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jadelotusflower · 4 years ago

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Robin Hood Rewatch: 1x13 A Clue: No

“Previously on” recaps can be annoying, but there is an art to it and I love a good one. This is a very, very good one, summarising the last episode with ramping tension as the music builds, then cuts to a different take of the last scene as the theme song starts, and we’re into the opening credits.

This is a long one, so it’s going under the cut:

Guy estimates that the “inner circle” of Robin’s gang is “a dozen at the most” and I find it very funny that neither he nor Vaisey have twigged that it’s always the same five people around him. What’s more annoying than funny is that they don’t know how many are in the “outer circle” because that really should have been A Thing in the show (Forrest and Hanton should have come back to guest star! I will never let this go!) After all, we see Little John with more men in the first episode, there are other outlaws in the forest/across the shire that are either working with Robin, or pose a risk to them, and I wish this had been explored.

Djaq manhandling and holding her sword to Pitts’s throat - I love Djaq.

The first arrow Robin shoots is intended for Vaisey, but one of the guards inconveniently walks in front and gets it in the chest. The second arrow is intended for Vaisey as well but he ducks (”my tooth!”) so we can’t fault the writing for a credible attempt at Why Doesn’t Robin Just Kill The Sheriff, because in this scene at least, he tries.

Bye Pitts. You certainly were.

I actually really love this scene (which probably seemed odd given the high body count), but Robin drawing his sword and charging, with Much, Djaq, and John backing him up to avenge Marian’s apparent death/make a final stand, as the music shifts from the jaunty Rescue Theme to Marian’s Theme, just gets me every time.

Although thanks to the cast commentary, I can’t unsee Djaq flipping that guy over her head twice, but hey, it’s a badass move. Clearly they didn’t shoot enough coverage of this fight, because we get the same action from several different angles.

Other than the flashback in episode 8, I think this is the only time we see Robin in Crusader mode, and just how lethal he (and the gang) can be when unleashed and with nothing to lose. Even when the enemy retreats Robin remains kind of wild-eyed with rage unsated, and it takes a beat for him to snap out of it. It’s symbolism time - he sticks his sword in the ground and leaves it there, and we don’t see it again this episode (or much in season 2).

There’s some nice acting going on from everyone in this scene - just utter exhaustion, Allan and Will oblivious to why the rest are so distraught, Much taking it upon himself to tell them but can’t say the words, and Robin with the finality of “she’s dead.” Their faces!

Djaq is still holding two swords as she enters the cave, which is a nice character beat - no doubt the fight also brought back unpleasant memories/triggers for her, and she remains on edge, for the moment unwilling to give up her defences even when the threat is gone.

I really love this scene too (the gang mourning Marian) and I think it’s quite deftly written - Djaq’s immediate reaction being the importance of a quick burial (as per Islamic tradition), Robin trying to keep it together, attempting to ask John/Will to build a coffin but unable to, so deflecting to ask Djaq to prepare Marian’s body, before trying twice again; John soothing him and taking charge. Will’s single tear and speaking of Marian’s goodness. Much responding with “Good? Oh, she was... She was...” looking to Robin because of course his thoughts are for Robin’s grief before his own, and also that his own relationship with Marian was complex. Allan: “She was alright...yeah” that says so much, and of course John’s “Her, we liked.” Again, some fine acting, kudos everyone.

“I loved her and I never told her” is ironic because Robin still won’t tell her until halfway through the next season, and if he had in the aftermath of her apparent death he could have spared himself a lot of the angst of the rest of the episode. But of course he doesn’t tell her, doesn’t learn from this moment, because emotions are hard, and sometimes we make the same mistakes over and over again.

I really love that it’s Allan that notices that Marian is alive, and his little “told ya” flourish.

Score note: while Marian is “dead” her Theme is strings, when she opens her eyes, it’s back to the guitar.

Guy’s guilt in finding out his impending marriage to Marian is based on false pretenses - would he still have forced the marriage if he’d known that from the start?

Djaq still has her two swords as they take Marian back to Knighton.

Guy, if your first instinct when told Marian is not at home is that she’s run away rather than marry you...maybe take a hint? “She cannot run from me” is a big yikes, and this confuses me as to Guy’s motivation in this scene. Did he intend to tell Marian the truth, but then convince himself otherwise (because “the excitement of the wedding” =/= “the wedding excites her”), but then why so angry when he thinks shes run? The difference between getting someone go/being left, I suppose.

Illness is a perfectly plausible explanation for delaying the wedding that no one seems to think of.

Edward is actually pretty bang on in this scene with Robin from a father’s perspective, telling him to let Marian go if he cannot stop it, and do the right thing. On the other hand...

“I am sick of doing the right thing” is why Robin is such a compelling character for me - because it is hard to always be good, to be held to that higher standard, and make the unselfish choice. I enjoy narratives that explore that, and this show is surprisingly unflinching about it, exemplified by:

The next scene, which is one of the most emotionally brutal/hard to watch of the entire show, in which Robin lashes out and does everything to drive Much away, including calling him “a pox” and a “small man” until Much’s heart visibly breaks.

Now I don’t want to excuse Robin here, because he is objectively awful to someone who doesn’t deserve it, who is trying to give him support but also telling him some much needed hard truths (even if it is slightly self-serving, which is what what seems to set Robin off). But at the end of the day, if he loves Marian he needs to accept that it is her choice to marry Guy, to “do the right thing” to (she thinks) protect her father - and later of he does just that. For now Edward and Much are both right, it is more important for him to try and protect the king from Vaisey, because if he is ousted and Richard back on the throne so many lives would be improved, including the people of Locksley. But Robin has been pushed to breaking point all season, and has now snapped and can’t see reason, but is stuck in his own grief/rage.

But unlike previously, when Robin said regrettable things in the heat of the moment and then immediately took them back, this is a calculated attack designed to hurt Much the most, because he loves Robin so much that it takes A Lot to push him away. It’s a bold move to make your hero so unlikable in such a moment, because Robin really is unforgivably cruel here, and trust the audience to understand why. I mean, I don’t want to bang on about the PTSD, but it’s (partly) the PTSD, based on a triggering, precipitating event causing a self-destructive spiral. Robin needs some Ye Olde Therapy.

For all the talk about Robin getting his title and lands back, nothing is said about what happens to Gisborne once he does, other than that they can’t prove he was the one who tried to assassinate Richard. Because really, Richard probably would believe Robin even though the tattoo was burned away, and Guy’s certainly committed other crimes that could be testified to just like they’re intending for Vaisey - and let’s be real, it’s not like a king needs evidence to order someone’s death (hello, season 2 finale). Boom - Guy executed, marriage to Marian annulled, problem solved!

So, the scene between Marian and Guy, in which Marian is more concerned with whether or not Guy tried to kill the king than the fact that he stabbed her. But its understandable, because Marian thinks there’s no way out that doesn’t risk her father’s life, and it’s easier to convince herself that maybe Guy didn’t do it to make the best of things. I think she does have some kind of feelings for him, or is at least moved by his feelings for her, and believes if nothing else she can influence him/continue working from the inside; giving up the mantle of the Nightwatchman but doing the same work (in a different way) as Lady Gisborne.

And then it’s Robin/Marian angst, round 3, and it’s a far cry from their interaction in the cave milliseconds away from “I love yous” - in both tone and body language they’re back in defensive positions talking past one another. The tension, it be thick.

Marian is making her best rationalisation with “deprived of love” and Robin not at all buying the Woobification 101. Once she tells him her decision to marry Guy, he accepts it, but it’s Marian’s reaction that’s telling, she’s surprised that he doesn’t argue, deep down she wants him to fight for her, to say that the real reason she shouldn’t marry Guy is because he loves her. It’s quite a contrast from the previous scene where Guy was very open about how he feels about her, while Robin deflects, but while she was conflicted about Guy trying to kiss her, she’s frustrated, disappointed, and angry when Robin leaves.

But really, this is rather unfair of Marian, because Robin did already declare himself in the cave (”we should be together”) without her reciprocation, so expecting him to take the first step again without any encouragement is a bit much.

Would a depressed person sit slumped against a tree all night?

“But by taking Marian in holy wedlock, I will wash away those crimes. Her pure heart will cleanse mine.” Yeah...not going to touch that one. I appreciate that there’s a lot going on with Guy and many, many people find it compelling, but I’m afraid it’s not really a narrative that interests me.

Speaking of pure hearts: Much. Faced with the same choice he was counseling Robin on, but with the additional wrinkle of knowing the king’s an imposter, he still decides to stop the wedding. “Her heart belongs to another” is A Moment and I don’t know exactly why but I find his very soft pleas following this and calling her “my lady” very affecting.

She’s beauty and she’s grace, she punched Guy in the face.

“A trap. I knew it.” I haaaaate this line. NO YOU DIDN’T KNOW IT ROBIN YOU KNEW NOTHING OF THE KIND IF YOU HAD KNOWN YOU WOULD BE EVEN MORE OF A DICK FOR LEAVING UGGGHHHH.

“We can’t be seen together” Right in front of my salad two guards on front gate duty, who get front row tickets to the kiss. Look at them! They’re right there! This show drives me absolutely bonkers sometimes.

I do love this dress though.

“An audience with the king has been suspended!” Going out on one last pun.

Regardless, I really love this episode. Despite the lack of fallout from the emotional wringer they all went through, I can’t help but smile when the gang does their silly little jump for joy at the end.

#robin hood bbc #robin hood rewatch #1x13 a clue: no #long post

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nothingbutimagines · 4 years ago

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Elizabeths (Chapter I)

Pairing: Bad boy!Peter Parker x Reader

Warning: Cursing, death, mentions of suicide

Summary: Y/n is part of her high school’s most powerful and most popular clique, but she disapproves of the other girls’ behavior. When Y/n meets the new boy in school, Peter Parker, and begins dating him, what she has known to be her clique begins to unravel. Starting with the death of the clique leader, Liz Allan, one by one, people Y/n doesn’t like begin to die by her and Peter’s hands. Soon, she realizes that Peter is killing students he hates and begins to try to foil his plans, all while clashing with the new clique leader, Elizabeth “Betty” Brant.

Author: Dizzy

A/N: This is a Peter Parker AU I thought of doing. It’s a Heathers AU!!! This is going to follow a similar plot to Heathers, but of course, I won’t keep everything the exact same. Here, we meet our protaganist, Y/n, and our love interest, JD Peter.

Masterlist Request Any Of These Peter Parker/Tom Holland Masterlist

__________________

Dear Diary,

Today, Liz told me she teaches people about “real life”.

She said, “Real life sucks losers dry. If you wanna fuck with the eagles, you gotta learn to fly.”

I asked, “So you teach people how to fly?”

She said, yes.

I said, “You’re beautiful.”

“Y/n,” a voice pulled you away from your writing as they kicked your side.

You pulled your glasses off and looked up at the owner of the yellow skirt and white tights that kicked you.

“What the fuck, Lizzie?” You snapped, pushing Lizzie Jones’ foot away from you.

“Sorry, Y/n. Liz needs you in the commons. She said it’s urgent. Back me up, Betty.”

“Yeah, Y/n, Liz said you have to hit the commons pronto.” Betty stammered, her arms tight around her books.

“Fine. I’m coming.” You rose from your spot on the stairs and followed the other girls. “Do you know what it’s about?”

Lizzie looked back at you. “How the hell am I supposed to know? She just said to get you.”

As you turned the corner and into the madhouse that was the common area, you caught sight of the brown hair that was tied back with a red scrunchie.

“Hello, Liz.” You spoke softly, almost submissive to the girl.

“Y/n, there you are.” Liz smiled, her voice sickly sweet which made you think she’d want something from you.

If you knew anything about Liz Allan, it was that she always, always was nice when she wanted something from you.

“What is it you need, Liz?” You asked, crossing your arms over your chest.

“I need you to help me get into Brad’s email to send Ass-trid Dumptruck. I want you to help me write a hot and heavy but realistically low-key essay that Astrid can’t help but read right now.”

“Liz, I don’t have anything against Astrid Dunstock.”

“You don’t have anything for her, either.” Liz replied, shoving the laptop into your hands. “Just get into the email so I can write her a sexy letter to fuel her shower nozzle masturbation for weeks.”

“Let me think about it.”

“Don’t think.” Liz scoffed. “Just do it.”

You groaned as the other girls giggled, holding the laptop in one arm and attempting to type with the other. You furrowed your brow as you took in a deep breath, annoyed at your own inability to fight against peer pressure.

“Betty, Y/n can’t possibly type with one hand. Bend over so she can work.” Liz smirk.

Betty gave you a look as you mouthed that you were sorry before the girl bent over in front of you and you began to type on the laptop, finding your way to Brad’s email.

This wasn’t the first time Liz was having you send emails from Brad’s account, so you already knew the password, mumbling to yourself about how ignorant Liz could be as you pulled up the draft email page.

“Alright, Liz. You’re in.”

“Why don’t you type it up, Y/n? My nails just got done and it’s hard to type with them.” Liz said, wiggling her fingers in front of you, her nails long and sharp like claws and done in her signature red color.

You knew she was lying, as she could never tell the truth. She just didn’t want to have the evidence trailed back to her.

“Come on, Liz. I don’t want to do this.” You said, throwing your arms down and turning to the other girl.

“Do you think I give a shit?” Liz snapped back. “Just write the fucking email and then we can move on with our lives. Besides, you’re the only one who could possibly get down Brad’s diction.”

“Go fuck yourself.” You mumbled as you turned around, feeling Betty giggle from beneath you.

“Would you like to speak up, Y/n?” Liz asked, moving to look at you from the side.

You gave her a smirk. “No, Liz. Now, why don’t you tell me what to write?”

Liz cleared her throat before speaking softly, her lips brushing against the hair by your ear, her breath hot and her voice soft, sending shivers down your spine.

“Okay, Y/n, why don’t we keep it short and simple? Get in and get out, just like Brad would.” Liz said.

“And you know that all too well.”

You could feel Liz press her sharp nail into your cheek, the pressure so sharp you thought she was about to draw blood. Your proud attitude quickly diminished as she huffed, taking her nail off your face as you sighed and quickly typed up the email.

“Alright. I’m done writing.” You announced, straightened up as you picked the laptop off of Betty’s back, and handed the laptop to Liz. “Just hit send and Astrid will get it right away.”

“Come on people, let’s give that leftover lunch money to people without lunches! Those tater tots you threw away are a delicacy in Africa! Their Thanksgiving dinner!” You could hear Ned scream into the crowd of students in the common area as you took a seat beside LIz at your regular lunch table.

“God, aren’t they fed yet?” Lizzie asked, taking a bite out of a french fry she took off your plate before flinging it back down on the plate, the ketchup splattering on the rest of your food. “Do they even have Thanksgiving in Africa?”

“Oh, yeah. Pilgrims, Indians, tater tots.” You replied as you ate the other half of the french fry, “I heard it’s a real party continent.”

Liz rustled in her bag beside you, gaining your attention as you watched her pull out a clipboard and slam it down on the table. She gave you a smile as she proudly flipped her hair over her shoulder while she watched your face fall and you internally groaned.

“Y/n, guess what time it is?”

“Ouch, lunchtime poll.” You guessed, setting down the milk carton in your hand as you turned to her. “So, what’s the question?”

“Yeah, what’s the question?” Betty asked, earning a swift kick from Liz.

“Goddamn, Betty, you were on FaceTime with me when I thought of it.”

“Oh, right. I forgot.”

“Such a pillowcase.” Liz scoffed, pulling you up with her as she stood up and began leading you through the crowded tables and into the large aisle of the common room.

“This wouldn’t be about that bizarre dream you had the other night that were blabbing about on the phone would-”

“Oh, shut up. It is.” Liz cut you off. “I told Ned if he gave me another political topic, I would spit on him and he said if I didn’t want to do that, I’d have to think of my own poll.”

You shook your head, looking away from her as you scanned the large room. Your eyes landed on a boy you’ve never seen before, and being in a small town, a guy that looked like him, you would’ve recognized.

He caught your gaze, the boy who reminded you of James Dean as he slouched in his blue plastic chair, his leather jacket puffing out to the side to reveal the simple t-shirt he was wearing underneath. You couldn’t tell if it was the swooped dark brown hair or the Rebel Without a Cause lunchbox sat in front of him that made you think of the long dead actor, but the boy certainly knew how to get anyone’s attention.

Transfixed on the boy across the room, you felt a sharp pain in your knee as you crashed into the blue chair of one Cindy Moon. You grunted softly, your hand reaching towards your knee as you bent down to rub it soothingly.

Cindy turned, pulling her cardigan sweater tightly around her as the rest of her less stylish friends also turned as well, causing you to blush as you straighten up slightly, still a bit bent over as Cindy studied you for a moment.

“Oh gosh, sorry, Y/n.”

“Oh, Cindy…” You replied softly, the embarrassment hinting in your tone. “I’m, uh, sorry I didn’t make it to your birthday party last month.”

“That’s okay,” Cindy shook her head, “Your mom said you had a big date. Hell, I’d miss my own birthday party for a date.”

You laughed lightly with her for a moment, glancing over at Liz who was growing impatient as she watched the interaction.

“Don’t say that.” You playfully hit Cindy’s shoulder.

“Oh, Y/n/n, while you’re here, I found this the other day.” Cindy beamed, picking up her purse and rummaging through it until she pulled out a photo and handed it to you. “I think it's Halloween in second grade.”

“Oh, where we got so sick from the candy that a single spin on that carousel at the Halloween fair-”

“-had us throwing up uncontrollably.” Cindy laughed as she finished your sentence, the warm interaction between you two cut prematurely by Liz’s swift swing pulling you away and causing you to drop the photo.

“Hey, I was talking to someone!” You snapped, tearing away from her.

“Color me impressed. I thought you were finished playing Barbies with Cindy Moon.” Liz snapped.

If you didn’t know her any better, you’d have thought Liz was somehow jealous of your interaction with Cindy.

You followed her like a duckling, almost prancing to keep up with her as you approached the Country Club. You hated them just as much as the next, the daddy’s money boys and girls who were so pretentious they dressed as if they were always at the country club, hence their name.

“Oh, great, here comes Liz.” You could hear Brittany say as you and Liz approached.

You could feel Liz’s unabashed false pleasantness radiating off of her. You hated the Country Club as much as the next guy, but never as much as Liz Allan did.

“Hi, Brittany, love the blouse. Oh, let me steal a tater.” Liz greeted, her tone the same sickly sweet as the one she had had with you earlier in the lunch period.

Brittany watched with a similar fake smile plastered on her face as Liz turned her back to her, now facing you as she pushed the tater tot into her mouth with a single finger, doing a vomiting gesture before chewing and swallowing the tater tot and turning to Brittany and her group.

“Thanks. I got it at H&M.” Brittany smiled, turning to her group and back at Liz. “I totally blew my allowance.”

“That’s pretty very. Now check this out, David Dobrik gives you a Tesla and $2 million dollars and the same day you get to be on his channel, aliens come to earth and say they’ll blow up the planet in two days. What are you going to do?”

The table looked stunned for a moment and you watched as Flash chuckled, leaned back in his chair and put his sunglasses on. You rolled your eyes at the dramatic action as he started to speak.

“That’s easy. I’d just hand the wad over to my father. He has the best stock broker in the state. And then I would take that Tesla out for a joyride. Just me, babes, and a car to drive while I fuck a chick in the passanger’s seat.”

“How charming.” You rolled your eyes. “The world will be Pompeii in two days and you’re going to invest your money?”

“Man, my father’s broker could triple it, double it in two days.”

“If I had that money,” Brittany cut in, “I’d give it all to the poor.”

“Wow. You’re beautiful.” You smiled with a nod as Liz jerked you by the arm, pulling you away from the flabbergasted Brittany.

“If you’re openly going to be a bitch…”

“I’m sorry, it’s just why can’t we talk to other kinds of people?” Your voice coming out whinier than you anticipated.

“Fuck me gently with a chainsaw. Do I look like Mother Teresa to you?” Liz asked, her tongue sharp as you walked alongside her. “If I did, I wouldn't mind talking to the Geek Squad.”

Your gaze followed along the extended arm and pointer finger of Liz’s body as you both made eye contact with one of the boys at the table, causing him to spill his milk all over himself in shock.

“Oh my god, Elizabeth Number One just made eye contact with me.” He blurted out, stumbling over his words as another boy chuckled.

“It must be love.” The other one replied before you tore your gaze away from them and looked up at Liz, who always seemed to tower over you with her bright red high heeled boots.

“Doesn’t it bother you that everyone at school thinks you’re a piranha?” You confront her, her eye roll in response making you feel like back peddling what you said.

“Like I give a shit.” She snapped so matter-of-factly. “They all want me as a friend or a fuck. I’m worshipped at Midtown and I’m only a junior.”

You groaned. “Just pretend you’re doing charity work. Like saving a couple of oiled up penguins in the Dawn commercials. Like this shit will look good on college essays.”

Liz looked at you in surprise, returning your statement with an eye roll as you had her convinced and she knew it. “Whatever. I don’t believe this shit. We’re going to a Columbia University party and I’m brushing up my conversational skills with the scum of the school.”

Dear Diary,

Sometimes I want to kill Liz Allan. She’s such a bitch saying, “I’m tall, dark, and beautiful. I’m such an individual because I look like a girl in a toothpaste commercial. I’m so hot Post Malone wanted to see my tits for backstage passes.” Damn, you Liz. You’re not special or a princess. All teenagers are the same. Didn’t you see Breakfast Club?

You pull the clipboard from Liz’s arms as you guide her to the Geek Squad with your hand on her lower back, in a similar way to how your father would push you along in lines at the grocery store. You two stood there awkwardly for a moment before elbowing Liz, causing her to jump.

“Alright. This is called a lunchtime poll. We ask you a question, you answer honestly. Now, David, whatever his name is, gives you a Tesla and 2 million dollars. When you go to do the big youtube thing, aliens come to the earth and say they’re going to blow it up in two days. What do you do?” Liz muttered, her attitude more sour than it was only moments before.

“I’d go to the Pyramids.” Brian replied, the bony head of the Geek Squad. “With a girl.”

“Where are you going to get the girl?” the boy beside him asked. “Amazon?”

You couldn’t help but crack a smile as you looked at another boy. “What about you, Lucas?”

“I told you she knew my name.” He muttered to Brian, who in turn, elbowed him in the side. “I’d change my life. Get a new haircut, new clothes, revamp like in She’s All That.”

“How sad!” Liz exclaimed. “Blowing all your cash to make up for a lack of popularity. And the reference to a chick flick! Did you see it with your mom? Or your new boyfriend?”

You grabbed Liz by the arm and yanked her from the table and into the large aisle again, right where she had scolded you only minutes before.

“If you’re openly going to be a bitch…” You trailed off, your tone harsh as Lizzie approached.

“Ass-trid’s reading the email, you’re going to want to see this.” Lizzie laughed, grabbing you both by the wrists and dragging you behind her as she beelined to where Betty stood, back up against a pillar.

“Oh god, here we go!” Betty giggled as you four began to watch.

You suddenly felt sick. You wanted nothing to do with what was about to happen as Astrid rose from her seat at her empty lunch table and made her way towards the Jocks, where Brad sat, munching on his tater tots. You couldn’t understand what Astrid was saying as she pointed to her phone screen, allowing Brad to read it. You flinched as the boy erupted in laughter, food and spit flying from their mouths as they howled, leaving Astrid to run away in horror, leaving you with a pit in your stomach as you jumped away from your friends and into Ned’s table.

“A penny for your thoughts! But, a dollar could save a life! Hi, Y/n. A five keeps the neighborhood alive! But, a ten will bring back the dead!” Ned shouted, the little chant ringing in your ears as you made eye contact with the James Dean boy again, his look as horrified as your own.

Liz shoves a twenty dollar bill into Ned’s hand as she approaches you.

“Shut up.” She orders as the boy grows quiet. “You wanted to be part of the most powerful clique in school and if I wasn’t already the head of it, I’d want the same thing.”

“I’m sorry, what are you going on about?” You snapped, turning to her.

“You heard me. That episode with the email back there was for us all to enjoy, but for some reason you are determined to ruin my day.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, let me fix that.” You replied before laughing mockingly. “We made a girl consider suicide! What a laugh! What a scream! I’ve never seen something so funny!”

“Come on, you jerk. You used to have a sense of humor.”

You let Liz guide you back to where Lizzie and Betty stood, talking about whatever book Betty had begun reading as your eyes landed back on the boy you’d found yourself so infatuated with.

“God, Y/n, drool much?” Lizzie asked, as Liz groaned. “His name’s Peter Parker. He’s in my American History class.”

“Give me back the clipboard.” You ordered, pulling the clipboard from Liz’s hands.

You sauntered away from the girls, scoffing as Lizzie began making oinking and sexual sounds in your direction and by how fast they were cut off, you knew Liz had probably slapped the other girl to get her to stop.

“Well, hello, Peter Parker.” You greeted, stopping at a halt on the other side of his table.

Now standing in front of the boy, you realized he looked less like James Dean and more like a young Jaime Bell.

“Greetings and Salutation. Call me Peter. Are you an Elizabeth?” He asked, the smile on his face a bit cocky.

You chuckled, a light blush dusting your cheeks. “No, I’m a Y/n. L/n. This may sound like a stupid question…”

“There are no stupid questions.”

“Okay. Get this, David Dobrik gives you 2 million dollars and a Tesla and on the same day he’s supposed to give it to you in a youtube video, aliens invade earth and say they’re going to blow up the planet in two days. What do you do?”

Peter chuckles, his laugh light and airy as he runs a hand through his hair.

“That’s the stupidest question I’ve ever heard.” He replies, his brow rising as he answers the question curiously. “Probably would just row a boat out into the middle of the lake. Bring along my sax, a bottle of tequila, and some Bach.”

“How very.”

“Come on, Y/n!” Lizzie calls from behind you.

“I’ll be right there! God!” You roll your eyes as you yell, turning your attention back to Peter. “Duty calls. Bye.”

“Later.”

Dear Diary,

I take back what I said about killing Liz Allan. I don’t think I’m ready for jail just yet, not with a boy like Peter Parker around. Maybe we’re not all the same after all.

_____________________

Tagged: @thewinchesterchronicles @spookyanairwin @audreylovespidey706

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atrixfromice · 4 years ago

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If you know them and like them, kids will appreciate to learn them!

To my fellow writters, and comic makers;

I would like to give you this piece of advice, that I've never read yet someone who have mentionned it on the internet, but that is a very important advice I think it will be useful for all of you folks.

When you write something, specially when writting children's books. Don't have fear of using words you know and you think they are cool because you worry they might be not very easy to grasp or to remember for kids.

Because I know for experience, that kids DO appreciate it when you give them new words to learn!

And I can talk from self-experience, with myself and also with my siblings when they were also kids, and I used to read them bedtime stories.

When I was a kiddo I had this larousse dictionary that I loved (which I think, it must have been weighed almost half of my weigh at that time...I remember it was heavy as hell! LOL ) which I used to carry with me around the house like if it was my favorite toy.

The reason? Because I've always liked to read, but when I was a kid I didn't have the vocabulary level I have the pleasure to have in nowadays. And to make things worse, when I was kid I had really a hard time liking books that were supposed to be for me. Like for example, when I was 5, the books my mom used to buy for me supposed to be for 5 - 7 years old kids, but they were boring..like...

...terribly, terribly, terribly boring!!!

I remember I often used to felt so upset with childrent book’s authors because I felt they insulted my intelligence, because their stories were too simple and often dull as hell! They lacked of a good plot and interesting characters.

And I think what exacerbated me the most it's the fact I wasn’t able to express the source of my rage at that time. So I would just say my mom "mom! This story is so dumb I don’t like it, this is a book for babies! I love the images but pretty please, next time would you buy me a book for big kids my age?"

My mom was a wise and clever lady, thanks goodness. After that she started to buy me cooler stuff, always for kids two or three years bigger the age I had. Of course, maybe the fact that I learned to speak at 6 months old, and to read at 4 years old (thanks to my mom who patiently took her time to teach me both things, she is an extraordinary woman!) made me skip “the pleasure” of not knowing how to read for a long time and thus be able to enjoy these kiddies books with a lot of illustrations and a couple of paragraphs.

But it was true still, the stories for little kids were dull as hell. So when I was little I enjoyed a lot more reading books targeted for kids bigger than my age, because they were more interesting, and also because I adored to learn new words. And books for little kids had only the words I already knew, and the authors used the same words over and over and over! So much that it was boring as hell! XD

So that’s why I enjoyed “big kids books”. When I was 7 I read “Vingt mille lieues sous les mers” by Jules Verne, in spanish version of course. And afer that, I read a lot of other books. My second book was Harry Potter, when I was 10 or so if I remember well. I also read a few short stories by Allan Poe. And there was one book I don’t remember the name, but it was at my elementary school library, it was about a school where all teachers were vampires.That was a cool one.

And I treated that dictionary like my favorite toy when I was a kid, because every time I found a new word I didn’t know, I knew I could always trust on it to look up to the words I didn't know, and know their meaning.

And have the incomparable, ecstaticly delightful pleasure of LEARNING NEW WORDS and adding them to my vocabulary! Which until today, it’s still one of my greatest pleasures, though it doesn’t happens as often as it was when I was a kid, but when it happens, it’s still as cool as it was when I was a kid.

And after that, I used to use that one word again and again for a good while so I could store in my mind. Which exhasperated my parents sometimes, now that I see it in retrospective...so I guess this is why they’d say “honey I know you love that new word a lot, but could you stop saying “overwhelming" just for one minute?”

I was considered a weird kiddo by the kids my age. LOL I guess its because of that they thought it was boring to hang out with me at school...

But well sorry I got carried away. So back to my point. When growing up I also used to read books to my brother, then my sister and my other brother that were born later. And while they didn’t know how to read (well, my brother who was born after me started to read at 5 years old, but for bed time stories he preferred that I should be the one who read *chuckles*) whenever they’d heard me reading a new word they didn’t know, they’d go all excited and ask me what it meant, and then I’d go and look up in my faithful larousse and tell them what it meant.

And they they thought I was the coolest older sister. And had these vivid and sparkling eyes, and huge smiles in their faces, that I still remember in nowadays. They had that look in their faces, like if they just had received what they wanted for Christmas.

And that,

That was awesome!

So, I’m not telling you to write a play worthy of shakespeare for little kids either. You can still write a kids book with a few paragraphs of text and cool illustrations.

But I mean. Don't make the mistake to think they’re stupid, or lower in intelligence.

Don't insult their intelligence with insipid and dull stories. Write a well developped story with intrigue, action, adventure, and well constructed characters! And for 5 years old kiddos and up, you can go and risk yourself a bit more and, if you know words as “exhasperated”, “overwhelming” “vicissitudes“, that you like and you think are cool, go ahead and write them in your book. Even if it’s only one or two of them at a time.

But don't refrain yourself from writting a cool story with good narration in fear kids will not like it or will not understand new words, because honest to God I tell you, they will adore it!

I'd even bet my drawing hand for that. I’d cut my drawing hand if that’s not true, because I’m sure it's true, if you do this, Kids will love it!

I think, if you want an example of great children books writters or comic makers, I’d say you should take an eye to the work of @47ness and @jenniferstolzer

I think I would have loved to be a kid nowadays to read their work, because I’d have loved to have better reading experiences as a little kid. But the coolest thing about their work it’s that it’s so well done I can enjoy it even now as a grown up adult in her 30′s! :D

#writting advice #writters on tumblr #writting #oh god I cant state enough how dull were the kids books I read as a kid #my inner kid wanted me to write this #overwhelming is still one of my favorite words

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serasvictoria · 4 years ago

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5 Fanworks Meme

Rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 (ish) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and post or link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

Got tagged by @plavapticica (ages ago, I do apologise)

I tag @schreiberpablo (gifs!), @basilone (fic and gifs!) and @itstheheebiejeebies (wallpapers!). I’m not expecting anyone to do this by the way, not in the least because today is the last day of the year. It took me that long to decide to actually post this.

This is kinda difficult for me since the only writing I do nowadays is strictly for myself and I never share it, but I’ll bite. So the only thing I have to share are excerpts really. Or just the one in this case since I’m not particularly comfortable in sharing most of the crap that I write which is why it took me so long to post this.

I don’t think I’m a particularly good writer (trust me, I am well aware of my limitations) and the only writing that I even shared with others was for BBC’s Robin Hood (Allan, baby, those damn writers did you so wrong) and the last time that I wrote for an RP site was in 2012 so... long time ago. I also have a very hard time finishing things. During this batshit crazy year I finished a fic that I started writing almost 10 years ago. I shit you not.

So here, have an excerpt. And it would probably make sense if I posted something from earlier on the story, but I didn’t. Nothing I do makes sense basically. It’s just what I’m like.

Ronald Speirs (Band of Brothers)

Catherine headed outside, eyes immediately drawn towards the sky which was streaked pink, purple and blue as the sun set. When it was quiet and peaceful like this, she had to keep reminding herself that the only reason that she was even here to begin with was because there was a war on.

When she heard a lighter being lit to her left, she was momentarily startled. Looking to the side, she saw her CO sitting on the ground, leaning against the building.

“Admiring the sunset, sir?”

“Something like it.”

“Want some company?”

She took his silence as consent and sat down next to him, taking care not to invade his personal space too much. He produced a packet of cigarettes and held it out to her. She was well aware of the fact that he offered them to everyone just to see the terrified looks on their faces, but he never got one of those from her. She’d been accepting his smokes before the rumours surrounding him had even started so she could hardly stop taking them now, even if he would think nothing of it if she suddenly started refusing them. Besides, he hadn’t pulled a gun on her yet.

Looking ahead of her at the brilliant display that Mother Nature was putting on, she said, “It looks like a painting.”

“Does it?”

“Like Turner himself might have painted it.” She took a drag and added, “Sun Setting over a Lake.”

“No lake here, Taylor.”

“We’re not in Switzerland either.” When she looked at him, she found him staring at her questioningly. How he looked in the fading light took her breath away for a few seconds and made her think that some painters would have jumped on the chance to be able to paint him. “He liked to paint there.”

“How do you even know those things?”

“My father’s an art teacher. So I’ve been spoon-fed that kind of stuff ever since I was a kid.” She tapped on her temple before continuing, “My mind’s full of all kinds of useless information like that. Like Raphael being only 37 when he died. Or how Botticelli had initially trained as a goldsmith.”

“Who?”

“Sandro Botticelli. Italian Renaissance painter. The Birth of Venus?” The look on his face told her that he had no idea what she was talking about. “Naked blonde girl on top of a big shell?” Still nothing. “Bet if I showed you one of those pinup drawings from Esquire that you’d recognise those.”

“That’s different. I like those.”

“Philistine.”

He didn’t reply, merely offering a little half smile before turning his head to look at the sky again so she did the same. She smoked the rest of her cigarette in silence and kept sitting there until the brilliant display of colours was over and nothing but a small strip of red could be seen on the horizon as the sky above it gradually kept going darker.

She’d look at him out of the corner of her eye at times, but he hardly even seemed to notice her presence. He wasn’t really the talkative sort and she had to admit to herself that she quite liked that. If she wanted to talk complete and utter bullshit, she’d seek out one of the other guys. If she wanted silence, Speirs was her best bet. Though he did sometimes seem ever so slightly bewildered that she actively sought out his company at times, but she also expected that if he didn’t want her to sit with him that he’d tell her to fuck off and as long as he didn’t explicitly tell her that, she would continue sitting with him in silence like this.

#band of brothers #ronald speirs #fic

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borednwriting-blog · 5 years ago

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are you...?

will there be a time i won’t say gif’s not mine? probably not. and now again: gif is not mine!!!!!!!

author’s note: i just wanted to make some spidey gang fluff and peter kinda fluff too!!!! idk!!! i felt the need to write something and this felt right. took the “oh my god” .........from the prompt thingy...

warnings: i didn’t really have time to edit my writing so,,, be careful...

word count: 1686

Click. I turned around to look for the source of that sound, seeing a tall curly haired girl holding her camera at my direction. Looking at her confused, she gave me an apologetic expression. “Sorry, I like capturing people in distress.” I slowed down for her to reach me and laughed, “Is that what I look like?” now walking next to her, she gave me a playful grin and nodded, showing me the snapped picture she took of me. “Oh god, I look awful.” I practically snorted from laughter when I looked at the picture, my gaze wandering from one end to another, making my eyes look blurry with the black circles underneath them. She returned her camera to her bag and looked at me, “Michelle, friends call me MJ.” She put her hand out and I squeezed it a bit with my own. “(y/n). No nickname yet,” I giggled slightly, “I’d love to see more of your work, sure there must be lots of distressed people around here.” She chuckled and started describing around, where are my classes and who are the teachers, occasionally telling me who’s the best and who’s the worst and showing me her sketch book at lunch.

That’s how I met MJ, and now she has a very special place in my heart. Hearing her groan behind me, I looked at her as I held my plate. “A bowl of fruits? Again? Don’t you want to eat like, fries or something?” I rolled my eyes at her and grabbed a small plate of fries, purely for her to have some since doesn’t have enough place in her plate. Sitting at our usual table, MJ reading her book and I just surfed through social media, nothing better to do at lunch. To our right, there were two boys sitting, alone and staring at Liz Allan. “Too late, you guys are losers.” Hearing MJ letting that sentence out of her mouth brought my attention to the table, seeing their confused looks and Peters hand was slightly raised. “Is this about Liz again?” I asked the two boys and they nodded. Ned sighed and returned to eating his food, mumbling quietly, “when is it not about Liz?” seeing their hopelessly in love state, I looked at the girl they were drooling about, she is in fact very pretty, and incredibly nice, it’s not hard to understand their state. I looked over at MJ who had a small smirk at her as she went back to read her book and nudged her side. “Let them have their crush.” I took a bite from my strawberry and she stole a fry out of my plate, raising her eyebrow. “I’m letting everyone have their crush, more material for me to draw.” Her gaze found the words in her book again and I let her be, didn’t ask her what she meant.

Finishing the food, Peter and Ned joining our walk in the hallway towards our classes. “Are you guys prepared for finals?” Ned asked out of the blue, making me gasp. “Oh god, it’s next week!”. Feeling my breathing heavying and my palms sweating, I slammed my head against the closest locker. “Dude, chill.” MJ put her hand on my shoulder and chuckled, “you have a whole week, you’re fine.” She let her hand rest against my forehead so I wouldn’t slam it again. I turned around to look at her, “Well when you’re smart like yourself I wouldn’t worry too!” I was slightly yelling and coughed while looking at the students around passing. “If you guys don’t remember,” now I was barely whispering, eyes widening with quite annoyance, “I’m kinda dumb.” MJ put her palm against my forehead and slammed the back of my head against the locker, making me grunt in pain. “Maybe it will put some sense into that dumb brain of yours.”

“See? Dumb!” My hands were flying in the air and I saw peter chuckling and fixing his strap on his shoulder. Punching MJ on her shoulder, she stuck her tongue out at me and I rolled my eyes, walking down the hallway with them. “Trust me, it’s going to be alright.” She slapped my cheek lightly and smiled at me, I just hope she was right.

For the next week, I spent my nights at the library with no distraction, not even a phone. Couldn’t have anything distracting me from studying for these finals, not even the weird crack on the desk or he book far away that almost fell from the shelf. No, nothing could distract me. Walking towards the book, I took it in my hands only to meet a face, letting out a big yelp out of my lips. The person chuckled, making my breathing uneven as I settle the book back in its place. “So,” I heard footsteps coming to the direction of my isle, “what are you doing here so late?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around here.” My voice cracked, afraid of the strange man. He came close to me and his bright blue eyes were staring into my (y/e/c) ones like daggers, stabbing them without a pause. “Maybe it’s a perk.”

“Not when stranger danger exists.” He let out another chuckle, and I heard a loud stomp coming from behind us. “Yeah you heard the lady,” the man in tights approached us, the moonlight hitting his body softly and showing his spider suit, “stranger danger and all, now skedaddle.” He motioned with his hands for the person next to me to move, only for him to take out his gun and shoot towards spider-man and I let out a loud yell, falling onto the ground. “oh god, oh my god” I panted as I crawled to hide behind a shelf, trying to even calm myself down. Looking behind I saw spider-man webbing the bright eyed man and swinging probably towards my trembling figure.

“You good?” Scrunching down to put a hand on my shoulder, I look at him, my eyes wide. “I have finals tomorrow,” I shook my head from panic and tried to stand up, “I can’t be here, you enjoy webbing his ass down, it was nice seeing you.”

“You need to calm down.” He saw me standing up and fixing my shirt, making my way to my books, shaking. “I am very calm Mr. Spider-Man.” I took my books and looked at the unconscious man on our left, reliving what just happened in this library. “You sure you’re alright?” His voice was tender, having a sense of familiarity in it as I looked at the mess around us, the poor librarian. “Y-Yeah.”

I turned to look at him, he was also breathing heavily, probably from all the physical fighting that happened not long ago, hand on my shoulders and his gaze was directly on mine. My throat itched for a cough and I obliged, walking towards the exit. He was behind me and stopped to look at the webbed person, as I went on. Turning around, he took his phone out and typed a number, “Thank you.” His gaze shifted towards mine and he nodded, answering to the person on the other line. Leaving the building finally, I started jogging towards my house.

The whole week was spent with studying, and I felt like I should study every second I have even now, at 10 PM, but even without some kind of electronic device distracting me, my mind was full of thoughts that weren’t about the finals at all, and some might say it wasn’t good considering finals were tomorrow.

Waking up from a sleepless night, I rushed down to school, hyperventilating with every step I take. Stepping into the school ground and opening the doors, seeing hundreds of students rushing to their locker and pushing me side to side. One figure stood in front of me, waving their hands in front of my face. Looking up, I saw Peter’s concerned expression, brows frowned as he asked me if I was okay.

“I-“ Could barely let out a sentence out of my mouth. No, couldn’t even let out a word, my mouth was drying up with every heavy breath I take in from wherever I can, trying to get some air in my lungs. Holding my chest and panting, Peter not knowing what to do. He took my trembling body, remembering the events of last night, and guided me towards an empty locker room. Falling down on a bench, he let go of his bag and held my shoulders with both of his hands.

“(y/n),” he tried to shake me a bit, not knowing what else to do, “breathe with me.” He let out a deep breath and took in a deep one, seeing my frowned expression as I couldn’t manage to do that. “You need to calm down, breathe with me.” I looked at him with wide eyes when he said that, breathing still on even and hand on my chest, as if I holding myself from crumbling apart right in front of him. “I- what?”

“need to breathe with me, calm down, what do I do?” he started to panic slightly with me. Not wanting to make anything worse, making me choke on any more air because of anything he does. I looked at him as he was trying to figure out what to do, as I was figuring out why him saying that felt so familiar, maybe it was some kind of deja-vu. But it felt like it happened, not long ago, like yesterday someone was trying to calm me down, but it was impossible since I was alone with the books all day—wait.

My breathing hitched as I looked at him, his arms, sitting posture and his face again. That sudden stare freaked him out and he just returned the look, I took deep breaths and leant against his grasp. “Are you,” he took his hands off my shoulders and quirked an eyebrow, “Okay?” he was fuddled with the sudden change of emotions, and I just looked at him before asking.

“Are you spider-man?”

**************

that’s it. maybe i’ll continue. maybe i won’t. tnx

#peter parker imagine #peter parker x reader #spiderman imagine #marvel imagine

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hypnosthemindmaster · 5 years ago

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Weekend Away

Alan and Elizabeth sat talking as they had a drink on their balcony, taking in the surprisingly cool summer evening.

"Alan, it's been so long since we've gotten away for a few days. With the long holiday weekend coming up, what do you think about driving in to the city for the weekend?"

"That'll be to expensive for us Elizabeth. Especially trying to find a room this late, its already Thursday."

"Actually I was using this new app a friend mine told me about," Elizabeth replied as she reached for her tablet. "The app has ads, I usually just ignore them but one caught my eye," she continued as she unlocked the tablet. "Check this out," she said as she handed the tablet to him.

Allan reluctantly took the tablet and looked at the screen. The website was one of those bargain hotel sites with an ad for a new resort about 4 hours west of where they lived. They were offering a multi-room suite for only $75 a night. "You know this is a scam right? They can't afford to rent that room for that price."

"Actually it's totally legit. I called the hotel directly and talked to the manager. They're new and trying to get the word out with how competitive the market is it has been hard to draw from other places. So they're putting this rate out there on the discount sites to put them ahead of the competition and get extra attention."

"You're serious?"

"I already booked the room, checkin is noon. We leave first thing in the morning."

"You're serious aren't you?"

"My bags are already packed, I started a bag for you of the basics necessities. All you have to do is pick out a couple shirts and a couple pairs of pants. I've already got swimwear for both of us in my bag."

Alan couldn't believe what he was hearing, but he knew her well enough to know she wasn't bluffing. "Then I better for finish my bag I guess," he replied before finishing his drink and heading inside.

As the balcony door closed behind him, Elizabeth opened the new app on her tablet, clicked a few keystrokes and closed the app. Then she got up and headed inside to help her husband pack.

With the long drive in the morning, the couple went to bed early. Alan curled up around his wife and whispered, "How did I get so lucky?" before closing his eyes and they drifted off to sleep.

In the morning he awoke to find Elizabeth already dressed and doing her makeup. "You get dressed and take the bags down to the car. I'll make us a quick breakfast before we head out," she said as she closed the last of her makeup containers and got up from the tablet.

Alan took a quick shower and dressed in a polo shirt and jeans, he had just returned from the garage when Elizabeth announced that breakfast was ready. He walked in to the kitchen to find a plate sat out for him of eggs, toast and bacon along with a mug of coffee sitting at his place on the breakfast bar in their kitchen. They sat and discussed things they could do while they were away for the weekend as they ate. They made a small list of things to try to so but decided it would be more fun to try to let the weekend happen rather than over schedule it and get frustrated if problems arose.

The drive to the resort was pretty uneventful, Elizabeth had connected her tablet to the car hotspot and was looking up shows in the area. "There's a couple of shows at the resort that look interesting, one is a magician and another is a ventriloquist. They don't do advanced tickets though so we will have to take our chances."

"Are they expensive? "

"$40 a seat for general admission, it goes up if we want reserved seating."

"We'll see what the lines are like."

"Sounds good Honey."

They grabbed a quick lunch when they hit town and headed to the resort to check in.

The desk clerk gave them a full schedule of the amenities and events. When the clerk saw that their room had been booked through the app ad she also gave them a card for a discount to attend the shows and restaurants. She handed them their key cards and said, "Enjoy your stay in the Castle Suite, its #69 on the top floor. If your phones have NFC chips in them, there is a reader in the living room by the tv. Make sure your NFC chip is on and set your phone on the reader and it will setup the locks to be opened with your phones as well as the card keys."

"Castle Suite?"

"One of the things about the deal was we didn't get to pick our room theme, they just assigned us one that was available," Elizabeth explained as they made their way to the elevators. "I would have had one of the others but this should still be fun," she added as they got on the elevator.

They discussed ideas as they rode the elevator. They decided to change into their swimsuits and check out the pools for a couple hours, then explore the hotel. Elizabeth went to the bedroom area to change while Alan went and changed in the bathroom. Elizabeth came back out of the bedroom wrapped in a wet look black one piece swimsuit as Alan emerged from the bathroom in his loose knee length trunks and a t-shirt.

"Maybe we should skip the pool," Alan said as he walked over and started rubbing his hands on the smooth fabric.

"As good as that feels, we'll have time for that later Honey," Elizabeth said as she slipped out of his grip and pulled a white t-shirt on over her suit. "I want to go enjoy the pool."

"Fine," Alan said as they each grabbed a key card for the room and headed for the pool.

As Alan closed the room door Elizabeth reached into the neck of her t-shirt and tucked her key card into the cleavage of her swimsuit. "If you're good, I'll let you retrieve my key when we get back to the room," Elizabeth said as they approached the elevators. "With one condition of course," she added as the elevator doors opened.

"What condition?" Alan asked as they got on the elevator.

"No using your hands of course," Elizabeth pretended to whisper in his ear but made sure she was still loud enough to be heard by the rest of the people in the elevator. She failed to stifle a giggle as she saw his face turning bright red.

About that time the elevator stopped and some more people got on the elevator so Elizabeth behaved herself for the rest of the ride down to the pool area.

Alan was sore from the car ride so he headed to the hot tub to relax, Elizabeth went to try out a few of the water slides. As he soaked and watched Elizabeth he noticed that the slides were causing her suit to ride up, allowing the folds of her womanhood to be seen through the thin fabric. A couple of guys on the ladder to the top of the next slide seemed to be enjoying the view as they followed her at a distance up the ladder. As they reached the top of the stairs the two men grabbed Elizabeth and pulled her to the floor of the platform. Alan was shocked to see the lifeguard doing nothing about this as Elizabeth called for help. He tried to move but his body was frozen. It wasn't long before he saw her suit, which looked like it had been ripped in several places was thrown from the top of the platform. Why wasn't anyone doing anything to stop this he was thinking as he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Honey, are you alright?"

He turned to see Elizabeth with her hand on his shoulder and still wearing her swimsuit kneeling beside him with a worried expression on her face. "Yeah, I'm fine," he said as he couldn't believe it had been a daydream, it was so vivid. "Why?"

"I got worried you'd been in here to long. I tried waving at you from the top of the slide but you just stared blankly at me."

"Sorry, I was lost in thought," Alan said as he got out of the tub. "Let's go get something to drink," Alan said as he turned and headed for the drink bar at the edge of the pool area. The each got a bottle of sparkling water and sat at a table in the corner. They talked about how relaxing the afternoon had already been and thoughts for the evening as they enjoyed their drinks.

As they finished up and were dropping the empty bottles into the recycling Elizabeth spoke, "Why don't you get us each one more while I grab our shirts. We can take them up to the room and relax for a bit before dinner. I want to look at those discounts they gave up."

"Sounds good," Alan said as he watched her walking away, enjoying the view of her derriere in the skin tight fabric of her suit. She was half way to their shirts before he snapped himself out of it and went to the bar to get a couple more waters.

He handed the bottles to Elizabeth upon her return and took his shirt, pulling it on. She reached over and took his hand as they walked to the elevators. She didn't let it go until they were back in the room.

"Why don't you slip out of that wet suit, then see if you can find something to watch on tv. I'm going to take a quick shower so my hair can dry before dinner," Elizabeth said as she pulled her arms into her shirt.

Alan slipped out of his trunks and pulled off his t-shirt, tossing them in the bathroom. He wrapped himself in a towel before heading to the living room area of the suite.

As he picked up the remote and sat in the recliner he saw Elizabeth coming back out of the bedroom. She was still dressed in the t- shirt she'd worn as a cover up, her swimsuit was in her left hand and she was had dry clothes draped over her right arm.

"I figured it was easiest to just get dressed for dinner when I'm done with my shower," Elizabeth said as she headed into the bathroom and shut the door. It was almost 40 minutes later when she emerged from the bathroom and said, "Your turn Sweety."

"Sounds good Honey," Alan said as he got up and turned toward the bathroom. He almost dropped his towel as he took in the site in front of him.

"I take it you like?" Elizabeth asked as she did a slow twirl for her husband. She was wearing 3 inch heels, her legs were wrapped in sheer nylon stockings that disappeared under a knee length black skirt that was set off by a red belt that matched the cotton blouse she had on.

"Very much," Alan said as he approached her. "Maybe we should skip dinner," he added giving her a playful wink.

Elizabeth looked at her watch and said, "We'll have time for that later. Go take a shower and get dressed, I laid an outfit out for you on the bed. I'm hungry."

"It'll have to be a cold shower now," Alan said, giving her derriere a squeeze as he walked past her and into the bathroom. He emerged a short time later to see Elizabeth relaxing in the recliner with her ear buds in. "What are you doing?" he asked as he headed for the bedroom.

"Listening to that new app while you get ready," she said in a voice that sounded like she was half asleep.

Alan headed into the bedroom and found the outfit she'd laid out for him. Alan dresses in the clothes she'd laid out. He usually wasn't one for coordinating outfits but he had to admit that his wife had great taste. He was in a pair of black khakis, with a matching belt and a red polo shirt. He slipped on his black dress shoes and headed out to the livingroom are to join Elizabeth who still had her earbuds in and looked like she was asleep.

As he walked over to check on her she opened her eyes and stretched. " Oh that felt good," Elizabeth said as she removed the earbuds from her ears. "You look great Alan," Elizabeth said as she put her earbuds back in the case and dropped it in her purse.

"Thanks, so what felt great?"

"Remember the app I mentioned where I saw the ad for this place?"

"Yeah, what about it"

"It's a relaxation app, it is pretty sweet. Listening to it can make a person feel like they've been asleep for hours. It can be a great pick me," E lizabeth said as she dropped her phone in her purse.

"Oh," was the only response Alan could come up with.

"You look great Sir," Elizabeth said as she leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Let's go check this place out and get some dinner," Elizabeth said as she wrapped her arm in his and gently nudged him toward the door.

"Sounds good," Alan said as he grabbed their key cards on the way to the door.

Elizabeth seemed to be slightly distracted to Allen as they made their way around the impressive complex. They'd seen several shows that looked interesting but the resort had a policy of not selling tickets more than 30 minutes before a show, regardless of the performer. They had this policy to combat the problem most other venues in the area had with scalpers, with such a limited window between tickets going on sale and the start of the shows it was just to risky for them.

The couple saw some possibilities they wanted to check out as the showtimes got closer, they were discussing options when they came across a restaurant called The Cove that seemed to be set apart from the rest of the food establishments. The place seemed quiet and cozy so Elizabeth pushed Alan to check it out.

As they entered they were greeted by a woman that seemed to be in her mid 20s and was dressed in a black dress that hugged her almost like a second skin. The skirt around her legs prevented her from talking much more than an 18 inch stride, which caused her to appear to almost glide across the floor a she approached them and said, "Welcome to the cove, I'm Alexis. Will it just be the two of you tonight?"

"Yes, and if it matters we were given this at checkin," Elizabeth said as she showed the Alexis the discount card.

Alan felt a chill at the grin Alexis gave at the site of the card. He couldn't be sure because her head didn't move but he could have sworn he saw Alexis looking Elizabeth up and down with her eyes as she smiled and said, "Actually that does get you a 15% discount on your bill as well as you get free access to one of our more private seating areas." She grabbed a couple of menus and lead them toward some alcoves near the back of the restaurant. "Here you go," she said as she laid the menus on the table and pulled out one of the chains. "For the lady," she said, bowing her head slightly and offering her hand to Elizabeth.

"Thank you," Elizabeth said as she took it and sat down.

The hostess helped her slide the chain in before moving to the opposite side of the table and pulling out a second chair. "For you Master," she said as she again bowed her head and held out her hand, palm up this time.

Alan reluctantly took her hand and sat down. "Ah, Thank you," he said as the hostess slid his chair in as well.

She picked up the menus, turned to Alan and asked, "does she need a menu or will Master be ordering for both of you?"

Alan starred at her in disbelief for a second. Before he could respond though Elizabeth spoke up. Keeping her head bowed she said, "I don't need a menu, Master will be ordering for me."

"Excellent, she's well trained," the hostess responded, handing him a menu and gliding away before Alan could say anything.

"What was that about?" Alan asked.

"I don't know, they seem to have some kind of dominance theme going on here," Elizabeth replied. "Did you notice anything odd about the Hostess?"

"Besides the fact that I don't think they could have painted that dress on her any tighter you mean? She could barely take a stride in that thing."

"You're close but not quite. That material stretches well, I have a few pieces of clothing of the same material. That wasn't what was limiting her strides." Alan just starred at her so she continued, "I thought I heard a jingle like sound as we were walking to the table but I wasn't sure where it was comming from. So when she was walking away I took a look at her feet and that's when I saw it."

"Saw what?"

'There's some kind of chain between her ankles, I think she's wearing some kind of ankle cuffs."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. So when you combine that with her calling you Master, and then her asking if I'll need a menu or if you'll be ordering for me it just made sense. This place has some kind of dominance/bondage theme going on. I thought it could be fun to play along, that's why I said that you could order for me."

Alan wasn't sure what to make of this but decided it wasn't worth arguing about so he picked up the menu and began to scan it's pages. He wasn't quite sure what to order when he spotted her favorite. Having already picked out his own meal, he closed the menu and laid it back on the table. They talked until their waitress came. As she approached the table Alan noticed that she seemed to float across the floor just like the hostess did so he looked down. He couldn't be sure but he was fairly certain he saw a chain between her feet as well. He'd considered just saying their orders but inspiration struck as she approached the table so he waived the waitress in close. When she leaned in he whispered the order to her.

The waitress punched things in on a tablet as Alan spoke. When he finished the waitress stood and said, "Excellent choices Sir, will there be anything else?"

"That will be all."

As the waitress turned to walk away, Alan heard a very faint chain jingle and he confirmed his wife was right about the theme.

"So what did you order me?"

Elizabeth felt a surprising tingle down her spine as Alan responded, "You'll have to wait and see Slave." She was surprised to see him getting that into character. While they'd never experimented with that kind of thing in their relationship, nor had she done that with any of her previous boyfriends Elizabeth couldn't deny the tingles it was causing all over her body.

Their conversation returned mostly to normal as they discussed ideas for the weekend while they waited for their food. They were interrupted once by the waitress bringing their beverages, but otherwise it was a great conversation.

Elizabeth felt a shiver of anticipation as the waitress approached them with their food. The tray was set on a table behind her so she couldn't see what he had ordered either of them. The waitress brought Alan his food first, a sirloin steak and a baked potato. The shiver intensified as the waitress glided behind Elizabeth to retrieve the rest of the meal. The anticipation grew even more when instead of bringing her meal the waitress returned with a small tray of steak sauce cups and topping options for his baked potato. Her eyes grew wide insuprise as the waitress returned with a plate of grilled chicken and broccoli cheese pasta and placed it in front of Elizabeth.

As she stared at her meal the waitress turned to Alan and asked, "Will there be anything else?"

"That will be all, you may go."

"You're getting into this aren't you?" Elizabeth asked, flashing Alan a grin as the waitress walked away.

"Its not exactly my thing, but it's fun for something different," Alan replied as he started to cut his steak.

The two of them ate mostly in silence. They finished up their meal and theit plates had just been cleared when a man wearing a black suit and glasses approached the table. As he came to a stop next to their table Elizabeth felt a shiver travel up her entire body, as it faded she realized that she couldn't move from the neck down.

"Greetings, my name is Mr. Smith. I'm the owner of the resort. How was your meal?"

"Very good, thank you," Alan replied. "Its quite the place you have here."

"I'm glad you like it, mind if I sit down?"

"Go ahead," Alan replied as he gestured towards the open chair.

Elizabeth felt a stirring in her hips as the man sat down. Something just felt wrong about all of this, she tried to object but found her lips wouldn't move.

"Thank you," he said as he took a seat. "The hostess mentioned the card your wife showed when you arrived tonight."

"Its no big deal, just something they gave us at the front desk when we checked in," Alan responded.

"Actually it's more than just some card. The ad that offers that package only runs in one place. It's an ad that's part of a relaxation app I wrote a few years ago. This is the first time someone has booked a stay with us through that ad so as a taken of my appreciation I've decided to comp your check for tonight. Your dinner is on the house."

"That's extremely generous of you Sir, Thank you," Alan said as he reached out to shake the man's hand.

Elizabeth didn't know why but something about this scene made her want to scream "stop, don't do it" as their hands came together but her mouth wouldn't respond. She just sat their watching as her husband's hand slowly gripped Mr. Smith's hand and shook it.

"You're welcome you idiot," Mr Smith said with an evil grin as he saw the shocked expression semi frozen on Alan's face. He lowered Alan's hand back to the surface of the table and released it. "Much better, this goes so much easier this way," he added as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic bag. He opened the bag and dropped the gloves he'd been wearing into it and sealed it. "I gave you a mild neural inhibitor, the effects will wear off in about 15 minutes." He turned to face Elizabeth and said, "I need to talk with your husband privately so I need you to sleep."

Elizabeth suddenly felt all the energy drain from her body, she was barely able to get her arms folded and lay her head down on her hands before everything went black.

Satisfied that she was out of the way, he turned back to face Alan and said, "That's better. Are you still able to blink?"

Alan wasn't sure what was happening but he tried to move his eyes and found that he could still blink.

"Very good, now blink once if your wife has mentioned the relaxation app shed been using lately."

Alan gave him a slow blink.

"Very good," Mr Smith said, giving an evil grin that make Alan extremely uncomfortable. "As you can guess it is more than a simple relaxation app. Its actually designed to hypnotize the listener and plant basic suggestions in their minds that slowly enslave them." He turned to face the sleeping Elizabeth and said, "your wife is an excellent subject by the way. Less than 3% of the app users surrender at all and are actually enslaved, most just find it extremely relaxing and the hypnosis doesn't do anything for them."

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and showed me a short video my wife chanting, "I am your servant Master, I live to serve, use my body for your pleasure."

How did he get that video of her I wondered as I watched it. Looking at the video though I couldn't deny how hot she looked and even in my paralyzed state i felt myself getting hard from the image of her like that.

"She gave me the passwords to your computers and I've been snooping through your files for a while," he explained as he closed the video. "From there it was easy to get unrestricted access to all of your electronic devices," he continued as he pulled a different phone from his pocket, this one looked identical to mine. "Let me show you proof," he said as he unlocked the phone and opened a file browser. "Recognize these?" he asked with a wicked grin that made me want to wince. That was the least of my worries as he turned the screen to face me and I felt the blood drain from my face. The screen was showing the contents of what was supposed to be a secure folder on my personal phone, a folder absolutely noone knew about. "Judging by the lack of color in your face you do, am I right? Blink once for yes."

I gave him one slow blink as I continued to stare at the screen in shock. This folder contained all of the stories I'd downloaded from the net, stories I didn't want anyone else to see but that was minor compared to what he did next. He opened a password protected document file that almost caused me to faint. It was the document that I used to write my own fantasies down in, fantasies about my wife and several women we knew. Some of these fantasies made the other stories seem tame by comparison. They were all fantasies of my wife being controlled by other men. Even my wife didn't know about these fantasies, if the contents of this file got out I would be ruined. Not only would my wife leave me but it would be a severe violation of the ethics clause in my employment contract and any violations of that clause meant immediate termination.

"Now that you're grasping the situation better I'm betting you want to know what I want to make this go away, don't you?"

I gave him one slow blink, figuring that was the way he'd had me say yes in the past.

"Very good but let's start with the simple part first. I have a very basic set of demands. If you agree to them, your secrets stay hidden. If you defy me or don't follow all of the demands to their fullest, your wife and your employer will receive copies of everything saved on your phone. Do you understand? "

I blinked that I did.

"Good then here are the list of demands, I'll go through them one by one for you to make it easier for you to agree. 1st you're not allowed to leave the resort grounds for the rest of your visit here, I know you're booked through Monday morning. Do you agree to that?"

I wasn't planning on going anywhere anyway so I blinked once.

"You are forbidden from contacting anyone about what is happening in any way. If you even make an attempt the files will be released. I configured my clone of your phone to perfectly mirror your phone. I'll see every text or email message you send or receive. It is also configured for me to hear every phone call you make, my phone even has the ability to block incoming or out going calls from getting through to your phone. Do you understand? "

I gave him another slow blink to accept the condition. I was getting very worried about what his next condition when he spoke again.

"Your wife will be coming with me for the remainder of your stay here so I can continue to program and play with her however I want. If you're a good boy and follow the rules she'll be returned to you before your checkout time on Monday. When she is returned to you she won't remember anything that happened other than she had a great time. Do you understand? "

*Blink *

"Good, so do you agree to my terms?"

I didn't move, he had to be bluffing. There had to be a way out of this, I just needed to stall until the drug wore off. Sadly those hopes were quickly dashed by what he did next.

He opened my email on my phone and started a new message. He addressed the message to everyone in my contact list. He then attached my journal file to the message, then typed this in the body of the message:

You all need to read the attached file. I've been hiding a part of my life from you for to long. This document will explain everything. " he then gave them the password to open the attached file.

With that done he turned back to me and said, "You have a choice to make. In a moment I'm going to ask you a question and you'll have to decide between two choices. You'll tell me your choice by blinking once to pick choice one and you'll blink twice if you choose option two. Give me a single blink if you understand."

I didn't have much choice given my current situation so I responded with a single slow blink.

"Very good, now here are your choices. Choice number one, I hit send on this email and wake your wife as I'm walking away. She's been programmed that if this happens she'll ignore that your frozen and check her email. She will have plenty of time to read through enough of the file to be seriously pissed off at you before the drugs keeping you paralyzed wear off. Your second choices is you allow me to take your wife with me and use her however I want for the rest of the weekend. You will tell noone about what has happened and go about your weekend as if nothing happened. When I'm through having my fun with her, she'll be returned to you until I decide to summon her again. Give me another single blink if you understand these choices."

With no other choice, I gave him a single blink to acknowledge that I unfortunately understood the choices he was giving me.

Showing me that he still had the email up on his screen he turned to me and said, "Then make your decision now."

I just sat there and glared at him, he had to be bluffing. A look of frustration grew on his face which offered me hope that he was bluffing, until he spoke again.

"I see you're trying to play with me, you must think I'm bluffing or something dumb like that so let me be clear," he said as he moved his finger over the send button. "I'm going to count to three, if you haven't made your choice before I reach three, it will be a default to choice one and I'll hit send." He took a deep breath before saying, "one." He took another deep breath and said, "two."

He took another deep breath and started moving his finger towards the send button before Alan caved and gave him two blinks.

"I actually thought you were going to let me send the message," he said with an evil chuckle as he pulled his finger away from the button. "You made a wise choice," he said as he turned the clone phone off and put it in his pocket. "I'll take good care of her," he said as he reached over and tapped Elizabeth on the back of her neck three times.

She slowly sat up in her chair. Her eyelids fluttered a few times as she said in a monotone voice, "bootup sequence engaged, running diagnostics." She sat basically motionless for a few seconds before her eyes slowly opened. When they finally did it was a little freaky, they didn't have their usual life to them. She just looked straight ahead with a cold, blank stare for a few seconds. It was at least a full minute after her eyes opened before she spoke, "Fembot unit E44D is online, all systems are operating within normal parameters. How may unit E44D serve you Master?"

He got up and moved around to her side of the table. Taking hold of the back of her chair he said, "Stand up."

"Affirmative," she replied as he helped her slide her chair back and she rose to her feet.

"Follow me," he said as he turned and started to walk away.

Alan watched helplessly as Elizabeth followed him out of his line of sight. Frozen as he was, he had no real sense of how much time had passed before he felt his ability to move returning to him. The first thing he did was to grab his phone and try to call 911 to report Elizabeth's kidnapping, his heart sank when he got an error message on the screen that read:

That number has been blocked on this phone for the duration of your stay here. DO NOT attempt to call it again or you will face discipline.

"SHIT!" he exclaimed as the message faded off the screen. He tried to search for the direct line to the local police department when he received another warning:

Unable to display search results, you are not authorized to have this information. Cease all further attempts to interfere or else. This is your only warning.

This time there was a thumbnail image in the bottom of the screen, Alan nervously clicked on it. He almost dropped his phone in shock as the picture enlarged to fill the screen. It was an animated gif image of Elizabeth, she was kneeling over the leg of a hooded character. The hooded character lifted her skirt out of the way to expose her beautiful backside. He then raised his hand high into the air and held it there a few seconds. He suddenly brought his hand quickly down towards her but Elizabeth didn't move. The hand stopped mere inches before it made contact. The image faded to black as Elizabeth slowly stood up. The last couple seconds of the gif were simply the words "next time he won't stop the swing" before the image and the warning disappeared from his screen.

Alan reluctantly returned to his room to think of another way to get even.

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sick-raven · 5 years ago

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Ghosts of the Past - Chapter 8

Chapter 1 + warnings

AO3

Previous chapter

Chapter 8

Life was going well. Work was great. Jonathan was good to her. He didn’t even make rude comment when lending her his Edgar Allan Poe collection. They never officially said anything about their relationship. There was something and they didn’t name it. Miranda thought about it as two broken people licking each other’s wounds.

Things were good.

So why did this happen?

Maybe… No… but maybe… All was good… So why would he?

She was sitting in the hall of her flat. Crawled in the corner, phone in her hand, stared at it. She could ruin all these good things with one question. But she had to make sure. Final touch to the doom. Final nail to her coffin.

She called Jonathan.

“I don’t have time now, Miranda, I am working,” he greeted her.

“One question.”

“Hm?”

“Are you giving me something?”

Silence on his side. She made him angry. She knew it.

“Nothing you don’t know about.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“Are you okay?”

She turned her phone off. It wasn’t his doing.

The room was black as shadows devoured it. Their tendril grew closer to her and soon they will get her too.

***

Miranda stood on the edge of the roof and she looked down. The lights of cars were running through the streets like some colourful game of Pacman. The sound carried through the air. Gotham was so noisy. Would anyone hear her scream?

“Miranda?”

Somehow, she knew he will find her here. Somehow, she hoped he will, but it angered her nonetheless. She looked over her shoulder to acknowledge him. Batman stood there ready to jump after her, if she made that one step into nothingness.

“Hey B, what’s up?” she giggled.

“Are you high?” he asked surprised.

She looked down at the pavement and back at him. “About ten floors.”

“Miranda, this is not you. Step down, please.”

“What do you know,” she hissed annoyed.

“It’s the drugs making you do things.”

“Are you going to blame Jonathan again?”

“Step down.”

She turned on one leg, nearly lost her balance, then stepped down the rail. Walked to him, throwing her arms. “Happy? That you moved the inevitable for a minute?”

“You need to stop…”

“What? Seeing Jonathan?”

“Miranda…”

“Will you school me about danger again? I’m not the clown, Bruce! It’s not the same!”

“Okay,” he resigned. “Tell me.”

She fell quiet from surprise. She scratched her head. Tell him? All? She never told the truth. But she will be dead soon. At least here she can be sincere. She sat at AC.

“I’ve been seeing ghosts for over a decade now. The charm kept them at bay. I figured I was crazy. I visited every expert in existence. Schizophrenia professional. Split personality doctor. Anxiety shrink. Whatever you imagine, I was probably there. I did all in my power to get rid of the ghosts to no avail.

So, three years ago, I decided I’ve had enough. Just make sure your charm is safe, Miranda. I could live with that. It’s like a handicap. I am pretty much carrying a bomb around that can kill me. But people live with worse, you know?”

She played with the necklace, dinging silently.

“And then I started to notice them. The shadows. I tried to rationalize them. They are the League. They try to kill me. I made them up. I keep seeing normal things and overreacting. You know? But deep down I knew it’s not true. Deep down, little Miranda was screaming at me to fix this. So, I found another professional and moved to Gotham.

See, Jonathan Crane didn’t make me this. I was this before I came here. He didn’t make me worse, the decay just caught up with me. I never really believed he can help me, you know? But I hoped. Maybe his drugs will melt some part of my brain. Fry me hard and make the ghosts disappear by accident. And if not… Hey, at least my body is useful for science.”

She rubbed her eyes. “It’s not the same. This is not – I would leave if I wanted – situation. This is – I see no reason to stop – situation. Nothing can fix me. But at least I am still doing things, trying to enjoy life. And if I kill the ghosts by accident in the process, who can blame me for being a good pet?”

“Miranda…” Batman sighed and sat next to her as if they were old friends. “You are still in very bad place.”

“Tell me about it,” she laughed. “No, I like Crane. But I will die soon. I might as well rip myself out before I start to suffer.”

“I know someone who might be able to help,” he suggested.

“Please, don’t say magic.”

He kept quiet.

“Oh my god! It’s not magic!”

“Do you have anything to lose at this point?”

“My dignity!” He looked at her. “Shut up, I know,” Miranda snapped. Then she sighed. “What’s his name?”

“John Constantine.”

***

They found John Constantine gambling in New York bar. Cards in one hand, cigarette in the other, shit-eating grin on his face. He was winning this round just like every round before that.

“Sorry, lads, looks like I won again. New round?”

“Forget it,” grumbled his opponents.

“I’d like to play.”

“Bloody hell, it’s the Bat!” Constantine drank his whiskey in one gulp. “What do you and the nice lass want?”

Miranda couldn’t see any way this man could help her. He looked like a mess. Blond hair that didn’t see brush for days. Trench coat and red tie made him look like some sort of exhibitionist ready to run wild in a park.

“He said you could help me with ghosts,” Miranda said.

“Try psychologist, love.”

“Been there, done that.”

Constantine puffed cigarette smoke with no indication he cares. Miranda was just about to ready to turn and walk out.

“Ever heard of survival curse?” asked Batman for her.

“Might have. What’s in it for you?”

“She is cursed.”

Constantine looked at her. “Nah, she ain’t. She would have them crawl all over her.”

Miranda grew angry. Would she now? She does! They are here! “If I die it’s on you,” she grumbled and took down the charm. She left it on the table.

She lost her breath immediately.

“Bloody hell take it back!” shouted Constantine and forced the charm in her hand. She gasped for air. “I haven’t seen it this big yet.”

“Can you help?” asked Batman.

“I don’t know. Let’s go.”

“I will leave you to it, I need to get back to Gotham.”

“Say hi to Nightwing for me,” grinned Constantine, but Batman was gone already. “Creepy, isn’t he?”

“I can see him go. It’s stupid when you know what to look for,” shrugged Miranda.

Constantine’s lair – yes, it was a lair, it looked like basement vault mixed with museum of curiosities – was surprisingly warm and welcoming. “Don’t touch anything, one curse is enough,” he warned her as they passed several objects. She could only guess what they were used for.

“So magic is real, huh?” she whispered to herself.

“I’m afraid so, pet. It’s dangerous thing. I would recommend not playing with it.”

“Too late.”

“Sit down.” There was a space between all the things. The ground was clean concrete. Constantine took a chalk out of drawer. “For how long are you cursed?”

“It will be eleven years soon.”

He looked at her shock in his eyes. “Eleven? That’s impossible.”

“Thank you.”

“How did you… Let me guess. The bell,” he pointed at her charm. “Your ghosts must be pissed off as hell for letting them wait so long.”

“Yes, and yes.”

“Where did you get it?

Her time was coming. She remembered stumbling, blinded by ghosts, constantly feeling them grabbing at her heart prepared to squeeze the life of it. She shuffled through market full of spices and sweets without taste. A man has seen her, took her hand and led her to a side street. She was so blinded she didn’t even realize the danger. But he took her to a shop not unlike this hideout. The owner saw her and gave her the charm. Just like that. No payment necessary.

The ghosts were gone. When she came back later with money and to say thank you, she couldn’t find the street nor the shop.

“You were lucky,” Constantine said. “Faery folk is not always so nice.”

“It’s not working anymore. They are getting through the charm. It’s weak. Or they grew stronger. I don’t know.”

Constantine nodded. He started drawing at the concrete, explaining as he did. “Ghosts are work, you know? If someone dies there is echo left after them. Sometimes it’s weak, sometimes it’s strong. Exorcism doesn’t help. Sometimes facing them head on and figuring what they want can stop them.”

“They want me dead.”

“Maybe. Anyways, I cannot promise we’ll get rid of them. But I can make your charm stronger and bound to soul.”

“A what?”

“Make it so nobody can take it off but you.”

Miranda looked at him amazed. “Really? Yes, do it!” Was she really that desperate she was ready to believe his words? Batman wouldn’t take her to some conman, right? She had nothing to lose either. She just wanted this to work. Please, please let it work.

“I will need you to come here, love.”

He finished the circle full of runes and pentagrams. She looked at it unsure. “You gonna sacrifice me?”

“No. But fair warning. People around me die often.”

“That’s fine, me too.”

He lit another cigarette. “This circle will protect you while I work on your thing. I will need your blood too.”

“Are you sure they won’t get to me?” she asked as he handed her knife and bowl. She cut herself without hesitation but taking off the charm was different commitment.

“It’s a barrier ghosts can’t cross. The inner circle is protection symbol, the ring around it is made of blessed salt. Never leave the home without it, it hurts most of supernatural beings. As long as you don’t break either they won’t get to you.”

“And you saw them, right?”

“No. I felt them. I could see them if I focused more. But they are real, if that’s what you are asking.”

“I just… overwhelmed.”

“That’s okay, love. You just sit there and let me do my job.”

“Wait, wait. What about the payment?”

“Payment?”

“You don’t look a man who does this from good of his heart.”

He chuckled. “I will help. If you want to pay me after, I drink whiskey, love money and shagging.”

“You’re funny. My treat later then.”

“Now would you give me the thing so we can kick these ghosts to bollocks?”

She took down the charm. Hand trembling, she gave it to Constantine. Ghosts appeared immediately, hoovering around the circle. She gasped, but they couldn’t touch her. The choking feeling didn’t come. She laughed nervously.

“It’s working.”

“They are pissed,” agreed Constantine.

“Will you be okay?” she realized he is out the circle with them.

“Yeah, they are after you. They are blind to anyone else.”

Miranda sat on the floor. She watched Constantine throwing things in the bowl. He poured ugly looking liquid in and dropped her charm there. He kept mumbling.

“Why are you doing this to us, Miranda?” she heard, and she jumped. They were… She understood what they were saying!

“It hurts.”

“We are lonely without you.”

“You killed us.”

“No,” she hissed. “I just didn’t die.”

“We feel empty without you here. Come to us. You are our sister. We belong together.”

“Don’t listen to them, pet, they are just trying to get to you,” Constantine said between his mumbles.

Miranda held hands on her ears.

“You promised to die with us.”

“We all agreed.”

“Die!”

When is it going to be over? She couldn’t take their words. She wanted to live, that’s all. She just left while they finished the business. Not her fault they committed suicide! That was on them, not her!

“Hold on, it’s almost finished.”

“He can’t save you, Miranda. We won’t let him.”

She raised her sight. One of them moved to Constantine.

“Watch out!” she screamed.

Too late.

The shadow hammered Constantine to the side. He screamed and flew across the room. He hit his head on a shelf and dropped to the ground. Bleeding. Not moving.

“Fuck! Constantine! John!” she shouted through laughter of ghosts. “You damn freaks!”

“Give up, Miranda. Just come out.”

The charm was too far. Even if she ran, she couldn’t get to it. Ghosts would catch her.

Fuck!

Nothing close enough to the circle. Nothing useful anyways. Her bag she could reach. But for what?

She grinded her teeth. She was trapped. Like a rat in slow heating cage. “Constantine!” she tried again. No answer. Great, they just killed her only chance for semi-normal life.

She sat down again. Hidden her face, covered her ears. Their voices resonated the room. Mocked her. Annoyed her. Making her feel like shit. She would cry. She couldn’t. Minutes turned to hour. Hour turned to several.

Nobody will help her.

She could call for help, but what can anyone do? The ghosts will just cut them to pieces. Kill them, like they did to Constantine.

Lost.

She won’t give herself up.

She needed that bag. Eyeing it she realized she could reach, grab it fast and bring it to the circle. She breathed in and prepared.

She grabbed.

A ghost cut.

She screamed and retraced. The bag safely in her hand, but on her arm was long cut bleeding hard. She quickly took off her sweater and tied it around the wound. It kept bleeding. Her only fear was the blood smearing the circle

She had her bag. What now?

“No saving yourself,” said ghost.

She knew.

“Constantine, if you are alive, I will not let you die,” she said towards him. Nothing.

She took out the pill bottle.

Doctor’s orders.

Next chapter

#batman #fanfiction #jonathan crane #john constantine #writeblr #sick raven writing #ghosts of the past

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daddy-bean-boy · 5 years ago

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FMP - Table Top - Evaluation

Earlier this year I wrote my project proposal, proposing the idea for my FMP that I had imagined. The original idea is different in a few ways but ultimately the final product reflects the proposal’s intentions. Other than my admiration for the 1930′s aesthetic which I wanted to achieve, I also wanted to improve my skills outside of my “comfort zone”. I planned this through having a live action side to my animation. This was the part which I knew would create the most challenge, and I can safely say it was. I had to prepare what settings I would have the camera on, create a filming environment that was suitable for the animation and include tracking points. I succeeded in creating the environment I wanted to film in, and I even thought my camera movements came out smooth. This was all from the help of tools I practiced with such as the glide rail. This helped get a smooth panning camera shot I needed of the table. Aside form what when well with this portion of the FMP, I would definitely improve the contrast in which I filmed in. The light bloom of the room gave an overly saturation scene in some cases and this makes it very hard to motion tack using after effects. This is what I am most disappointed with. The tracking in some scenes brings the characters I have drawn, out of the world as they slide because the tracking is unstable. Despite this however, I have gained experience in media creation that I wouldn’t have if these subtle difficulties weren’t there, because then I wouldn’t needed to have found out how to improve them. I’m now more knowledgeable of Adobe software like After Effects and Premier Pro because of this. Specifically with my interest in animation, I would now be able to more carefully prepare myself when composing animation over a live action scene. With learning about software and cinematography, a lot of my aspiration was based on the appeal I have of old era animation from the 1930′s. I wanted to recreate the fluid movement and pioneered techniques that are all but unseen in today's industry. At the time of writing my proposal, I was unaware of how many rules an set backs this level of animation restricts you to. This is where my first major turn in the road had to be realized. I would not be able to perfectly recreate the style of animation with the resources I had. And this was okay, it just meant my animation would be more a homage to it. This was due to me using a computer for animation, as it would be impractical to hand draw within the given time. However, despite digitally creating all the animation I found I can still create the fluid and smooth motion. I found out that among the society of classic animators (Because there are animators who purely use tweening and bone tools etc.) there are 12 rules that following will bring frame by frame animations to life. This is what I decided I would follow as closely as possible while animating, even creating a practice animation in preparation. I had eventually re used this animation after much more practice and changed it ever so subtly, however it had a big impact on the realism of the movement. The most important thing to me, even from the proposal was learning what I now know to be “form”, moving a 2 Dimensional character believably in a 3rd Dimensional way. Now that I’ve come to the end of the project time, I’ve been given perspective on how long this animation takes and why industries have elected to using quicker less costly methods that sacrifice quality. A great help for me during the lengthy process was actually critically watching over animated shorts and films. I watched a lot of Studio Ghibli movies while making the FMP and listening to the studios methods. The films animation is so fluid and believable. Creator Hayao Miyazaki, gives a lot of credit to “people watching” saying almost every movement is based on the way he’s seen others move. This gave me a lot of thought and motivation to keep drawing even when I had little motivation. Time became the biggest obstacle in the end. As I plan on still producing the rest of the animation in my spare time, I discovered ways to make it feel less of a chore. In my original proposal, I had about a month of time allocated to production. While this seemed like enough, I didn’t factor in all the bits that get in the way. For example, keeping up with blogging. I needed to explain everything I was doing and learning through out. This is because while I was producing it wasn’t just drawing, I kept making each key framed drawing based on knowledge I had from the principles of animation. Each key frame I wanted to have Arching Motion, Slow Inns and Slow Outs, Squash and Stretch, and finally Exaggeration. The biggest incorporation that took more time than expected was anticipation and overshoot. This is having frames before and after slowly build up and release the momentum of an action. These were the main principles I focused on. Having to consider each one with each drawing made it much more lengthy than I had intended. I see this as good in a way, because if I was speeding through, then all the high level animators who say frame by frame takes years would false. Although, I have complete just over 50′s which is around the length I had originally intended. My miss sight was with story. Where I had wrote the story of the animation, it would’ve been impossible to fit it all in a minute. This lets me know I had carried myself away with a complex story that had a beginning, middle and end. I should have stuck to a simple plot, maybe not even having the second character “Shaker” who didn't make it into the FMP (as of hand in).

The research I did throughout my FMP was the foundation to everything that I made the film on. The live action cross animation was heavily inspired from the video made by “PWow” on YouTube, entitled “How to make the space jam effect in after effects”. It walked through using after effects to track the motion into a null object and us that tracking information to move the animated character. This had a large impact on my project because it’s literally what let me compose characters into a world as if they are sitting in that plane and moving with it. Obviously like I said this effect I didn't use to its best ability. With more carefully thought out lighting and use of objects. Something through research I found, in Rodger Rabbit, a film I used as inspiration for it feature length use of pioneering animation and live action, they had used objects in the live action footage that mimicked the 3D space of the character that would be imposed over the footage. This let the artists know how they would appear in that space, how the light might affect it and also, if the camera moves, the animator will know exactly where they should be. I think if I recorded live action for animation again, I would do this. It would’ve allowed me to make a much smoother tracking scene for him, by drawing over the top of the cup in real life, following its shape as the angle changes and the camera pans. I even might have just skipped the camera pans all together. Saving myself the trouble of having to track could’ve given me more production time. This would have given me more time, however I learnt a lot of how after effects works and interacts with information to create motion, and that will lead me to being able to create better things in the future. I said in my proposal that I might use a mood board to remind myself of what research I had done and what from it I should use within my animation that I would reflect on. I actually found that the aesthetic comes with simple and appealing character design and the animation itself cant just be a reference to a mood board, it requires more critical thinking. This is where my research lead me to the most useful influence I had when drawing, these being the “12 Principles of animation”, which I originally discovered from Allan Becker, a legendary YouTube self made animator, but written originally by Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas. These were two Disney animators who wrote this in the book “The Illusion of Life : Disney Animation” in 1981. Not quite the 1930′s but the principles were based off all Disney learned of animation over the years of making movement look as though it were living movement. While it made my animation appear much better than I would have expected, I think it would have helped if I had delved into each one, with practices and experimentation on them. I could’ve done quick sketch animations that would individually go through them. I said how I wanted to post a lot of my research based on YouTubers and entertainment that inspires me, I think I did well keeping to this and it still remains one of my favorite ways to motivate me. I never feel more like animating than after watching a well animated short of film. However, I do take all my inspiration from similar things. Studio Ghibli and Disney classics both use flowing hand drawn frame by frame and the YouTube Animators I watch also take inspiration from them. This actually worries me because a lot of people who take their inspiration from one source end up creating “unintentional rip offs” which end up becoming someone else’s work through your hands. And that way there no creative thinking to the production. With this in mind, my future animations will be less an homage to a style, and more of an exploration of my own animating style and being more experimental, so there’s less restrictions limiting me to possibly become tunnel visioned when animating.

Taking all that I can from this project, I’ve been left in a better place than when I started for sure. Though my actual animation hasn’t reached its conclusion, all that I have gained from it is more than worth it. I’ve never had an incentive to be overly interested in cinematography, however, I wanted to experiment regardless to see if I could create a believable character in a believable world. Not believable as in it were real, but believable in the sense that its weight, appeal and body language could make sense if it were int he world its presented in. This was the goal I wanted to achieve. All these came into factor when I was researching. Aside from the composition, the second thing I wanted to achieve was the aesthetic. This mostly came into play when choosing character design and the frame by frame animation. There where a few secondary features I used to add to this, such as the film grain (dust and scratches) that I layered over the top of all the footage. These were commonly present in movies of the 30′s because all films were physical strips that could be damaged. All these attributes I believe made the 30′s aesthetic. I’m very pleased with how it looks and I think it was successful. The main thing that brought the believe-ability away was the poor tracking in some cases, where you can see the tracking slide along surfaces. This is something I will take steps to avoid in the future, hopefully to make an even more believable character. Overall, my appreciation for the style is stronger than before, I know how difficult and thought provoking frame by frame can be. Tracking might be something I use scarcely in the future and live action backgrounds can be a refreshing break from animation. For my aspiration of becoming an animation artist (in-between animator and higher) these things will certainly bring me closer to being able to fit into that work environment and understand the process behind it so that I might one day direct my own feature animation.

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thatgirlunderarock · 7 years ago

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Secret Santa present for Guardian of the Singed Cinnamon Rolls

Merry Christmas @angel-in-a-big-blue-box! I was your secret Santa for the month! I know you said Marian was your favorite character so I hope this play on a Greek mythology AU is to your liking!

Hope you have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

It had been many long years since Marian, Artemis if you want to listen to the Greeks, had seen her dearest friend Robin. Known as Orion by the common folk, Robin was loved by all for his hunting skills were beyond mortal measure and his kindness. The two had become grown close, for they did their best to provide what they could to the commoners, never letting poor go without food or comfort. Marian continued to do this, even long after Robin left to seek glory on a quest of his own. It was not unheard of however for Marian to disappear into the woods with her huntresses. Often, after long successful hunts, she and her hunters would return the village, gifting the people with the fruits of their labor. After Robin left, the hunters’ visits became more of a necessity than out of generosity. For the people had little means for themselves. With Marian’s visits to the mortals becoming more and more frequent, it came as no surprise that she caught the eye of Guy Gisborne, or Actaeon as he later came to be known.

The sun reigned down across the forest, the only cool spaces being those spots shaded by the thick branches of trees. Marian and her huntresses were coming back from an exceptionally long hunt, bringing in two bucks and many rabbits to deliver to the people of the village. Despite always looking forward to visiting the people, Marian decided to take some time for herself, and take a swim in the at the center of the forest.

“Are you sure? Maybe at least one of us should stand guard,” Djaq the most loyal of Marian’s huntresses suggested.

“I will be fine. Now if you don’t hurry the people will not have meat for the week,” Marian said.

Truth be told, Marian was tired and just wanted to rest on her own for a while. Just some time to reflect on what she and her hunters were doing. Before Isabella or Kate could protest along with Djaq, Marian waved them off and urged them to go on with out her. Her muscles were sore, and if she were honest with herself her heart wasn’t in that last hunt. She loved her hunters and enjoyed their company, but she missed hunting with Robin and spending time with him.

She took a deep breath as she approached the lake and searched the area. Once she felt it was secure she discarded her travel clothes and dove into the lake. For a while it seemed as if the water would wash her troubles away. Even if water was not exactly her element, Marian always felt the most relaxed while taking a swim. She could clear her head, scrub away her worries, if only for a little while. She dove under the surface of the water and shook out her hair once she resurfaced. Marian closed her eyes and laid back in the water knowing that her hunters would be back soon. Still something did not sit right with her and no matter how hard she tried to relax her stomach churned.

She heard a rustling from the bushes and turned as a man came stumbling out, followed quickly by her hunters. Marian hid her body under the water and glared in surprise and shock at the dark haired man scrambling to his feet. “What is this?” She demanded, not leaving the water still.

“He was spying on you, Marian!” Kate exclaimed, already drawing her sword ready to attack the man.

Meg put a hand on the woman’s shoulder, “We don’t know that yet, maybe we should let him try to explain himself.“

“We know how his kind are, don’t listen to him!” Isabella said her bow and arrow drawn and aimed at the man.

“Enough!” Marian said wrapping herself in a blanket Djaq brought for her. She then turned her attention to the man as he watched wide eyed and fearful, “What is your name?”

“Sir Guy Gisborne…” He answered, his blue eyes searching her face for the slightest bit of mercy. He found himself backed up against a tree, his hand gripping the hilt of his sword in fear. “I- I did not mean to stare-“

Marian studied him listening for sincerity in his voice. “What is your purpose for being here then? Why did you watch me for so long?” Her brows furrowed over her eyes knowing that she would not tolerate his actions, but she also wanted to be fair and allow Guy to explain himself.

He held his breath for a moment, still in awe of the goddess and her hunters. “I-“ He cast a long look at Isabella as she gripped her knife a little tighter, and then looked back at Marian. “My Lady I did not mean to offend you. I only wished for the opportunity to hunt with you…”

Marian kept her expression blank as she thought. “If that was all you wanted, why did my hunters catch you hiding in the bushes watching me? You had plenty of time to make yourself known.” Marian, like her hunters, thought that he was spying on her for other, more lustful reasons.

Djaq nodded in agreement, “You did not look away from her, and still do not. Why should we believe what you say?”

“Forgive me-“

“No we can’t!” Kate spat, “He does not respect you Marian, let us get rid of him.”

“I meant you no disrespect. I forget myself, please-“

Marian shook her head at Kate. She would not have person die, that was not her place to decide. Her passions were in providing for the less fortunate of the nearby villages, not passing judgment onto others. “I nor my hunters will harm you,” Marian said and watched as Guy let out a breath of relief. “However, we cannot let you hunt with us. You must leave the forest and vow to never return.”

Guy stared at her dumbfounded, “Why I-“

“I understand what your intention was, but you did not honor me by continuing to stare. Please gather your things and leave,” Marian said. “Meg and Isabella will escort you out.”

Guy got to his feet and looked between the women before him, still frustrated that they would not listen to him.

“If you still find that you will come to our part of the forest, go to the people of your village instead and help them.” Marian gave him a final nod of dismissal and left for her campsite.

Meg and Isabella returned later that night, but still Marian was not her usual self. While the others sat around the fire discussing the day’s events Marian sat off to the side watching the moonlight reflect off the lake. The days would be growing colder, the nights longer, and Marian was starting to wonder if she could continue to help the people in poverty. She had her friends that were more than willing to help her, but still some days she felt it too much. The weight of their lives and her duties made her feel as if she would collapse.

The snap of a twig caught interrupted her thoughts. She turned to the sound bow and arrow raised at the intruder.

“Marian-“ the voice said, “Still as beautiful as always.” A man stepped out from behind a tree with his hands in the air as if to surrender, but the cheeky grin on his face said otherwise.

“And still you’re lines do not work on me,” She replied with a small shake of her head and lowering her bow. “What are you doing back? Did you finally track a creature bigger than your opinion of yourself?” She teased.

Robin laughed at her quip before moving hold to her in his arms. “Not exactly,” he answered with a chuckle. “Rumor reached me that things haven’t been too good for the people here. I thought you might need some help.” He pulled away from hugging her a little, but kept his hands on her shoulders.

Marian shifted and looked back to the lake, “My hunters and I are doing what we can, but we can only do so much. There is more that we can do but-“ she sighed and the weight came back down on her shoulders. She let Robin pull her in for a hug again, allowing herself to close her eyes and enjoy his presence again.

“My men and I will do whatever you need us to,” he told her quietly. The two stayed silent for a moment, just watching as the moon rose higher into the sky. “I missed you, you know,” he started quietly.

“Then you shouldn’t have left to seek glory, or whatever else you thought you would find,” she answered, once again earning a quiet chuckle from Robin.

“I’ll take that to mean you missed me too.”

Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months. Marian’s hunters found themselves working more and more with Robin’s men to help the villages. Of course there was a bit of tension at first, especially when Allan continued to try to flirt with Djaq and Kate, but after threats of arrows in a few choice places and a push in the lake he learned his lesson.

Despite being able to provide more for the villages, Marian was still not resting easy. Of course Robin was helping her, and her hunters were more enthusiastic than ever about their duties, they even started some friendly competition with Robin’s men, but still the weight would not leave Marian’s shoulders. At times she would feel so small, she was doing all she could for the people of Nottingham, but she could not stop thinking that she was neglecting others in different corners of the land. Robin attempted to help her with these thoughts, but deep down Marian was not sure that he was part of the solution. More and more she found herself thinking of a life with him, a life very different from what she had now. She felt distracted from her duties, as if she was not leading her hunters as she should, and tried to distance herself from Robin. That did not really work as she worked closely with him to decide which village they were visiting, and often hunted together, and found herself feeling more drained at the end of the day. On top of that, she had begun to notice one of hunters was disappearing more often.

The first time Marian had noticed Meg was gone was during a dinner they all were sharing with Robin and his men. When she asked her about it, Meg simply said she had not been feeling too well and had gone for a walk. After that Marian noticed Meg would not return from the villages with the rest of the group. The latter would make some excuse to stay behind or walk off by herself. The other hunters noticed too, and eventually Isabella took it upon herself to follow Meg and see where she really went.

“She’s visiting a man!” Isabella told Marian as soon as she found out.

Marian pursed her lips for a moment. Really all of them had been in the company of men for a few months now, it was nothing new. Of course as hunters, most people expected them to remain maidens for eternity, and that was what Marian assumed Isabella was getting at.

“What do you mean?” Djaq asked, following Marian’s train of thought. “We’re around Robin’s men most days, but that doesn’t seem to bother you.”

“Meg has been visiting Guy. That vile man we caught spying on Marian-“

“I will talk to her,” Marian interrupted. She didn’t want all of her hunters to gang up on Meg. “The rest of you go back to camp. I will wait for her here.”

Minutes turned into hours as Marian waited outside Locksley. The sun was sinking low into the evening sky when she finally ran into Meg.

“Oh Lady Marian!” she exclaimed as she nearly ran into her. “I didn’t see you there,” she said a small nervous smile on her face.

“I did not mean to frighten you. I only stayed behind because I noticed you have not been returning with the group. Is something wrong?”

Meg shifted her weight from foot to foot unsure of how to respond. “Nothing is wrong, my lady. I’ve just- I was visiting with someone. Sir Guy, actually.”

Marian nodded slowly urging her to continue.

“Several months ago, I found him in the forest again. I told him to leave, but he said he only wanted your help for the people. I went with him instead and have been helping since. That was why more of the people had their own meat and skins to trade today. Guy and I have been teaching them.”

A smile came to Marian, “I’m glad, Meg. I wish you had told me though. It would have saved some suspicion from arising with the others.”

Meg shifted her weight again, “Well… Marian there is one more thing…I- I think I love him.”

Marian blinked rapidly, “What, but-“

“I love him, and I know what that means, but if I can spend my life with him and help the village, then I do not think mortality will be so bad,” Meg said with a smile.

Marian pulled her in for a hug, “If that is your choice, I will not keep you from it. I wish you every happiness Meg.” Marian watched as Meg smiled and returned into the village, before returning to camp, her heart feeling a little lighter than it had in a while.

The other hunters of course had questions and concerns, Kate even suggesting that Guy had her under some kind of spell and needed to be rescued. “We will not interfere with Meg’s life. Should she ask for help, we will be there for her. She is free to make her own choice, as are all of you. I hope you will be happy for her.” With that Marian went to sit by the lake and waiting to see the moon climb over the trees.

Djaq had followed after her and sat with her. “Do you really mean that? That you are happy for her,” she asked.

Marian nodded, “I am. If a life with him makes her happy, then I will not keep her from that.”

“And this life we have here? Does that make you happy?”

Marian sighed, “Its more complicated than that.”

“How so?”

“I have a job here, to help people here-“

“But you want to do more, in more places,”

“Yes but-“

“You want Robin to be with you too.”

“Yes but-“

“Then what are you waiting for? You both have eternity before you.”

Marian looked out over the water again, the light of the full moon dancing lightly on the lake’s surface.

“Now is your chance to talk to him,” Djaq pointed out as Robin approached the lake and then dived in.

“Will you tell the others?”

“Only if you want me to.”

With a smile, Marian slung her bow over her body and dove after him into the water. There was a small island at the center and though she felt weighed down by her clothes and some of her hunting weapons, she swam on. She found Robin laying on shore, looking up at the sky. “Marian? What are you do-?”

“I wanted to come see you. I just miss how we used to be sometimes,” she said sitting next to him on the rocky shore.

“Yeah those were good days,” he agreed.

“Can you tell me about your adventures?” she asked quietly. Robin looked at her, sat up and nodded.

“I could tell you, but what if instead, you went on some with me?” He asked taking his hand in hers.

“I’d love that, Robin.” She answered, and stayed with him under moonlight.

#Secret Santa #BBC Robin Hood #Robin Hood fanfiction #marian of knighton #Greek mythology AU #Artemis

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writesandramblings · 7 years ago

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The Captain’s Secret - p.66

“Past and Present Tense”

A/N: This chapter cover the events of episode 7, "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad." Also, revised a paragraph in chapter 61 – Ctrl-F "mutilated" for the new edition. I had already written that bit months ago, but it accidentally got punted into the prewritten section of this chapter and I just found it again. Just a little echo of a ghost from the past... (You may have already read the revised paragraph depending.)

Also, the fortune that is drawn in this chapter was 100% a random, "pick one and use it" draw that just happened to be unbelievably and unforgivably apropos to the theme. I was so shocked I forgot the sentence I was in the middle of writing when I opened it. Apparently, fate wants me to write this fanfic just as much as it wants Lorca to stay in command of his ship.

Finally, this is a long chapter. I considered splitting it, but there didn't seem a point where it made sense to. I give you an (overly) extended look into the antics of non-Michael Burnham characters during the episode.

Full Chapter List Part 1 - Objects in Motion << Part 65 - The Stars, Broken Part 67 - Einstein on the Beach >>

O'Malley came to the bridge, which was unusual, and Lorca spoke to him in the ready room again. The colonel was as high-strung and judgmental as ever. He crossed his arms as he stood across from Lorca and declined a fortune cookie.

"Am I to understand Admiral Cornwell's been taken by Klingons and we're not going to rescue her?"

"Those are not our orders," said Lorca smoothly.

"So, Cornwell ordered us to rescue you, and we did, and then our orders were not to rescue Sarek, but we did that anyway, and now our orders are not to rescue Cornwell and we're suddenly doing what Starfleet Command wants?"

Lorca crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes. This was much the same as Saru's objection, but Saru was not so fearless as to pose these objections in the form of an argument to Lorca directly. "We're here to win a war, not rescue every lost soul."

"Well you damn well could've fooled me as that's largely what we've been doing these past six months. You personally, might I add."

"I thought you didn't like Cornwell," pointed out Lorca.

"I don't, but that doesn't mean I want her tortured by Klingons."

"I was tortured by Klingons. It wasn't so bad."

O'Malley's mouth fell open and his arms uncrossed. "Gabriel!" For a moment, O'Malley sounded like Lorca's mother might have, had she been prone to chastising Lorca in the tone of a sixty-year-old British woman.

"Look," said Lorca, dropping the levity. "This is what Cornwell would have wanted. Following the rules and waiting for orders. She's spent most of the past six months telling me to do just that."

"You've picked an awfully convenient time to start doing what Cornwell wants."

Lorca stared. "Are we going to have a problem here, colonel?"

O'Malley exhaled and shook his head softly. "I'm just very disappointed in you, is all." He stood in silent consideration for a moment. "You know, I've mostly agreed with everything you've done up till now. Usually you do to the right thing, just in the wrong way, and for the first time I find you doing the wrong thing in the right way and I honestly don't know what to make of it. I don't like what it says about you as a person that you'd let one of your oldest friends suffer like this simply for the purposes of keeping your ship."

"She was my friend," said Lorca. "Past tense. And out of respect for that, we are following Starfleet's orders." Each of the last few words was said with pointed emphasis indicating Lorca had no interest in being further argued with on this subject.

"If you're going to be like this, then perhaps you'd better count me in the past tense as well."

They stared at each other, neither backing down. Then something occurred to Lorca and he scowled in disgust and looked away.

O'Malley squinted at him. "What's that look for?"

"What look?"

"That look on your face right now."

"I don't know, Mac, why don't you tell me what it looks like."

"If I knew that would I be asking?" They were going in circles.

Lorca broke the pattern. He clenched his jaw in anger directed mostly at himself. "I suppose now you're gonna take up Cornwell's cause." Worse, he had given O'Malley enough ammunition to do just that. His intent in the telling had been to make O'Malley see his side, take his side, and it had worked, but now Lorca was uncertain where O'Malley's loyalties lay: with his principles, or with Lorca himself.

O'Malley looked insulted. "What? I'm disappointed in you, I'm not going to betray you. I know how hard it was for you to tell me any of what you did. I'm certainly not going to use it against you. It'd destroy my reputation, for starters." O'Malley sighed. "Just give me some time, will you? I need to process this."

O'Malley left the ready room. Lorca took a fortune cookie and crushed it in his hand, eating the pieces and dropping the paper unread into the trash. He quietly put a hold on any and all outbound communications from O'Malley and Allan, just in case. In doing so, Lorca noticed Allan had not sent or received a single transmission in all his time on Discovery. Unusual.

As Culber was not permitted into Lab 26, he had to wait outside with Allan for Mischkelovitz to emerge. When she did, she looked at Culber with obvious suspicion as to what he was doing on her doorstep.

Culber managed to be as friendly, cheerful, and charming as anyone could be, especially given the adversarial stance Mischkelovitz had taken. "Dr. Mischkelovitz, I was wondering if you could help me with something?"

All that charm and she still looked at him like he had three heads and two of them were shooting fire at her. "Pel'tra kas-kotiin kelmatro sai-on," she said darkly.

Culber had no idea how to respond to that.

Standing behind her, Allan apparently did. "Melly," he said, "je kranna kos'bri-kaa. Se patro kii'kay'an?"

Mischkelovitz turned to him. "Je mohs ke'barato, se patriik maroten."

Allan replied, "Kesse na iil me trohs baraal. Pelta!" Then he smiled at Mischkelovitz.

With a scowl, Mischkelovitz said, "Fine, Lan! But only because you asked." She turned back to Culber. "What do you want?"

Her eyes lit up when she saw the design of the implant. "Ah!" she went. "This is terrible!"

They were standing in sickbay at Culber's workstation. As Stamets was now the computational interface of the spore drive, Culber was hoping to ease the difficulty of his husband's connection to the drive with an implant so that the dangerous, painful system they had recovered from the Glenn could be rendered obsolete, but the technology was slightly beyond Culber's expertise. "I was hoping you could help me refine it," said Culber. "Tweak the design a little?"

When Mischkelovitz looked at Culber this time, her eyes were alight with enthusiasm and there was absolutely no trace of anything negative in her expression or demeanor. "Absolutely! Let's do it." For all that she was standoffish and surly around people she had not accepted into her inner circle, once presented with something she liked, she was entirely won over, like a reluctant child bribed with a new toy.

Culber's initial design for the implant was entirely too big to be practical. They began by refining it in virtual form to reduce its size and complexity. There were several factors to consider. First, the needs of the spore drive itself, which Mischkelovitz seemed unusually familiar with. Second, the features Culber wanted the implant to have, for safety and in the event of a medical emergency. Third, the limits of the technology they could produce aboard Discovery on such short notice.

Mischkelovitz was quite happy and friendly when she had a task to focus on. She also seemed only halfway aware of Culber's presence, even though he was standing right next to her and working on the same project. She chattered away to herself, saying things like, "We have to beroute the riomatter relay through the transventral section in order to ensure uninterrupted frow legulation..."

"Sorry, what?" asked Culber, but Mischkelovitz seemed not to hear him and continued her rambling obliviously. Apparently her use of "we" did not refer to Culber.

"If we switch the configuration of the nanotubes, then we can responsively adjust the row flate to compensate for the constriction mechanically rather than computationally..."

At other times, she seemed overly aware of Culber.

"You're married to him, right?" she suddenly asked. Even though she did not specify Stamets, it was obvious who the implant was for and there was no one else she might be referring to.

"That's right," said Culber.

"Mm," went Mischkelovitz and lapsed into silence, her gaze darkening.

Culber studied her carefully. She was staring intently at a fixed point in space. She had to be thinking about her own deceased husband, which was probably not the healthiest or most productive thing for her to be thinking about in the moment. He decided to try to switch her mind to something that had been bothering him since their previous encounter, risky as it was. "I've noticed you and Captain Lorca seem to get along."

"He likes monsters," supplied Mischkelovitz.

Culber blinked. "You're not a monster."

"Tch," she went. "Of course I am. That's the moral of the story, isn't it? The real monster was Victor von Frankenstein?"

Culber considered Mischkelovitz. That was a truly sad way for her to describe herself, even if she had done things that might warrant usage of the word. "I can't begin to understand what you went through," he said sympathetically, "so I won't judge you for it." He had judged her already, but he was willing to put it aside for the sake of being kind. "I just want to make sure you don't get hurt. Captain Lorca is a... strong personality."

"I like that about him. Very much so."

"It's easy to get swept away by someone like that."

"Don't worry about me. I only go where I'm wanted. If the captain wants me, so be it."

Culber paused. The word choice seemed a little off. "You haven't... with the captain?" It would explain her comfort level with being manhandled by Lorca, her rush to defend him, and even the captain's kindness.

"What?"

"Forget I asked," said Culber, quickly shaking his head. "It's no business of mine who anyone sleeps with, so long as they do it safely." That might apply to Lorca more than most. The captain had something of a reputation in that regard.

"Do you mean have sex?" said Mischkelovitz, looking confused. "I would never compromise my work by wasting my time like that! Ever!"

She seemed genuinely repulsed by the idea. Culber was taken aback. "That isn't..."

Mischkelovitz suddenly brightened. "We can halve the size of the mower podules if we use the outflow return for the subsystems!" She began to make modifications in a flurry of excitement. Suddenly the implant design seemed neither inelegant nor oppressively bulky. It was perfect.

"Thank you," Culber told her. "I really appreciate your help with this."

"That was fun!" she exclaimed, then turned and ran out of sickbay.

It took a few minutes for the computer to finish the fabrication, but when it was done, Culber summoned Stamets to sickbay and presented him with the completed device. "What do you think?"

"What is it?" asked Stamets.

"This is what every astromycologist is going to wish they were wearing at your next conference," grinned Culber, and explained the implant's functions and features. Stamets was entirely impressed, both by the design and that Culber had done this for him.

The surgery was quick and easy. Mischkelovitz's design modifications took into account Stamets' anatomy perfectly, so even though it looked like a giant, painful thing inserted into Stamets' arm, it actually folded around the various blood vessels, muscles, and tendons perfectly. Stamets flexed his hand and smiled at it.

"You're the best," said Stamets.

Culber smiled. "I had a little help." And maybe, just maybe, he had gotten himself into Mischkelovitz's good graces in the process. Though, if the captain wasn't sleeping with Mischkelovitz, what exactly was he using her for?

The ship fell into a sort of quiet routine the next few days. Everything was going smoothly, if uneventfully, because to everyone's collective surprise, Lorca was presently adhering to the letter of Starfleet Command's desires. Routine spore drive jump tests at scheduled times. No presence at the front. Trying to find a way to duplicate spore drive control without violating augmentation laws.

It began to feel like O'Malley had been given more than enough time to process. Lorca called him to his ready room.

O'Malley refused. "Wanna try that again, colonel?" said Lorca, clearly implying their personal disagreement did not give O'Malley the right to deny a request from Discovery's captain.

"I literally can't. I gave Allan and Larsson leave to go to some disco party. There's no one else on the door."

Lorca started chuckling. Of course O'Malley would do something that pathetic. The party had been a concession to the fact they were presently doing nothing important. May as well let the crew kick back and relax a bit.

"So happy I can amuse," said O'Malley miserably. "Larsson fancies himself some sort of a dancer, and Allan... don't ask me, he's supposed to be asleep right now and apparently he'd rather do that, so I also get to cover part of his shift alone."

"You do not understand how to command," said Lorca, shaking his head.

"Well now, hang on a minute, I—"

The bridge cut in. "Captain, we are detecting an unidentified signal," said Saru.

"Yellow alert. This conversation isn't over, colonel."

"It hasn't even started," managed O'Malley before the ready room door opened and the comm channel cut off.

It turned out to be a gormagander—a space whale. Burnham was apparently some expert in the species, rattling off details of their biology and attributing their decreasing numbers in the galaxy not as a result of hunting but because they focused on feeding so single-mindedly they failed to find the time to mate. "That's as depressing a trait as I've ever heard," quipped Lorca before calling to the helmsman to plot a new course.

"Captain!" interrupted Burnham. "The gormagander is on the endangered species list. Protocol requires us to transfer it to a xenologic facility."

Great. Now not only were they not going to be participating in any battles, they were going to have to play chaperone to a space whale. Burnham seemed enthused for the task, at least. "Then have at it," Lorca told her, and she hurried off to the shuttle bay to oversee the creature's transport onto the ship.

Not five minutes later, it was aboard, and a frantic comm came from the shuttle bay:

"Intruder alert, shots fired," said Burnham breathlessly. "Need immediate assistance."

Tyler was at the security station. He put the security feeds on the main viewscreen. "Intruder's on deck six, sir!"

"I want him locked down!" ordered Lorca, watching as the helmeted assailant strode through Discovery's halls.

"We have him trapped, sir!" reported Tyler after a moment.

Lorca rose from the captain's chair and strode towards the viewscreen. "Whoever you are, drop your weapons. This ends now."

The helmet came off with a round of hearty laughter, revealing a familiar bearded, grinning face. "Did you miss me as much as I missed you?"

"Mudd," said Lorca, almost spitting the name.

"Did you really think that you could leave me to rot in a Klingon prison and not suffer any repercussions!" said Mudd, voice rising as he spoke, hand shaking in anger towards the security monitor. "As soon as I find what's so special about your ship, I'm gonna sell it to the Klingons. Do you hear me, captain?"

"I don't see this ending with you taking my ship," said Lorca, entirely unimpressed.

"Not this time, but I have all the data I need for the next, so, I will see you later. Or, rather, earlier."

Mudd triggered a device in his hand. The corridor flashed with light and Lorca had to close his eyes a moment. When he opened them, the viewscreen was static. "Mr. Saru!"

"Sensors read an amicium and yurium compound explosion," said Saru.

"Hull breach on deck six," said Ash. "Five, four, now three—we can't contain it, captain!"

Lorca felt his heart drop as Discovery was torn apart around him. The last thing he saw was bright yellow-white flames coming towards him.

Reset.

It was a space whale. Burnham was pleased for it, Lorca was completely annoyed at the prospect of playing chaperone, and he sent Burnham off to handle the situation.

From the belly of the beast itself, Harry Mudd waited and looked over the files from Discovery he had stolen before the reset. He had stripped out all the important stuff—access codes, schematics, crew assignments and the project directory—and he had a lot of data to go through. Luckily, he also had all the time in the world. As the transporter light shimmered around him, he decided to start this little adventure off with a bold gesture. "Computer," he said as the shimmer faded and the gormagander appeared in the shuttle bay with Mudd still inside it, giving Mudd access to the ship's command overrides from his hiding place. "Site to site transport. One to the captain's ready room."

The shimmer of the transporter began again, this time plucking Mudd from the gormagander's digestive tract with the precision of the finest surgeon and depositing him in the ready room.

The lights were dim. A concession to Lorca's damaged eyesight, of course. Mudd snorted at the conceited weakness of the self-imposed impairment. He also frowned at the sight of the standing desk. He had been hoping for a chance to put his feet up while he reviewed Discovery's files, but instead the room was as aggravating as the captain himself.

There was a wooden bowl on the desk filled with fortune cookies. Mudd took one. It read, There is a prospect of a thrilling time ahead of you. Mudd's face lit up. "Well now, isn't that just what the captain ordered."

Perfectly aware Lorca was just on the other side of the door attending to matters on the bridge, Mudd decided to stay for a while and munch on cookies as he went over Discovery's project list and schematics. He noted with great interest a laboratory completely shielded from transport. That had to contain a pretty good secret. He also took a glance over the many luminaries that called Discovery their home. Quite an assemblage of minds Lorca had gotten himself. Some genuine surprises in there, too. Emellia Mischkelovitz, for example. Dr. Frankenstein in the flesh. Mudd whistled in appreciation. If nothing else, he had to respect the captain's cojones. Almost as big as his own.

Four meters away, Lorca finished relaying the details of Discovery's newest "assignment" to Starfleet Command and decided to pick up the conversation with O'Malley. "Mr. Saru," he said as he rose from the captain's chair and headed to the ready room, the intonation of Saru's name sufficient to convey the transfer of command over to the first officer.

The ready room doors opened and Lorca found himself staring at Harry Mudd standing next to a bowl's worth of fortunes and cookie crumbs scattered across the desk.

"Why, hello, captain!" said Mudd blithely, raising his disruptor.

"Mudd," scowled Lorca. "What the hell are you doing on my ship!"

"Your ready room is awful! No chairs? Really?" Mudd shot Lorca. He watched with immense satisfaction as the captain disintegrated into a flurry of dust, leaving a singed smell on the air. Tyler appeared in the doorway, phaser drawn, but too late.

Reset.

This time, Mudd beamed from the gormagander's stomach to the corridor outside Lab 26. A pale, freckled man was guarding the door and raised his rifle in Mudd's direction as the transporter finished with the beam-in. "Identify yourself!"

"Harcourt Fenton Mudd," said Mudd. "I've been sent to review this experiment." He said it with the sort of glib confidence that usually made people think twice and accept a statement as potentially truthful.

"Absolutely not," said the freckled man. "Hands up. Computer, alert the bridge. We have an intruder."

Once again, Mudd found himself face to face with Lorca. "Mudd! What the hell are you doing on my ship?"

"A better question is, what the hell are you doing on your ship?" asked Mudd gleefully. "Computer, transport Captain Lorca to preset coordinates."

He beamed Lorca into space. The door guard clocked him on the back of the head with his rifle, knocking Mudd out, but it mattered not.

Reset.

Mudd beamed from the gormagander's stomach to the next section of corridor over from Lab 26 and fired his disruptor the moment the freckled man was in view, vaporizing him.

The door did not open. "Computer," said Mudd, "command override."

"This door can only be overridden by Colonel O'Malley's command module," the computer intoned flatly. This made no sense. Mudd had gotten himself the highest command authority, above even the captain, but the captain could not open this door?

"Who the hell is Colonel O'Malley?" asked Mudd aloud, checking the crew files. A freckled face stared back at him. "Well, damn it," said Mudd. He spent a few minutes on a halfhearted attempt to blast open the door to no avail.

"Hey! What are you doing!?" came a deep, booming voice. A pair of officers coming down the hallway had discovered him. They were a mismatched set, one a giant hulking blonde and the other a thinner, dark-haired man. They both had leis around their necks and were holding drinks. Neither was armed.

"What does it look like?" asked Mudd, firing at them. Then he made his way to the bridge. May as well have a little fun if no other progress was going to be made this time around.

"Mudd," scowled Lorca. "What are you doing on my ship!"

"Whatever I want!" exclaimed Mudd gleefully, shooting Lorca on a non-vaporizing kill setting and watching the captain stagger to the floor and collapse, dead.

Reset.

Mudd set his disruptor to kill without vaporizing and tried again. The freckled Colonel O'Malley fell to the ground in a heap and Mudd began to search him, locating the door control module. He clicked it.

Nothing happened. He clicked it again and again. No reaction. "Computer!" he shouted, really getting annoyed now. "Why won't the door open!"

"The outer door was automatically sealed when biosign termination occurred at..."

"Oh, come on!" screamed Mudd, and kicked the lifeless corpse of O'Malley until a mismatched pair of officers with leis around their necks happened upon him.

He came face to face with Lorca again. "Mudd!" scowled Lorca. "What the hell are you doing on my ship?"

"This," said Mudd, and activated the ship's self-destruct sequence on a ten-second timer. He laughed as he watched Lorca scramble to override it without success and listened as the captain screamed in useless fury as a yellow-white explosion engulfed them.

Reset.

It was a space whale. Burnham was pleased for it, Lorca was completely annoyed at the prospect of playing chaperone, and he sent Burnham off to handle the situation.

Not ten minutes later, the gormagander was aboard, and soon after a message beeped on the command console at Lorca's arm. He glanced down. It was from Lab 26. He tapped it.

It read simply "TINRUEDR" with no signature attached, but Lorca didn't need an ident to recognize Lalana's typing, because she had a habit of hitting three to four letters at once with her epithelial filaments, jumbling them all together. TINRUEDR? His eyes widened. "Red alert!" he barked, launching himself from the captain's chair to a very confused bridge. "Tyler, with me!"

The ship's site to site transport did not respond to them. They were locked out of the ship's commands. The turbolift was also not responding. "Down the turbolift shaft," ordered Lorca. Thankfully, down was a much quicker trip than up. Lorca slid down the access ladder at an almost breakneck pace and he and Tyler burst out onto level nine with phasers at the ready.

He found O'Malley laying in a pool of blood in the corridor and checked for a pulse. It was weak, but still there. He grabbed O'Malley. "Computer, emer—" The words died on his lips. No emergency transport. They were locked out.

O'Malley groaned slightly, eyes half-opening. "Gabe," he managed, only the first syllable.

Lorca stared at O'Malley. He was so pale even his freckles seemed to be disappearing. "Tyler! Get someone from medical down here." The only other option was try to carry O'Malley up the turbolift shaft, but with the loss of blood, he needed to be stabilized first. Tyler rushed off to fetch a doctor.

O'Malley's hand weakly reached up and grabbed Lorca's collar. "Listen," whispered O'Malley. "He locked the outer door, but there's a secret way in. Bottom left panel." This was a gross violation of the lab's security procedures, but Lorca could lecture O'Malley about it later.

Lorca carefully lowered O'Malley back down and went to the indicated panel, prying it off with his fingernails. There was a passage behind it too narrow for Lorca. "How am I supposed to," Lorca began, turning to look back at O'Malley only to find O'Malley was crawling over. Lorca darted back to O'Malley's side. "Stop moving!"

O'Malley clutched his hand to his wound. The main attack had been a knife wound directed just below the body armor and up towards the gut to ensure a slow, lingering death. "I'm fine. Look, this is just dinner at my house. Help me in there. I'll open the door from the inside."

There was enough blood on the floor to bathe in, but every minute out here was a minute Mudd was in there with Lalana and Mischkelovitz unsupervised. Lorca dragged O'Malley over to the passageway, helped him squirm inside it, and watched as he disappeared into the darkness. Then he did the thing he hated most: he waited.

The outer door opened after a minute. O'Malley was slumped against the wall, a dark red smear of blood behind him. Lorca stepped into the outer chamber and crouched down to check his pulse.

"Tell Melly... just as much."

"Tell her yourself," said Lorca. O'Malley's pulse was so weak Lorca could not find it.

O'Malley smiled faintly. "Guess... your secret's safe... with me." He closed his eyes and slumped forward. A message popped up on the internal door controls: BIOLOCK PROTOCOL ACTIVE. The outer door slid shut. The display updated: EXTERNAL ACCESS PROHIBITED.

Lorca straightened and readied his phaser. Thankfully, he was already inside. He hit the command to open the internal door.

The intruder in the lab heard the door and reacted by grabbing Mischkelovitz and pulling her in front of him. "Captain! How good of you to join us," said a familiarly taunting voice.

"Mudd," sneered Lorca, face contorting with rage. "What the hell are you doing on my ship!"

Mudd was standing with one hand tightly around Mischkelovitz's neck. Lalana was just off to the side, hands knocking rapidly together in alarm. Mischkelovitz was much smaller than Mudd and made a poor human shield, but between her and Lalana, Mudd had made the better choice in terms of coverage. Mischkelovitz looked at Lorca with terror in her eyes. "Gabe!" she squealed. Her usage of the short form was not something she had ever done directly before. Lorca knew from watching her on the security feeds it was how she referred to him when she was alone.

Mudd grinned, disruptor hovering at Mischkelovitz's ear. "First-name basis! Well then, Gabe, looks like I've found a few of your secrets this time! Never thought I'd get to see your lului. It's much better than the one in that Markalian zoo."

The distance wasn't tremendous, and the lights burned his eyes, but Lorca felt he could make the shot. He aimed his phaser.

In response, Mudd pulled Mischkelovitz more tightly against him and turned his disruptor towards the captain.

Both shots went off at the same time, but neither hit their mark. A blue shape appeared in the air between them, propelled from the side, intercepting both blasts and absorbing the shot that might have taken Mudd's life and would certainly have taken Lorca's. Lorca had one fleeting glimpse of green eyes looking at him and then she was gone, disintegrated into wisps of dust that burned away into nothing and left a singed smell on the air.

The shock lasted but a moment as both men realized their kill shots had failed to eliminate their opponent and took action.

Mudd fired again, but his shot went too high as Lorca ducked into a charge, screaming with a fury that told Mudd he had made an enormous mistake. With absolutely no concern for Mischkelovitz, Lorca barreled into Mudd and his hostage, slamming them both to the ground, the brunt of the impact cracking a number of Mischkelovitz's ribs. Straddling both Mudd and Mischkelovitz, Lorca pinned Mudd's weapon with one hand and pummeled the butt of his phaser against Mudd's face with such force it shattered Mudd's nose. He brought it down again, rage filling his ears, totally oblivious to Mudd's pained yell and Mischkelovitz's terrified, raspy scream as she struggled to breathe beneath his weight. There was a faint crunch as Mudd's orbital bone fractured.

Lorca dropped his phaser but did not cease his onslaught, continuing to batter Mudd with his bare fist. The fracture deepened, the face pulped, and still he continued, the cracking sounds coming as much from his own fist as Mudd's skull bones.

He finally heard Mischkelovitz crying and stopped, rolling off of her and Mudd. His breath heaved in his chest. Mischkelovitz squirmed weakly and whimpered in pain. Lorca's right hand was a uselessly twisted mess, but he managed to get his arms under Mischkelovitz and lift her up.

He stepped over O'Malley's body in the outer chamber. He was careful to keep Mischkelovitz's face against his chest so she would not see what had happened. As if losing a husband and sibling already weren't enough, she had now lost the one person who probably loved her more than anyone else in the universe.

Lorca hushed her softly. "Shh, I got you." He understood what it felt like to lose everyone and everything. Now he understood it twice over. He could still see that last flash of Lalana's bright green eyes in his mind. He triggered the external door with the internal system override.

Tyler, Culber, Larsson, and Allan were in the corridor. Culber gasped and quickly went into action, scanning with his tricorder for injuries. He scanned O'Malley, too, but the life sign was already long gone. Allan and Larsson looked ridiculous in their leis, drinks in hand. Allan also looked absolutely distraught. "This isn't happening!" Allan exclaimed. "How is this happening? This isn't supposed to happen!" He looked to Larsson as if he expected the Swede to somehow know.

Tyler noticed the bloody tangle of Lorca's hand limply dangling alongside Mischkelovitz's arm. "Let me take her, sir," he offered.

"She's my responsibility," said Lorca. He owed O'Malley that, at least.

The timer on Mudd's device maxed out. They were enveloped by a yellow-white explosion.

Reset.

Lab 26 was full of secrets, but not the one Mudd was after. At least Mischkelovitz had turned out to be a useful source of information in the minutes before Lorca's arrival. "It's not us!" she had squealed at him. "We're trying bloak creaks! Bloak creaks—bloak—cloak breaks! You want the mushrooms!" Finally, Mudd understood where he needed to go.

Engineering test bay alpha. On paper, mushroom spore propulsion sounded like a bad joke, but apparently it was a viable technology. Armed with this information, Mudd began his assault on engineering. He had full control of the computer and made short work of the staff in there. Unfortunately, he was unable to ascertain exactly how the drive functioned.

Something was missing, he realized. If he was going to sell this ship to the Klingons, he had to figure out what.

This time, he beamed onto the bridge, took out the crew there first, and then came last for Lorca in his ready room. Perfect timing, really. But then, it always was.

Reset.

Stamets was having a very weird day.

One moment, he was in quarters dismissing Culber's ongoing concerns about his personality changes as being silly, because he felt good, relaxed, better than ever. The next, they were enveloped by a yellow-white explosion and then he was walking down the corridor with Culber away from sickbay again.

"Hang on a sec," he said. "Weren't we just here a minute ago?"

Culber looked at him like he might be crazy, which was a look he was getting used to these days.

Stamets dismissed it the first time. Some sort of bad déjà vu.

Then it happened again. And again.

Stamets tried to alert Burnham and Tyler. "It all starts with a gormagander!" he managed.

It was a space whale. "Oh, for crying out loud," said Lorca. "Cancel yellow alert."

"Sir, scans show the gormagander's bio readings to be highly unstable," reported Saru, and informed Lorca that they were required under the Endangered Species Act to transport it somewhere.

Both Burnham and Tyler suddenly objected. Burnham looked like she had seen a ghost. Lorca stared at the two of them, wondering what was going on. "Let's beam this thing into the shuttle bay and drop it off at the nearest sanctuary soon as we can," said Lorca.

"Captain, I would like to run point on this, sir," said Burnham.

"I don't give a damn," Lorca said, shaking his head at her. "I just want it done." The sooner they got this little detour over and done with, the sooner they could get back to doing something, anything of actual use in the war. Even if that something was just scheduled spore drive tests.

"I request security oversight of the operation," said Tyler.

"I still don't give a damn," said Lorca, and sent them on their way.

A few minutes later, the computer suddenly initiated a black alert. Lorca had not issued any such command. "Computer, show me engineering!"

"Denied," said the computer.

He ordered Tyler to engineering and began to elicit solutions from the bridge crew. "There is nothing we can do, captain. We are locked out of our systems," reported Saru. "We only have nonessential systems."

"Screw the systems, get all security personnel to the lab any way possible," said Lorca. "Through the Jeffreys tubes. Airiam, get me any useful systems control you can manage. I'll take environmental, lights, anything."

"Warning, critical systems overload in 20 seconds," said the computer.

Twenty seconds was not enough time to do anything. Lorca felt a chill at the utter familiarity of this whole situation. It was the Buran all over again.

"Warning, drive overload," said the computer.

"Somebody give me something!" he screamed at the bridge, not wanting this to be the way it ended, not after everything. He looked helplessly at his crew. He had failed them entirely.

Explosion and reset.

It just kept happening over and over. Stamets was trapped in a time loop and no one on the ship but him knew it. It was some quirk of the quantum nature of the mycelial network he was now genetically connected to.

He figured a little bit more out each time. There was an intruder on the ship who arrived hiding in the belly of a gormagander. The intruder had control of the ship's computer. Every single time, people died. Different people different times.

He tried to explain it to Lorca on the fourth reset. The first attempt went about as well as could be expected.

"Captain, we're caught in a temporal loop!" he declared as he entered the bridge.

Lorca pressed the controls on the arm of his chair. "Dr. Culber. Lieutenant Stamets seems to have gotten loose on my bridge. See if you can't come up here and corral him?"

"No, listen to me!" exclaimed Stamets, but Lorca did not.

The fifth reset, the intruder did something different, and Lorca was not even on the bridge when Stamets got there. The sixth reset, things were back to normal and Stamets spoke Lorca's words as Lorca said them: "Lieutenant Stamets seems to have gotten loose on my bridge—" at this point Lorca stopped talking and just stared, so Stamets finished the sentence for him "—see if you can't come up here and corral him."

They were locked out of the main computer functions, but Lorca managed to open a shipwide comm and Mudd was all too happy to answer and stare Lorca directly in the face.

"We meet again, captain," said Mudd. "And again, and again..." He chuckled in amusement.

"Mudd! What the hell are you doing on my ship," scowled Lorca.

"Really, captain, this time you've managed to surprise me! How did you find out I was here?"

Stamets suddenly got the sinking feeling that enlisting Lorca's aid was too obvious and would tip Mudd off as to his awareness of the time loop.

In the end, Lorca antagonized Mudd, Mudd activated the ship's self-destruct in retaliation, and they all blew up again.

Stamets tried Tyler. Tyler was trusted by the captain and could advise discretion, but the problem was, Tyler did not trust Stamets. Fair enough. As much time as Stamets spent trying to get to know him in the time loop, for Tyler, it was always the first time they had ever really spoken. Tilly was also a bust; she was at the party and a little too drunk to take him seriously.

Stamets turned his attention to Burnham. He managed to convince her after a few tries, but they were almost out of time in the currently ongoing loop. "Tell me a secret," he prompted her. "Something that will immediately prove to you we've had this conversation. Something you've never admitted to anyone. I promise it'll be safe with me."

She believed him, so she told him her secret.

Explosion and reset.

Lorca sat in the captain's chair. "Is the fish safely on board yet?" he asked.

"Technically, it's not a fish," said Saru, "it's..."

Lorca shot Saru a look. Saru obligingly shut up. Then Culber requested Lorca in sickbay urgently to discuss Lieutenant Stamets. Lorca stepped into the turbolift with a gnawing feeling of worry in his stomach. "Sickbay, direct."

The turbolift started, then stopped. "Destination canceled," the computer informed him. The doors at the rear of the turbolift opened and Lorca turned to see one of his officers crumple to the ground with a knife in his back.

"Heavy," said a familiar, bearded man holding a disruptor.

"Mudd!" exclaimed Lorca and ordered a red alert. The computer did not respond to him. "What the hell are you doing on my ship?"

"You ask me that question every single time," said Mudd. "You know that, don't you? Of course you don't." Mudd fired a shot past Lorca's arm in a demonstration of his seriousness and ordered Lorca to move. "I really can't take it from the top all over for you again, Lorca. The message from the doctor was not real, I just wanted some alone time with you. There's an area of the ship I can't access and I'm hoping you're hiding your secrets to the spore drive—"

"I don't know what you're talking about, Mudd," said Lorca, immediately thinking of Lab 26, "but if you think I'm gonna help you in any way at all, you're crazier than I remember."

"There really are so many ways to blow up this ship, it's almost a design flaw," said Mudd. "Computer! Access self-destruct program."

A chill rushed across Lorca. This was entirely familiar to him. It felt like he was on the Buran all over again. "Stop," he said. "We'll go wherever you want."

"Then get a move on," said Mudd, giving his disruptor a little shake to indicate Lorca should get a move on.

Lorca realized they were not heading towards Lab 26. On the one hand, he was relieved because that meant everything there was safe. On the other, he would really have liked the support of O'Malley's rifle and independent security protocols right now.

Instead, Mudd dropped every hapless crewman unfortunate enough to cross paths with them. At least there were fewer people in the halls than usual. A significant portion of the crew were attending that party.

"You know, I've had a lot of fun so far on Discovery. Found out so many of your secrets. Even had a go at your lului!"

Lorca realized Mudd had already accessed Lab 26. "Mudd," he growled, jaw clenching and teeth hissing.

"Don't worry, captain, that was ages ago! Haven't bothered with them at all this time around. She and that darling little Dr. Frankenstein are snug as bugs right now. I can change that, of course, if you don't cooperate, Gabe."

They arrived outside of Lorca's study. Mudd needed Lorca to provide the personal passcode for entry. Once inside, Mudd found not the secrets of the spore drive he was so desperately searching for, but a lovely collection of weapons from across the cosmos instead. He began to rummage through the guns on offer, looking for one to try.

"Do you know how many times I've had the pleasure of taking your life, Lorca?" sneered Mudd. "Fifty-three! But who's counting. And it never gets old." Mudd checked his wrist. "Oh, drat, we're almost out of time. I'll figure out how that little drive of yours works sooner or later. I've got all the time in the world." And he shot Lorca and watched him vaporize into little flecks of burning particles.

Reset.

"Has that fish beamed aboard safely yet?"

"Well, technically it's not a fish—"

Lorca gave Saru a look. Saru obligingly shut up. "Where the hell are Burnham and Tyler?" asked Lorca. He had called them to the bridge five minutes ago.

Then music began to play. Sweeping, orchestral, triumphant. Wagner.

"Mr. Saru!"

"I don't understand, sir, I'm locked out of the ship's controls."

Lorca hit the panel on his chair. "Computer." Nothing. "Computer, respond!"

The turbolift doors opened. "Let me see what I can do!" announced a familiar, taunting voice. "Computer, reduce volume so we can have a normal, adult conversation."

"Yes, Captain Mudd," said the computer.

Lorca rose from his chair. "Captain Mudd!" he exclaimed, incredulous.

Mudd shrugged at him. "I never thought I would say this, but I'm actually tired of gloating. In any case, this is very much my ship. Your ship? Very much not at all."

Lorca started towards Mudd, because no one—not Mudd, not Cornwell, not anyone—was allowed to take Discovery from him. "All right, show's over, Mudd. Back to whatever little hole you crawled out of—"

"To the brig!" said Mudd, and Lorca vanished in the glimmer of the transporter.

Burnham, Tyler, and Stamets arrived on the bridge. Armed with Burnham's secret, Stamets had managed to enlist both her and Tyler, because while Tyler did not trust Stamets, he trusted Burnham.

Mudd vaporized Tyler in a burst of weaponized antimatter as reward for their efforts. Burnham watched in horror as Tyler vanished before her eyes.

Mudd was hitting the limits of his patience. He was at the point where destroying Discovery was seeming just as palatable an option as selling it to the Klingons. "How do I start that engine, hm? I will disintegrate every single one of you in a screaming fit of agony one at a time. Starting with you!" Mudd started towards Saru.

"Stop!" shouted Stamets. "I can't watch you kill any more people." He pulled up the sleeve of his uniform tunic, revealing the implant that allowed him to interface with the spore drive. "It needs me to work."

Mudd laughed with glee. He finally had everything he needed. "Delicious. Shall we to the engine room?"

There was no one in the brig. No one had been recently locked up, so no one was needed there on duty. Lorca tried to override the controls from inside with no luck. The computer remained unresponsive. He pounded his fists on the forcefield, knowing it would have no effect, but needing some physical outlet to his anger.

He turned his attention to the small console in the wall. It was entirely rudimentary, locked out of most ship systems, but it was his only option. It had the capacity to order food, bring out the cot from the wall, provide a moment's privacy for using the toilet, and not much else. At least, it wasn't supposed to have anything else.

Lorca blinked at the words "BRIG CHESS" in the list of available commands and touched it.

"ENTER NAME" prompted the display, offering him an old-school keyboard and four spaces to fill. Lorca was five letters, so he entered LORC. It then prompted him to set a password, this time a 4-digit numerical code. He entered 1031, Discovery's registry number.

The screen split into two halves. The left half was a leaderboard with names on it. ROVE, M.B., NATE, MISH, LLNA, SARU, AIRM, PAUL, SILY, and more. Each name had a score attached.

The right side showed who was online and listed only one player at present, MISH. Lorca had a good guess who that was. He touched the name. It then prompted him to select from a variety of chess formats including Vulcan. He selected Classic. "REQUEST SENT" appeared and then a chat room popped up.

MISH: Captain? LORC: in brig LORC: ship taken LORC: send mac MISH: Okay he's on his way by the way Lalana says there is a halo of stars everywhere.

Lorca stared at that.

LORC: what MISH: I think she is describing some sort of particle field aberration. I'm not certain what. I'm working to figure it out.

Probably it was related to however Mudd had gotten control of the ship.

O'Malley arrived and tried to lower the forcefield to no avail. "Sorry, captain, I'm totally locked out."

"Try shooting it," growled Lorca.

"That only works in movies!"

"Well if you have a better idea!" Lorca exclaimed.

"I might. Let's call John. If anyone can get control of the systems, it's him."

"Groves?" Lorca found that assertion faintly ridiculous. Groves could get control of a ship that its own captain had been locked out of?

"As he's very fond of pointing out, he could have walked out of that brig any time he wanted to. He simply chose not to. He's probably the best systems hacker you'll ever meet."

A long time ago, Mischkelovitz had said John Groves could be useful in unexpected ways. It seemed the time had finally come for Groves to fulfill that mandate and serve a purpose.

While Lorca languished in the brig and Stamets stalled Mudd in the engineering lab, Burnham continued working to figure out how Mudd was engineering the time loop. Understanding that could bring an end to all of this.

Mudd was not the only thing that had been hiding in the gormagander. An entire ship, linked to the device on Mudd's arm, served as the basis of the time loop power.

Burnham had a plan. There was one secret of Lorca's that Mudd had yet to unravel: her. She was something the Klingons would pay a lot to get, perhaps even more than Discovery itself. She approached Mudd in the ready room, revealed herself, and tantalized Mudd with the prospect of selling her for even more riches.

"Why are you telling me this?" asked Mudd. "What's in it for you?"

"Lieutenant Tyler," said Burnham.

"Lieutenant Tyler is dead," said Mudd.

"Not for long," said Burnham, and used one of the weaponized antimatter modules to disintegrate herself before Mudd's eyes.

The Klingons were hailing. "Damn it!" exclaimed Mudd. He wanted everything. Especially now that he knew exactly how much everything on this ship was worth.

In the brig, Groves released Lorca and opened his mouth to gloat about the sudden reversal of their fortunes, but his triumph was short-lived.

Reset.

Stamets, Burnham, and Tyler approached Lorca. After so many loops, there was no time. They had to get everything right. It was unlikely they would get another chance.

When Mudd arrived on the bridge, Lorca did not even turn to look at the turbolift doors as he said, "Captain Mudd."

"What's this?" asked Mudd, finding all of them ready and waiting.

Lorca stood up. "Your chair," he offered, stepping aside.

They told Mudd he had won. That after so many loops, Stamets had concluded Mudd was unbeatable, and now Mudd had everything he wanted.

"So, Harcourt Fenton Mudd, the USS Discovery is yours." Even knowing it was a falsehood, it still galled Lorca to say the words.

"As am I," said Burnham.

Mudd laughed. "Don't try to con a con man!"

"I'm not," said Lorca. "I'm negotiating with a businessman. My offer is simple. The lives of my crew in exchange for... Burnham, the ship, and Stamets."

"Why would a Federation captain do that?" asked Mudd.

"I will not have a repeat of the Buran." This, at least, was not a falsehood. He extended Mudd his hand. "Your word, Mudd."

Mudd took his time, considered the hand being offered, and finally smiled. "Well, I've never been one to look a gift captain in the mouth!" He shook Lorca's hand with enthusiasm. Lorca looked and felt crushed by the exchange. He hated this. He hated this so much.

Now that Mudd had everything he wanted, he let the temporal loop expire. The time crystal on his arm disintegrated. From here on out, everything was going to be permanent. No more do-overs.

"Captain Mudd, we are being hailed by the Klingons," reported the computer.

Lorca looked at Burnham. If any of them died now, it would be for good, forever. He did not want any of them to die.

Mudd took Burnham and Stamets down to the transporter room to meet the Klingons. "Not you, old man," Mudd said to Lorca. "Lorca, I'm gonna really miss killing you. Adieu, mon capitan!"

Lorca stood on the bridge as the door closed. "Mr. Saru," he said, and returned to the captain's chair. "Bring up the security feeds. Mr. Tyler, let's get you in position." Lorca did not smile, because there was still a risk and Burnham and Stamets were both down there with Mudd and a disruptor, but he was beginning to feel more himself now that the situation was coming back under his control.

Tyler beamed to an adjacent corridor to ambush Mudd. Lorca watched as Stamets and Burnham distracted Mudd and disarmed him. And then, the kicker: when Mudd had thought he was signaling the Klingons, he instead had signaled other parties interested in obtaining not Discovery but Mudd himself.

"Turns out, you can con a con man," said Burnham, and as he watched and listened from the bridge, Lorca smiled. Attagirl, Michael.

"The stars are gone now," Lalana said to Mischkelovitz. "Whatever was happening has ended."

Mischkelovitz stared at the readouts in the lab. Despite her best efforts and her suspicions, she had been unable to figure out exactly what Lalana was seeing, she only knew that Lalana was seeing something.

"Can you tell me all the other times you've seen these stars?" asked Mischkelovitz.

"Of course. The first time was when I met Captain Lorca on the Triton. They were lingering around him like a halo. The second time was when I came aboard Discovery. They were outside the lab, just in front of it. The third time was when we were in null time. They were diffuse that time, different, dimmer."

"And you think they lead you to where you're supposed to be?" This had been Lalana's assertion when the stars had shown up again thirty minutes earlier.

"I can think of no other explanation, except this time, they were everywhere, so bright and sparkling, and now suddenly they are gone."

Mischkelovitz chewed her lip. She did not think the "star halo" was what Lalana thought it was. Mischkelovitz did not believe in fate. "I need something," said Mischkelovitz. "And I need you to answer me honestly. That's not the thing I need, but I need you do this, too."

"I will answer what I am able," said Lalana, which was no promise at all.

Mischkelovitz knew better than to speak the words where the security monitors would overhear. She twitched her finger at Lalana and they moved into Lalana's quarters. Mischkelovitz locked the door behind them, turned towards Lalana, and said with sudden strength and clarity, "You're a part of Section 31, aren't you?"

Lalana tilted her head to the side. "I do not even know what that is. Why would you say such a thing?"

"We were working for them, and they have Rischka's mesearch, and I need that research and the quantum accelerator and scanner we developed. Can you get those things for me?"

Lalana straightened, her tail against the floor for balance. "I will steal it if I have to. How did you know I was with Section 31?"

"Because," grinned Mischkelovitz, her eyes crazily wide and somehow more uneven than usual, "you always lie." In Mischkelovitz's experience, that was the one thing you could always count on Section 31 to do. They had lied when they promised things to her and Milosz about their research. They had lied when they took the research away after he died.

Lalana clicked her tongue in happy mirth. "You are only the second human to have noticed that!"

O'Malley and Lorca finally resumed their discussion in Lorca's ready room.

"Look, Gabriel, it's all well and good, you locking me out of the communications systems, but I would really like to call my wife, and frankly, if it comes out that I didn't report anything because you prevented me, that's going to reflect rather badly. So knock it off."

Lorca frowned. "I can't let you send that report, Mac."

"Don't you want to know what it says?" O'Malley tossed his padd onto Lorca's desk.

It was the worst report Lorca had ever read. It mentioned an incident had occurred involving a weapon in the captain's quarters, but that the witness was unable to provide an official statement, investigation was presently stalled and inconclusive, and factors were at play that might have compromised both parties regarding the incident. There was no mention of what these factors were, what the accusation was, or even the fact the unnamed witness was an admiral who had been captured by Klingons. At the bottom the report said Preliminary investigation inconclusive.

"So now our asses are covered," said O'Malley. "My ass, anyway. If Cornwell ever turns up, I was unable to proceed owing to her absence, and if you get your wish, the poor woman will end up murdered and this will never go any further."

Lorca chewed his lip. He could hear it in O'Malley's tone, but just in case, he looked up at O'Malley's face. It was grim and very displeased. "Don't even think about thanking me," said O'Malley. "I officially owe you no favors. And for the record, Cornwell's right. You do need help. It just so happens we still need you. I feel sick for my part in this, do you understand that? I'm absolutely gutted. I don't know how you can live with yourself."

Lorca's mouth tugged into a frown. He could live with it because he still had Discovery and everyone on it, but he could tell this was eating O'Malley up. "Listen," he began.

"No, you listen! You're better than this. Every time you do some awful thing to someone, you always manage to make up for it somehow, so you have to do that now. You have to make this count. I don't care what it is, just give me something that matters. Just—something!" O'Malley's lip trembled and his nose scrunched up. He clasped his hand to his face. His voice cracked as he said, "God, I hate you! You have to do better, Gabriel, please."

Lorca considered O'Malley. For all that O'Malley was pathetic, he had also gone out of his way to protect Lorca despite the personal toll it was taking. "All right, Mac," said Lorca. "I'll find a way to make this count." He would single-handedly kill every last Klingon if that's what it took.

O'Malley's hand fell away, revealing a pain as deep as any Lorca had ever seen. "It's not that easy." O'Malley sighed, shook his head, and looked away. Then he said in a small voice, "Computer. Site to site transport. Personal quarters."

Lorca had a fairly good idea O'Malley had done that so no one would see him cry. He stared at the empty air where O'Malley had been standing. The ship seemed suddenly a little lonelier.

Part 67

#Gabriel Lorca #Captain Lorca #Michael Burnham #Star Trek #Discovery #Star Trek Discovery #fanfic #fanfiction #Saru #Paul Stamets #Hugh Culber #Harry Mudd #Harcourt Fenton Mudd #Ash Tyler

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robinhoodrevisited · 7 years ago

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Setting The Stage (pt.5)

Nottingham Town. Marketplace. (Bertha’s boys are twirling colourful ribbons and some let them sail into the crowd. Bertha drives the wagon in behind them, with Little John walking with a cloth over his face next to it. Walt, a young ginger haired boy, is on Titus’ shoulders, announcing to all:) Walt: “Bertha’s Circus Maximus! Ladies and gentlemen, it’s your lucky day! Bertha’s Circus Maximus is in town! Place your bets here to add some extra excitement!” (Bertha stops the wagon. Titus puts Walt down. Gizmo places the point of his short sword onto a table and stands with his chest out. Bertha leans over to Little John, looking at Gizmo.) Bertha: “The ladies love him.” Walt: “Get going and show me your money! Place your bets; be a winner!” (With much of the crowd and castle guards distracted, Marcus covertly exits the wagon, turns and helps Abby down. They smile at each other for a moment before heading quickly towards the castle. As they leave, Indra steps out from the wagon with a dour look on her face.) Bertha: (To John and Indra:) "Right, you two stay here out of sight. Let Gismo and Titus bring in the crowds, my boys will know what to do." Little John: "Are you sure you're alright meeting the Sheriff alone?" Bertha: "Oh don't worry about me, I can handle Vaisey." (Little John nods and Bertha too heads for the castle. Indra meanwhile stands and watches the so called gladiators pose and flex their muscles with derision.) Indra: "These men would not last a day in my army." Little John: "Yeah well luckily they don't have to. All they need to do is give 'em a good show."

Nottingham Castle. Great Hall. (Bertha enters under the balcony, escorted by two guards. The Sheriff is standing in front of the table, waiting. Bertha bows with a flourish.) Sheriff: “No need for that, Bertha. (Bertha looks up.) I don’t expect it from old acquaintances.” Bertha: “You look well, Vaisey.” Sheriff: “Sheriff... Vaisey. Let’s not dispense with all formalities. Now, the last time we spoke, I told you that if I ever saw you in Nottingham again, that I would kill you, but... here you are.” Bertha: (Shrugs slightly.) “In my defence, I heard you were no longer sheriff.” Sheriff: “Why shouldn’t I be? I merely took a long overdue vacation.” Bertha: (Trying to recover gracefully:) “I was told you’d moved on to better things.“ Sheriff: “Well, unfortunately for you, it was a lie. (Chuckles. Bertha bows and the Sheriff snaps his fingers.) I assume you’re here to alleviate the locals of their purses.“ Bertha: “I go where the audiences are.” Sheriff: “No, you go where men are prepared to gamble... on your fixed fights.” Bertha: (Steps to Sheriff. Offended:) “Fixed? My fights are for real.” Sheriff: (Chuckles.) “Let’s not insult each other, Bertha.” Bertha: (Quick sigh.) “Actually I’ve heard the Prince intends to marry his beloved." Sheriff: (Scoffs:) “Beloved.” Bertha: “And what better entertainment could there possibly be for the happy couple than my gladiators battling it out?” (The Sheriff considers this.) Sheriff: "Hm, the Prince does enjoy displays of violence. There'll be copious amounts of blood I hope?" Bertha: "Buckets of it." Sheriff: "Indeed. Well I certainly like the idea but don't think this gets you off the hook." Bertha: (Leans in:) "How much do you want?" Sheriff: (Holds up two fingers.) "Two thirds of whatever you make." Bertha: "Done." Sheriff: (Grins:) "Welcome back, Bertha." Bertha: "Thank you, Sheriff." Nottingham Town. Marketplace. (Little John watches Walt from around a corner, out of sight of any guards, as Titus and Gizmo set up a large pole for the ring. Walt is throwing rocks at an unseen target.) Titus: “Who’s got the rope? It has to go over there.” Gizmo: “Right, then.” Titus: “You ready?” Gizmo: “Ready.” Titus: “Right. Heave! (The men pull the rope to raise up the pole, then one of the boys, playing, falls into Gizmo’s arm. Gizmo drops the rope and Little John sees the pole falling right onto Walt, runs in and snatches Walt away. They fall to the ground and the pole slams down next to them.) That was close. Someone give me a hand over here!“ (Little John sits up with a groan.) Little John: “Walt, are you hurt?” Walt: (Awed:) “You saved my life!” (Little John tries to stand, but his foot slips out from under him and he sits down hard.) Little John: “What? Oh. I saved you from a sore head.” Walt: “No, I was nearly dead.” Little John: (Scoffs.) “Very well.” Walt: “Now I have to save your life in return.” Little John: “No, no. There’s no need.” Walt: “No, I have to!” (Little John looks at the boy’s bright face and sighs.) Little John: "How about this; you tell me more about Bertha and we'll call it even, deal?" Walt: "OK. Well Bertha saved me too. All of us really, none of us had anyone. We'd have starved to death. She clothes and feeds us, everything." Little John: (Smiles:) "She sounds like quite the woman." (Walt nods and notices the smile on Little John's face but says nothing.)

Sherwood Forest. Near Locksley. (The gang and the villagers hide behind the trees. Prince John’s elite guard come through below. Robin shoots the leader with an arrow and then he, the gang and the villagers charge the soldiers. Will pulls a soldier off his horse, then punches him. Robin pulls out his sword and begins cutting down soldiers. Next to Robin, Djaq blows a pipe dart at one of the outriders. He falls to the ground and the other starts forward.) Robin: (to Djaq:) “Look out! (The second outrider has turned his horse around and is getting ready to fight. Robin points at him with his sword.) Look out! (Two villagers run downhill, a rope tied between two long tools, and knock down several soldiers with it. Much fights one. Allan pulls off the other outrider. Robin uses his sword and blocks a soldier, then runs him through. Marian pulls a soldier off his horse, then runs behind Allan to fight more. Allan attacks with his dual swords. Marian wounds a soldier, then runs to defend Allan’s back and just manages to deflect a knife headed to her left side. Much fights on. Will knocks out a soldier with his axe handle. Allan punches out a soldier. More soldiers are cut down, the time for merely disarming and disabling now over. Robin surveys the bloody scene. Breathing hard:) Right, start stripping the soldiers. We need as many uniforms as possible.”

Kirklees Abbey. Interior. (People are gathered in the abbey to witness the wedding of Prince John and Isabella. The Prince stands by the altar as the Abbot starts a prayer.) Abbot: "Beatae Mariae semper Virgini, Beato Michaeli Archangelo, Beato Joanni Baptistae, Sanctis Apostolis..." (As the Abbot continues, Isabella appears at the rear of the Abbey. She has yet to be noticed by the congregation or Prince John. Isabella is visibly shaking and although it could be easily mistaken for the jitters, she knows deep down that it's real fear she's experiencing. Fear of once again being confined to the role of wife, a role of subservience. Isabella's entire soul is screaming at her to flee but, as a young girl turns and spots her she realises her chance to run has come and gone. As more of the congregation turn to watch her, Isabella makes the long, slow walk towards the altar. As is tradition with most Royal weddings, the Prince does not turn to watch his bride's approach. As Isabella reaches the altar she casts one last, desperate glance behind her. Hoping against hope that someone will come and rescue her. But no one comes. Turning back to face the Prince, she returns his jubilant smile with the best she can muster, before the abbot begins the ceremony.)

At The Edge Of Sherwood Forest. (On top of the hill overlooking Nottingham, Marian puts on the scarf, mask and hood of the Nightwatchman. Beside her are Nyko, Djaq & Matthew, a young village volunteer who are also wearing outfits similar to Marian's.) Marian: "Now are we clear of the plan? Our job is to cause as much disruption and distraction to allow Robin and his group clear entry into the castle." Djaq: "We draw the Sheriff's attention so that he and his guards chase us and leave their posts." Nyko: "And you're sure these disguises are necessary?" Marian: "Oh, yes. The sight of the Nightwatchman will definitely grab the Sheriff's attention." Matthew: (Grinning:) "I still can't believe it, Lady Marian is the Nightwatchman." Marian: (Smiles:) "I haven't been 'Lady Marian' for a long time. Now remember to make sure they see you but keep your distance." Djaq: "Marian, the Sheriff already knows you're the Nightwatchman." Marian: (Nods:) "Which is exactly why you cannot let him catch you. If he does... (Marian doesn't finish the thought but pulls her mask up to cover her eyes.) Just don't get caught. Good luck everyone." (Marian begins running down the hill towards Nottingham as Matthew, Nyko and Djaq begin pulling on their own masks.)

Nottingham Town Gates. (Robin, several villagers, Gisborne and Much are dressed in Elite Guard uniforms. In front of them, Will & Allan walk side by side towards the town gates where Blamire is stationed. Realising that the Captain is not an imbecile, Robin, Gisborne and Much are strategically placed behind the villagers.) Allan: (To Will:) "Let me handle this one. (Will nods, to Blamire:) All right, you got us fair and square like. (Nods back to the villagers dressed as guards:) You've got some good men working for you, caught us no problem." (Blamire begins to scan the villager/guards faces. Sensing that their ruse is falling apart, Will speaks up.) Will: "Yeah, not like the last lot. Those guys were... (Looks pointedly at Blamire:) All wet." (Blamire's attention is caught by this and the Captain immediately loses his cool, punching Will hard in the face.) Blamire: (Pulling Will up by the hair:) "Mock the memory of my men again and I shall run you through myself. (Releases Will:) As it stands, all prisoners are required to be part of the Prince's wedding reception." Allan: "Reception? You mean they're already married?" Blamire: "That's right. (Smirks:) It turns out Isabella's taste in men is better than I was lead to believe. (Will holds Allan back as he lunges at Blamire. To the Villager/guards:) Take the prisoners back to the castle. They'll need their rest before they take on the gladiators. (To the guards behind him:) Open the gates!" (Blamire steps aside to allow everyone through as Allan glowers at him. Robin, Gisborne and Much avoid the Captain's gaze as they pass.) Nottingham Town. Marketplace. (Gizmo calls to the crowd as the boys shout for some last-minute bets.) Gizmo: “Gather round! It’s almost show time! (He gives the crowd a moment to assemble.) Put your hands together for Bertha of Bath!” (Gizmo points at Bertha with his sword. Bertha comes out with a scowl, looking for the Sheriff. She catches his eye and the Sheriff nods. Bertha climbs into the ring.) Bertha: “Ladies, Gentlemen... (bows to the Sheriff) ... honoured guests... (raises a finger) ... Tonight, you are truly in for a treat! You may have thought the ancient art of the gladiator was gone, but no! (Cracks whip.) Tonight... you’re in for a dazzling display of their swordplay! All we need now are the happy couple Prince John and his blushing bride Isabella!” (The crowds part to make way for the arrival of the Prince and Isabella. Little John and Indra come out, watching as they pass. Nodding to each other, John and Indra quickly don their masks.)

#bbc robin hood #robin hood #lucy griffiths #jonas armstrong #keith allen #lara pulver #toby stephens #joe armstrong #richard armitage #anjali jay #harry lloyd #sam troughton #gordon kennedy #Fraser James #Paige Turco #henry ian cusick #Adina Porter #Ty Olsson

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dragonydreams · 8 years ago

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Steal the Air - Captain Canary Pump Up the Volume AU

Title: Steal the Air Fandom: DC's Legends of Tomorrow Rating: Teen Pairings/Characters: Sara Lance/Leonard Snart Summary: Leonard Snart is your regular quiet nerdy guy by day, but at night, make sure to catch his Facebook Live posts as the mysterious Captain Cold. Modern Pump Up the Volume AU Timeline: n/a Word Count: 5,142 Disclaimer: I claim no ownership over these characters. I am merely borrowing them from Berlanti Productions, DC Entertainment, and Warner Bros. Television. Betas: Thank you to angelskuuipo and shanachie_quill for looking this over for me. Author's Note 1/Additional Disclaimer: I love the movie "Pump Up the Volume" and thought it would work so well as a Captain Canary story. It's so brilliantly written, that I couldn't bring myself to change many of the words from the film, so much of the text belongs to Allan Moyle and New Line Cinema. Author's Note 2: Written for @ficcingcaptaincanary's Movie AU prompt. (Told you I was going to be late with this.) Author's Note 3: Youtube links to songs used in story as you read or listen to playlist for this story on Spotify

Did you ever get the feeling that everything in America is completely fucked up? You know that feeling that the whole country is like one inch away from saying, 'That's it, forget it.' We live in a world where vigilantes dispense justice in the cities and metahumans rule the streets. And we're expected to survive high school and go out into that crazy world. I can barely think about surviving another day of mediocre education, let alone making it in the "real world". You know what I'm talking about, Starling City. So sit back, relax, and do not adjust your screen because I am Captain Cold and this is live. This is life.

~~*~~

"Hey, Sin, have you seen this?" Sara asked, sidling up next to her best friend as they headed into Starling City High School.

"What?" Sin asked, taking the cell phone from Sara. She glanced down at the open Facebook app. "Captain Cold? Yeah, I've been watching. You like every one of his posts so I was curious. Who is he?"

"No one knows," Sara said, taking her phone back and pulling up his profile. "The only photo is his profile photo with the huge parka and dark goggles. You can barely see his face."

"Maybe that's the point," Sin said. "He leaves that photo up blocking the camera for the live videos on purpose."

"I know, but he's gotta be a student here. He's as much as said so," Sara pointed out. "I'm gonna find him."

"Good luck with that," Sin said.

~~*~~

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed Everybody knows the war is over Everybody knows the good guys lost Everybody knows the fight was fixed The poor stay poor, the rich get rich That's how it goes Everybody knows - Everybody Knows, by Leonard Cohen

Okay, down to business. I got my Black Jack gum here and I got that feeling, mmm that familiar feeling that something rank is going down up there. Yeah, I can smell it. I can almost taste it. The rankness in the air. It's everywhere. It's running through that old pipeline out there, trickling along the dumb concrete river and coming up the drains of those lovely track homes we all live in. I mean, I don't know. Everywhere I look it seems everything is sold out.

My dad sold out. And my mom sold out years ago when she took off after birthing my sister. And then he went and brought us here, to this this shitty corner of the world. He made me everything I am today, so naturally, I hate the bastard.

~~*~~

Laurel Lance sat on her bed, laptop open on her outstretched legs as she watched Captain Cold's live feed. She muted the video as her dad came into the room.

"I don't know how you get perfect grades when you're on that thing all hours of the night." Laurel felt like her smile was more of a grimace. "Don't forget that your Harvard interview is tomorrow. Don't want you looking tired. Good night, Sweetheart."

She kept the smile plastered on her face until her dad had closed her bedroom door before unmuting the video almost violently.

She didn't know why, but this Captain Cold seemed to understand her in a way her father never would.

~~*~~

I'm getting a lot of comments and private messages here. 'Dear Captain Cold, my boyfriend's giving me the cold shoulder. How do I show him that I really love him?' Why do you keep asking me for love advice? Do I seem like I have a lot of experience with relationships? If I had a girlfriend I'd be making out with her instead of talking to all you lonely freaks. 'Dear Captain, I think you're full of crap. High school isn't as bad as you make it out to be. Cheer up, buddy.' Well, you may be one of the few teenagers who doesn't hate high school, but let me tell you something, you're in the minority. You wanna know why I'm not "cheery"? I just got dragged to this dumb city. I don't have any friends, no money of my own, no car, and oh yeah, no license. I don't know what good a license would do since there's nothing to do here anyway.

~~*~~

Leonard Snart hesitantly went up to the librarian's desk in the school library, handing over the book he was returning to the cute blonde girl who was working at the desk.

"Hi," she greeted him.

"Hi," he automatically responded, adjusting his glasses.

"You're in my writing class, right?" she asked.

Leonard really wished the teacher hadn't read from his paper in today's class, drawing this girl's attention to him. Pretty girls like her made him nervous. "Uh huh."

"I like Mrs. Smoak. She's quirky." She turned away to look at his check out slip. "Now you're in trouble!" She paused dramatically. "You owe me twenty-five cents. 'How To Talk Dirty And Influence People' by Lenny Bruce. Who's he? Any good?"

Leonard shifted uncomfortably as he dug a quarter out of his pocket and handed it to her. "He's all right."

"Talk a lot?" Sara teased.

"Not too much, no," Leonard responded, making his retreat.

~~*~~

Sara pulled out a school newspaper with pictures of all the senior class in it as she watched the quiet new guy practically run from the library. She found his photo and circled it, then crossed it out. "Cute, but no way," she mused.

~~*~~

Curtain’s call Is the last of all When the lights fade out All the sinners crawl

So they dug your grave And the masquerade Will come calling out At the mess you've made

Don't wanna let you down But I am hell bound Though this is all for you Don't wanna hide the truth

No matter what we breed We still are made of greed This is my kingdom come This is my kingdom come - Demons, by Imagine Dragons

Guess who? It's ten o'clock; do you care where your parents are? After all, it's a jungle out there. I don't know. Everywhere I look it seems that someone's getting butt surfed by the system. Parents are always talking about the system, and the sixties and how cool it was. I hate the sixties, I hate school, I hate principals, I hate vice principals! But my true pure refined hatred is reserved for guidance counsellors. Captain Cold just happens to have in his very hands a copy of a memo written by Mr. Slade Wilson, guidance counselor extraordinaire to one Miss Amanda Waller, high school principal. "I found Miranda un-remorseful about her current condition." Bastard can't even say she's knocked up. "And she's unwilling to minimize its effect on the morals of the student population." Guidance counsellors! If they knew anything about career moves would they have ended up as guidance counsellors?

~~*~~

Carter Hall was sitting in front of his computer, Captain Cold's livestream open in one window with a blank Word doc open in another.

He hastily muted his computer as his mom knocked on the open door. "Carter have you finished your homework yet?"

"Yes," he somberly answered.

"Your father and I are downstairs, why don't you come and join us for once," she implored.

"No," Carter refused.

"Okay, Carter, have it your way," she said, sadly.

"Thanks," Carter said as she retreated.

Carter unmuted his computer as he typed: Dear Captain Cold, do you think I should kill myself?

~~*~~

I took the pistol and I shot out all the lights I started running in the middle of the night The law ain't never been a friend of mine I would kill again to keep from doing time You should never ever trust my kind

I'm a wanted man I got blood on my hands Do you understand I'm a wanted man - I'm a Wanted Man, by Royal Deluxe

Send me your most pathetic moment, your most anything, as long as it's real. I mean I want the size, the shape, the feel, the smell. I want blood, sweat, and tears in these messages. I want brains and ectoplasm all over them. Hallelujah! And now, all my chilly listeners, get comfy because my White Canary is back. "Come in. Every night you enter me like a criminal. You break into my brain, but you're no ordinary criminal. You put your feet up, you drink your mug of hot chocolate, you start to party, you turn up my stereo. Songs I've never heard, but I move anyway. You get me crazy, I say 'Do it.' I don't care what, just do it. Jam me, jack me, push me, pull me -talk hard!" I like that. Talk Hard. I like the idea that a voice can just go somewhere uninvited and just kind of hang out like a dirty thought in a nice clean mind. To me a thought is like a virus. You know, it can just kill all the healthy thoughts and just take over. That would be serious.

Sara was lying on her bed, listening to Captain Cold read her message for all the world to hear. "That would be totally serious," she agreed.

I know all of my chilly listeners would love it if I would just call up the pretty bird lady. But no! Because she never encloses her number.

Sara laughed. "Tough luck, creepoid."

She's probably a lot like me, a legend in her own mind. But you know what, I bet in real life she's probably not that wild. I bet she's kind of shy like so many of us who briskly walk the halls, pretending to be late for some class, pretending to be distracted. Hey, poetry lady, are you really this cool? Are you out there? Are you listening?

"I'm always out here," Sara promised.

I feel like I know you, and yet… we'll never meet. Ah, so be it. I don't know; drugs are out, sex is out, politics are out, everything is on hold. I mean we definitely need something new. We just keep waiting for some new voice to come out of somewhere and just say, "Hey, wait a minute, what is wrong with this picture?" Well maybe this is the answer to everything, wouldn't that be nice, huh? "Dear Captain Cold, do you think I should kill myself?" Great! Signed, "I'm Serious." And of course there is a number here. Hello, Serious?

Carter Hall took a deep breath and answered his phone. "Yeah?"

"Are you okay?" Captain Cold asked.

"Yep," Carter answered.

"I guess what I'm asking is how serious are you? How are you going to do it?" Captain Cold asked.

"I'm gonna blow my fucking head off," Carter responded.

"Oh! Well, do you have a gun?" Captain Cold asked.

"No, I'm going to use my finger, genius," Carter said, sarcastically.

"All right. So where is this gonna take place, huh?"

"Right here," Carter said.

"Where is this alleged gun? Do you have it with you? Did you at least write a note? You have a reason, don't you? You're not going to be one of those people who kills themselves and nobody has any idea of why they did it? Hey, that's why we need a note, pal!" Captain Cold cajoled.

"I'm all alone," Carter admitted.

"No, hey, look, maybe it's okay to be alone sometimes, everybody's alone," Captain Cold insisted.

"You're not," Carter said.

"I didn't talk to one person today, not- not counting teachers. I sit alone every day you know, sitting in the stairwell eating my lunch, reading a book. What about you?"

Carter hung up the phone. His mind was already made up. He loaded the gun.

I hate that, now I'm depressed. Now I feel like killing myself, but luckily I'm too depressed to bother. Great! Straight to voicemail. Rejected again, that's okay I'm used to it, terminal loneliness. People always think they know who a person is but they're always wrong. Most parents have no idea. It's just that mine had me tested because I sit alone in my room alone, naked, wearing only a cock ring, heh heh! I mean it really bugs me, everyone knows what a person should be, who cares how I should be! You know, in real life I could be that anonymous nerd sitting across from you in Chem. Lab, staring at you so hard, you turn around, he tries to smile, but the smile just comes out all wrong. You just think how pathetic, then he just looks away and never looks back at you again. Well, hey, who cares, that's my motto. Well, sleep tight, Miranda, sleep tight, White Canary, sleep tight, Mr. Serious. Maybe you'll feel better tomorrow.

Sara went to the paper she had taped to the wall of what she knew about Captain Cold so far. She wrote down that he ate lunch on the stairs reading a book.

She had a pretty good idea where to go look now.

~~*~~

Leonard was sitting outside with an open book and his lunch the next day, like he did every day.

The pretty girl from the library skipped down the stairs and stopped in front of him. "Hi, got a stick of gum?" She grabbed the package out of his shirt pocket, triumphantly. "Black Jack! My name's Sara, what's yours?"

"Leonard."

"Leonard," she repeated. "Well, hi, Leonard."

"Hi," Leonard said, marking his place in his book and closing it.

"Listen, I was gonna cut fourth period, do you wanna join me in the art supply room?" Sara asked.

"Er, no, I can't, got to go, sorry," Leonard said, awkwardly getting to his feet and practically running off.

"Sorry!" Sara called after him. "Maybe next time."

~~*~~

Mrs. Smoak was somber as she got the class's attention. "I have some very upsetting news. Last night one of our students, Carter Hall, took his own life. For those of you who knew him, there will be a memorial service at Dempsey Hall on Friday. I know it hurts, it's painful to lose someone."

~~*~~

Leonard found a quiet corner on campus and pulled out his phone. He opened Captain Cold's Facebook account and read the newest message from White Canary aloud, to himself. "You're the voice crying out in the wilderness, you're the voice that makes my brain burn and makes my guts go gooey. Yeah, you gut me, my insides spill out on your altar and tell the future, my steaming gleaming guts spill out your nature. I know you, not your name, but your game. I know the true you, come to me or I'll come to you."

"So you are him," Sara exclaimed from behind Leonard, causing him to jump. "Don't worry I'm not going to bust you or anything. Aren't you going to ask who I am?"

"No, I don't think so. No!" Leonard said.

"I'm the White Canary!" She boasted. "You don't believe me." She grabbed his phone and quoted without looking at the screen, "'I know you, not your name, but your game. I know the true you, come to me or I'll come to you.' Hey, relax, I'm not really like that, except when I am."

Leonard tried to get away from her, still upset from learning about Carter's suicide. "Look, I really can't handle this right now, okay?"

Sara looked at him sympathetically, as if she could read his mind. "Look, it's not your fault. I was listening last night. I didn't think he'd go through with it."

~~*~~

You're free to do what you want You never thought of consequences You created your own little world Where you could always be different

A place where the rules do not apply You could never be denied You took advantage of a good think Now the void you filled is empty

Put the mask back on Put the mask back on Don't take it off 'til everybody's gone

Put the mask back on Put the mask back on No disguise has ever lasted so long - Cover Up, by Trapt

You see I never planned it like this. I set up this account to talk to my old friends, but they didn't know to look for me under this handle. I thought I was talking to nobody. I imagined that nobody was listening. Maybe I imagined one person out there. Anyway one day I woke up and I realized I was never going to be normal and so I said fuck it, I said so be it and Captain Cold was born. I never meant to hurt anyone, honestly, I never meant to hurt anyone. I'm sorry, Carter. I never said, "Don't do it." I'm sorry. Um, anyway I'm done, stick a fork in me it's been grand. This is Captain Cold saying sayonara, over and out.

Sara sat staring at her computer as the video ended. "Come on, you can't do this," she told the screen.

Laurel shook her phone in the bedroom next to Sara's. "This is a joke right?"

"C'mon, Captain baby, don't stiff," Mick, Sin's boyfriend, complained as they watched together.

Leonard Snart paced around his bedroom, staring at his computer equipment. "What am I doing? Fuck It!" He sat back down and queued up a new video session.

You hear about some kid who did something stupid, something desperate. What possessed him? How could he do such a terrible thing? It's really quite simple, actually. Consider the life of a teenager. You have parents and teachers telling you what to do. You have movies, magazines, and TV telling you what to do. But you know what you have to do. Your job, your purpose, is to get accepted, get a cute girlfriend, and think up something great to do with the rest of your life. What if you're confused and can't imagine a career? What if you're funny looking and you can't get a girlfriend? You see no one wants to hear it, but the terrible secret is that being young is sometimes less fun than being dead.

"This is great, he's making it worse," the reporter commented to his cameraman outside the high school the kid who'd killed himself had attended. Whoever this guy was behind the parka and goggles, he'd made an impression. Whether that impression was good or bad, remained to be seen. What would get better ratings?

Suicide is wrong, but the interesting thing about it is how uncomplicated it seems. There you are, you got all these problems swarming around your brain, and here is one simple, one incredibly simple solution. I'm just surprised it doesn't happen every day around here. Now, now they're going to say I said offing yourself is simple, but no, no, no, no, it's not simple. It's like everything else, you have to read the fine print. For instance, assuming there is a heaven who would ever wanna go there, you know? I mean think about it, sitting on this cloud, you know it's nice, it's quiet, there's no teachers, there's no parents, but guess what? There's nothing to do! Fucking boring. Another thing to remember about suicide is that it is not a pretty picture. First of all, you shit your shorts, you know. So, there you are, dead, people are weeping over you, crying, girls you never spoke to are saying, "Why? Why? Why?" and you have a load in your shorts! That's the way I see it. Sue me. Now, they're saying I shouldn't think stuff like this. They're saying something is wrong with me, that I should be ashamed. Well, I'm sick of being ashamed. Aren't you?

"Sick to death!" Laurel agreed.

I don't mind being dejected and rejected, but I'm not going to be ashamed about it.

"Hallelujah," Sara called out.

At least pain is real. You look around and you see nothing is real, but the pain is real. You know, even this show isn't real. This isn't me; I'm using a voice disguiser. I'm a phony fuck just like my dad, just like anybody. You see, the real me is just as worried as the rest of you. They say I'm disturbed, well, of course, I'm disturbed. I mean we're all disturbed, and if we're not, why not? Doesn't this blend of blindness and blandness want to make you do something crazy? Then why not do something crazy? It makes a hell of a lot more sense than blowing your fucking brains out, you know. Go nuts, go crazy, get creative! You got problems? You just chuck 'em, nuke 'em! They think you're moody? Make 'em think you're crazy, make 'em think you might snap! They think you got attitude? You show 'em some real attitude! Come on, go nuts, get crazy. Hey no more Mr. Nice Guy! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, oh god!! ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, oh yes.

We're all excited But we don't know why Maybe it's cause We're all gonna die

And when we do (When we do) What's it all for (What's it all for) You better live now Before the grim reaper come knocking on your door

Tell me, are we gonna let de-elevator bring us down? Oh, no let's go!

Let's go crazy Let's get nuts Look for the purple banana Until they put us in the truck, let's go! - Let’s Go Crazy, by Prince

~~*~~

Laurel Lance took Captain Cold's words to heart. She grabbed her ribbons and trophies - symbols of her academic achievement, of her so-called perfect life, and carried them down to the kitchen where she stuffed them in the microwave. Just before she slammed the door closed, she ripped off her stupid pearls and tossed them in, too. She punched something into the timer and watched in fascination as the items slowly spun around until the microwave exploded, spitting debris hit her in the face, knocking her out.

The explosion drew Sara out of her bedroom and down the stairs where she found her sister unconscious on the floor. She looked around, bewildered, until she saw the microwave and she burst out laughing.

"You tell 'em, Captain Cold," she muttered, reaching for her phone to call an ambulance.

~~*~~

The next day, Leonard watched as students rearranged the cards on the notice boards to spell out STAY COLD and hung signs that said THE TRUTH IS A VIRUS. Some of the teachers were running around freaking out, trying to get it all down. Others thought it was about time someone made a stand.

Sara tracked down Leonard and got him alone in the art room. "So, I don't know if you know this, but my sister is the perfect Laurel Lance." Leonard shook his head to indicate that he had not known this. "So, last night she burned up all her shit right after you suggested it, in our kitchen! Oh, her precious pearls were flying like bullets. Dad was un-thrilled."

Leonard ran a hand over his closely shorn hair. "This is out of control."

"Yeess!" Sara emphatically agreed, grinning maniacally.

"That's it, it's over. I just hope it isn't too late," Leonard said.

"Leonard!" Sara called after him as he ran away, again.

"Just leave me alone, okay, please?" he called back over his shoulder.

~~*~~

Leonard allowed his dad to drag him to the PTA meeting at the school. He slumped down in his chair as Principal Waller tried to conduct regular business when all the parents wanted to do was talk about him. Well, Captain Cold. He sat up straighter as Laurel Lance walked up on the dais.

"My name is Laurel Lance and I have something to say to you people. People are saying that Captain Cold is introducing bad things and encouraging bad things. But it seems to me that these things were already here. My god, why don't you people listen? He's trying to tell you something is wrong with this school. Half the people that are here are on a probation of some kind. We are all really scared to be who we really are. I am not perfect. I've just been going through the motions of being perfect, and inside I'm screaming."

"Laurel, you were a model student," Waller said, disappointment evident in her voice.

Leonard made a hasty retreat after Laurel left. This was all getting to be too much.

~~*~~

Leonard stood leaning against the wall outside the sliding door of his basement bedroom, deleting messages for Captain Cold on his phone.

"Hi! What are you doing? You having fun?" Sara asked as she approached him.

"Yeah," Leonard said, absently.

"Hey, look, I took some of these off the wall for you. I mistakenly thought you might want them," she said, thrusting some handmade signs at him.

"Thanks," Leonard said, letting them fall to the ground.

"So I guess you're not going on tonight," Sara commented after a few minutes of silence.

"Brilliant," Leonard drawled, pushing off the wall and going back into his room.

Sara huffed, following him. "Is this all just a game to you? You know you can't just shout 'fire' in a theatre and then walk out. You have a responsibility for the people who believe in you. What is this? C'mon say something, say anything. Open your mouth and say, 'Get the hell out of here bitch.'"

"I can't," Leonard said.

"You can't what?" Sara demanded.

"I can't talk," Leonard ground out.

Sara snorted. "Sure you can talk."

"I can't talk to you," he clarified. He let out a noise of frustration as he sat in front of his computer, put on his headset, and opened Facebook.

I got a message from this guy who's got a problem, he can't talk. I mean he can talk, but never when he wants to, not to girls, not to people. He just opened up his mouth and nothing came out. And this jerk finds somebody that he likes, which is probably the worst thing to happen to a person who can't talk. So, I don't know what to tell this guy because lately every time I give out advice the fit hits the shan. So, I don't know, maybe the best thing to do is just turn around and face the music and try to talk.

Leonard turned around to talk to Sara but she's gone.

"Leo," Lewis called, knocking on the door.

"Coming," Leonard called back, pausing the video and turning off the monitor.

"Leo, it's just me. I wanna come in for a minute," Lewis said, turning the locked doorknob.

"Yeah, just give me a second here, two seconds," Leonard said, taking off the headset and hiding it under a dirty tee-shirt.

"Open the goddamn door," Lewis shouted.

"On my way," Leonard said, checking the room one last time before yanking the door open.

"I have been out there for two minutes, what the hell are you doing in here?" Lewis demanded, looking for evidence of drugs or alcohol. Or a Facebook video.

"I was just reading," Leonard said, gesturing to the book on his desk.

"Oh c'mon, Leo, I heard you. I heard you talking," Lewis said.

"I was reading aloud," Leonard quickly said.

"Oh c'mon, do you really expect me to believe that?"

"Okay, I'll tell you the truth," Leonard said, not sure what he was going to say.

"He was talking to me," Sara said, popping up from behind the loveseat. "Hi, I'm Sara Lance."

"Nice to meet you," Lewis said, stunned. "How do you do?"

"I was afraid you would be mad at me for disturbing Leonard's homework," Sara said.

"You don't know how happy I am to meet you," Lewis said, looking at his son with new appreciation.

"Listen, I've got to go, but it was really nice to have met you. Bye, Leonard," Sara said, taking a step towards the sliding door.

"No, you don't have to go. Leo, she doesn't have to go," Lewis said.

"Bye now, see you tomorrow," Sara said with a wink to Leonard as she slipped outside.

"You've been a bad dog, haven't you?" Lewis said, punching his son lightly on the arm. "You know, for a second there I thought you were that crazy Facebook character they've been talking about on the news."

"Maybe he's not that crazy, Dad," Leonard suggested.

"Right! Very funny. Go get her, go on. That's my idea of homework," Lewis cajoled.

After his dad left, Leonard got his microphone back on and resumed his session.

Sorry about that, folks, technical difficulties. Let's see who we have out there tonight. The usual band of teenage malcontents. I certainly hope so, because Captain Cold is feeling kind of rude tonight.

~~*~~

Let's go out in flames so everyone knows who we are 'Cause these city walls never knew that we'd make it this far We've become echoes, but echoes are fading away So let's dance like two shadows, burning out a glory day

Devil's on your shoulder Strangers in your head As if you don't remember As if you can forget It's only been a moment It's only been a lifetime But tonight you're a stranger Some silhouette - Silhouette, by Aquilo

After Leonard put on the song he went outside to get some air. It had been a surreal night so far. He'd called Mr. Wilson again and was informed that his phone was being traced. Too bad for the cops that it was a burner phone. They could triangulate his signal, but not to his specific address, especially once he removed the battery and sim card from the phone.

He wasn't surprised that Sara was out there, listening to his cast on her phone.

"It's okay, you don't have to talk, you don't have to say anything and you don't have to do anything, unless you want to," she said, approaching him slowly.

"You're so different," Leonard said. "I mean, you're so fearless. I wish I could be like you."

"You are," Sara said, stepping close to him. They're so close but still not touching. Swaying together in the warm breeze. Almost dancing.

"I wish I could say things to you," Leonard said, raising a hand to hover over her cheek before lowering it.

"You do," Sara said, so earnestly. She grabbed his hand and placed it over her heart.

"Everything's so strange," Leonard whispered, his fingers flexing against her shirt.

"Yeah," Sara agreed, her breath hitching at their nearness.

"Maybe we're just crazy," Leonard said, meeting her eyes.

"So be it," Sara said, rising on her toes and pressing her lips to his.

Leonard wrapped his free arm around her back, pulling Sara closer as she wound her arms around his neck. The kiss was clumsy, messy, all teeth and hard lips, but neither cared. They paused, panting for breath before coming together again in a much more satisfying kiss.

"So be it," Leonard whispered against her lips.

The End

#captain canary #captain canary fic #legends of tomorrow fic #sara lance/leonard snart #pump up the volume #movie au #ficcingcaptaincanary

21 notes · View notes

speakenglish · 8 years ago

Text

expressions from the Chanzy conversation group....... follow the link for more details http://www.englishcurrent.com/idioms/esl-idioms-intermediate-advanced/

ring a bell

A: Do you know April O’Neil?

B: Hmm. Maybe. That name rings a bell.

on the one hand / on the other hand

On the one hand, Peter’s roommate is kind. On the other hand, he’s quite messy.

have/keep an open mind

I tried to keep an open mind about Allan even though I’d heard some bad things about him.

on the tip of your tongue

His name was on the tip of my tongue… but I couldn’t remember it.

a hangover (noun) / hung-over (adj)

Tyler was too hung-over from last night’s party to go to work.

~ish

Let’s meet around 4ish.

fed up

I’m fed up with my neighbour’s dog.

Big deal!

It takes you 15 minutes to walk to school? Big deal!

Give sb a hand

My dad gave me a hand with my homework.

let the cat out of the bag

It was going to be a surprise party, until Todd let the cat out of the bag.

give it a shot

If you think you can make the team, then give it a shot.

No way!

A: George, I’m pregnant.

B: No way!

The more the merrier.

A: Can I invite my brother?

B: Sure. The more the merrier.

give it your all

Even though I lost the race, I gave it my all.

first-hand

I saw the accident happen, first-hand.

a dead end

Let’s not take this path. It leads to a dead end.

time flies

Time flies when you’re having fun.

pull sb’s leg

“You have 6 brothers? You’re pulling my leg!”

have sth on your mind

When Dana has something on her mind, she likes to go for a long walk by herself.

keep track

I use my watch to keep track of time.

from scratch

My aunt made the cake from scratch.

off the top of your head

He asked me to tell him a joke, but I couldn’t think of one off the top of my head.

learn your lesson

The boy learned his lesson. He’ll never play with fire again.

keep/bear in mind

The professor told his students to keep in mind that they only have 50 minutes to complete the test.

speak your mind

Timmy was afraid to speak his mind in front of his schoolmates.

Just my luck!

It rained on my only day off. Just my luck!

There’s nothing to it.

Why don’t you make a simple website for your business? There’s nothing to it.

get out of hand

The house party got out of hand, so we had to call the police.

cut a long story short

To cut a long story short, Lisa and I have had some interesting experiences together.

a piece of cake

The test was a piece of cake. I finished it in 20 minutes.

go out of your way to do sth

I went out of my way to help Jenny find an apartment, and she didn’t even say thanks!

cross your mind

The thought never even crossed my mind.

road rage

I don’t like being in the car with Gary. He has difficulty controlling his road rage.

go on about

The old man went on about his school days for nearly an hour.

slip your mind

I was going to return the library books today after work, but the thought slipped my mind.

have/throw a fit

The baby threw a fit when I took his toy away.

The ball is in your court

The ball is in their court now. Let’s wait for their decision.

make your day

Finding a fifty-dollar bill on the ground made my day.

a rip off / to rip sb off

Six dollars for a cup of coffee?! What a rip off!

get a kick out of sth

I get a kick out of reading science fiction novels.

catch sb’s eye

The bright advertisement caught my eye.

jump the gun

I jumped the gun and asked Gail to marry me.

give sb a piece of your mind

The angry worker gave his boss a piece of his mind.

cross your fingers

Kate crossed her fingers and hoped it wouldn’t rain on her wedding day.

cost (sb) an arm and a leg

The designer handbag cost her an arm and a leg.

be in hot water

Ken was in hot water about forgetting his wedding anniversary.

an eye-opener

The film on global warming was a real eye-opener for Tom.

let off steam

Ted plays squash when he needs to let off steam.

read between the lines

You can figure out the author’s opinion by reading between the lines.

go all out

We went all out and booked a five-star hotel for our trip.

out of line

Mark’s comment was out of line. He shouldn’t have said that to a client.

be on sb’s back

My manager is on my back about being at work on time.

would not be seen/caught dead

I wouldn’t be seen dead wearing an ugly dress like that.

have mixed feelings

Larry has mixed feelings about his new job.

draw a blank

When asked for her postal code, Amy drew a blank.

You name it.

A: Daddy, can I have anything on the menu?

B: Sure. You name it, you got it.

know your stuff

Jim has been a mechanic for 20 years. He really knows his stuff.

left, right and centre

Businesses were closing in town left, right and centre.

a change of heart

After seeing a mouse on the floor, I had a change of heart about eating at the restaurant.

a long haul

Peter told his boss that he wouldn’t quit. He’s in it for the long haul.

be man enough

George was the only one man enough to admit he had made a mistake.

be second to none

The apple pie at this restaurant is second to none.

know/learn the ropes

It took me a month to learn the ropes at my new job.

a breath of fresh air

The new employee, Gail, is a breath of fresh air in the office.

get your act together

The coach told me that if I didn’t get my act together, I’d be kicked off the team.

set your heart on sth

Eric has his heart set on participating in the Olympics.

take sb/sth for granted

Keith took it for granted that his girlfriend would always stay with him. Then, one day, she was gone.

play it by ear

A: How long will you stay in Australia?

B: I’m not sure. I’m just going to play it by ear.

put all your eggs in one basket

Greg invested his money in a few different areas. He didn’t want to put all his eggs in one basket.

Birds of a feather (flock together)

A: It’s funny that all of Kate’s friends are attractive.

B: So is she. I guess birds of a feather flock together.

have second thoughts

I’m starting to have second thoughts about my new apartment.

pay the price for

Don’t touch my stuff. If you do, you’ll pay the price.

a basket case

Darryl’s ex-wife is a total basket case.

on the dot

We arrived at 8 o’clock on the dot.

not have a clue

I don’t have a clue where Nunavut is.

have a shot at

Our team has a shot at winning the championship.

the word spread

It took only an hour for word to spread around the office that John had been fired.

safe and sound

I arrived home from my trip safe and sound.

be a pain (in the neck)

My brother is a real pain in the neck sometimes.

be in the same boat

The governments of Portugal and Greece are in the same boat. They both need financial assistance.

be/feel at home

After two years, James felt at home in Prague.

be in sb’s good books

Ryan is not in his father’s good books right now because he scratched his car.

get out of bed on the wrong side

I’d avoid talking with Bob today. He must’ve got out of bed on the wrong side.

up-and-coming

Roger is an up-and-coming hockey player from Toronto.

get into gear

You’d better get into gear or you’ll be late.

out of the blue

One day, out of the blue, I received a letter from my former schoolmate.

set the record straight

In a TV interview, the politician set the record straight about his experiences in the military.

keep an eye on

The security guard kept an eye on the suspicious man.

a grey area

Because of a grey area in his job description, Peter was not exactly sure what all of his responsibilities were.

get/let sb off the hook

Luckily for her, the policeman let Jane off the hook for parking her car in a no-parking zone.

out of sight, out of mind.

Jim was happy when his ex-girlfriend moved out of his apartment -- out of sight, out of mind.

give sb the cold shoulder

Ted gave his ex-girlfriend the cold shoulder when he saw her at the party.

The ins and outs

It took Alan a year to learn all the ins and outs of his job.

line of work

The fireman said that injuries were common in his line of work.

make do

I forgot to buy groceries so I had to make do with what was left in the fridge.

get sth off your chest

A: Keith, there’s something I need to get off my chest.

B: What’s bothering you? Tell me.

know sth like the back of your hand

Takeshi knows the streets of Kyoto like the back of his hand.

in the bag

After scoring their fourth goal, the victory was in the bag.

be on the ball

Greg isn’t on the ball today. He keeps making silly mistakes.

off and on / on and off

Tara and Mike have been seeing each other off and on for a year now.

for the time being

I plan to move into my own apartment in September. For the time being, I’m staying with friend Doug.

burn your bridges

Jack tried to be kind to his boss when he quit in job because he didn’t want to burn his bridges.

get/be given the sack / sack (verb)

Alan got the sack for repeatedly coming into work late.

on the back burner

The project was put on the back burner while the company focused on a more immediate problem.

get cold feet

It’s normal to get cold feet before your wedding day.

hit rock bottom

After being fired and then kicked out of his apartment, Jake really hit rock bottom.

talk shop

Everyone agreed not to talk shop at the staff party.

start/get the ball rolling

It’s time we start the ball rolling on the new project.

get your foot in the door

Janice took a position as an administrative assistant to get her foot in the door at the famous fashion company.

well-off / well-to-do

Lloyd comes from a well-to-do family. His friends often ask to borrow money from him.

pull your weight

Lisa had to work extra hard because a few members of the team weren’t pulling their weight.

a gut feeling

I have a gut feeling that something bad is going to happen today.

if need be

If need be, we can take a taxi home.

in the middle of nowhere

Their car broke down in the middle of nowhere.

go with the flow

Jake didn’t want to go to another bar, but everyone else did, so he went with the flow.

play your cards right

If Linda plays her cards right, she could be the department manager by next year.

follow in sb’s footsteps

Bill chose to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a dentist.

have your heart set on sth

Alan has his heart set on participating in the 2020 Olympics.

You can say that again!

A: I met your boss today. He’s a real jerk.

B: You can say that again!

I’m all ears

A: Doug, I’ve discovered the meaning of life.

B: Really? I’m all ears.

small talk

After some small talk, the interview began.

put sth on hold

Greg had to put his weekend plans on hold and go into the office on Saturday for a few hours.

common ground

The two boys had some common ground: they both loved football.

politically (in)correct

Marcel told a politically incorrect joke at the company party. No one laughed.

have had it up to here

“I’ve had it up to here with this mess! Clean your room now!”

have your work cut out

If we want to finish this by Friday, then we’ve really got our work cut out for us.

get the picture

A: The fight was horrible. One man kept punching the other again and again and again--

B: OK. That’s enough. I get the picture.

see eye to eye

Mike and his father don’t see eye to eye on the issue of abortion.

call it a day

It’s already 6 pm. Let’s call it a day.

twist sb’s arm

I really had to twist my sister’s arm to get her to pick me up from the airport.

bring sth to light

The report brought some previously unknown facts to light about the causes of cancer.

be in the dark / keep sb in the dark

Most of the employees were kept in the dark about the merger until the last minute.

go up in smoke

After breaking his leg, Darryl’s dream to play professional hockey went up in smoke.

go downhill

After his wife divorced him, Victor’s life really went downhill.

at your fingertips

With the World Wide Web, people have a vast amount of information at their fingertips.

poke fun at

The kids poked fun at George because he was wearing his t-shirt backwards.

Easier said than done.

A: You should get a girlfriend who’s beautiful AND kind. B: Easier said than done.

the bottom line

A: Doctor, what’s the bottom line? B: If you don’t quit smoking, you’ll die within a year.

call the shots

The boss told Janet to call the shots while he was away.

know/learn sth by heart

Hank knows every Elvis song by heart.

get a move on

If we don’t get a move on, we’ll miss the bus.

miss the point

“You missed the point. The book was about the problems of capitalism, not how to make money.”

hold/stand your ground

Although their enemy outnumbered them, the soldiers stood their ground.

be child’s play

The tennis match was child’s play for Ben.

be only a matter of time

The scientist said it’s only a matter of time before a big earthquake hits California.

push your luck

A: Dad, can I have another ice cream cone?

B: Don’t push your luck, kid.

raise (a few) eyebrows

Francine’s short skirt raised a few eyebrows.

a matter of opinion

The best restaurant in Europe is, of course, a matter of opinion.

be that as it may

A: Tyler is such a selfish guy.

B: Be that as it may, he’s your brother. You have to love him.

if/when push comes to shove

If push comes to shove, I’ll be here to support you.

against your better judgement

Against his better judgement, Jim let his friend drive home drunk.

add insult to injury

To add insult to injury, Greg’s wife left him for his best friend.

the last straw

When the boss told me to come in to work on Saturday, that was the last straw.

be up in the air

Jim’s vacation plans were still up in the air.

not have the faintest/foggiest idea

I don’t have the faintest idea where Wollongong is.

the icing on the cake

Paula enjoyed the concert, and getting to meet the artist backstage after the show was the icing on the cake.

get/jump/leap on the bandwagon

Janet doesn’t normally watch hockey but she jumped on the bandwagon because her city’s team was in the playoffs.

the fine/small print

My father reads the fine print on every contract he signs.

stuck/be in a rut

The singer was stuck in a rut. All of her recent songs sounded the same.

run-of-the-mill

Kate is a waitress at a run-of-the-mill bar and restaurant in London.

face the music

Tina knew that one day her parents would see her tattoo and then she’d have to face the music.

to keep sth/sb at bay

Bodyguards kept the reporters at bay while the movie stars entered the theatre.

be up in arms

People were up in arms [about/over] the government’s plan to raise the retirement age.

bite your tongue

Jack bit his tongue while his manager criticized his performance.

leave a lot to be desired

The design of our office building leaves a lot to be desired.

off the beaten track

Mike and Mary had dinner a quiet restaurant off the beaten track in Paris.

pick sb’s brains

Mike is a marketing genius. People often invite him to lunch or dinner so they can pick his brains.

whet your appetite

The 30-second trailer was designed to whet people’s appetites.

sour grapes

A: People with nice cars just want attention.

B: That sounds like sour grapes because you can’t afford one.

a blessing in disguise

Losing his job turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Afterwards, Roger found his dream job.

give sb the benefit of the doubt

I told the teacher that it wasn’t me who broke the window. Thankfully, he gave me the benefit of the doubt.

jog sb’s memory

Jeff said he couldn’t remember the song’s lyrics, but hearing the first few words jogged his memory.

foot the bill

George agreed to foot the bill for dinner.

have it in for sb

A: Why are you hiding from your brother? B: He has it in for me. He knows I lost his football.

be in the red

The company has been in the red since September.

get/catch wind of sth

Once the school principal caught wind of the problem, she called a teachers’ meeting.

a rule of thumb

As a rule of thumb, I don’t eat food that smells bad.

be on the same wavelength

The group members were all on the same wavelength, so they were able to finish their project quickly.

up to speed

After her holiday, it took Kate a few hours to get back up to speed on the recent developments in her company.

play devil’s advocate

Although Jim is against the death penalty, he told his friend he was for it just to play devil’s advocate.

bend/lean over backwards

Lisa bent over backwards to get her brother a job in her company, so she was surprised to learn he quit today.

pass the buck

The politician passed the buck onto someone else instead of accepting responsibility for the problem.

call sb’s bluff

When Mike heard his friend say she knew all of the world’s capitals, he called her bluff and asked her to name the capital of Mozambique.

have a chip on your shoulder

Tim has had a chip on his shoulder about businesswomen since he lost his job to a woman three years ago.

breathe down sb’s neck

Jim found it hard to focus on his work with his boss breathing down his neck.

climb to the top of the career/corporate ladder

Having children can be an obstacle for women who want to climb (to the top of) the corporate ladder.

red tape

Mark’s visa application was held up for six months because of red tape.

Give sb free rein

When his father died, Mark was given free rein to do whatever he liked with the family business.

the be-all-and-end-all

Getting into Harvard Law School became the be-all-and-end-all of Tony’s existence.

blow sth out of proportion

The media blew the story out of proportion.

take the plunge

Jerry has finally decided to take the plunge. Tomorrow he’ll start looking for a full-time office job.

in a bind

Susan is really in a bind. She has two essays due tomorrow and she hasn't started either of them.

break the ice

At the start of the meeting, Mike tried to break the ice by telling a joke.

bury the hatchet

Susan and Mike agreed that it was time to bury the hatchet. They apologized and decided to be friends.

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