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lovelyirony · 5 years ago

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This Might as Well Happen

“So let’s let things come out of the woodwork/I’ll give you my best side, tell you all my best lies” Homemade Dynamite, Lorde

Tony was a curious little shit ever since he could remember. He remembers trying to sneak into the meeting rooms when Dum-Dum Dugan and Peggy Carter would meet with Dad. (He failed at this because he never really learned how spies actually gathered information.)

His knowledge was highly encouraged by tutors that could never keep up and Jarvis, who would buy him the most obscure books he could.

(“Jarvis, this book is in Japanese!”

“Are you saying you can’t figure it out?”

“Well, no...”)

And now this has royally screwed him over because he’s still figuring out how he’s hacking into shit and he just found...something.

The thing about computers and him is that Tony understands computers on a level most don’t. Hell, he’s built most of the systems that he knows to be better than the commercially available ones.

This is how he figures out that there’s a hit out on his parents. For the night that he said he wasn’t going to go to because “it was super lame” and the fact that Howard’s already disappointed in him and he’d rather not try to awkwardly bond with him in public because that’s what people expect from him.

But now he has to go.

Which sucks, by the way. Because he’s not telling his parents that they’re going to be killed because that’s just...Howard wouldn’t believe him and Mama would probably wring her hands out of their sockets and ring up the president or some shit like that.

Besides, it’s easy to change what’s going to happen, even if he is only a young adult or however you categorize a twenty year old.

He simply updates the file. It’s not like anyone can tell, especially when the system that the organization is using was mainly designed by him with minimal input from other sources.

He says that the Stark family will be leaving at midnight, even though the function carries on much later and his parents often like to stay out quite a bit later than midnight.

Tony then tells them that he’s decided to go.

“Why?” Howard asks suspiciously. “You said it yourself that this was supposedly ‘the most boring thing you would ever be doing’.”

“Teenagers change minds all the time,” Tony says with a shrug. “And it’s not the most boring thing I could be doing. I could be asking Beatriz in accounts how she files paperwork.”

Tony’s not even surprised that his dad doesn’t know all of his employees. He hires a lot of people, but still.

“Please wear the shirt I’ve laid out on your bed,” mama pleads to him. “Please. Don’t let it be like last time.”

“And here I was thinking you liked that I wore a rock t-shirt with a suit.”

“You looked a mess, darling.”

“That’s a trend now, mama.”

“Not for my boy.”

“Okay, fine. I won’t wear it. By the way, I’m taking a separate car. Just don’t want to be stuck there when you and dad decide to talk to someone for, like, three hours.”

(He still wears plaid pants. His mother hates him for it.)

As he’s watching the party, he’s kind of amazed at how much he knows.

Mama and Howard are having a good time at the gala. So good, in fact, that they don’t notice at midnight when Tony switches keys and takes Howard’s car.

He doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing, honestly. He just knows that Howard drives like he wishes he was a turtle and his mama refuses to drive anywhere.

There’s a motorcycle behind him, and Tony counts on them thinking that he’s Howard.

And then he turns left.

Hydra doesn’t know what the hell is happening. They’ve gotten too confident--no one was in the gala or investigated Howard before any of this. He should never have made a left turn

But Winter Soldier is hunting him down. And Winter Soldier never misses a target.

...right?

Tony’s currently panicking and also the Beatles are on the radio--which is weird, by the way, it’s not even a well-known song--and he’s trying to outmaneuver a motorcyclist who has a gun and has fired it once, the bullet whizzing into the front glass and cracking it.

He has a crazy idea. Well, it’s not the craziest you could have. He could’ve flown the car off a ditch and tried to jump out the window. But he can’t keep turning forever and he can’t keep ducking his head to try to avoid shots that are a little too close to his head to ignore.

He brakes and he brakes hard. The guy runs into the car, falls, and Tony gets out and runs for it.

That’s stupid. Very stupid. And it wasn’t supposed to happen.

None of this was supposed to happen.

Disoriented and confused, Winter Soldier sits up and tries to refocus on the target.

Even if he just smashed his head against a bumper and shit, was that a dent? That was definitely a dent, Winter Soldier knew one thing: that that wasn’t the target, and somewhere along the way something got messed up.

Hydra didn’t know that Howard and Maria were safely exiting the gala at two in the morning and grumbling about taking Tony’s entirely-too-showy vehicle that had the volume blasting and music that was too vulgar for both of their tastes the only sort of music that was programmed into the radio stations or on the CDs of music that were stuffed in the passenger side-door.

Hydra didn’t know that they were going to have to deal with, mainly because Tony’s a gigantic asshole who knows more than them but also doesn’t know how he’s going to break the news to his parents that they might die?

He honestly might just make himself a target for them.

But he also needs to figure out how to shut down Hydra because clearly Cap going down into the ice didn’t just automatically fix it all.

This involves going to SHIELD. And then as he approaches the building, realizing that the only reason he found out about Hydra is because he hacked into SHIELD databases mainly because he just wanted to see what it was like and if he could get into the deeper encryption is because they were probably a part of the organization.

Tony sighs to himself. This means changing literally everything about his life.

Honestly, he wishes he hadn’t even discovered this because he has this sense of “something needs to be done” and he just does not care for that shit at all.

Except he does.

So instead he calls Rhodey.

“Only you could ruin Christmas,” Rhodey grumbles. “I’ll meet you at the coffeeshop. I hate you for this.”

“I know, love you too,” Tony says. “Fate of the world depends on it or whatever.”

Rhodey has no idea why he’s friends with this crazy fucking millionaire kid, but they meet at a coffee shop and Tony’s wearing plaid pants, the shirt is dissheveled, and he says that he ditched a car and took the subway.

“Wow, good for you,” Rhodey teases. “Taking the subway like us commoners.”

They don’t say anything for a beat.

“Get your coffee. We’re taking a walk.”

“At three a.m.? Seriously?”

“Short walk. Don’t be such a baby about it.”

They get coffee and start walking. Tony links arms with him.

“So you remember learning about Hydra when you were a kid?”

“Eh, somewhat. Something about being an offshoot of Nazism?”

“Not...exactly. They were more of supportive of the Nazi agenda and the Nazis were chill with that. No, they were more proactive on world domination and making sure that they also overpowered the universe or whatever. Yeah, they’re still here.”

“...fuck. Well, what do you want to do about it?”

That’s what Tony appreciates about Rhodey. He’s just ready to kick ass whenever.

“I can’t talk to SHIELD about it. So I’m gonna try to do it with some people outside of it. You ready to infiltrate Stark Industries with extra employees?”

“Oh my god, so you’re actually gonna take the company at twenty-one instead of letting Obie do it?”

“Yes, unfortunately. Our trip to Cabo will have to wait.”

“To be completely honest with you, I didn’t want to go anyway.”

“Rhodey, you bitch. I even had a good place to stay and everything!”

“Doesn’t matter now, sweetheart,” Rhodey says, smiling. “Now we have to hire people before SHIELD does.”

It takes a while. Tony has to go to MIT and take business classes for credit (barf) and look at other, scarier parts of the internet.

He and Rhodey also keep practicing fighting after-hours and Tony’s pretty sure that he could create a flight-suit if he so desired.

(And if his projects for engineering would Stop Being Due All the Time, things would be better.)

They meet a girl named Pepper Potts who’s trained in ballet, could kick God’s ass and have God apologize, and was looking at recruitment at SHIELD or joining a sorority.

“Or, there’s a better option,” Tony adds. “Taking down an organization that’s a conspiracy thread on Reddit with surprisingly solid evidence.”

“You’re making this sound worse,” Rhodey says with a snort. “Listen, Pepper. We’re going to take down an organization that people say doesn’t exist. Tony survived an attack from an assassin that technically probably should be dead. It’ll go on your resume and you legally could never be fired ever or else it would be all over the news and you would ruin a company without contributing to it. Join or lose the opportunity.”

“I’m in.”

“Rhodey, I hate you,” Tony pouts.

Rhodey is barely over twenty-one and trying to figure out how to tell his superior officer that he should stay at home when he had expressed overseas interest, Pepper’s just celebrated her twentieth birthday and has five cents in her bank account, and Tony’s only nineteen and forgot how to spell ‘experience’ on more than one occasion.

They’re gonna take over the world.

#lovelyirony writes #listen: i want #tony stark #pepper potts #rhodey #they're gonna take over the world babey!!!!!!!!!!!!#i love them! he!#anyway this came over me and i had to write it

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let-it-raines · 6 years ago

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Unraveling the Thread

Returning home is never something anyone wants to do when they've been trying to leave for their entire life, but it seems to happen to most everyone. It's just not something Emma ever thought would happen to her. But after getting let go from her job and refusing to work in another office answering phones for the next ten years of her life, she moves back home to Storybrooke and has to deal with all of the loose threads that she left behind.

It's easier said than done. She's still going to do it.

Rating: Mature

Found on AO3 | Here |

A/N: Because I have a million other things to do, I obviously wrote a one-shot. I hope you guys enjoy the product of my lack of sleep 💕

Tagging my usual peeps: @resident-of-storybrooke @mayquita @wellhellotragic @captainsjedi @bmbbcs4evr @jennjenn615 @ekr032-blog-blog @kmomof4 @onceuponaprincessworld @thejollyroger-writer @jonirobinson64 @qualitycoffeethings @cs-forlife

Everything is exactly the same.

Granny’s diner still rests in the center of a strip of stores, the bright blue paint noticeably having been touched up lately to go with all of the other brightly colored stores that Storybrooke’s city council obviously thinks will pull in tourists when they inevitably roll into town each summer. If she remembers correctly, it does work. She worked as a waitress enough summers to know that her tips definitely increased once summer break started, and as much as she appreciated the money, she didn’t appreciate the people that were constantly taking her parking space or telling her that if she smiled more, she’d get more customers.

Assholes.

They would also make comments about her ass, and well, despite the fact that she has a damn good one, that’s a little thing call harassment.

It’s a miracle she never punched anyone.

There are already people filtering in and out of the diner despite it being only five in the morning on a Saturday, and she quickly drives by so no one will see her. She’s fine coming home to see her parents, but she doesn’t want to see anyone else. Not yet. Maybe later once she has a few shirts on hangers and a toothbrush in the bathroom, but not before that. She needs more time to mentally prepare herself to see everyone again. It’s only been since Christmas, but really, all she did for those three days was spend all of her time inside her parents’ living room eating sweets her mom had baked and watching old Christmas movies long into the night until even the streetlights outside turned off.

And this trip isn’t for three days. It’s for three months at least. Maybe more. She honestly has no idea, but when you get let go from the job you’ve had as investigator for auto insurance company for the past five years with nothing else lined up that actually pays the bills, there aren’t a lot of options. Living with her parents again wasn’t what she preferred, but she couldn’t take another job as a secretary or a phone operator trying to sell people weight loss pills that are probably pretty unhealthy.

Her dream job is obviously not an option.

She’s not sure if she has a dream job.

She used to want to be a cop like her dad, but that was when she was five and also wanted to be a ballerina in space. Her thoughts and wants weren’t exactly the most well thought through. And then she never really figured it out. Her parents put her on the fast track to going to college and getting a degree that would supposedly allow her to make more money and be able to get out of Storybrooke.

Considering her mom is a third-grade teacher on every committee board ever created and her dad is the sheriff, it’s surprising that leaving was ever an option.

And if she thinks about it, it really wasn’t. Yeah, she could leave for four years, get a degree, and then come back to work at a business in town that would have hired her regardless of her qualifications (nepotism is a thing). But that was the thing. She was always supposed to come back.

And seven years after leaving, she is.

Except she has no college degree.

She’s not even close to having one. She’s got a semester’s worth of credits in classes like English comp and pre-algebra and things she’s likely never going to use in her entire life. She’d made the Dean’s list at NYU that one semester too, but then, like the oldest story in the world, she’d met a boy.

She met a boy who was a few years older than her, infinitely wiser, and just as charming as she had ever known anybody to be. Neal was her entire world. He shouldn’t have been, but he was. Her mother spent her entire life talking about how love is the greatest gift in life, the greatest privilege, and how if Emma ever found it, she should hold onto it like her life depended on it.

What her mother didn’t tell her was that first loves are not always good loves, even if there’s the occasional exception.

In all fairness, Mary Margaret Nolan most likely doesn’t know that. She grew up as an only child in a small town and met the love of her life on the first day of sixth grade. The only love her mom has ever known has been her dad, and as wonderful as that as, as in love as her parents are, Emma’s learned that sometimes the lessons her mom taught her are not great lessons.

Exercise a few times a week, never pluck your eyebrows too thin, sure. Think that the first boy who tells you you’re pretty and who sleeps with you is the love of your life, not so much.

Because unlike her dad, Neal was not some standup guy who sticks around and lives by some kind of moral code that everyone should live by. Be kind to others, don’t murder someone, wash your hands after you go to the bathroom, et cetera. And it’s not that Neal was a murderer. God, she hopes not. It’s that he was a cheater who she left college for to move to Boston with because he convinced her that he could give her a better life than living in a cramped dorm room and spending her days studying. He was a cheater and also a thief, apparently fencing expensive jewelry and stolen goods to fund that better life, and she only found all of that out when she told him that she might be pregnant and he bolted in the middle of the night and the other woman who he was dating showed up at their apartment looking for him.

She found out the theft stuff later when she was nearly arrested because he tried to frame her for his crimes.

Newsflash. She wasn’t pregnant, and she sure as hell didn’t commit any crimes.

But she did give up her entire life, things that even though she wasn’t sure she really wanted, she had worked for. And as much as it’s taught her, as much as she’s changed because of it, she regrets ever leaving New York.

She regrets giving up her life because she was convinced that her love would last forever, and she would never need anything else.

It didn’t even last two years.

She never made it back to New York. She stayed in Boston, finding random jobs that would pay the bills until she got her job as the insurance fraud investigator and moved in with Anna and Elsa, two sisters who were going to freaking Harvard of all places. There she was barely scraping by, and she was roommates with people who went to Harvard. It worked, though. They were always busy studying or attending events, and she could slip in and out without really having to talk to them too much or explain why she was their age but decidedly a little lost.

Her parents weren’t talking to her at the time, and if her own parents weren’t talking to her, why would she want to talk to anyone?

But she did eventually talk to her parents again and talk to her roommates. She became friends with them actually, and even after they both graduated and moved away, she stayed close with them. With everything that has gone on in her life, she’s at least thankful that she’s gotten to be close with Anna and Elsa.

When she lost her job, Elsa had offered to let her live with her in New York, and even though it’s a big city, she couldn’t go back.

Which is why she’s here pulling into her parents’ driveway, the two of them visible in the kitchen through the front window. They’re likely drinking coffee and talking about all of their plans for today even though it’s Saturday and the perfect day to stay home. Or they’re talking about her. She’d bet that they’re talking about her.

She’s a fascinating conversation piece.

And that’s why she takes at least fifteen minutes to regulate her breathing and prepare herself for all of the fawning that her parents are going to do.

That her mom is going to do.

She loves her, but she’s not nearly as good as her dad at understanding that Emma needs her space sometimes.

It’s exactly thirty five steps from her car to the front door, and she’s barely inside the entryway when her mom is wrapping her in a hug so tight that all of the air escapes her legs and her ribcage bruises a little bit. It’s too much, but she wraps her arms around her mom’s waist and holds on as tightly as she can regardless.

“I’m so glad you’re here, sweetie.”

“Me too,” she lies. “Why are you guys up this early?”

“Because we’re waiting for you,” her dad answers her, flashing her a grin before he’s hugging her too, cupping the back of her head with his palm. He smells like the cologne he’s been wearing for her entire life, and that feels good too. “How was your drive? What’d you do? Not sleep?”

“Pretty much,” she shrugs. “Can I get some of that coffee?”

-/-

It’s weird regressing back to a teenager in her hometown over the next few weeks, March fading into April, the weather warming with each day. The exact thing she didn’t want was to work as a waitress again, to really fall back into old habits, but at least she’s not working at Granny’s. She’s working at Storybrooke Country Club as server in their clubhouse, and even though she has to deal with old men all day, at least they tip well.

Most of the time.

Some of the people who used to tell her to smile at Granny’s are these same people, and she can feel their judgmental eyes on her as she’s back at home serving them food. She’d think that people would understand someone working as a waitress doesn’t make them less of a person, but some people never learn.

The tips, she reminds herself. And it’s something to do, something to occupy her time and give her money while she tries to figure out her life. It’s something that’s not being stuck in an office as a secretary or a temp.

But it is temporary.

So she’s working as a waitress, sleeping in her teenage bedroom, and after her shifts, she eats with Ruby at Granny’s for dinner, the grilled cheese tasting just the same. She really is somehow going back to the past like Marty McFly, except this isn’t nearly as exciting. Plus, she has this weird need to ask her parents if she can go out late to meet Ruby for dinner.

She’s twenty-five years old.

She doesn’t have to ask her parents for permission even though she’s living with him.

The weirdest thing, however, is seeing Killian Jones again.

She takes that back.

The weirdest thing is seeing Killian, and Killian not talking to her.

Last week they had a particularly busy day in the clubhouse, and she picked up an extra shift to help out and to get overtime. She was tired. It was her day off. She shouldn’t have been there. But she was, and she dealt with it, smiling and asking all of the right questions to the patrons, especially those who she knows are members.

And that��s when she saw him. Except, she didn’t see him until it was far too late.

She was bringing a table their glasses of water for Ashley while she was in the kitchen, and she didn’t pay any attention to the slight flip of hair underneath a clean navy hat or the tattoo peeking out underneath the short-sleeved shirt. She didn’t pay attention to any of it, so when she saw those familiar blue eyes, the ones that she’s always remembered, she dropped the entire tray of ice cold water on the table, the floor, and his white pants.

His white pants.

That were...thin.

That was bad enough, but then she started patting down his thighs with a cloth towel, and that caused all kinds of issued before he grabbed her wrists, looked her in the eyes for an extended thirteen seconds (she knows because she counted), and then he got up and left.

She’s seen him since then, but he hasn’t spoken to her. And she knows that it’s not because she spilled water on him and then felt him up while trying to dry him off.

He apparently works at the harbor, which doesn’t surprise her. What does surprise her is that he’s in charge of tourism for the summers, specifically making sure that there are plenty of boats to rent and that no one docks where they’re not supposed to. According to Ruby, he plans activities at the public pool, puts together festivals, and he even takes certain groups of tourists out sailing. It’s in his wheelhouse, even if it’s not what she thought he would be doing. He was supposed to go into the Navy, supposed to go straight into active duty and work his way through college with his grant. That was always his plan, even if he was delayed in getting around to it.

But that was never his fault. He’s two years older than her, and during his senior year of high school, his mom died. He’d fallen into such a deep depression that he almost didn’t graduate, and even though he did, he never went off to follow his dreams. Instead he worked down at the docks, like now, but instead of working with tourism, he loaded and unloaded cargo. She thinks it had been good for him to be able to work through things physically, especially since he avoided things emotionally. She tried to get him to talk about his mom and about Liam, but he never would.

Maybe this is his new dream.

A sob gets caught in her throat thinking about him, about how much she failed him by giving up on their friendship when she moved away. She fucked that friendship up, and there’s no way for her to work around that. She can’t change what happened.

She wishes that she could.

Out of all of the surprises about Killian, though, she’s surprised that he spends his time at a country club golfing in white pants. That’s not Killian. That’s not him at all. But she guesses people change.

Maybe if he would talk to her, she could understand.

She’s not sure if she wants to talk to him, if she deserves to talk to him.

She probably doesn’t deserve to talk to him.

-/-

Before she knows it, her three months she was planning on staying have passed and a Storybrooke summer begins, the tourists coming into town and filling up all of the hotels and restaurants, including the club. She’s nearly always working, and even though it’s not what she wants, she’s managing to save up some money for when she eventually figures it out. It’s not like she’s paying rent right now, and she can mostly eat at work.

So she’s still home, but it’s not all bad. She’s closer with her parents, even if her mom keeps deciding that she needs to go on a date with her dad’s deputy, and she’s become better friends with Ruby and Ashely, making up for lost time. Honestly, though, the nicest part about it is how much less stressful it is. It’s healing in a way to be home, to not have to constantly be worried about how she’s going to make it, about how she’s going to pay rent.

Something she was dreading is turning out to be pretty okay, even if sometimes she’s still a little bothered by not living in Boston anymore.

The small town life…it’s not all bad some days.

“You’re getting a little burned on your shoulder there,” Ashley points out as they lounge on the beach on their day off in an attempt to get a little bit of color on their skin after mostly working indoors.

“How?” she groans, twisting her head to the side to look at the slight pink of her skin. “I literally have reapplied all day. And we’ve been sitting under the umbrella too.”

“You’re fair.”

“Thanks for pointing out the obvious, Ash.” She stands from her towel and brushes the sand off of her body. “I’m going to go to the bathroom and to reapply, okay?”

“Can you stop and get some more waters from the café?”

She nods her head and reaches down to pull on her jean shorts, zipping them up and slipping on her sandals as she walks up the beach toward the docks. It’s pretty crowded today, families everywhere, and she has to move in and out of the crowds to make it to the bathroom, spending her time reapplying her lotion and fixing her braids before exiting and making her way toward the café. It’s just a small little shack that sells hamburgers and hot dogs, but the line stretches out down the docks so that it’ll be at least twenty minutes.

“Most people wear shirts when they dine, but then again, you seem to be a fan of see through material.”

She nearly drops her phone at the voice behind her, but she catches it and stuffs it into her back pocket, giving her some time to take a deep breath as she turns to see those familiar blue eyes and black scruff-lined jaw. He’s got on the same blue baseball cap, but instead of being in golfing clothes, he’s in navy pants with a white shirt tucked in, the sleeves rolled up to show off his forearms.

He’s always had nice forearms.

That’s not what she should be thinking about.

Or the fact that his shirt is not buttoned up enough. Well, she kind of likes being able to see his chest hair, but it doesn’t really scream “hey look, I’m the guy in charge of tourism.”

“He speaks,” she snarks, straightening her back and lifting her chin up, wishing that she was about half a foot taller so they’d be eyelevel. “I didn’t know that was possible.”

“The same could be said about you.”

The smile that was on his face quickly fades away as his eyes flicker down her body. She’s suddenly very aware of how much skin she has on display, and when she crosses her arms over her chest, she knows that he notices her defensiveness by the raise of his brows.

“Yeah, well, shit happens.”

He scoffs at that, his jaw tightening while he looks up at the sky, the underside of his chin now on display to her.

“Shit happens, huh? Is that why you’re home?”

“Isn’t it why you’re still here?”

“Believe it or not, love, I want to be here.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“You should.”

“I don’t.”

“Are you five?” he scoffs, crossing his arms over his chest just like her, but she can see that same tattoo peeking through the material of his shirt. She’s not entirely sure what it is, but it kind of looks like a ship’s wheel. He would.

“No but at least I don’t run away from people trying to talk to me.”

“That’s rich coming from you.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You know what? I don’t need lunch,” he groans before turning and walking away from her, his step steady and measured as he moves down the docks and disappears into a building that must be his office.

She wants to storm off as well, to act like the child like he just accused her of being, but she’s not going to let him annoy her to the point of not getting something to drink. So she waits, her foot stepping against the wood, and eventually gets her waters before making her way back to the beach and to Ashley who is looking at her like she’s having to bite her tongue on what just happens. The entire town probably knows that she and Killian just got into an argument.

She forgot about the gossip in Storybrooke.

Nothing is secret.

-/-

“So how’s it being home? Elsa asks her as they talk on the phone while she goes for a jog around the park. “Are you falling in love with a cute little surfer boy like it happens in the movies?”

“Els, seriously?”

“What? It’s a serious question. I’ve looked up your town. It’s super cute. I feel like great romances happen there.”

“You’re the worst,” she groans, slowing down her pace a bit as her breath gets heavy moving up the hill. “No, I’m not falling in love with any surfers. We don’t even have surfing here.”

“Okay, then sailors. Are you falling in love with any sailors?”

“Definitely not.”

“That was defensive.”

“It was not.”

“It was. Did you meet someone?”

Her eyes roll as she finally gets to the top of the hill, her legs and her chest burning the slightest bit as the June sun continues to beat down on neck from where it’s exposed. “I went on a date with my dad’s deputy, Graham. He’s a very nice guy, but I don’t know. I didn’t really feel a connection.”

“Nice guys are the guys you want to be with. It doesn’t have to be all dangerous assholes.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“I’m just saying,” Elsa laughs as Emma dodges another runner, “you have a tendency to find some not so nice guys. I mean, I wasn’t there for Neal, but I saw all of Walsh and – ”

“He was an asshole,” she finishes for Elsa, thinking about Walsh and how he was always steering her away from her friends and her hobbies so that he could try to morph her into his weird kind of ideal girl. “Yeah, I know. I’m just not sure if I want to see Graham again. I’m gonna have to think about it. Enough about me, though. Tell me what’s been going on with you as I try to finish this run.”

-/-

It’s raining.

And not like a light drizzle. It’s a torrential downpour with no signs of stopping, and even though every time she goes outside she bundles up into a coat and an umbrella, she’s still absolutely soaked down to her bones. As nice as the summers here are, this is always the one big thing – rain can come out of nowhere, and it can and will stay for days.

It also seems to stop everything.

Obviously no one is spending their time at the beach or going out sailing, so everyone huddles inside at hotels and restaurants and, unfortunately for her, the club. They open to non-members in the summer, so it’s always more packed than usual. But this? This is like absolute chaos. She’s never going to be able to sit down, and her feet are going to fall off. It’s what’s going to happen as she keeps running between the kitchen and at least four different dining rooms, dealing with angry parents and restless kids who never seem to be happy with the food they’re being served. It’s insane and stressful and she wishes that she was in Boston trying to figure out if someone was lying about whether the car accident really did hurt their neck.

No, she doesn’t wish for that. She doesn’t. She likes being home, and she thinks that’s what makes this entire day and this entire situation so much worse.

“Emma, I need – ”

“I know,” she calls back to Ashely, twisting on her foot and slamming right into a solid body that has the tray of drinks in her hands falling, spilling, and glass shattering against the ground. She knows that she could probably feel shards of it in her foot if she wasn’t so goddamned embarrassed by the fact that she just spilled drinks on Killian again.

The world is a very cruel place.

She’s going to have to bandage her ankles.

“Shit,” she sputters, already bending down to pick up the tray and the glasses that didn’t break. “Shit, shit, shit.” She starts to pick up the large chunks of glass when suddenly there are hands underneath her shoulders and she’s being pulled back up to stand, Killian’s eyes peering at her. “Shit.”

“You don’t need to pick up glass with your hands, love,” he says softly, his words far too kind for someone who just had more of his clothes ruined. “And you’re bleeding. You need to get cleaned up.”

“I know how to do my job,” she huffs, not wanting him to be kind to her, “and I’m fine.”

“You have bloody glass in your skin, Emma. Someone else can clean this up with you get it taken care of.”

“I – ” she starts, the protest on the tip of her tongue, but it dies there when she looks at the blue that has always meant so much to her. He’s changed a lot, really filled in physically, but the blue is the same. “Um, okay. I’m going to go to the front office and clean up I guess.”

He nods his head and releases her arms, and as she walks away, the slightest bit of pain in her step, she realizes that he’s walking with her. She doesn’t understand why, doesn’t want to ask why, but then he’s following her into the office, somewhere he’s definitely not supposed to go, and plopping himself down on a couch while she gets the first aid kit out and starts trying to clean her cuts and make sure there’s not more glass in her skin.

“Why are you in here?” she finally asks as she takes off her sneakers to check for glass. It’s everywhere.

“I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

“Why?”

“Because believe it or not, I still care about you.”

“Yeah,” she says incredulously, shaking a piece of glass out of her shoe and into the trashcan, “sure you do. That’s totally how you’ve acted the past few months.”

“Well, forgive me for not always wanting to talk to the woman who left without so much as a goodbye.”

The cuts more than the glass that was in her skin. She should have known. She should have known that them being around each other, that them talking, that it would lead to old scars being brought up. Why the hell did she want to talk to him to begin with?

“Killian – ”

“No, it’s fine. I get it. It’s been years. I shouldn’t still be bitter about it.”

“You very obviously are, though.” She sits down on the edge of the desk and starts dabbing at cut on her hand that she must have gotten when she was picking up the glass. “Wounds made when we’re young tend to linger. Or at least that’s what you always said as if you were some wise old man.”

He chuckles a bit at that, and her eyes snap up at him. She missed that sound. She didn’t realize it until now, but she did.

“I’ve always had an old soul, love.”

“And an old personality, obviously considering you’re now spending your time in country clubs golfing.”

“It’s for work,” he explains on a sigh as he wipes at the dampness on his pants, a loud crash of thunder shaking the window. “I – ”

“I know what you do.” When he raises his eyebrow, she continues. “Ruby told me. Don’t act so surprised that I asked about you. I’m not this cold heartless bitch you obviously think I am.”

“I have never said that.”

“You might as well have for the way you speak to me and the way you mostly avoid me.”

He laughs again, but this time it’s not as pleasant. It’s more…dark, and she doesn’t like it. Not at all. “Again, that is entirely rich coming from you.”

Her shoulders tense, and she stops working at her hand to look at him, to really look at him. He looks tired, exhausted really, and if she looks closely, she can see that his eyes are red rimmed. And that’s exactly when it hits her, when she realizes what today’s date is. June 24th. It’s the day that Liam died. Of course he’s going to be upset with her, even if he has every right to be, but today is likely not the best day for them to get into seven years of issues.

So of course she’s going to anyways. She doesn’t want to drudge up Liam’s memory. Killian doesn’t like to. He has to be the one to bring it up, and if he needs to yell, it might as well be at her.

“I’m a shitty person,” she says flatly, even if voice tries to betray her. “I left town, and I didn’t say goodbye, I know. I didn’t answer your texts or your calls. I can’t…Killian, I don’t know why I did that, not to you. You were my best friend for a long time, and you didn’t deserve that. So if you want to hate me, you have every right to. You can hate me and slander my name and spill five times as many drinks on me as I did to you. I deserve it all because I shouldn’t have done any of that. I have excuses, but they’re not worth anything.”

He doesn’t say anything for what has to be at least a minute. He simply sits on the couch and taps his fingers against his thigh while his jaw visibly clenches and unclenches. “I came to visit you, you know? In New York.”

She nearly loses her balance at his words, her ass almost falling off of the desk, but she doesn’t. She stays still and tries to regulate her breathing, tries to dislodge whatever is caught in her throat.

“When?”

“February of your first year.”

“I wasn’t – ”

“You weren’t there,” he finishes for her, his gaze practically burning her skin. This is almost too much for her right now, but she’s here. It’s happening. He deserves to talk to her and yell at her for abandoning him for no reason other than wanting out of Storybrooke. She can’t believe he came to see her in New York. “You hadn’t answered any of my calls, obviously, and I needed to know why. I missed you, and I wanted to see you. Only there I was, ready to lay my heart out on the ground for you, and your roommate told me that you’d dropped out and run off to Boston with some guy.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. Why would you do that, Emma? Where is this guy now?”

“He’s gone,” she whispers, her voice nearly getting carried away in the rain. “He was an asshole who broke my heart.”

“And who made you drop out of college.”

“I did that all on my own.”

“Sure you did.”

“Why do you even care anymore?” she huffs, crossing her arms over her chest and hugging herself, trying to put up some kind of shield. “I’m a screw up who was careless with your feelings. You should not care about me.”

“I was in love with you, Emma,” he yells, slapping his hands against his thighs before running them through his hair as he stands up and steps closer to her. The storm raging in his eyes matches the one outside, and she can barely breathe at the words that just slipped out of his mouth. “You were my best friend, you were there for me through everything, and you just left. I was so goddamn proud of you for going to college, for making something of yourself, but then you dropped off the face of the earth. You didn’t return my calls or my emails. Ever. And then I find out that you’ve dropped out of college and run off with some idiotic guy who did nothing but use you. I had never been more pissed at you than I was right then.”

She wants to acknowledge the fact that Killian just said he was in love with her, but she can’t right now. She doesn’t know if she ever will be able to.

“You’re pissed at me because I made a dumb choice and got my heart broken?” she finally says, the words struggling to get past her lips. “I was a naïve kid, Killian. I did stupid shit, and I paid the price for it. But you don’t get to get mad at me for that. You don’t get to throw my mistakes in my face.”

He nods his head as if he agrees, but he also inches closer to her, his knees nearly knocking into hers. “Why didn’t you call?”

“What?”

She doesn’t even know why she asked what. They’ve already talked about this. It’s like running in a damn circle.

“Why didn’t you call? Why did you decide that I wasn’t worth talking to anymore? What? The depressed man with no family was no longer interesting? I no longer made you laugh and drove you around since you didn’t have a car? I didn’t have a promising career so your mom no longer approved of me? Huh? Was that it?”

“Of course not.”

He takes a step closer, the blue of his eyes nearly completely black as their knees finally knock together. She can feel his breath on her, can feel the heat radiating off of his body.

“Then why?”

“Why would you want to spend time with someone whose entire life was laid out for them when yours had just been destroyed? I had everything, and I wanted none of it. I was young and stupid and selfish, and you deserved someone better than me to be your friend.”

“We had very different childhoods, love. You grew up in a happy house full of love and opportunity, and I would never blame you for thinking differently than me, for wanting a different life than the one you had. I was – I am an idiot. I’m a hot headed idiot who doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut when it comes to you. That hasn’t changed. That’s not going to change.”

“I’m sorry that I hurt you,” she quietly admits, not knowing what else to say when Killian’s proximity to her is making it hard to breathe. “I’m sorry that I didn’t call. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry that I’ve been ignoring you since you’ve been home.”

She takes a deep breath and nods her head, her heart still thumping against her chest. This is a lot of emotional whiplash, and she’s not quite sure how to take it or handle it. She doesn’t even think they’ve solved anything or explained it well, but the truth of the matter is that she doesn’t even have an explanation. That’s how shitty she was to him. She doesn’t even know why she did the things she did.

Killian was in love with her.

And she broke his heart without even realizing it.

How could he ever want to talk to her again?

“Killian, I – ” she starts, more words of apology on her tongue when Ashley walks into the office, her eyes widening at the sight in front of her. They must look like a mess. And when the hell did her hand land on Killian’s shoulder?

“Um, Ems,” Ashely stutters while Killian sighs, “I don’t know what’s happening here, but we kind of need you back working.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she mumbles, not moving from her spot. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Now would be better.”

“I’ll be there now,” she says, looking up at Killian and wondering how the black of his eyes has faded back to blue when he should still be pissed at her. “Do you want to talk some more later?”

He smiles, and even though his lips are now surrounded by scruff, it’s the same smile.

“I’d like that.”

-/-

June swelters into July, and she becomes busier than ever at work as well as helping Killian with whatever events he sets up to drive in tourism. It’s odd talking to him again, really talking to him, but after that day at the club, despite nothing really being resolved, they’ve both made an effort to try to be friends again. She doesn’t know why Killian would want that, not really, but it’s his life, and a lot can change in seven years. A lot has changed, and even though they were friends before and know the basic questions and answers of their lives, it’s kind of like starting anew again. Neither of them are the people they were. They’ve grown, changed, and it takes some time to start to get to actually know Killian again.

For one, he’s not a loner anymore. Not at all. And it’s not like he was to begin with, but he definitely wasn’t actively social. Now, though, they can’t walk down any street without Killian talking to someone and asking about their wife or their kids or something personal that shows that he knows this person. It’s the strangest thing watching him be this social guy, but honestly, it makes her happy that he’s happy. He’s always been so charismatic, and it’s kind of nice to see him use his charms and to not be holed up in his house drinking rum.

That’s one thing that has definitely changed. It’s not that Killian was some underaged alcoholic, but he did have a fondness for rum, especially after his mom died. She doesn’t know how he got it, but he did. But now, Killian doesn’t drink at all. He hasn’t outright said it, but when they go get something to eat, he always orders water or tea. She doesn’t think much of it until one night they’re walking along the dock hanging streamers for a sailing race the next day and he starts telling her about Milah.

She hates that her heart pangs when he starts talking about her because she should not be jealous of a woman who’s not in the picture anymore. She should not be jealous at all. She’s always found Killian attractive, even more so now, but they’ve never been a…thing. She’s never wanted them to be a thing, to be more than friends, but her mind is obviously betraying her.

“I loved her, you know,” he starts as he hammers a nail into a post. “She helped me through a really dark time. She made me happy, and I guess that’s why I never questioned the fact that she didn’t like going out on dates in town or why we always slept at my place. Storybrooke is not a big town, and I was so dumb to not realize. I was also too drunk. But obviously I figured it out, we got into a fight, and then we broke up. I didn’t have any interest in being in a relationship with a married woman, even if her marriage was falling apart. I didn’t want to be like my dad, you know?”

“You’re not like your dad,” she promises, hanging the string for the banner and tying it off. “You never have been.”

“I was sleeping with a married woman and drinking far too much. I was exactly like my father. So I broke up with the woman who I thought was going to be the love of my life, and I quit drinking. Simple as that.” “You and I both know that it wasn’t simple.”

He shrugs his shoulders, but his focus never strays from the task at hand. “I’ve been sober for two years. It’s not simple, no, but it’s easier now than it used to be.”

And so their nights go. They work together and spend time together just like they did as teenagers, and little by little, the threads that have been holding their secrets together unravel as they reveal thoughts and dreams and what’s happened in the past. Their threads had been cut from each other seven years ago, but she thinks they’re starting to be knit back together. It’s not something she ever thought would happen, but she’s glad that it is.

Really glad.

-/-

By the time August rolls around, she accepts the fact that she may very well actually like Killian Jones. It’s not that difficult of a conclusion to get to, not really. They basically spend all of their time together. When she’s not working, she’s usually helping Killian work or chilling at the beach with him, and when he’s not working and she is, he’s always at the club. Last week he came to her parents’ house and had dinner with everyone, and even though it’s something that’s happened before, it felt…different.

The fact that her mom’s eyes lit up and she wouldn’t stop talking about how handsome Killian is kind of nailed home the fact that her mom wouldn’t mind if she and Killian started screwing like bunnies.

Woah. That’s not where she was going with that.

But it kind of is. She’s ridiculously attracted to him, emotionally and physically, and she kind of wants to sleep with him.

She should definitely slow her roll, though. She’s not just going to jump into bed with Killian. That would change…everything. That would change absolutely everything. Besides, it’s not like he wants to be with her.

She knows that it’s a lie even as she thinks it. She knows that Killian has feelings for her, that he always has. Hell, at one point he was apparently in love with her, and while she doesn’t think that’s true anymore, she can tell. Sometimes you just know.

And sometimes Ruby tells her that Killian looks at her like she’s responsible for hanging the moon in the sky and creating the waves of the ocean. Sometimes Ashely tells her that she looks at Killian like he was the one to hang the sun.

They’re not weird celestial beings, but the point still stands.

She’s got absolutely no clue what to do with it.

But it’s not something she really has to deal with as she stays busy at work and Killian does the same, tourism in town reaching its peak before everyone goes back to school and families stop coming on vacation. Yet, like she’s living in some kind of Hallmark movie where everything magically seems to happen during a big event, on the day of Summer Fest, a very aptly named festival where all of the local vendors set up booths at the docks and beach games are held along with swimming and boating competitions, something changes between she and Killian.

It happens slowly, really, as these things do. She’s spending her day running around in goddamn khaki shorts and a lime green t-shirt that Killian made her wear as she helps him to keep things running smoothly. She doesn’t really see him more than a blur of black hair and tan skin, and that’s okay as she doesn’t really have time to talk. So their days go on, separately and yet together, and by one in the morning, everyone has left the pier, the docks, and the beach, except for the two of them as they sit with their feet dangling off the pier and over the ocean, a bucket of cotton candy between them.

“I don’t know why more people don’t come out here to look at this view.”

“Because it’s one in the morning, love,” he laughs, sticking his hand in the bucket to grab some of the fluff. “Everyone is asleep.”

“We’re not.”

“Because we’re crazy.”

She laughs at that as she twists herself a little closer to him, picking up the cotton candy bucket and holding it in her lap as their thighs press together and her head rests on his shoulder, the smallest hint of his cologne still remaining. Mostly he smells like salt and sweat. It’s not an awful combination, but it’s not particularly pleasant either. She can’t imagine what she smells like after spending the day outside. Probably sweat and suntan lotion.

“Oh I don’t know, I think we’re geniuses for getting this view all to ourselves.”

“It is a beautiful view,” he hums as his arm comes to wrap around her waist, fingers toying with the skin just about the belt loops on her shorts.

His touch is electric, like lightening bugs inching over her skin, and she twists her head up to look at him only to find that he’s already looking at her, their lips so close that if she just pressed up the slightest bit she could…

“Emma,” he whispers, somehow inching closer so that his nose presses into hers, his lips ghosting against her skin as she whines at the lack of touch. It’s so much and yet not nearly enough.

“What?” she murmurs right back, one hand bracing her against the wood while the other lands on his thigh, his muscles twitching under her touch.

“What are you doing?”

“I was kind of thinking about kissing you.”

“So was I.”

And then they are. It’s soft, gentle at first. Really, it’s as sweet as the cotton candy that they were just eating. He tastes like that too. Killian’s lips taste like sugar, and they’re far softer than she ever imagined. She has imagined it too, far more than she’d ever admit. Seven, almost eight years ago, when she left this town with no intention of ever coming back, when she screwed up her life and hurt people she cared about, she never would have imagined knowing just how Killian kisses.

It’s a good thing to know as her heart threatens to burst through her ribcage with its pounding.

She thinks that he’s going to pull back from her, that he’s going to stop the kiss, but really his hands come up to cup her face, rough callouses covering her skin with the magic of his touch, and he drags his teeth against her bottom lip, his mouth forming into a smile at the little noise that she just let out as heat simmers below the surface of her skin. It can no way compare to the way the sun felt beating down on her all day.

It’s so much better.

Her lips part to let him slide his tongue into her mouth, the slick flesh exploring her as she does the same. He’s a damn good kisser, and she could do this for hours. She might have been doing this for hours. She honestly doesn’t know at this point as her toes actually curl within her shoes and as her skin tingles.

“We should go inside. Get some rest.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she agrees, knowing that even though the two of them are going to end up in bed, neither of them are actually going to bed.

His apartment is only a five minute walk from the pier, but it seems to take them so much longer to get there as Killian keeps taking the time to push her into a wall and bury his head into her neck, hot puffs of air coming out onto her skin as he kisses her flesh. It’s thrilling and exciting, and she really shouldn’t complain with the heat that’s curling between her thighs and the way that it’s absolutely driving her mad.

But they do eventually get inside, Killian unlocking the door with his hands shaking the slightest bit, and she tries to comfort him by turning and wrapping her arms around his neck as she pays the same attention to him that he did to her earlier. His hands find her ass, and before she knows it, warm flesh is dipping below her shorts and squeezing her as he easily walks her backwards. She trusts him completely in so many ways, and she thinks that mostly shows with the fact that she never looks behind her as they move through the apartment.

She’s far too distracted by this little noise that he makes when she bites down on his clavicle anyways.

“You’re the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“Is that so?” she mumbles, pulling back from him and lifting this ugly t-shirt over her shoulders so that it falls to the ground and her skin is exposed to his gaze.

“Aye. No one compares.”

“Oh I don’t know about that,” she teases, her voice lifting in pitch as his fingers work at the button on her shorts. His hands are so damn warm, and she imagines the rest of his body is as it holds the warmth of their day spent outside.

“I do.”

She looks up at him then, at the intense forget-me-not eyes, and the smile that was on her face falls at the seriousness of his. He means it. Really and truly, and she’s not going to take that lightly. Pressing her palm up against his chest, she lifts up on her toes and slants her lips over is.

“You’re not so bad yourself, handsome.”

It’s not quite the same, but she’s getting there.

Slowly but surely each article of their clothes is peeled off of their bodies. It takes far too long with how they’re stopping to explore every inch of each other’s skin with hands and lips and teeth. Killian is exceptionally good at riling her up, at making her want him, and after what feels like an eternity, he settles himself over her and between her thighs as he pushes into her in a thick slide of heat that makes her dig her nails into his arms, little red marks staying over his tattoo while she holds on tightly.

“Emma, God, I – ” he begins, his voice strained and yet light, as if he’s talking to that person who he thinks hung the moon. Maybe he is as he gently rocks into her, his hips deliciously sliding over hers while his lips hover just above her. “You are fantastic. I can’t – this is so much better than I imagined.”

She wants to make a quip about him imagining this, but she doesn’t. Instead she presses up to kiss him. “For me too.”

It’s slow, much slower than it ever has been for her, and it’s likely because Killian is taking the time to learn what she likes, to learn what brings her pleasure and causes her to whimper as they shift and move together. He’s brilliant at this, at making every inch of her feel treasured for the first time in a long time, and she wants to do the same to him, to show him that he’s treasured too. She wants to show him that she’s not leaving him, not again.

So she spends her time gliding their lips together, trying to coax out whimpers of pleasure from him. She does, and she wonders if she can memorize the sounds that he makes. She’s planning on doing this again, so she’s got the time. His hips snap into hers as her legs shift to allow him better access, to make him slip in deeper, and when he starts to get a bit shaky, she snakes her hand between them to rub at where they’re joined. She knows that she falls first, that her blood runs hot and that she can’t stop it as her eyes shut and Killian’s forehead rests against her collarbone. But she doesn’t want to stop it, not when this is so blissful and not when Killian is falling apart too, coming undone as the sweat on his skin falls to hers, his lips pressed against her ear as he whispers everything but “I love you” to her.

That comes two months later on a warm morning in October as they sit at his kitchen table drinking coffee after they spent the night trying to figure out what kind of job she’s going to apply for since she doesn’t want to keep working as a waitress. Killian suggests that she come work for him, and when she raises a brow at that, he shrugs and tells her that he’s serious. Whether she realizes it or not, she’s become quite adept at helping him plan events and set up for things, as well as answering calls and dealing with people who are upset that it’s raining and that their scheduled sailing lesson has been cancelled.

Plus, it means that she doesn’t have to work in an office all day, which is exactly what she’s been trying to avoid.

So the night after she figures out a way to maybe get her life on track, the man who has always been there for her even when she wasn’t there for him tells her that he loves her. She says it right back, meaning every word. She might not have deserved him for hurting him when they were young, but if there’s anything she’s learned lately, it’s that forgiveness, when deserved, is a very powerful thing.

She knows all of his secrets, all of his scars. She knows the ones that she caused, the ones that were left while she was around and the ones that were left after she was gone. She’ll get to know the ones that are left in the future.

She also knows that the ship wheel’s tattoo on his arm, the one that has his mom’s and Liam’s names inked into his skin because they were the people he loved most, gets her name inked into it three years after she officially returns home.

Because she is.

Home.

#unraveling the thread #cs fic #cs ff #captain swan fic #one shot

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jessicajonesrp · 5 years ago

Text

New case

Jessica could not remember the last time that she had felt like this. Hell, she couldn’t remember the last time she had thought it possible that she could feel like this. Even allowing herself to mentally label her feelings in the past few weeks seemed risky, even dangerous. How could she acknowledge to herself that she had been enjoying her life, even feeling happy about considerable portions of it? To admit even to herself that she was experiencing happiness seemed like a surefire way to bring it all to a devastating end.

But as much as she didn’t want to even think the word, happy was a fairly accurate way to describe her, recently. It was an emotion she could hardly avoid, given how neatly and easily her life seemed to be falling into place. Kilgrave was dead, for real this time, his threat over her and everyone else ended forever. There hadn’t been an attack to NYC or the world recently that required her involvement to save from apocalypse. Trish wasn’t on drugs, had the good sense to be staying away from her mother, and was even in a relationship Jessica approved of, as much as she would approve of anyone with her sister. Trish was healthy, safe, and happy, and that was all Jessica wanted for her.

And for Jessica…well, there was Luke. The more she got to know him, and the more time she spent with him, the more she knew that she was falling more and more deeply in love with him. And by some crazy twist of fate, Luke had decided that he loved her too.

It wasn’t like she hadn’t tried to push him away. She had tried rudeness and bluntness, making it clear to him that there was no “better” Jessica that he might eventually shape her into. What he saw was what he was going to get. She didn’t hide her drinking or her temper, her antisocial tendencies or her cynicism. And still, he didn’t back away. Even after knowing her history, the worst of what she had done and the depth of her emotional scars, he still looked her in the eyes with nothing but respect and acceptance. Jessica still didn’t feel that she deserved this, but she loved the person that Luke was showing himself to be too much to walk away, even if she felt that was what would be the best option for him. Maybe it was selfish of her, but she wanted him, a life with him, too much to try much harder to force him away.

And even the parts she hated most about herself, as she spent time with Luke, seemed to be getting better ever so slowly. Jessica was never going to be a person without a dark side to herself; hell, even before her family died and her life spun out of control for the next twenty years, she had been the kind of asshole teenager who dressed in black, played only metal bands, and had few facial expressions beyond scowls. She still drank heavily, she still avoided the public whenever possible, and she still shrank from any initiating any physical affection and refused to express her affection verbally. She still had nightmares, panic attacks, and hallucinations. But they were becoming less and less frequent and intense, and her sleep was getting better, overall. She even thought she wasn’t drunk quite as often.

Luke was changing her, somehow. And damn it, Jessica didn’t even mind it.

“We’ve got eleven new potential cases,” Malcolm greeted her, the first Monday that Jessica returned from her trip with Luke, Trish, and Danny. “Most of the same, straightforward cheating spouse kind, but there’s a few that are a little more complex. I took down all the messages for you, the ones I thought you’d be most interested in are highlighted.”

Jessica hadn’t actually given the man permission to be taking down calls, speaking with clients, or coming into the office to work when she wasn’t also present. Hell, she was pretty sure he was supposed to be currently fired for the fifth or sixth time. But Malcolm generally ignored whatever orders she gave if he saw fit to, and she was in a decent enough mood to overlook his supposedly unemployed state. For today.

She gifted him with only a slight scoffing noise and rolling of her eyes rather than the full-on ass chewing he might normally have received, accepting the neatly labeled folder he held out to her. Flipping through it and rolling her eyes for a second time at the typed notes he had organized, she skimmed through each, tossing them haphazardly onto her desk as she rejected them entirely or dismissed their importance.

“Cheater, cheater, blackmail, whack job, religious nut, cheater, cheater-“

Her hand stopped on the next note, several of the typed words jumping out at her. Missing child- Gabriel Dowling, age ten. Jessica swallowed, her throat suddenly and uncomfortably tight. Her brother Phillip had also been ten years old, the year that he died. She had spent the last sixteen years feeling very uncomfortable and vaguely agitated when anywhere near a male child under the age of fourteen; the parallels to her brother were far too obvious and raw.

Forcing herself to shake off her discomfort the best that she could, Jessica began to read over Malcolm’s notations more thoroughly. The call in had been made by the child’s mother, Cynthia Dowling; Jessica noted that no father was listened and reminded herself to follow up on his involvement or lack of, whether he was the potential perpetrator of the disappearance. The child had allegedly been missing for several days, with no signs of being a runaway and no ransom note left. Mother claims to have gone to wake him one morning only to find his room empty and no signs of a kidnapping or intruder.

The minimal facts raised more questions for Jessica than answers; already she was wondering whether the disappearance could be staged, if it was possible that this was all some bullshit custody battle, or if ten years old really was old enough for a kid to be a runaway or going on some extended, unapproved sleepover with one of his friends. But if neither was the case, then a little boy was missing and at risk of great harm, if he wasn’t dead already. Jessica might not think of herself as a hero, but she couldn’t in good conscience turn this down.

“This one,” she said to Malcolm, tapping the file. “Start looking up what you can on Cynthia and Gabriel Dowling. I’m calling her up and asking her to come in.”

There was nothing alarming about Cynthia Dowling, at first impression. She was a woman about ten years older than Jessica herself, of average height, weight, and appearance. But there was a haunted, pained look to her eyes, dark circles stained deeply beneath them, and her shoulders slumped as she took the seat across from Jessica’s desk that she was directed towards. Nevertheless, she met Jessica’s gaze firmly and with a surprising steeliness as she addressed her.

“I know you’ll have questions for me, Ms. Jones, and I’ll answer anything and do anything you need to help me get Gabriel back. But I’m going to tell you now that most of the standard questions a person would ask about a child’s disappearance will not help you, because they’ll be going in the wrong direction.”

Jessica arched an eyebrow, leaning back in her chair and fixing a skeptical look at the woman. “Hey, lady, you came to me for help, so why don’t you let me actually do the work I’m qualified for instead of telling me what you think is or isn’t going to help?”

“I’m not telling you how to do your job,” Cynthia insisted, lifting both hands wearily and letting them drop down to her lap. “But I know the type of questions the police would ask, and they are wasting both of our time, and my son’s time, which he may not have much of. I-“

“So you’ve spoken to the police?” Jessica interrupted. When the woman hesitated, then shook her head, Jessica narrowed her eyes, leaning towards her. “Your kid has been missing for days, and you didn’t report this to the police?”

“I know how it sounds,” Cynthia said wearily, rubbing a hand over her face. “I can understand why you’re judging me for that, and if this wasn’t my son and my life, I’d judge anyone else just the same. But the police couldn’t do anything for us, Ms. Jones. That’s why I’ve come to you.”

She paused, lifting her face up again. “My son did not run away. My son did not wonder off and get lost, and before you even ask, his father is not in the picture. I never even told him that I was pregnant, and I’ve never told Gabriel who his father is. He has nothing to do with this, it would be impossible.”

“Lady, there’s a lot of things in this world that should be impossible, but aren’t,” Jessica muttered, exhaling. “I’m assuming you have reasons for the dad not being involved? What makes you think there’s no way a guy you didn’t even want to know you’re pregnant couldn’t do something with your son?”

“It wasn’t like that,” Cynthia said. “It wasn’t…abuse, or that he was a bad person, or anything like that. It was a silly, casual fling that resulted in an unplanned pregnancy that I wasn’t unopposed to go through with.” She signed, shaking her head. “I didn’t know Gabriel’s father enough to know whether or not he was capable of being a good father, or if he would be interested. Maybe it was selfish of me, but I didn’t want to have to take the risk of finding out. I thought…Gabriel was going to be mine, the only person who was all mine. I thought I could be enough for a child…for my child.”

Her voice shook slightly, and she brushed at her eyes before steadying it. “This has nothing to do with what’s happened to my child. This-“

“There’s no way you can know that at this point,” Jessica interrupted, not bothering to hide the irritation in her tone. “You hire me to investigate and I’m investigating all possibilities. I need-“

“I chose you because of what you are,” Cynthia Rowling blurted, and when Jessica stopped speaking, blinking at her, the woman squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, continuing. “Because…because I’ve heard about who you are. The things you can do. You’re like my son, Ms. Jones…or rather, my son is like you. If anyone is going to be able to bring my son back to me, it will be a person who is like him.”

Jessica knew exactly what the woman was implying. Still, she had to be certain.

“What do you mean, your son is like me?”

“I don’t know the right word for it,” Cynthia said carefully, seeming to be trying to choose words that would be accurate without offense. “I’ve always just thought of Gabriel as….special. Not a mutant, or a superhero, or even superpowered…to me, he was just my son.”

Jessica could feel her heartbeat speed up, and she had to make herself hold still as the woman spoke, make her face remain blank. Even so, her hands twitched, and her throat went dry with her craving to drink as she listened.

“Gabriel can...go places. Without walking, or doing anything to get there. All he has to do is wish for it, or think about it, and he’s there. I think the word is teleporting…whatever it is, he can do it.” Cynthia shook her head, giving a short, broken-sounding laugh. “When he was a baby, I never could make him stay in his crib at night. I couldn’t keep him in the corner for time out or in the house on rainy days. I homeschool him, because when he was in preschool and would get bored, he would take himself out to the playground and send the teachers into a panic, not knowing where he went or how he got there.”

As the implications of what Cynthia was saying began to dawn on Jessica, she looked at the woman sharply, her back straightening.

“If your son can teleport- hold on, what are you telling me? You think your child’s been kidnapped, right? That someone is holding him? But how is that possible, if all he has to do is wish himself back home, and it would happen?”

Cynthia nodded, a small, tight smile without joy curving her lips.

“You understand now, Ms. Jones. You being like my son- that isn’t the only reason I chose you. You understand what it would take, what kind of person it would take, to be able to hold my son when he doesn’t want to be there. The kind of person who would and could do this. You…you had experience with that, didn’t you? The man this year on the docks-“

“I’m not talking about that,” Jessica snapped, reeling back from her fast enough that the back of her chair smacked against the wall behind her. “That’s none of your damn business.”

“I understand,” her client said quietly, nodding. “But please understand, this is why I’ve chosen you to help me find my son. You know what people like that can do to someone like him- to someone like you. I want my son back with me, Ms. Jones. And if…if something happened to him…if someone’s done something to him…then I want you to be able to tell me who it is that’s responsible.”

Jessica took some time to gather words. Even as her temples pulsed and her eyes burned, she could only come up with one reply.

“Okay.”

Within hours, she had all the information she and Malcolm could gather on the small Dowling family. It was straightforward enough, and no different from what Cynthia had said. Single parent, no father listed or involved, homeschooled child who had several strange “incidents” in preschool. No red flags popping out about either, beyond the preschool “incidents,” which Cynthia had already explained. Pictures on Cynthia’s social media implied a child who appeared happy and close to his mother and who regularly socialized with other children.

It was only after Jessica had begun to look into some of the children pictured with Gabriel, just at the far-fetched possibility of a lead, that a pattern began to emerge. Each of those children was also homeschooled, never enrolled in public or private elementary schools. And as Jessica began to look into them and their families, other “incidents” began to pop up, suspiciously similar in nature to Gabriel’s preschool incidents.

As her suspicions grew, Jessica began contacting the families of the children that had been Gabriel’s friends, under the premise of needing information about Gabriel’s disappearance. It didn’t take very long for the pattern’s strength to intensify.

Most of the children that Gabriel Dowling was friends with were also “special,” as Ms Dowling had described her son. And three of those children had also, within the past year, mysteriously vanished- children who normally should have been able to fight off or escape a would be threatening person without trouble.

It was becoming obvious to Jessica that whoever it was that had taken the children was gifted with some sort of supernatural ability themselves. Whatever his or her intentions, this person was clearly potentially very dangerous indeed.

#jessica jones #jessica jones roleplay

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sandpapersnowman · 6 years ago

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fun facts from the official The Nice Guys novelization: chapters 1 through 4

while talking to a police officer about the misty accident, March says he's never bought a copy of 'Cavalier'; the officer says he wonders if March is a fruit, and then goes "don't answer that" (page 12) (he doesn't)

Healy is supposedly 'on the way to 40' (page 17)

Healy thinks having a fish is easier than 'a cat or dog. or a person' (page 17)

he also says he's not an altruist (altruism being the impulse to help others unselfishly) but follows this with 'its not altruism when he gets paid for it', implying he DOES want to help people and just uses being paid as an excuse so he still Looks Tuff (pages 17+18)

Healy got phone calls from people as far away as Oregon, thanking him for stopping the shooter at the diner (page 18)

he was apparently smiling in the ambulance after he was shot stopping the shooter. "And whyd he been grinning? Because it felt good. Not his arm, lord knows, not the prospect of six weeks of recovery with no painkillers. But what he'd done. Like it was a step up or something. It was. still beating on people, still using his fists to solve problems, but for a purpose, not a paycheck." (pages 18+19)

Healy has a sponsor (assuming an AA sponsor) named Scott (page 19)

Healy had been considering applying for a private investigator license and working under an experienced PI for a few years before the events of the movie (page 19) (where is the au where that's how they meet)

Healy has at least one brother, likely older, who plays guitar; he used to try to play it too, but never got very far (page 19)

Healys hair used to have a spit-curl (page 20)

the girl he's been hired to follow, Kitten, is described in a way that tells you she's a 13 year old trying to look Sexy; Healy only sees her as 'precocious' and recognizes how dangerous it is when young girls are told they should dress like that (I'm including this because it's refreshing from so much media having men put the blame on the girls rather than recognizing that a dressed up minor isn't the same as a consenting adult) (page 21)

Healy was previously in a somewhat serious relationship with a woman named June, about 13 to 14 years before the events of the movie. she was apparently not a great person, and his last conversation with her started with "Jack? I'm fucking your dad." (page 22)

Healy has a specific 'Genial Smile' he puts on to take people by surprise when knocking at their door. in this case he also specifically put on his brass knuckles and used them to knock (page 22)

a woman he's accepted a job for tells him he makes her feel safe, and he thinks again about wanting to be a PI someday (page 26)

#the nice guys #jackson healy #holland march #the nice guys novelization #putting a readmore bc its like a page and a half but u kno

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forbidden-celestia-lore · 5 years ago

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so what's the haunted house then

well, thank you for asking, person who was definitely not sending this ask from their work computer!

first, bit of backstory: off the tail end of some Wizard Shenanigans, we followed a rider from the Whispering way to this tiny little fishing village, which has been experiencing a bit of Bad Luck for the last few months. The mayor personally welcomed us, hiring us to figure out what the fuck is up with the local church, one of a sea god, supposedly. We (read: Thela) broke into investigated this church, found… some headless bodies, a chest that smells like fish, some freaky ass carvings, a bloody altar, slugs that posses you and make your head explode (remember this one), and a giant spell casting crab monster. Suprise! it’s a cult. We go in the next day at noon like the chumps we are and get ambushed, killing a bunch of the priest/cultists, and finding some more Loot. We tell the mayor, and he tells us that the head priest disappeared into the woods a few days ago, heading off to some mansion thing. We want our money, and we may as well finish the job, so we pack up and follow.

Got all that? Great.

So we’re heading out to this random house in the woods, right, and my idea is that the head priest is part of the Whispering Way, cause we found the rider we were following headless in the slug room (don’t ASK me how that works), and that he was going out with a bunch of local contacts or smth to do Secret Plotting. So we get there, actually we haven’t really even “gotten” there yet, as the map hadn’t even been drawn when my dad asks us for a perception check, which we all of course fail. Or we think we’ve failed, because all he tells us is that we see a ripple on the nearby lake, putting us all on edge. A fitting start!

So we’re at this house, and I don’t think we’ve ever entered through the front door in our lives, which means that we pick the wing closest to the path we came in on and sneak up to it. I’m pretty sure my dad was internally screaming (or laughing, depending) at this point, because when we got in (undetected I might add!) and kinda sorta relaxed, and Jafar sat on the fucking couch a SWARM OF TICKS POURED OUT OF THE FUCKING COUCH. TICKS. So Celestia screams (literally, I had her do that canonically, would have totally ruined our stealth had there been anyone around to care) and runs out of the room, ducks through the first doorway she sees and immediately starts changing into her cultist disguise, in case someone did hear her and is coming. Thela climbs into the air using her immovable rods, Obezyana and Krono (who were by the door) run back outside after setting Jafar, who is now covered in ticks, on fire. And then from outside they do it again. And maybe one more time I’m not sure, but fire was the only thing we had that would hurt those ticks, until Obezyana had the legit bright idea to use color spray, which stuns every critter in a certain area. My dad was gracious enough to let him warn Thela, so she wasn’t affected, but the ticks were STUNNED and we LEFT as quickly as we could.

We regrouped in the main entry hall, Celestia now in her Whispering Way garb, and decided to look at the second wing before going into the main hall. All that was in that wing was an old storage room, where a fight of some sort had taken place recently, and we found a box that used to have a statue in it (the statue had been stolen from a museum, and we’d had to prove it wasn’t the beast Simon who stole it, but the Whispering Way, so we Knew they were here). We also found a horse! Clearly the horse the Whispering Way agent had ridden, but they’d been there for a few days without food or water or anything. We fed it, watered it, and made our way to the main hall.

On the map, the house was drawn as one big circle in the middle, representing the main hall, with two rectangles coming off of it at a little more than a 90* angle. It turns out that the house was constructed this way because the main support beams for the central structure were a fucking druid circle, creepy ass alter included. We actually found a secret compartment on the Cursed Altar that had a Big seed in it, which we did Not touch. At which point and actual literal Giant came through a door on the other side of the hall and asked us what we were doing. I, being the diplomat of the group, told everyone to shut up and pretended I was supposed to be there, can’t you see I’m part of your cult (which I wasn’t but I didn’t know that)? This sufficiently confused the giant, letting us march past him, except then we had to act like we knew what we were doing which meant that we went through the first door we saw, and of course it was the one with the Head Priest behind it. Thankfully he was merely a pathetic spellcaster (I say, a spellcaster), so we were able to subdue him in two rounds and render him unconscious in like, three. Except!!! Surprise!!!!! He’d been possessed by one of the slugs!!!! And his fucking head exploded into tentacles!!!! Celestia screamed and scrambled backward. Thela jumped. Obezyana took a step backward. Jafar screamed and tried to shove them back into his fucking neck.

We may have panicked a little.

Eventually (and surprisingly quickly) by doing the combat equivalent of hitting him over the head with a baseball bat and screaming we were able to kill whatever the Fuck he’d become, except!!! Another surprise!!!!! He exploded AGAIN!!!!! This time into more slugs!!!!!! Six of them!!!!!!! What fun!!!!!!! Kill me!!!!!!

Turns out arrows work really well on those bastards, which is great because it meant that Obezyana was able to shoot like three all at once while Jafar smashed another one or two, but three of them slimed away out the open window into the woods.

“OH NO YOU FUCKING DON’T” said Obezyana, leaping over the balcony railing and running off into the woods after them, the speedy bastards.

“Let’s burn this place to the ground” said Thela thoughtfully. “Great idea but let’s loot if first” said Celestia, greedily. “NO” said literally everyone, smartly. “But MONEY” said Celestia with her singular braincell, running off down the hall and opening the first door she found.

Now TO BE FAIR, she didn’t like, fling it open. She may be careless and greedy, but she’s not stupid. Good thing too, cause behind that door was a library, half collapsed and rotted away, inhabited by a pair of bloodthirsty ghosts! Thela had wanted to leave, but once she knew there were undead there she was obligated to at least try and help them leave, for Pharasma reasons. So she stayed behind with Jafar while Celestia was like “OKAY GREAT LET’S KNOCK THIS HOUSE OUT AS FAST AS POSSIBLE I’LL JUST RUN AHEAD” and powerwalked into the next room.

The room right next to the Ghost library was actually an empty bedroom, excepting a cradle and a mobile made of seashells hanging above it. There was no draft, but when she had to roll a perception check and it moved when Celestia opened the door. She didn’t go in.

The room after THAT was actually more of a fancy hallway, with a desk in the middle of it, looking away from some stunning views from the floor to ceiling windows behind it. THIS time Celestia actually did good on her perception check, and she was able to notice (and identify!) the yellow powder covering the desk as a type of mold that fucking EXPLODES into a POISONOUS CLOUD when disturbed!! Because what ELSE would this house have!! NORMAL dangers??? don’t be ridiculous (still tried to open it tho)

But after deciding aGIANST that, she went to the door at the other end of the hall room, because Celestia’s completionism knows no bounds. This entire time, Thela and Jafar had been dealing with the ghosts, and I don’t remember their bit very well? I think I wasn’t paying attention (or it was literally happening concurrently with my little adventure, whoops), but the gist of it was that the ghosts were Not up for conversation and FLEW at the pair of them, and Thela slammed the door in their faces and walked quickly on over to Celestia. So when Celestia opened the door at the other end of the hall, which will now be referred to as The Bedroom Door, Thela was there too, to help her out! Which was good! For reasons to be explained!

Behind The Bedroom Door was, well, a bedroom obviously, but it was. Hm. Literally cursed? It was dark, with a large, blood stained bed, and the ornate carving of a ship on a storm tossed sea above it carved into, just, cut to pieces. Someone had carved “THE PACT HAS BEEN BROKEN” into this fuckin ruined bed in this ruined house, and I think Celestia could see… things. The shadows were moving, or wrong, or something, but it meant that she did NOT want to go in. Thela, however, could be convinced by loot, and since she has a stupid high stealth snuck into the room to try and get into the attic.

So part of the fun of Pathfinder, or any ttrpg really, is that not only do you get to roleplay, you get to act and see what the Universe thinks of your decision. So when Thela rolled very, very high, it really added to the experiance that my dad (the DM) sighed with relief before describing the room. +31 stealth! I’ve got the second highest at +16! Sage rolled REALLY HIGH! SIGHED with RELIEF!!

The, things, that had such a high perception, were… not, dogs. They were large, shadowy, quadrupedal, with long, long thin legs and mouths full of teeth. Glowing eyes. And when you looked at them, you could feel your mind… twisting. Thela had to roll stealth again. A little farther into the room. Then she noticed that they weren’t… they were completely visible (well. no. they never were.) but they weren’t standing in the room. She could see them as if there was nothing in the way, but they were also very clearly standing outside of the second story bedroom. She signed this to Celestia (they both know sign), succeeded her final stealth check and BOOKED IT upstairs and away from the not-dogs. (here’s a drawing I did of them, if you’d like to look)

Celestia went downstairs, while Thela went upstairs to the attic. She found a book up there! Called smth like Non Euclidean Geometry. Written in Abysmal. Fun!

She also found the smashed corpse of a Whispering Way cultist, in a crater, and realized it must have been dropped from a very high height, which didn’t make sense considering there was only open sky above her oh my god what the fuck is that. SURPRISE!! I GIANT FUCKING FLYING BIRD DRAGON REPTILE GRIFFIN BUT NOT THING!!! IT REGULARLY EATS ELEPHANTS AS LIGHT SNACKS!!! AND OBEZYANA IS OUTSIDE!!!!!

anyway I’m gonna add the next bit in a reblog because this is getting long and tumblr doesn’t let me save this as a draft so this is all on my clipboard, making me nervous.

#campaign chaos #the haunted house

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phroyd · 6 years ago

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On Thursday, after listening to testimony from Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, several Republican senators said they would vote to confirm the nominee because it’s impossible to determine which witness—Ford or Kavanaugh—is telling the truth. Actually, it’s easy. We don’t know for certain whether Kavanaugh sexually assaulted Ford. But we do know that Kavanaugh lied repeatedly in his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Here are some of his lies.

1. “It’s been investigated.” The White House has ignored multiple requests from Democratic senators to authorize FBI interviews with the alleged witnesses in the case. In particular, there has been no FBI or Judiciary Committee interview with Mark Judge, Kavanaugh’s accused accomplice in the alleged assault. In fact, Judge has fled to a hideout in Delaware to avoid being called to testify.

During the hearing, several Democratic senators pleaded with Kavanaugh to call for FBI interviews so that the truth could be resolved. Kavanaugh refused. When Sen. Chris Coons pointed out that the FBI had needed only a few days to complete interviews in the Clarence Thomas–Anita Hill case, Kavanaugh said even that was too much, because the Judiciary Committee had already examined his case. “It’s been investigated,” he told Coons.

No honest judge would say that. None of the alleged witnesses, other than Ford and Kavanaugh, has been interviewed. Instead, the alleged witnesses have issued short statements of non-recollection and have asked not to testify. The committee’s Republican majority, eager to brush the case aside, has accepted these statements and has refused to ask further questions. In his testimony, Kavanaugh falsely claimed that FBI interviews would add nothing. Agents would “just go and do what you’re doing,” he told the senators.

Kavanaugh claimed that a vague statement of non-recollection from Judge’s lawyer was sufficient “testimony.” He dismissed calls for Judge to appear before the committee, arguing that his own testimony was adequate. But Kavanaugh also mocked the committee’s Democrats, who lack the power of subpoena, by telling them to go talk to Judge. When Sen. Patrick Leahy asked whether Bart O’Kavanaugh, a drunken character in Judge’s book, was meant to represent Brett Kavanaugh, the nominee passed the buck to his testimony-evading friend: “You’d have to ask him.”

2. “All four witnesses say it didn’t happen.” Each time senators pleaded for an FBI review or a more thorough investigation by the committee, Kavanaugh replied that it wasn’t necessary, since all the people Ford claimed had been at the gathering where the alleged assault occurred had rejected her story. Eight times, Kavanaugh claimed that the witnesses “said it didn’t happen.” Three times, he said the witnesses “refuted” Ford’s story. Four times, Kavanaugh claimed that “Dr. Ford’s longtime friend,” Leland Keyser, had affirmed that the gathering never occurred.

That’s a lie. Keyser has stated that she doesn’t recall the gathering—she was never told about the attack, and she was supposedly downstairs while it allegedly occurred upstairs—but that she believes Ford’s story. That isn’t corroboration, but it isn’t refutation or denial, either. During the hearing, Sen. Cory Booker pointed this out to Kavanaugh, reminding him that in an interview with the Washington Post, Keyser “said she believes Dr. Ford.” Kavanaugh ignored Booker’s correction. Ninety seconds later, the nominee defiantly repeated: “The witnesses who were there say it didn’t happen.”

3. “I know exactly what happened that night.” Kavanaugh made several false or widely contradicted statements about his use of alcohol. This is significant because Judge has admitted to drunken blackouts, which raises the possibility that Judge and Kavanaugh don’t remember what they did to Ford. During the hearing, Sen. Richard Blumenthal asked about Kavanaugh’s participation in a night of drunken revelry at Yale Law School. Kavanaugh assured Blumenthal, “I know exactly what happened the whole night.” Later, Booker asked Kavanaugh whether he had “never had gaps in memories, never had any losses whatsoever, never had foggy recollection about what happened” while drinking. Kavanaugh affirmed that he had never experienced such symptoms: “That’s what I said.”

These statements contradict reports from several people who knew Kavanaugh. Liz Swisher, a friend from Yale, says she saw Kavanaugh drink a lot, stumble, and slur his words. “It’s not credible for him to say that he has had no memory lapses in the nights that he drank to excess,” she told the Washington Post. And in a speech four years ago, Kavanaugh described himself and a former classmate “piecing things together” to figure out that they’d “had more than a few beers” before an alcohol-soaked banquet at Yale Law School.

4. “I’m in Colorado.” As evidence that the charges against him were ludicrous, Kavanaugh told the committee that he had been falsely accused of committing an assault more than 1,500 miles away. He claimed that according to his accusers, “I’m in Colorado, you know, I’m sighted all over the place.” But a transcript of Kavanaugh’s Sept. 25 interview with Judiciary Committee staffers shows no claim of an offense in Colorado. The transcript says that according to a woman from Colorado, “at least four witnesses” saw Kavanaugh shove a woman “up against the wall very aggressively and sexually” in 1998. But Kavanaugh was specifically told during the interview that the scene of the alleged incident was in D.C., where he was living at the time.

Kavanaugh also told other whoppers.* He claimed that his high school yearbook reference to the “Beach Week Ralph Club” referred in part to his difficulty in holding down “spicy food.” He claimed that the entry’s jokes about two sporting events he and his high school buddies had watched—“Who won that game, anyway?”—had nothing to do with booze. And he defended his refusal to take a polygraph test on the grounds that such tests aren’t admissible in federal courts—neglecting to mention that he had endorsed their use in hiring and law enforcement.

Maybe Kavanaugh is an honest man in other contexts. Maybe he’s a good husband, a loving dad, and an inspiring coach. And maybe there’s no way to be certain that he assaulted Ford. But one thing is certain: He lied repeatedly to the Judiciary Committee on Thursday. Some of his lies, about the testimony of witnesses and the integrity of investigations, go to the heart of our system of justice. Any senator who votes to put this man on the Supreme Court is saying that such lies don’t matter.

Update, Sept. 30, 2018: This article originally said that Kavanaugh “claimed that his beer consumption in high school was legal because the drinking age in Maryland was 18.” Kavanaugh’s exact words were: “The drinking age, as I noted, was 18, so the seniors were legal, senior year in high school, people were legal to drink, and we—yeah, we drank beer.” These words could imply that his beer drinking at age 18 was legal, which would be false, since the drinking age in Maryland was raised to 21 before he turned 18. Alternatively, they could imply that his drinking at age 17 was understandable, if he was with 18-year-old seniors who were legal at the time. In keeping with the standard applied to others, it’s incorrect to report that Kavanaugh “claimed” his beer consumption that summer was legal. Therefore, the sentences have been removed.

Phroyd

#brett-kavanaugh #supreme-court #lies

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bibliophileiz · 6 years ago

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I figured out my issue with the new Charmed

First I want to say I like most of these characters in the new one. I’m rooting for them and I hope they do great. I’m going to keep watching through this season because I want to know how Macy died and how she got brought back to life and I want to know who killed Marisol.

That said. There is too much crap going on this season and we are only halfway through.

At the risk of comparing this show too much to the original ... actually, fuck it. Everything about this show from its marketing to the premise asks to be compared to the original, so here goes. I know I look at the original through a nostalgic lens, but I have tried to remove that lens when looking at this new one and I am pretty convinced that in this one aspect, at least, the original Charmed was better.

A lot of things that were memorable about the original Charmed -- the romantic subplots, the conflict between the Charmed Ones and the Elders, the mom’s love triangle and reason for giving up one of her children -- all those things developed slowly over multiple seasons. Never were there two major romantic subplots going on at once, at least not in the first four seasons (which are the ones I actually remember). The Whitelighters weren’t a thing until more than halfway through the first season and the Elders were even later than that. The mom’s love triangle was introduced in one episode in Season 2 to parallel with Piper’s romantic subplot and then only picked up again when they had to retrofit it to introduce Paige after Shannen Doherty left the show. Meanwhile, the main myth arc plot of each season involved all three sisters ... if there even WAS a main myth arc plot. It was the late ‘90s, and Charmed episodes were less like Supernatural, which has season-long plots, and more like Touched By an Angel, which involved the main characters helping out one or two people per episode and then moving on to another mini plot. With some exceptions, of the episodes stood alone.

That’s not in vogue now. Television today is all about season-long plot arcs and cliffhangers and making your entire show one story -- even though TV shows are a risky medium for that type of story because you never know how many episodes you’ll get a season, if you’ll be renewed and which actors will sign back on.

Which isn’t to say it can’t be done. Veronica Mars was super good about telling complete stories in the span of a season, at least until the network micromanaged Rob Thomas into fucking it up in Season 3. Justified is the same way, as is The Hour, my favorite TV show.

The new Charmed, knowing one, that the thing to do in TV shows today is tell a story over a season and two, that all those things I mentioned previously -- the Whitelighters, the Elders, the babies given up for adoption, the romantic subplots -- are all big Charmed things, is trying jampack them all into the first season to make sure you know it’s Charmed and it is ... cluttered.

We are what -- 10, 11? -- episodes into the season and every single character -- including the Whitelighter who at this point in the original had been in like three episodes and only had magical powers in one -- have their own plots and romances. For two of those characters, the romances don’t even have anything to do with their magic plot, thus giving them a separate plot. And if these plots are all related, they’re very tenuously so. Here’s what I mean.

Macy: Romantic interest in Galvin, and it’s so far going pretty smoothly. There were bumps in the road what with him being a mortal and with her thinking he was being preyed on by a succubus or a siren or whatever his earlier girlfriend was supposed to be before she turned out to be a perfectly normal lady who just conveniently broke up with him. And there’s some issue with her being a virgin and a little unsure around guys in general. Right now they’re together and figuring out how to be a couple with everything she’s got going on. Also, Galvin’s not really supposed to know about witchy stuff and Harry keeps wanting to wipe his memory.

Macy has another plot, though, the secret back-story plot where her mother gave her to her dad to raise her as a mortal, and Macy doesn’t know why. In this last episode, Macy learned her parents kept in touch and were still in love, even to the point where they conceived Maggie, making her Macy’s full sister and Mel’s half-sister (opposite of what they’d always believed). Then at the end of last episode, it turned out that Macy’s parents did something BAD -- something they worried Macy wouldn’t forgive them for -- to bring her back from the dead. (It was at this point that I decided that, no, I would not be waiting for the show to come on Netflix to finish out the season like I’d been considering, I would be watching the next episode the night it aired.)

But also, Macy has a plot where the lab she’s working for has been pseudo-taken over by demons who have stolen all the Charmed Ones’ DNA for presumably nefarious purposes. This plot actually is tied to one of Maggie’s plots and is the closest any of these plots have to being about all three Charmed Ones.

Mel: Gets TWO romantic interests and what might turn into a love triangle, despite the fact that it was looking like her two romantic plots might not overlap. First there’s her long-time girlfriend Niko, a cop whose memory Mel ends up having to erase for Niko’s safety -- a nice tragic romance trope which usually stops the memory-less character’s plot cold. Now Mel is falling for Jada, a cool-ass witch who works for a secret, possibly-nefarious, possibly just politically and philosophically different from the Elders witch organization which has a cool name that I forget. But wait -- there’s more! It turns out, after having her memory wiped, Niko became a private investigator hired by Jada’s family to save her from the “cult” she’s joined. Remember what I said about memory erasure usually stopping the character’s plot cold?

At least Mel’s romantic subplots tie into her actual plots, and at least Mel gets character points for seeming to be the only character who is actually interested in finding out who killed their mom. She first starts to infiltrate Jada’s witchy organization on the Elders’ orders when they all think Jada’s organization might have had a hand in Mom’s death. Now Jada says her mom was actually a part of the organization, which is also trying to figure out who killed her. Mel is secretly working with Jada, without telling the Elders, Harry or even Mel’s sisters (unless that came up in another episode and I totally forgot about it while trying to keep track of all these other plots).

Harry: Harry’s romantic interest is Charity, an Elder. It’s a little unclear what exactly Elders are in this version of the Charmed verse. Are they powerful Whitelighters, powerful Witches or a mixture of both? Charity says the Charmed Ones’ mom was an Elder, suggesting at least some of them are witches. In the original Charmed, the Elders were extra-powerful Whitelighters, but the suggestion was that once witches were dead, they not only were not beholden to Whitelighters anymore, but they were even more powerful than them. (At one point Grams tells Phoebe, “I’m beyond them now.”) What IS clear is that Elders and Whitelighters aren’t allowed to be together -- little shout-out to the Piper-Leo plot from the original there. So not as dramatic as Mels’s love triangle, but more dramatic than Macy and Galvin.

But Harry, it turns out, has another, totally unrelated-to-Charmed-things plot involving wiped memories and a son he THOUGHT died, who he then forgot about, but he now remembers and now actually IS alive after all. What this has to do with ... anything else on the show ... remains to be seen.

Maggie: Maggie had a forgettable love interest for two episodes on the show before moving onto the most dramatic romantic subplot a teenage girl can have -- she falls for her best friend’s boyfriend! After several episodes of angst and an illicit kiss, the boyfriend, a totally boring dude named Parker, breaks it off with his girlfriend so he and Maggie can be together. Maggie’s BFF, whose name I forget, gets an episode dedicated to her rage and Maggie being sorry before she’s shuffled aside so Maggie and Parker can be together, which is important because ....

Psych! Parker’s actually half a demon who needs to become whole demon through Charmed magic or he dies. His mother runs Macy’s lab and his father is an evil demon who controls people, which led to him stealing the Harbinger from Charity and --

Wait, I just realized none of these plots are the actual plot of the season -- because the first episode established that Trump becoming president and the rise of the Harbinger -- which is some kind of evil demon -- are both signs of the apocalypse which the Charmed ones have to stop. (I wasn’t even done explaining Maggie’s plot yet!)

Anyway, this show has too much going on.

How all these plots affect the show:

One thing -- and this sounds sarcastic but it’s totally not -- the characters all deliver their lines extremely fast. They have to -- they have plot things to say. They don’t get much time for the usual CW pop culture references*, let alone verbal pauses and room for their lines to spread out and let them react to what’s going on through their facial expressions and body language.

*at least that I recall -- although Macy got a very good one a couple of episodes ago where she called a demon “Daenerys” because he introduced himself by listing a million titles he supposedly has.

It also makes it really hard to keep up with each individual plot arc while taking away valuable time we need to get to know the characters. Occasionally the show fits in a good sisterly-bonding moment -- Macy and Maggie in particular get scenes to themselves where they’re goofing off together while Mel’s off brooding somewhere. Plus, at least for a while, there were some good scenes between Mel and Harry at least until they each got their own romantic subplot. But with the last couple of episodes -- which managed to fit every gd one of the above-mentioned plots into their 42-minute runtimes -- I’m kind of left wondering how the sisters’ plots are related and what Harry’s even doing in the show.

And I love Harry -- I love that the sisters were bringing him tea in the episode after he got out of Tartarus. Except that they actually gave it to Charity to give him, because we can’t have family bonding time when there are romantic subplots to get to, and other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reference to worrying about Harry in the exposition, they seem to have pretty much forgotten about his trauma by next episode. I thought he was becoming part of the family.

And what I said above -- I wasn’t being funny for effect, I actually did forget that there was a whole plot with the Harbinger -- who was introduced in the very first episode -- until I typed “Wait I just realized none of these plots are the actual plot of the season.” All these plots literally made me forget about the season’s actual plot.

I’m not a die-hard fan or anything -- I’m sure there are people who know the names of Maggie’s ex-boyfriend and best friend and know what Jada’s witchy organization is called or can remember whether Elders are witches or Whitelighters. But I’m watching each episode one time once a week, which is what most viewers are going to be doing, and I’m missing major stuff.

Charmed needs to -- step back, de-clutter, do some spring cleaning. But at this point, I don’t know that they can. They’ve invested too much into all these plots and I think it would be pretty weird to just ... never tell us if Parker died. Personally I wouldn’t mind if Parker died because I found him extremely boring and thought he took up time from more interesting characters and story arcs, but there was so much time invested in telling us his story that it would be a mistake to leave it where it is and come back to it next season. And the same thing goes for all the other plots.

This isn’t mean to be wank. I legitimately like this show and want it to succeed, but I’m wondering what everyone else thinks. I don’t know that new Charmed will get enough of a following if it keeps throwing new plot lines at us every episode in hopes of bringing us back every week. There needs to be more time developing characters to make us actually care about these plots. And if you’re hoping to have more seasons, then surely some of these can be saved for farther down the road like in the original Charmed.

In the meantime, ... team Niko. (Sorry Jada.)

#this isn't anti-jada i actually like her a lot #i think she's going to be the new cole #i just really liked nico ok?#new charmed #not wank but some people might read it that way #also maybe people who are watching this more than i am can answer some of my questions #but ... there are just so many plots #charmed #*niko

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comicteaparty · 6 years ago

Text

January 14th-January 20th, 2019 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from January 13th, 2019 to January 20th, 2019. The chat focused on Sunstrike and Bluemist: An Origin Story by ShaRose49.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Week Long Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on Sunstrike and Bluemist: An Origin Story by ShaRose49~! (http://sunstrikeandbluemist.thecomicseries.com/)

You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Remember, though, that while we allow constructive criticism, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic. Below you will find four questions to get you started on the discussion. However, a new question will be posted and pinned everyday (between 12:01AM and 6AM PST), so keep checking back for more! You have until January 20th to tell us all your wonderful thoughts! With that established, let’s get going on the reading and the chatting!

QUESTION 1. What has been your favorite scene in the comic so far? What specifically did you like about it?

QUESTION 2. At the moment, who is your favorite character? What about that character earns them this favor?

QUESTION 3. Who do you think Kairo being a double agent for and for what reason? What are the organization’s goals? How does Kat and Evan’s training factor into the organization’s goals to the point it’s an advantage?

QUESTION 4. Do you feel the secret police are a force for good or a force for evil? How might Kat’s dad’s return to investigations play a role in the story, especially considering he’s investigating super-human traffickers?

DeNay

Kat is definitely my favourite character. Hey what's not to love? She's fiery, driven, sweet, and wild. And she has green hair... I love that she doesn't let anything stop her. Not the prosthetic leg, not the challenges of being a mutant, not anyone else's fears. She courageously stands up for what she believes is right.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 5. Why do you think Evan wants to keep his true self hidden, even from Kat? Do you think Evan will open up more as time goes on? How might his work for the secret police help or hurt him where this is concerned?

ShaRose49

I’m encouraged that some people really like Kat. She’s a real outlet for me

These are really interesting questions, some of them I haven’t really thought of

Idk if I’m allowed to answer a question since I’m the author, but I think my favourite scene so far is the scene in the bedroom

DeNay

I think Evan has a lot of pain and scars and he's afraid to open up and create attachments because he might lose them. To me he seems equally scared of getting hurt and hurting others. That's a theory anyhow.

And I think he will open up more, especially with someone like Kat around.

As for secret police..I think it will force him out of his comfort zone, and that's probably in and of itself going to be very good for him...can't wait to see where it all goes.(edited)

snuffysam

Favorite scene was the fight with the mugger. It was a great showcase of the two's powers, and also the mugger was kind of funny.

my favorite is dad. he's not perfect, but he tries his hardest, and i love him for it

ShaRose49

Awwwwww! That is so cool @snuffysam!

Usually people like the teens best so it’s refreshing to hear a different perspective but you’re totally right

@DeNay well you’re not wrong, but hiding your true self is probably more fear of what others will think if they knew his true self

@DeNay And yeah, his comfort zone is like a cage

RebelVampire

QUESTION 6. Do you think working for the secret police will be everything Kat dreamed of? What unfortunate obstacles do you think might interrupt Kat’s dreams of living openly as herself?

RebelVampire

1) my favorite scene is probably the bedroom scenes. if only cause shallow-ly, i really loved evan just walking through the damn wall. hes so dang casual about it that i can help but admire how normalized the powers are to them in comparison to other ppls reactions. 2) the dad because he walks that fine line between looking out for the kids' safety and acknowledging that they are ppl who need room to grow and become their own ppl. that honestly a really rare depiction that i feel we dont get to see enough of in comics. 3) i want to assume its for an agency that is trying to disstablize the use of things like secret police. and the advantage comes in that if they can show the secret police are dangerous and have super powered ppl working for them, they can convince others to shut it down. 4) i have mixed feelings on the secret police. i assume its a bit of both. the little guys just want to do good things for the world. but the larger entity has probably slowly corrupted or something. become riddled with office politics. something like that. i feel the dad returning to investigations is significant to the story since hes probably gonna find leads the kiddos are gonna follow. 5) i think evan wants to keep his true self hidden cause he doesnt trust anyone and kind of hates everyone secretly cause he hates himself. i actually think working for the secret police is gonna hurt with him opening up. cause i feel hes always gonna get into trouble doing with kat wants instead of developing as his own person and its gonna get overwhelming. 6) i dont think the secret police will be everything kat dreamed of XD cause i think kat is gonna find when an organization doesnt have huge oversight, bad things tend to happen. not to mention, i feel like she has this delusion shell suddenly be accepted with open arms by the world when more likely theres gonna be some levels of discrimination.

ShaRose49

I love how in thought out these answers are

Thought out I meant

snuffysam

yeah i think the secret police aren't going to be as rosy as kat expects. there's levels of bureaucracy, or she isn't allowed to be open the way she wants, or something...

ShaRose49

Well I guess we’ll see. I do think @RebelVampire is the most accurate when describing Evan’s internal struggle so far. And I love how many people favour the dad, Derek. And it sounds kind of like you guys think the Secret Police is like S.H.I.E.L.D. or something lol

And yes, while Kat is a beautiful gem she is too accepting to the point where she is naive and even clueless. But what else would you expect from someone who’s grown up kind of in hiding with no or few friends? It’s actually amazing that Evan is more cautious and less trusting, but to be fair he’s had some traumatic experiences with people, much more so than Kat, but I won’t spoil it

I didn’t expect people to think so highly of Derek I thought I was better at writing younger characters so thanks you guys🥳

RebelVampire

QUESTION 7. In general, what tasks do you think Kat and Evan will be doing for the secret police? Do you think Kat and Evan will run into other people with abilities? Do you believe the two will be able to handle it, or will they be outmatched?

DeNay

Hmm that's an interesting question...

I'm not really sure what they'll all be up to, but I'm definitely curious to see. I'm guessing they will run into some other mutants down the road...although I can't really see them fighting one of their "kind."

ShaRose49

Oh reaaaally?

You can’t imagine the, fighting, say, a mutant SUPERVILLAIN??

I’m not saying that’s gonna happen this episode, but keep in mind this story has superhero themes

As for other mutants showing up this episode...let’s just say there may be a cameo

DeNay

Well, maybe I could imagine that... Sounds pretty awesome.

snuffysam

I'm not sure what the secret police will be willing to let Kat & Evan do at first. Because even though they are supermutants, they're also children. Maybe they'll be sent to deal with parking violations at first?

Delphina

Whoo, finally caught up with work, so I can read comics again! I'm really enjoying the family dynamic in this one and probably like Kat the most. She's very earnest and energetic about her goals, and I'm looking forward to seeing if the secret police will encourage that or just add layers of moral grey.

I'm assuming Evan's parents died in a tragic mutant-power-related accident that he blames himself for and he was trying to attempt suicide back there before Kat called out to help with her prosthetic leg. I would hope he learns how to overcome his feelings of guilt and shame, but that seems like a long road and I could also see him giving in to those dark feelings and becoming an antagonist. Too early in the story to really tell!

(The banner at the top with Kairo and Kat in the foreground and Evan's eyes menacingly in the background indicates the latter from a design choice standpoint though. )(edited)

ShaRose49

@snuffysam Parking violations XD I’m dying

@Delphina wow you are perceptive. Not 100% right but you’ve noticed a lot of subtle details

You’re really good at examining Evan

@Delphina and yeah, work’s been a little nuts for me too recently

RebelVampire

lol parking violations. XD somehow i dont think being children will make them go easy on them. cause they already didnt care about the children fact when they hired them. and if them being kids bugged them all that much thats probably when they wouldve decided it wasnt a good idea.

ShaRose49

I think you’re sorta right

ShaRose49

But technically they’re not hired yet they’re just in training

RebelVampire

QUESTION 8. How exactly do you believe Kairo ends up working with Kat and Evan, and what is the mess he supposedly gets them into? Do you believe they’ll manage to get out of it?

(the archive for the chat on MoonSlayer is now available~! https://comicteaparty.com/post/182104413735/january-7th-january-13th-2019-ctp-archive)

RebelVampire

7) i assume theyre going to be handling super powered ppl and perhaps other situations where the situation is easily solved with their powers. like evan's walk through wall ability could come in really handy for doing the sneaky sneaks. but i assume super villains cause this is why you get ppl with superpowers, to fight the super villains that regular civilians cant. as for their ability to handle it, they are 1000% going to be outmatched i think for a while. mostly because youth breeds arrogance and cavalier attitudes while their inexperience breeds clumsiness for lack of a better word. not the best combo. 8) i assume kairo specifically requested it, and im going to guess that the situation is them having to fight a super powered bad guy or something. cause for kids just starting out in the secret police, thats not a situation youd want to be involved in right off the bat. i assume theyll manage to get out of it though. just cause if they dont the comic ends cause everybody be dead.

ShaRose49

Yeah everyone dies XD

People who weren’t familiar with anime kept asking me why Kairo had no eyes on that one panel. It was a little hard to explain lol

RebelVampire

QUESTION 9. Overall, how do you think being “superheroes” will change Kat and Evan, both in regards to their own personalities and their views of the world?

Delphina

Kat's been strong-willed and taking risks and doing things she's not supposed to because she feels it's right, so I expect that'll get her into a fair bit of trouble when going after bad guys is her job. Evan is less risk-averse, but also prone to being pulled into trouble by Kat. I expect their problems are going to get a little more complex working with double agents and sides may become more difficult to choose, but I'm curious where becoming less sheltered and open to the world about their powers will take them, since we haven't seen many other examples of how people with powers are treated in society. Is it an X-Men "everyone knows they're around and hates them" thing or a Superman "superpowers are rare and letting people know my secret will be a huge hassle for me"?

ShaRose49

It’s probably more like X-Men

And yeah, Kay and Evan have a lot to learn, but I think they really balance each other out, or they will eventually

Kat stupid autocorrect

snuffysam

i think both good things and bad things will happen to kat & evan due to be more open with their powers. but it'll end up with kat seeing the good side of people being helped by them, and evan will focus on all the people who look at them funny.

ShaRose49

Haha!! That’s so sweet

@Delphina Were you the one who came up with the Evan turning evil theory? I spent a few seconds scribbling doodles based on this. I think I scared myself

ShaRose49

I think it’s the last day, so I just wanted to thank everyone who took the time to read this comic and for chatting about it (and listening to me geek out). I also wanna thank Comic Tea Party for hosting this!

snuffysam

'bout 26 hours left, yeah. Thanks for offering your comic up! Discussing stuff has been really fun so far!

ShaRose49

@snuffysam Aw, thanks!! Yeah I’ve had so much fun too

Also, as for whether or not Evan turns evil...that depends on what you define as evil

khkddn

welp i showed up to this discussion late but nevertheless i have things to say that are pretty similar to what others have said

first off my favorite character is kat. i decided this when she was like "by the way, you disgust me :)" to that criminal in the beginning of the story. great moment! i also like her design a lot, and the comic's use of bright colors in general

kat and evan view their role in the world v differently and i don't think they'll change easily. maybe evan will come around to accepting that it's okay to be in the spotlight, but i think it's more likely he'll keep wanting to hide away and that'll interfere with their work. even if he doesn't become a full on villain i think he'll at least want to do his own thing

as for kat, i'm worried for her, because i always worry about upbeat characters lol. what if being a Hero isn't what she expected huh, what if it sucks at first? i think evan would handle a reality shock better than kat since he isn't that enthusiastic about it to begin with. but kat might end up being really disappointed until she can adjust.

i really hope evan doesn't turn evil (or, like... evil adjacent?). then turn into a sibling vs sibling fight and ahhh oh no ;_;

Beef Liver

I hope being super heroes won't change Kat and Evan TO much... I really love who they are!

@ShaRose49 Thanks for writing the comic so we could discuss it!

RebelVampire

QUESTION 10. What are you most looking forward to in the comic? Also, do you have any final thoughts to share overall?

RebelVampire

9) i think for kat she's going to learn that doing the right thing is less black & white than she wants to believe. and that sometimes ppl do bad things with good intentions. so playing superhero is complicated and not just this 100% awesome thing. and i think shes really going to have to come to terms with the fact powers dont make her invincible and that ppl can get hurt as bystanders. as for her personality, i think overall itll mature her and make her more conscious of how her actions affect others at the end of the day. as for evan, i think hes gonna have an internal conflict about his personal feelings on his powers vs. the world showing him he can make a positive impact. and so while not evil, i think its gonna make him super angst for a while until eventually he chills out and learns to care about himself. i also think hell learn some independence and that he doesnt just have to follow kat everywhere. 10) im actually most looking forward to more world-building. seeing things like how the secret police are generally regarded, how powers are regarded, who kairo might be working for, etc. i think these are some elements thatll really set the stage for the future for kat and evan.

ShaRose49

@Beef Liver My pleasure!

@khkddn I’m so glad you like the bright colours!:

@RebelVampire You’ll See more world building soon! Kim looking forward to it as well. And as for Kat and Evan changing, @Beef Liver don’t worry, they won’t change drastically right away. However I think they both need to change, perhaps especially Evan. We’ll see why later on

EhNeli

Evan is my favorite. I'm sorry I'm not very good at elaborating (I did terrible in high school english class xl )

snuffysam

One thing I'm really looking forward to is Kat & Evan's first day at the secret police. Just seeing how various people there react to their powers and stuff.

ShaRose49

@EhNeli no worries mate.

I guess I’m looking forward to drawing more of the awesome sibling relationship and going into depth with Kairo. If he doesn’t seem like an important character yet get ready...

@snuffysam I’m really looking forward to that too. I don’t think it will be too long from now (I less it takes me ages to draw cause of work or something)

*unless

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about Sunstrike and Bluemist: An Origin Story this week! Please also give a special thank you to ShaRose49 for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked Sunstrike and Bluemist: An Origin Story, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

Read and Comment: http://sunstrikeandbluemist.thecomicseries.com/

ShaRose49’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/KadachSharon

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #book club #bookclub #webcomic bookclub #webcomic book club #comic tea party #ctp #sunstrike and bluemist #sunstrike and bluemist an origin story #sharose49 #sharon kadach

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jerseydeanne · 6 years ago

Link

Gossip site for both celebs/pseudo-celebs arrests, divorces, breakups and hookups, new deals and cancellations, A-D listers and everything in between.

Read the comments, presumed to be you-know-who!

I kicked a hornet's nest last night. I posted the entire thread, I’ll let you guys be the judge. Thank you anon 🌺🌺🌺🌺

FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2018

Blind Item #13

Apparently when our favorite former actress was back in the States a few months ago, she slipped her drug of choice past her protection via a friend. This time around, she is going to have to find a new way to get herself supplied. Oh, I have no doubts she will. It is one of the main reasons she is visiting. She misses that kind of partying and she knows no one will dare arrest her if she is busted. It is partying without having to worry about any legal consequences at all.

POSTED BY ENT LAWYER AT 11:45 AM

1 – 74 of 74

Boldblonde

said...

Guess she didn’t lose him!

9:59 AM

Just Paige

said...

We will know this is true if she ends up dead. If it is there will be proof and the Monarchy won't allow that.

10:00 AM

Do Tell

said...

Is this saying that Meghan yachted WHILE she was dating Harry?

10:03 AM

sandybrook

said...

I'm sure she needed the additional income a yachting excursion provided her. Entern has always said she just an opportunist looking out for herself.

10:03 AM

Sd Auntie

said...

She must be a firecracker in the sack. Harry does not care and probably used escorts his whole frickin life.

10:04 AM

Sunspirit

said...

So was she with Harry when she was yachting?

10:04 AM

Sunspirit

said...

With him as in relationship wise

10:05 AM

Ash X

said...

Is yachting like prostitution? What is yachting?

10:06 AM

Damiana

said...

Sounds like it was before...then XX introduced her to Harry thinking in terms of Harry hiring Me-Again and either she spun it into a "blind date" (as reported for their meeting), or he didn't understand the setup and assumed it was a blind date. Question is, who's the fixer? Guy Pelly or Markus Anderson? And has HRH twigged yet? If not, who's going to tell him?

10:07 AM

Don Kieballs

said...

I can't see Harry marrying a yacht girl. Reformed yachter possibly, but not one who was doing it while they were dating. He may be a ginger, but he's a Power Ginger.

10:08 AM

Appalachian Mothersauce

said...

I think they're truly smitten, and that longevity will only be tested by time.... But Harry is no saint, and if he judges her on her past, he's scumA++.

10:12 AM

Shakira Eakins

said...

I agree. It seems fitting he find a party girl that understands his past and won't treat him like crap for it.

10:15 AM

Don Kieballs

said...

If you go by this blind. Megan was a yacht girl and Harry was one to use the services of yacht girls (why else would the friend make the assumption?) If they both participated in yacht activities, then neither is morally superior. Harry would have no standing to criticize her - not that he has or would.

10:17 AM

Do Tell

said...

It's not 100% up to Harry. If the Palace finds out that she was doing this, he will face a lot of pressure to dump her or renounce it all to marry her.

10:19 AM

Observant One

said...

When I hear the story about how PH and MM met, I immediately thought of Bani and the Celebrity Sex Broker blinds.

10:44 AM

Comment deleted

This comment has been removed by the author.

10:48 AM

Just Paige

said...

@Observant - when I watched the engagement video of them tellling the story I immediately thought of this blind. She is a terrible actress and it was so rehearsed: she touches his arm - reminds him to seem off the cufff...

10:50 AM

Rafael

said...

It´s a LARP. Enty is a cuckservative 4chan larper and is angry because Obama did an interview with Harry and now is visiting William. While the dumb Trump is hated by everyone. lol

10:50 AM

Mango

said...

Not a fan of the royals but I can't believe that the palace hasn't thoroughly investigated Markle, so she must have passed muster. The palace staff are more class conscious and snooty than the royals. I googled, "who introduced Harry and Meghan" and the name "designer Misha Nonoo" kept coming up. I'd never heard of her so I looked up her website and her designs are meager, repetitive and forgettable, however Nonoo is a tall attractive blonde, so I totally believe that she could be a yacht girl who does the part time work to finance her design house.

10:58 AM

John Doe

said...

Who is Harry's friend that she was yachting with? We all know she has a history but I doubt that Harry cares much because his whole life has been about hookers and weed.

10:59 AM

Cheez Whiz

said...

WTF is a LARP? Live Action Role Play? @Rafael, your comment makes absolutely no sense at all. Too much DemocraticUnderground before the morning coffee?

11:01 AM

Beth

said...

Nonoo was married to a friend of the royals. That's how she comes to Harry. The other person who may be the matchmaker is Violet von Westenholz.

11:03 AM

Observant One

said...

@Just Paige - That's exactly what I was watching. I agree with your assessment of her behavior during that video.

11:10 AM

texasrose

said...

I think this blind implies she yachted before Harry and that is when one of Harry's buddies used her. Later when he saw them together he just assumed that Harry was using her services also. Doesn't necessarily mean she was yachting when dating Harry. Ash X - just google yacht girls. The term started when beautiful girls hung out at Cannes Film festival and then just with rich guys on their yachts in the med. It has evolved into just high high priced escorts to rich guys and not necessarily on yachts and generally referring to celeb or semi celeb women doing it. It is apparently a real thing. A lot of blinds here about actresses you would never guess that have been 'yacht' girls or still do $$$$ escorting.

11:17 AM

Crazycatlady

said...

Lol at “power ginger” thank-you @Don... you’re on fire today 🤓

11:30 AM

Nutty_Flavor

said...

Unpopular opinion, but the Queen saw her sister, who was also the "spare", destroyed by being unable to marry the man she wanted. Harry is 6th in line to the throne, or will be by the time he marries, so I don't think the vetting is as extreme for Meghan as it would have been for anyone William dated.

11:30 AM

Daily Union

said...

Factor this into the equation. Meghan Markle is paid to perform. (In all kinds of situations). She has now lucked into the gig of a lifetime, playing the role of Prince Harry's loving wife. The Princess role- with the being American,divorced,multi-cultural thrown in for distraction and media-adoration bonus points. The reason for this performance is simple, Prince Harry is a closeted Gay Man, who wishes to pursue his lifestyle behind closed doors. Ignore the manufactured P.R. around his bachelor lifestyle, and examine his past "romances". Think "straight" about this, no man in his position, or a Joe on the Street would ever consider marring Meghan Markle , with the slightest knowledge of her past. This is just a "Hollywood type" arranged marriage to give the Stars cover.

11:35 AM

Gordon Scott

said...

Agree, Nutty_Flavor; it's a lot lower standard for Harry than Billy, as Harry will never inherit. And the standards for Billy are lower than they were for Chuck. Still, I'm sure that Betty and Phil Battenberg think that Uncle Eddie's spouse was enough yachting for the family. The question is: do they care enough at their ages to push back? Certainly there is no cattier bunch than the palace staff, and if there's a rumour, they either know about it or they started it. Perhaps Meggie has a unique ability to charm them. Stranger things, what? Meanwhile, Sarah and Andy grind their teeth....

11:46 AM

Gordon Scott

said...

@Daily Union: well, that would explain a lot, now, wouldn't it? Uncle Eddie is said to have been fond of playing the whistle, with Wally cheering him on. Perhaps grandma Betty should create him Duke of Windsor.

11:53 AM

Lisa

said...

Clearly Me-again (good one) got herself knocked up. It’s the only way the Windsor’s would agree to this ridiculous marriage. A black prostitute marrying a royal. Only in Hollywood. What a dumb skank.

11:55 AM

VRWC

said...

+1 That made me spit out my drink.

12:10 PM

Andi F

said...

She's the usual actress, a user and social climber, who believes her own hype. I sometimes watched Suits and didn't know her real name until she got with Harry, B grade is being generous.

12:25 PM

drerocks79

said...

SdAuntie A LOT of rich men end up marrying their favorite escort. The upper east side is filled with 'em

12:28 PM

Unknown

said...

👍

12:34 PM

Normal. Yes indeed.

said...

Really rich people own yachts. Yacht girls are hookers that charge prices only rich guys can afford. Hence the term yacht girl. Go spend a weekend in the yacht...

12:39 PM

os75

said...

She must be good

1:16 PM

Glitter

said...

Remember: Long ago, a blind here revealed that Grace Kelly was a yacht girl.

1:26 PM

Nutty_Flavor

said...

Grace Kelly had a healthy sexual appetite. I’m not sure she would have required payment for a weekend on a yacht.

1:36 PM

Lindy

said...

I assume yachting means more than yachting.

1:57 PM

Lindy

said...

But don’t you think - to use the water metaphor - that that ship has sailed. I think it’s too late to back out even if he or his family are having doubts.

2:00 PM

Mango

said...

@ Nutty_Flavor - excellent point about the queen seeing her beloved sister destroyed by not being about to marry her divorced lover. Maybe the Q has accepted that her heirs will marry who they want? Her (alleged) favorite son married and survived Fergie, so maybe Markle will be a walk in the park. (Or a flash in the pan??) @ Observant one - When H and M were doing their interview, the thing that caught my attention/bugged me was their talk about roasting a chicken. "Look! We were cooking our simple dinner! Just like you regular folk!"

2:20 PM

Andi F

said...

Grace was supposedly sexually abused by her dad growing up, and used the casting couch in HW for acting roles and yachting in Europe for the income.

2:22 PM

Randaleese

said...

OH BS!! Trust! The Queen knows everything..,and apparently, it’s either NOT TRUE or Queen realizes times, they are a-changing and DGAFF!

2:27 PM

fairylights

said...

I'm pretty sure that Harry had to ask the Queen's permission before he could get engaged to M.M., I don't think he's far enough down the list to be able to avoid that. I'm also pretty sure that the gossipy Buck palace people made sure her majesty heard about all the info about her, not to mention any information their version of secret service dug up. My guess is that it's a combo of Harry being down the list of succession and the example of all four of her children being divorced were enough for her to decide it wasn't that important....as long as she doesn't continue on like Fergie did. @ Don, 'Power Ginger': Love it!!!

2:44 PM

emeraldcity

said...

Grace wasn't abused, no sexually anyway, her father pretty much ignored her, the boys were everything to him, not to mention that stories abound that he believed she was not actually his daughter. She spent her whole life trying to win his praise and affection which resulted in a father figure complex,and affairs with much older men (Bing, Gary Cooper, Gary Grant) as a dark spin off from this. She was no angel and actually very catty to other women, Ava Gardner called her out in public on her hypocrisy, Liz Taylor and Joan Collins were in the room at the time. As for this blind, I take it with a pinch of salt , MI6 would have everything on this woman and the Queen would be told as she seems quite taken with Meg, it probably came from one of Harry's friends who isn't happy about him marrying Meg so is sticking the knife in. Enty is safe from litigation because the royals never sue about gossip , too many other things might come out in court.

2:46 PM

Do Tell

said...

She is the new Koo Stark. I guess time will tell if things play out the way they did with Andrew and Koo.

2:49 PM

346NYC

said...

I see ZERO chemistry between Harry and MM. Is this like a George Clooney/Amal Beard situation? Also, I've seen some reports that Harry is not Charles son. Some have reported he looks like one of Diana's lovers. Any truth to this? If there is any truth to the former, why should the Queen care who Harry marries if he's not related to the Queen anyway?

2:53 PM

Observant One

said...

@Mango - The roasting a chicken bit made me wonder if it was a code phrase....they said it multiple times. I know I'm cynical as hell, and maybe I have read too many of Enty's blinds over the years, but I thought it was way too contrived. I am trying to figure out why she ALWAYS has her hand on his arm, or his back. So far, my reasoning has led me to think she knows he misses his mother desperately, so she has determined that he needs constant touching and reassurance. I don't like being catty, and I am certainly not racist, but this relationship seems too contrived, like the roast chicken.

3:27 PM

Comment deleted

This comment has been removed by the author.

3:27 PM

Dallas Alice

said...

Or, maybe they were just roasting a damn chicken and he proposed. I certainly have no means of comparison, but I’d imagine cooking your own dinner is quite a lark when you have to make an appointment to see your own Grandmother. She’s definitely grabby, but Americans tend to be more like that. Perhaps they’re actually in love. I’ll choose to think they are.

3:39 PM

Donna Marie

said...

346NYC, apparently Diana did have an affair with a ginger. However, Google Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Baroness Fellowes. Those are Diana's older sisters, they are both gingers, and Harry strongly resembles them. I've also noticed that as Harry gets older, he begins to look more and more like a Windsor male in all but coloring. (though the height comes from his mother's side) All in all, I believe he's a genetic Windsor.

4:14 PM

Hortensia

said...

No one ever says what the past allegations are about Markle. Just this yacht story. Harry has definitely changed his demeanor/appearance since the engagement announcement. A couple of psychics have said it won't last more than five years. Markle was supposedly up for the next Bond movie as a Bond girl. That would have sent her career into the stratosphere. Hmmmm.

4:22 PM

Lisa

said...

She is pregnant.

4:37 PM

BCC

said...

Only Markle says she was supposed to be a Bond girl. Nobody else - certainly not the Bond film people.

4:39 PM

just sayin'

said...

What I find interesting is the theory that Diana's biological father is James Goldsmith. She looked so much more like Jemima Kahn then the Spencer sisters. If true, it would make Harry's children with Meghan 1/4 Jewish and 1/4 Black.

4:41 PM

Gordon Scott

said...

Meggie a Bond girl? Not the lead, certainly. She's not that hot. As for Harry being one of mom's lovers' sons? The timing is wrong for that. Also, there's a pic of grandpa Phil at about Harry's current age, with beard. They look like brothers. He's got the Battenberg Y chromos. The word among those who served with Harry is that he's a good chap. Passing on the family tradition of the holiday hunt because Meggie doesn't like it--plus his body language around her--well, that doesn't bode so well for the future. But his gonads are surplus to requirements now, thus he can just be gossip fodder. It's a shame, as he was thought to be the one to bring back some rascally masculinity in house Battenberg.

4:49 PM

Elamina

said...

It was interesting to me that the last (and only other) blind by Enty that 'revealed' Markle as a yacht girl disappeared from this site overnight. It said like more and more people were coming forward about it and named other women from MMs Deal or No Deal days that did the same to supplement their income. They commanded higher rates because of being on a tv show.

5:06 PM

Scandi Sanskrit

said...

I saw "Diana: In Her Own Words" on NatGeo channel. It was originally first aired during a lunar eclipse (well, that was my memory of it). She said she used to hear voices. Like Prince Charles proposed to her and said something along the lines of, "you realise that means you might become queen someday?" And the voice said, "you won't Ben queen but you'll have an important role." And it came true... 🌙

5:51 PM

Scandi Sanskrit

said...

⚡️GO GO POWER GINGER! ⚡️ (He'd be the Orange Ranger)

6:02 PM

theassangefiles

said...

Longtime reader here, first comment - Had to ask if anyone remembers that Jimmy Saville, underage rapist and sex purveyer extrodanaire was also intimately connected with Prince Charles and considered his "mentor", and was allowed to come and go in Buckingham Palace as he pleased. The Queen knows how to handle little Miss Markle, and it will be to appear to be kind and accepting but make no mistake, Markle will be lucky to last through the next five years, and the tabloid thrashing that is going to hound both her and Harry will "teach" him to fall in line next time around, no doubt about it.

7:54 PM

Scooterchick

said...

My take: Meghan is approved because with all her diversity (American, actress, biracial, divorced) and the distraction it has created, she makes Camilla look less awful, and a bit less controversial. It's pretty clear that the Queen plans on Charles taking the reins, and whatever Camilla will be (Consort? Surely not Queen, one hopes!), she will be in a position that has not occurred in the British Royal family in centuries, as a divorced publicly acknowledged adultress & cuckolder (or is it cuckoldress hahah?). Royal PR are very savvy & trying to spin Chas. & Camilla as less unsavoury than they have been viewed in the past. BTW, has anyone seen Tracy Ullman's take-off on Csmilla? Very spots on Youtubr: it's a scream.

7:58 PM

McJ 2051

said...

So PH has a Pretty Woman fetish I guess?

8:32 PM

boredatwork boredatwork

said...

I agree with the commenters saying that Harry has hit a new low. Everything about those 2 seems too fake and contrived - at least on her side. She's really a mediocre C list actress, with mediocre looks. A trip to Top Shop on Oxford Circus, and one can spot 100 Markles, much better looking than this one. He could do so much better, but prefers to settle for average, in every way.

9:43 PM

Mrs Meat

said...

I know someone who moved in Royal circles who says it's openly acknowledged within the fam that Harry is James Hewitt's son. But personally I can see Prince Charles in his looks.

12:41 AM

Media Viewer

said...

I heard it was the other way round. Awkward when a mutual acquaintance turned out to be a girl from Harry's past. At 1st, Meghan Markle repeatedly turned down Harry's invitations because she had a boyfriend. I remember reading about that back in 2015 when Harry 1st spotted her as an exercise guru on Canadian TV. Finally she agreed to go on a date with him and it was arranged through a friend. Could it be that not every human with a vagina is a whore for fame, money and power? Could it be that those at the British tabloids are just bitter? They hated Frank Sinatra too. That's why they called them rats. Could it be they buried the truth about Harry trolling for chicks on TV programs because it's unseemly?

12:43 AM

Nonya Bidness

said...

A new low? I tend to think his low was the Nazi costume. So you think he only consorted with pedigreed virgins before? Curious what bothers you most about MM, her sexual history or her race.

6:37 AM

Nutty_Flavor

said...

@Media Viewer, not sure where you got the idea that the British tabloids were "bitter" about Markle. Both the Daily Mail and the Sun have been outdoing themselves to sell her to the British public. The last 3 Markle headlines in The Sun: "Get that Markle Sparkle: Meghan Markle's Skincare guru on the perfect prep for your big day." "One is Amused: Meghan Markle's Xmas gift to the Queen caused Her Maj to burst out laughing." "Royal Knees Up: Pubs to open until 1am for 2 nights to celebrate Harry and Meghan's wedding." The tabloids are there to get clicks - and have a healthy side business being paid for placement, which is why you see so many articles about Emily Ratajkowski in them. Whether the positive Meghan articles are paid-for-placement or just a way to stay in good graces with the Firm is unknown. The fact is, though, that the British tabloids are not tearing Meghan down at this point in time.

8:39 AM

Em Lew

said...

It can't be anything worse than what Prince Andrew got up to with his friend Epstein. Then there's Charlie's friendship with serial abuser Savile. The Royals can cover up scandal no problem, as they have the security services doing it for them.

2:06 PM

Count Jerkula

said...

I hope one of Markle's tricks had his cabin wired for video and sound, and the tape finds its way to a foreign file locker or tube site.

3:58 PM

Enny

said...

He looks so much like a young Prince Philip it’s ridiculous. How can people ignore such a strong resemblance to his father and paternal grandfather? It makes no sense. Yes, Diana had affairs. No, she did not father Harry with one of them.

6:03 PM

boredatwork boredatwork

said...

None - you must be one of those ppl who judges ppl by the colour of their skin, and not the content of their character. To you, MM, who is average in every way, is special, because of her race, while I don't give a shit about her race, and I dislike her purely for what sort of person she appears to be. Reverse racism it's called.

12:48 AM

Gail Banks

said...

Fairylights - only three of Queen Elizabeth's children are divorced, not four. Prince Edward is still married to Sophie Rhys-Jones.

4:56 AM

La-Juice

said...

as much as I dislike him, remember, Charles too knows what its like to be forbidden to marry who he loved- and look at the lengths he ultimately went ot and the disaster that ensued. Maybe Harry really loves her- given his past, I have to believe he knows all about her. I bet the castle/crown staff just keeps all of Meghan's indiscretions/past secreted from the very old Queen, whose husband is failing... can't be too hard.

12:52 PM

Sharon Betz

said...

Does anyone have info on Joe Guiliano Meghan Markle first husband? Joseph J. Goldman-Guiliano, Northwestern grad, criminal defense attorney in MA?

8:01 AM

#Meghan Markle #CDAN #new Blind #submission

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