who have their own world, parallel one or not, are all over the world and almost every culture says they are not above kidnapping children.

Changeling, Mister? Got any Changeling?

This nightmare fuel brought to you by Black Pot! The only pot willing to call the kettle black!

That's right, folks. Sometimes the fairies liked your baby so much they would steal it and leave one of their kind in its place. Because fair is fair.

Infant mortality was a much bigger part of life than it is for most of us now, the percentages being anywhere from 30 to 50% in the Middle Ages, and since there was so little information available to people on how to get your kids to survive, people would blame sudden changes in behavior and/or appearance on fairies. Your kid has started crying a lot? Changeling. Your kid is nursing constantly but never gets full? Changeling. Your kid's ears are a little big, possibly pointy and they can just think people into the cartoon world like in The Twilight Zone Movie? Well, okay, that's probably a legitimate malevolent entity.

So these poor babies that in our time would have just been labeled ugly or difficult are now responsible for the entire family's misfortunes. At least Native American cultures were a little nicer in that the little people only took kids who were being abused or had already been abandoned.

“Why do they steal babies?”

I could give you the Mount Everest answer: because it's there, but reasons vary. Sometimes fairies really like that infant blood. Sometimes their own kids need human breast milk to survive. Maybe they just have it out for a certain family. Or maybe they just really like human babies and don't understand that taking one to have for yourself is wrong, the Raising Arizona Defense.

Gotta Go Back in Time

Alien abduction seems to be one of the last remaining supernatural stories that elicits a substantial amount of fear. We're a little too quick to dismiss someone's claims of being abducted, our main argument being that it's just ridiculous. However, the more we find out about space, the more we find out we are not the center of the universe and there are a ton of things out there beyond our full comprehension. The big question isn't “does life exist on other planets” but “do those life forms come here?”

The urban legend is the modern folktale, a cautionary tale mostly spread orally (or via internet) where the narrative didn't happen to you or to anyone you know, but it could happen to a friend of a friend, and that's scary enough. That's sort of what alien abduction tales are. If you yourself believe you've been abducted, I apologize, but odds are, you don't personally know anyone making these claims. You have a wide variety of people from different backgrounds kind of saying the same thing, but....it's ridiculous. And God knows the ridiculous never happens in real life, right? Right??? I mean, no one credible has ever reported seeing a UFO, right???

Shen Kuo did. In 1053 AD.

Shen Kuo: ...so there I was, minding my own business, when out of nowhere, this army of what looked like the walking dead started advancing on me, arms and legs bent in unnatural positions, their breathing much more focused than normal. And they were so old! So old! (starts rocking back and forth)

Shen Kuo was a little bit of everything—astronomer, archaeologist, cartographer, botanist, and Ancient China's “Sexiest Man Alive” for three years in a row. He was one of the first to write about climate change, petrified plants and animals, lunar and solar eclipses, and why lightning can melt metal but not thatched roofs. He also wrote about a glowing ball, similar to a pearl, in the sky, illuminating the forest in red. I'm paraphrasing here, but he talks about a door opening up on it, creating a light too blinding for anyone to see, and then the object taking off.

Now, true, this is not an account of abduction, but stay with me here. I'm establishing that UFO sightings are not just a product of some twentieth century zeitgeist. People in Hamburg, Germany reported seeing two glowing “wheels” in the sky in 1697. Tennessee College has a UFO sighting dated all the way back to 1853, and in 1865, a trapper named James Lumley was out in the Montana woods when he saw a glowing light in the sky that suddenly broke apart into “particles.” This was accompanied with a rushing wind that reminded him of a tornado, taking up hilltops and uprooting trees, leaving dark stains in the ground.

Just for the sake of brevity, I'm only going to talk in detail about one alleged alien abduction, but it was one of the first, and it's widely regarded as one of the most credible. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the horror story of Betty and Barney Hill:

“What's the dog's name?”

I KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO ASK THAT! It's Delsey.

“Thank you for fact-checking.”

A little bit of background. These two lived in New Hampshire, he, a US postal worker, she, a social worker. They were Unitarian church members, active in the NAACP, and both were seen as sensible, practical people in their community, neither one much interested in science fiction. I guess if I were abducted, I wouldn't be credible.

Anyway, the Hills were driving home from a vacation late at night, dismissing a white light that seemed to be following them as a plane. They stopped to let the dog (Delsey. See? It's a plot point!) out to stretch her legs. Betty walked the dog while Barney—skeptical, but maybe a little paranoid—whipped out his binoculars to see if he could spot the light. He described what happened next as feeling an urge to leave the car, even though Betty was no idiot and knew anyone walking along a highway in the middle of the night was going to be either hit or kidnapped by hillbillies. He followed the light and murmured something like, “I don't believe this,” which was quickly followed by, “They're going to capture us!”

Proving he was in fact, also not an idiot, he ran back to his car and the two took off, followed by the light and strange beeping they both compared to that of a microwave oven when your Mac & Cheese is done. Then everything went back to normal.

Or so they thought.

“Oh, I HATE 'Or so they thought!'”

The next day, they noticed some car trouble. Patches of paint had been taken off their car, revealing bare metal. Magnetized metal. They reported this to Pease Air Force Base (now closed) and decided to consider the possibility they had seen a UFO. Keep in mind these two do not have a history of prank-pulling or wacky LSD parties. Barney was also having severe back pain and saw that his shoes were scuffed up, like he'd been dragged in them. Betty was having nightmares of creatures with “large, cat-like eyes” kidnapping her. And neither one could account for the two hours between stopping their car and getting home.

They sought medical help and it was finally suggested they undergo regression (read: hypnosis) to find out what the hell happened to them. It's pretty much the classic abduction tale—rendered semi-conscious, forced into a spaceship, poked and prodded. Tortuously. I won't go into details, but the physical exam they both underwent involved needles, suction, and screaming. Betty even reported asking if she could take the aliens' book with her as proof, but she was denied.

They were put under separately, but most of the details in their stories matched. They were taken by small, whitish-gray skinned beings with large, feline eyes. For the rest of their lives, the Hills insisted they were telling the truth, Betty even able to draw a star map of Zeta Reticuli, years before it was discovered.

So I'll be super fair here and point out what skeptics often do about this case:

1. The Hills' description of the aliens matches the first mainstream portrayal of the “Greys” on television, an episode of The Outer Limits that aired twelve days before their crazy car ride

2. The Hills' accounts of what happened to them don't match as well as they should, and details have changed over time

3. In later years, Betty Hill confused street lights with UFOs at conventions, severely lowering her credibility

4. Famed astronomer Carl Sagan himself said that Betty Hill's star map was too imprecise to be anything, much less Zeta Reticuli

Look, I'm not going to give credence to or discredit individuals who claim to have been abducted. What I'm pointing out are the similarities to these far more ancient stories we've been talking about—the floating lights, the missing time, the sudden onslaught of medical issues. Even if the Hills stole the alien description from a TV show, this was the first decade of the Greys, the small, skinny, gray-skinned bald aliens with huge black eyes, and that alone is significant from a pop culture standpoint. Prior to this, aliens—Martians, most of the time—were purported to be small, but also green and clearly male.

Both the Greys and fairies have large eyes, pale skin, sort of an asexual look, and are known to fly, go through walls, appear in your dreams, and lead you away from the world as you know it.

Abduction Lit 101

HG Wells drew “teapot,” “tentacles,” and “Pinocchio” out of a hat and a dark, dark tale was born.

In 1895, HG Wells published an essay called “Man of the Year Million,” his own idea of what humanity would be like in the year 1,000,000 AD. He predicted we would have less in common with apes and develop smoother lines, a larger brain, and a smaller body. We all basically take the form of the heads on Futurama, kept in a dome surrounded by a liquid that provides us nutrients. With such large brains, we wouldn't need bodies that much, so they would shrivel up. In short, we would become the grotesque aliens of our nightmares.

Wells was fascinated by the evolution of man and if the distinct class differences in Victorian times would lead to sort of a disparity in evolution where some evolved and some devolved. His novel The War of the Worlds parallels Colonialism, and his creation of the Morlocks in The Time Machine strikes some similarities with his mother, who was a servant that spent most of her time underground.

But perhaps the first story to really explore the idea of aliens taking people anywhere belongs to HP Lovecraft. “The Whisperer in Darkness”was written in 1930 and is one of his many sleep-depriving short stories that starts out with a man ridiculing those who believe an area in Vermont is populated by the little people of old. Those damned floating lights again... He is in correspondence with another man who has been in contact with people who claim they are agents of an alien race. Skeptical of them at first, this second man soon has an abrupt change of mind and invites the main character out to see firsthand. The two have a conversation in a dark room where the second man seems to be sitting in a chair. There are some whispers in darkness(!) and without spoiling anything, the guy steals a car to get the hell out of Dodge, believing a grotesque fate awaited him had he stayed.

While the story very much is about aliens playing Operation with humans, a number of the tropes surrounding alien abduction aren't there, primarily the body horror that is said to go on when the aliens experiment on a person. Robert Heinlein played with alien invasion and alien possession in 1953's The Puppet Masters that, along with Invasion of the Body Snatchers, is more about fighting communism than anything else, but then Whitley Strieber came along. Strieber started out as a novelist, writing The Wolfen and The Hunger among others, but it was his non-fiction book Communion that put him on the map.

Christopher Walken in a UFO movie? Yes. This feels right.

Whitley Strieber claims he was abducted by aliens on December 26, 1985. He calls the Greys “visitors” and describes in vivid detail how he saw a figure in his bedroom and lost several weeks of memories, given “screen memories” instead—visions of owls, rabbits, and deer (forest imagery. Tuck that away) that he knew weren't real. Under hypnosis, he recalled being taken from his bedroom through the woods to a spaceship where there was at least one robot and at least one stocky humanoid alien, but the rest were Greys, or “visitors” in the book. He underwent an extensive medical exam similar to other abductee claims, but this is where the notorious “anal probe” thing came from.

Strieber describes a moist, dusky scent, like being underground and says aliens smell like cinnamon. Again, a lot of forest imagery for being up in space. To his credit, he doesn't really speculate much on why the Visitors are here or what the purpose of the physical examinations could be. He even chose the name Visitors in hopes of keeping things as neutral as possible, keeping in mind he didn't know if these were hallucinations or not. Strieber still writes both fiction and non-fiction to this day, but he gets pretty upset if you categorize Communion as fiction. Oh, and if you buy into the idea that he has temporal lobe epilepsy, you're wrong. He has been tested for it many times and his brain is working just fine.

And Film Responds

In 1972, J. Allen Hynek came up with a classification of UFO sightings.

The First Kind: visual sighting of a UFO

The Second Kind: sighting of a UFO with a physical effect, like physical impressions in the ground

The Third Kind: sighting of a living being/occupant of the UFO; also known as “first contact”

The Fourth Kind: (added on by Ted Bloecher) alien abduction

The Fifth Kind: direct communication between humans and aliens

The Sixth Kind: death of a human or animal associated with a UFO sighting (spaceship uproots a tree and it falls on you)

The Seventh Kind: the creation of a human/alien hybrid

The Eighth Kind: a sequence of the above kinds for a particular individual

You might be most familiar with the Third Kind as there is the classic Steven Spielberg movie named after it, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. While it premiered in 1977 alongside Star Wars, both sci-fi movies couldn't be more different. Star Wars is actually closer to fantasy than most science fiction films and while by now you can get anything out of the franchise that you want, its primary function was to be fun family entertainment. Close Encounters, however, exists in our world and has to do with our world's reactions. The aliens are not seen until the end (and yes, they are the Greys), and it's very unclear what their nature is. They seem to be well-meaning, but they are technically brainwashing people into wanting to go with them. It's a mysterious, haunting movie that asks a lot of questions and doesn't necessarily answer all of them.

Alien Abduction provided us with a slew of supernatural TV shows in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, everything from Dark Skies, to The Outer Limits (long-running, ain't it?), and The X Files. In almost every incarnation, the aliens are hostile to humans, but in an ambivalent sort of way, giving us new technology and graciously not outright taking us over, but they're doing experiments on us and I guess what you would call anomalies in humanity are explained with alien possession. Charles Manson, for example is an alien on Dark Skies. I mean, thank goodness ET: The Extra-Terrestrial balanced things out in that it had a sympathetic alien who befriends children and the government tracking him down being the antagonist.

Like I said, I grew up in the late 80s and 90s in which unsolved mysteries equated to prime-time entertainment, giving me a dose of darkness after Full House, I suppose. Things that really happen but didn't seem to have much rhyme or reason to them evolved into reality TV where, to the surprise of no one, things happen that don't seem to have much rhyme or reason to them. “It's unscripted! I swear! We didn't make this up for the sake of ratings!”

We were really set in what was happening in our world in the here and now. Comic books and comic book-based movies were outrageously stupid, Friends ridiculed anyone who had read The Lord of the Rings in spite of the fact that even then it was considered a classic, and pop culture seemed to be dictating that the best form of escapism is no longer exploring other worlds/dimensions, but to just point out how much smarter you are than the people you're watching on Maury, Big Brother, The Jersey Shore, etc.

But things have a way of coming full circle. Those who grew up with the dark, gritty fantasy movies of the late 70s and 80s had grown up and wanted a little more...oomph in their entertainment. Thinking of other worlds and who would inhabit those worlds fuels the imagination. It can be wondrous and whimsical, or it can be downright terrifying, and since M. Night Shyamalan is quoted for saying that he can turn even something like Pokemon into a symbolic epic, he took on the alien mythos with the 2002 movie Signs.

I'm not going to lie—Signs has a really good first third/half that seems to be building onto something, but it never delivers because these are the stupidest, worst-conceived aliens ever, but compared to a lot of the crap we were being fed in the early 2000s, this was an intelligent, psychological thriller that took science fiction elements and made us question our own philosophies. Ooh, remember when we all thought Shyamalan's use of the color red in The Sixth Sense was profound? Innocent times, then.

It has some legitimate scares and it thrives off of creating suspense in a Hitchcockian sort of way, but it ends up being just too silly with a lot of plot holes and a rushed climax. However, it brought aliens back into the public eye. Crop circles had gone out of fashion back in the 70s, but maybe there was something to all of that, hmm? Maybe these farm yokels who talk candidly about being probed in the anus aren't just looking for attention, hmm?

“But there is no abduction in this movie.”

There is talk of it at the end, and that one alien does try to take the boy, but you're right. We were still trying too hard to not be afraid of being abducted. An adult openly talking about being afraid of being abducted by aliens would be like an adult saying they're afraid to watch Scooby-Doo. David Icke, Jim Mars, and their ilk have been laughed at for their ideas and now can only write to a niche market that believes in these kinds of things and just aren't interested in a scientific, objective investigation. In fact, maybe Signs is just picked apart more than your average horror/sci-fi movie because we want to poke holes in something like alien abduction. You see all kinds of reviews for this movie pointing out the problems with it, but no one has really dissected Halloween in this way. Michael Myers can survive all he does because he's simply a demon/ghost rather than a person, the original script referring to him as “the Shape.” We accept other “ridiculous” elements and tropes in other horror movies because we have accepted that they need to be there. But when it comes to aliens, suddenly everything has to make total sense and everything has to be explained in just the right way so we feel neither stupid nor baffled at any time.

A 2014 movie simply called Alien Abduction fares a little better with treating aliens like a legitimate threat, and yes, there is abduction. Lots and lots of abduction.

Looks like Duck Dynasty’s getting cancelled.

It's one of those “found footage” films, so whether that makes it more suspenseful or not depends on how you feel about that genre, and I did find it weird that the character holding the camera is the family's youngest child. In any other movie, this would be the person most likely to freak out, but the movie explains this away with young Riley being autistic who uses his camera to help him make sense of the world around him. I can't decide if that's clever or insulting, but the plot is that Riley, his mom, dad, big brother, and big sister are going on a camping trip to an area in North Carolina that supposedly has a lot of sightings of glowing lights and disappearances. But it's totally going to be okay this time.

These aliens are smart, and it helps we rarely see them. First, they purposely mess with things like GPS and cell phone signals so you are even more isolated than ever. Yeah, you could get away with a character's phone not working in a remote forested mountain, but it's a little better when it's implied something tampered with your phone. The movie has a less-is-more approach to scares, like one time a bunch of dead crows just start raining down. We don't really know why. Maybe they hit an invisible spaceship. Maybe there is some kind of exhaust coming out of the ship that kills them. We don't know, and that puts us right with the family, as they don't know, either. Hell, we don't even know if this family is being specifically targeted, or if they're just at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Insert your own “wrong place at wrong time” joke

North Carolina's Brown Mountain Lights are a real phenomenon and sightings of them date back as far as 1913, so this was some really good source material. It's not a perfect movie, and the whole “found footage” thing is a little out of vogue now, but when it's done well, it can be really, really effective. We don't have to see any horrors associated with the abduction; it's scarier to not know what will happen once aboard the ship. It's the aliens' pursuit of the family that is scary, and the relatively less frightening part where you're “beamed” up into their ship actually looks pretty excruciating here as it looks like their tractor beam breaks a lot of your bones to get you up there. The movie begins and ends with the same shot of a camera falling to earth, so please expect a downer ending to this one.

It also connects perfectly to what we were discussing with the fair folk and their methods. It's not that these creatures exist that scares us. It's that we know so little about their nature. Fairies can like you or dislike you at the drop of a hat. They are so alien to us that anything we know about what offends them is just guesswork. How do we really learn anything about them? Trial and error. “I laid my baby on its side and put a brown wig on him, but the fairies still took him.”

The same is true for aliens. I mean, what have we really learned here?

“That you can write an entire episode of Ancient Aliens by yourself?”

Well, thanks, but we don't know anything about the Greys, even after researching UFOs and reading about eye witness accounts. If we can't understand our enemy, there is no hope in defeating them. Are they an enemy? It seems that way since they are beaming people up and experimenting on them, arguably raping them since there are people out there who claim to have seen their cross-species child (for a safer example of what a human/Grey hybrid can look like, just look at Renesmee in the Twilight movies. Uncanny valley at its worst). The alien mythos has survived because we're not able to debunk things about quite the same way as we can with something like ghosts. Ghost stories survive because of the sheer number of them, not because we can't explain a lot of things people mistook for ghosts in the past, and every ghost story/vision is a little different). But with aliens, we can dismiss the eye witness testimony and we can analyze photos, but to use a little bit of science here, you technically can't prove something doesn't exist. “In order to disprove the assertion that all crows are black, one white crow is sufficient.” You can comb the universe looking for life and not find it, but all I need is one alien to invalidate you.

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tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors · 5 years ago

Text

Snowberry

By @loganberry-jam

They’d left Mrs. Coughenour’s house with the weirdest candies they’d ever seen. Wrapped in bits of parchment paper, they smelled of some strong floral flavor.

“I think it’s lavender. This one is, at least.” “Lavender? Why would there be lavender candies? Who makes those?”

“Mrs. Coughenour, apparently”

“Whatever. I just hope Ms. Gage has good candy.”

“It’s Ms. Gage. She’ll either have really good candy that Roman will hijack, or, as you say, ‘old people candy.’”

“Okay, look, it’s always the old people that have those caramels. I’ve never even seen them at the store, so they’ve gotta just appear in their candy bowls once they hit 80.”

“Ms. Gage is seventy.”

“Close enough!”

They continued to bicker back and forth, as brothers do, as they walked down the road to Ms. Gage’s house, unaware of the two bright purple eyes watching them from between the trees.

After they had been walking for a good twenty minutes, Thomas muttered a little suspiciously, “Haven’t we been walking for just a little while longer than it usually takes?”

Logan paused. He was right. Usually, the walk was only ten to fifteen minutes max, and they weren’t by any familiar landmarks.

“Logan, what time is it?”

“12:02 AM”

Thomas shuddered. “Midnight.”

Thomas nodded, unconvinced. “Can we just walk a little faster then? I wanna get to Ms. Gage’s”

“If that’s what would help ease your fear, then of course.”

“Well, that was a bit alarming.”

Logan muttered something about humans and poor hearing before grabbing his hand and running. “Logan! What’s going on?”

“A hunt, I could hear the horses! Just run!”

Logan, regaining his ability to speak, said, “Well, thank you V, for saving us. Had you not appeared, I believe we would have been, in the modern vernacular, ‘toast.’” V laughed at this. “Yes, I do believe you two would’ve been ‘toast.’ Come now, I’ll help you get where you’re going, without any more… Rude interruptions.” He held his hand out, standing. The twins shared a look, doing their “mind-reading thing,” as Roman always put it. Then, simultaneously, the reached their hands up at him, Logan’s perhaps imperceptibly shaking a little more than Thomas’. V’s hand closed around theirs (Gosh, he had a big hand – He was tall, tall people just naturally have larger extremities. Although perhaps his fae nature only assisted in that), and they seemed to melt into the shadow, reappearing behind a tree near Ms. Gage’s house.

“It’s not my actual name, of course, we’re not that dumb as to give you our real names, and neither are you. Berry is simply a nickname for me, just as Bug is my nickname for him.”

“Good. You two are smart. Use those smarts next time, and bring iron. Or,” and he paused, casting a smug eye on him, “Perhaps not. You are fae, are you not?”

“Couldn’t tell from the pointy ears and silver eyes? My, perhaps it was a good choice to not give you our names.”

“Very funny, very funny.”

Logan turned to go, V silent behind him, before saying

“…Will I see you again, Snowberry?”

He paused at the nickname, turning a little pink. “… I suppose I could not stop you if you visited me. Though hopefully not under such dire circumstances again.” “One can hope.”

Logan smiled a little and nodded in farewell. V waved a little, and Logan turned, walking towards the cottage. V sighed, watching till he was out of sight, before melting into the shadow.

—

V: NICE! very interesting, i love the cute nickname!!!

#submission #laoft fic #not mine

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