#morgan's monologues

[muffinrag]

Okay.

[mugiwara-lucy]

Morgans will LITERALLY see the world burn just for a good scoop and THAT'S why he's my FAVORITE side character! 🤣

He may be even better than Gyats 🤣

[thatdamhobbit]

Felt appropriate

No but seriously who hurt these people because I will find them and I will kill them.

[ellie-the-awesome-11]

so I listened to the new episode

[mariocki]

New Scotland Yard: Error of Judgement (2.8, LWT, 1972)

"Well, why didn't Stevens identify this girl?"

"Oh, he said she was only a teenager, he didn't want to create family problems for her."

"You let a man hang because you've got family problems? I take it we did try to find her? This girl?"

"It was up to the defense to produce their own witnesses."

"You didn't even look for her?"

"Look, if we'd been asked to by the defense solicitors, if we'd been directed by a judge, if we'd known who to look for, if we'd had a description - nobody even produced a name for the girl!"

"Therefore she didn't exist."

"Not necessarily."

[morganoperandi]

Wait, guys, what if movie villains aren’t monologuing?

What if they’re infodumping?

[morganski-19]

The curse of writing an outsider pov fic is having ideas of conversations that would happen only between the main couple. Like, it would be rude for someone to overhear it for it to be in the fic. And I want to include it/write it so bad, but it might never see the fic.

Unless, you know, I make the fic a series and have it be a separate piece. Just a thought

[boosheetghostboo]

i smoked the cowboy weed

[nikidanger]

Debbi Morgan!!!!!!

Debbi Morgan & Darnell Williams, "All My Children" (April 21, 1983)

[quotidian-oblivion]

May I just say... Colin Morgan's background stage business is impeccable. There are so many actors who just stand there watching or aimlessly shuffle around, but I've noticed that when Colin Morgan is in-character, he is in-character.

I haven't watched him in anything other than Merlin, but when he's not the focus of the camera, he's still doing things just as Merlin does. Like, trying not to laugh during the feast when Elena was visiting and displaying poor table manners, actually looking deep in-thought and mouthing the name 'Alice' when Gaius was talking to him about her, glaring at Gwen from the bedpost when she was enchanted and was monologuing about who could have possibly poisoned Arthur, polishing or doing a chore or keeping his head down when Uther's talking to Arthur but still watching them with a keen eye-

and so many more instances! His background stage business is just amazing.

[zae-heeyyy]

Valor

Summary: Arthur takes you on one of his adventures. Pairing: Arthur Morgan x female!Reader Word Count: 1,760 Trigger Warning: Animal attack, angry-ish Arthur, violence Tags: mid- high honor Arthur, damsel in destress, fluff, and angst

a/n: Hey y'all! It's been a while since I posted because life is crazy right now. This is a request from @littlemistey. I'm paraphrasing from our convo, "Arthur x reader where the reader is saved by Arthur from almost being mauled by a cougar or a pack of wolves." Sketches are copied/cut from Arthur's journal. A classic "Arthur Morgan, please save me" trope. Thanks for reading!

Valor: Great courage in the face of danger, especially in battle. It denotes bravery and heroism, particularly in challenging or risky situations.

The bones in your wrists ached with the numbing weight of boredom as another morning of chores lumbered on. In, around, under, off. In, around, under, off. In, around, under, off. Intertwined pieces of yarn grew longer at your feet as the knitting cadence played in your head. You'd zoned out, daydreaming of anything more exciting than this.

A rhythmic clank of guns on a belt alerted you to your approaching burly cowboy.

You would've been glad to see him any other time, but your contempt for your chores and an odd hat on his head made you groan with irritation. A lit cigarette sat snug between his lips as he talked, muffling his speech.

"Why you sittin' here with your lip stuck out?" he asked, adjusting his belt and sitting beside you on a wooden crate. He tossed the cigarette away, leaned over to kiss the temple of your head, and placed a hand on the small of your back.

"Bored outta my mind," you complained. The sun reflected off a shiny decorative piece on his hat, making you squint. "And why are you wearing that stupid hat?"

"What?" he opened his hands out questioningly with a goofy grin stretched across his face. "A man keeps this camp afloat, and he can't even wear a nice hat without his lady callin' it stupid."  

You rolled your eyes and gestured to all the women in the camp, cleaning tables and guns, sewing, and helping with dinner.

"No, we keep this camp afloat while you men are out doing god knows what," you said, your stitches getting sloppier as your vexation grew. "I'm losing my mind here. Meanwhile, you come back with fancy trinkets, weird statues, emeralds, and crazy hats! You know, I think you do the robbing and hunting only sometimes, and when that's done, you're just out there playing around!"

You finally stopped knitting and turned to Arthur, whose playful grin had faltered into a thoughtful glance. You continued your monologue, "Ugh! I swear, if you don't get me outta here, I'm gonna stab Grimshaw through the eye with this needle!"

You held the sharp point inches away from Arthur's face, prompting him to snatch it from you. "Alright, easy there." He grabbed your hand in two of his gloved ones and glanced at it from under the brim of his hat, thinking for a long moment, "Fine, you can come with me long as nobody gets stabbed. Can't have a degenerate murderer loose in this camp, now, can we?"

Ignoring his sarcasm, you squealed excitedly and jumped up from your spot, pulling on Arthur's arm to make him stand, too.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," you said between the many kisses you laid on him. He stilled you with firm hands on your waist and chuckled.

"I reckon it won't be as exciting as you think, but I can't say no to you."

Within a few minutes, you were ready to go, aiming and checking the ammo on a varmint rifle that Arthur had given you.

"Met a strange feller, Algernon Wasp. He's a— he has— well, he— he's an artist, I guess; he's paying me to collect some stuff for his, uh, creations. Bird feathers, orchids, that kind of stuff. Would be faster with the two of us."

And that's how you found yourself in the swamps of Lemoyne with the varmint rifle slung over your shoulder as you swatted away mosquitoes and sweated your ass off. You were hot, thirsty, and worst of all, you'd only found four of the seven cigar orchids you needed.

Mud squelched under your feet as you followed behind Arthur; you spoke exasperatedly, "how much is this fool paying you for all this?"

Arthur had gone quieter as you'd gotten more frustrated over the hours. Both of you were starting to regret this decision.

"I don't know. Money is money," he said dismissively, his head on a swivel and eyes focused. You were bothered that he could so easily spot plants and always knew which direction to go, expecting you to keep pace with his long strides when mud weighed down your skirts, slowing you down. You knew it was irrational, but you were mad at him for dragging you out here despite your near begging.

The heat was getting to you, and you'd lost control of the filter from your brain to your mouth. Arthur was a few feet ahead when you started your mumbling, "goddamn swamps is no place for a lady. Gators, mud, bugs and—" You didn't get to finish your sentence before Arthur spun and made two giant steps toward you, jaw clenched.

"You got something to say?"

You crossed your arms, defiant. Arthur's reputation as a vicious intimidator didn't phase you, though. He wouldn't lay a finger on you; you both knew it. You rolled your eyes and said, "this is as boring as being back at camp, except I'm all dirty now."

He stepped closer into your space, his angry eyes searching yours. He spoke in a low volume that would scare anybody but you: "This is what you wanted, woman, so don't go gettin' mad at me because things ain't all neat and proper."

Were you frightened by him? No. Were your feelings hurt? Yes. You scoffed and nodded slowly while you spoke, "You're right. I'm gonna head to camp. I'll see you when you get back."

You didn't give him the chance to respond before you trudged in the other direction, clicking for your horse waiting nearby. Arthur watched you go until he lost sight of you in the overgrown vegetation.

Then you were on the road, your horse at a trot, when something in his line of vision spooked him. Before you could even react, you were bucked off, your head hitting the ground with a thud. Despite the pain, you knew better than to just lay there. Gators and snakes were everywhere, but only something notably terrifying would scare off your Andalusian. You took the rifle off your back, pointing it aimlessly all around, trying to focus your spinning vision on the threat beyond.

Before you could blink, a big cat took hold of your leg through your skirt. You shot wildly once, twice, then three times before the beast let go of you. Screaming at the top of your lungs, you scrambled backward as more bullets rang out from your low-caliber weapon. Hoping and praying, you squeezed the trigger one last time. Eyes closed, you prepared for the inevitable when a louder shot rang out somewhere near you.

When pain and death didn't come, you opened your eyes to see Arthur standing over you, concern distorting his face. Beads of sweat ran down his forehead, and he huffed, trying to catch his breath. His hands scoured every inch of you, searching for signs of bleeding. Panic started to set in again when you realized you couldn't feel anything; you held your breath as Arthur pulled up the hem of your dress, bracing for the worst.

You breathed a sigh of relief and let your head fall back onto the ground. The puncture was minor, no worse than a needle prick. Arthur stood, using his arm to wipe away the perspiration that had soaked him. Then his anger started up again.

"Can't go getting hurt like that, girl. Shouldn't've let you run off by yourself. If something happened to you, I'd—"

"Shut up, Arthur," you rose back up and tried to smile through your unease. "I'm fine, thanks to you."

He held out a hand to pull you back to your feet, then wrapped his arms around you tight. His heart hammered against his chest, and you could hear your blood rushing through your ears. Then you finally let yourself cry in the safety of all his bulk.

"I'm sorry, sweet girl; I'm sorry." Every shakey inhale, sob, and gasp from you ripped him apart from the inside out. He was supposed to be looking after you, always, but his hardheadedness and pride left you vulnerable. Killing was the one thing he knew he was good for, and to almost fail at the cost of your life made his insides rot with guilt.

He peeled you away from his chest and cupped your face, "I won't let anything else happen to you, ya' hear?" You nodded, and he wiped dirt and tears away from your cheek with a big thumb and brought you back into him, stroking the back of your head. After a long moment, he retrieved your horse, helped you, and then rode beside you the whole way back to camp.

The next day, you gladly did your chores while Arthur went on his adventures. You didn't complain in the comfort and safety of a shade tree and other skilled gunmen. You were sitting in his tent when Arthur returned in the evening, now wearing his regular gambler's hat and carrying another adorned with floral designs and a peacock feather.

He greeted you with a peck on your cheek, joined you on the cot, and talked through a crooked smile, "found the rest of those orchids today and gave 'em to Algernon. Took this instead of the money. Think he was happier with that trade, anyway."  

The closer you looked at the beautiful monstrosity, the more you had to fight off your reaction. It was undeniably unique, but you couldn't image anyone wearing it seriously.

"It's um—," You covered your mouth to stifle your giggle, but your quaking shoulders gave you away. To your relief, Arthur joined in your laugh and placed the hat atop your head.

"He tried to give it to me, made me try it on, but I figured it'd look better on you. Now we both got a crazy hat."

The idea of Arthur standing in front of a mirror in the hat with all his hardened features made you throw your head back in near hysterics.

"Well, I will cherish that image and this hat forever. Thank you." Arthur's face softened as your amusement died down, then morphed into a lamentable combination of worry and self-loathing. You recognized it all too well.  

He stroked your face with the back of his hand and spoke in a hushed tone, "I'm sorry, again, for letting you go off by yourself like that. I—"

You silenced him with your lips, pushing him onto his back and mounting him. Your new hat fell away along with his worry as you showed him just how appreciative you were.

[javierssidechick]

How RDR 2 characters would react when you say I love you for the first time

Arthur Morgan, John Marston, Charles Smith, Dutch Van Der Linde, Javier Escuella, Micah Bell

Arthur Morgan

Arthur would be taken off guard. He’s not used to hearing those words, and for a moment, he might not know how to respond.

He would look at you deeply, trying to read your intentions. His initial response might be a simple, gruff "You don’t have to say that." But if you insist, you'd see his tough exterior start to crack.

He’d eventually admit, "I ain't good at this stuff, but I care about you… more than I thought I could." His voice might be soft, unsure but genuine.

John Marston

John would probably get flustered, not knowing how to react at first. He’s loyal to those he loves, but expressing emotions is something he struggles with.

He’d awkwardly rub the back of his neck, muttering something like, “Well, I reckon I love you too…”

The more you push, the more sincere he gets. Eventually, he’ll say it with more confidence, though he’ll still be a bit embarrassed.

Dutch van der Linde

Dutch would smirk and take your hand, bringing you close. He’s a charmer, so he’d probably have something poetic to say, like, “Ah, darling, I’ve known it all along.”

He’d follow it up with a smooth monologue about how your love fits perfectly into his grand vision of the world, making it feel like part of a bigger plan.

But deep down, you can tell he’s genuinely touched. Dutch loves deeply, even if he doesn't always show it in traditional ways.

Charles Smith

Charles would smile gently when you tell him you love him. He’s calm and thoughtful, and he would take the time to process what you said before responding.

He’d likely say something like, “I’ve been waiting to hear that,” followed by a heartfelt admission of his own feelings.

Charles is the type to cherish the moment, making you feel deeply appreciated and respected.

Micah Bell

Micah would probably laugh it off at first, dismissing your feelings with a sarcastic comment like, “Well, ain’t you just the sweetest thing?”

He’s not someone who openly expresses love, and he might even twist your words to manipulate the situation in his favor.

If he does say it back, it’s likely more of a power play than a genuine expression of affection.

Javier Escuella

Javier would be smooth about it. He’d flash you a charming smile and respond with something like, “You’re everything I’ve ever wanted.”

He’s a romantic at heart, so he’d follow it up with a passionate embrace or a serenade if the mood was right.

You’d feel completely adored in that moment, with no doubt about his love for you.

[majesty-madness]

Within the Cover of Night - Arthur Morgan x reader (sfw)

Summary: At first, she thinks it’s nothing but her imagination; that because of the life she lives, she’s letting her paranoia get the better of her. And then she’s snatched up in the dead of night by a pair of unfamiliar hands. 

Word Count: 3500+

Warnings: established relationship between Arthur and Y/N, horror themes, kidnapping, stalking, violence, blood, injury, cursing, pissed off Arthur, crying, attempted rape, mentions of sexual assault, panic attack, attempted murder, serial killer, hostage situation, brief escape, comfort 

a/n: Not proofread. This is a very intense part two (and final), if you couldn't tell from the tags. However I will say that whenever I write something, I make sure to list the content in the warnings because I do not want anyone to be surprised (which has happened to me several times in my years of reading fanfiction, unfortunately). So if you do not see it explicitly mentioned in the warnings, it is not contained in the story at least when it comes to more serious or dark themes such as this. Just an FYI.

Main Masterlist

Commissions are available so don't forget to check that out!

HOUR ONE

HOUR TWO (final)

There’s a pressure, a pounding assaulting her temples. 

First there’s only darkness, what looks like an infinite void of nothing but slowly, the dark seeps away to give way to an orange flickering light. The blurriness of her vision gives way to clearer sight as the seconds tick by, and when she gathers the strength to lift her head, she sees him. 

It was the man from Strawberry.

Y/N lets out a gasp that echoes in the cave around causing the man to swoop forward from his sitting position, inching closer to her. 

“Shh, shh, shhh, everything is okay. You’re alright.” 

She attempted to scoot further away from the man but the thought quickly escaped her when her back collided with the rock wall behind her. The man stopped a few feet from her, eyes cascaded darkly by the single lantern before them.

“Let me go, you bastard! Let me go!” 

Even as the words fell into silence, Y/N could sense the malevolence shrouding him like a cloak. Especially, the moment that a smirk crested against his lips. 

“My my, you are beautiful. Compared to the others, you are a goddess.” 

His choice in words caused her to pause, contemplate. “Others?” She hated the way her voice quivered when the words left her mouth. 

“Oh yes. Don’t misunderstand me, they were all beautiful but it was in an…” He stopped, pondering what word he wanted to use, his face twitching in thought. “eccentric way; unique to each of them. Though I can’t say that was a bad thing.”

The pit in her stomach sank deeper with a cold chill pointedly reminding her this wasn’t the first time he’d done this. There had been other women, others that he had done God knows what to. But the way he was speaking about them made it seem like they were-

“Like my first, she was pretty. She had this long black hair softer than satin, and reflected the light like no other. Despite that, she had a speech impediment so I had to keep her gagged.” He stood from his slightly crouched position to begin pacing back and forth. 

Y/N watched him while he continued his monologue.

“Oh! And a few months ago, there was Isabell; blonde hair, fair skin, thin, perfect lips. She was a gift from the unsuspecting eye, but when I finally got her down to her chemise there was a rather unappealing birthmark across her collar.” He scoffed, “Didn’t like that.”

She felt the tension within her body rising, her muscles clenching and shaking with anxiety, the tips of her fingers turning cold from the nerves, and heart thumping at a bruising pace against her ribs. 

What kind of man; human could say these things?

“Though, Mary-Ann, she was special. She had a way about her, the way she carried herself; she had fire that girl. Not surprising, she had the reddest curly head of hair I ever did see. That’s not to mention those emerald dipped eyes.” In the midst of his description of this woman’s eyes, he jerked his head over to Y/N, enjoying the shell-shocked expression on her face. 

“And all those girls felt soo…good.” He ran his hands fully over his face, drifting promiscuously down his chest to his hips; his rolling back of his eyes and the sharp inhale of breath left little to the imagination of what he did to them. 

What he forced them to do.

He paused for a moment, letting the eeriness fall in and permeate the air with a suffocating weight. Then without warning, he whipped his head back to her, now taking slow methodical steps toward her. 

“Unfortunately, they didn’t love me enough. Didn’t appreciate me enough, but they were failures; the trials to my final prize.” Once he’s only mere inches from Y/N does he crouch down on one knee, extending his hand out to grip her chin with his thumb and forefinger.

Her skin crawled, prickling with the sensation of being dirty, covered in grime.

“You. You’ll love me. I can tell, you’re different.” With his manic eyes, he caresses her cheek with surprising gentleness. “You’ll love me, right?” 

No. Is what flashed to the front of her mind, but her mouth uttered something else. 

“Of course.” She breathed inside a heavy exhale she didn’t realize she was holding in. 

The words felt disgusting, wrong as they left her and hovered in the air. No matter how much her body wanted to scream and curse him out to set her free, her mind flipped the script and decided that the best way to escape was to placate him in his sick game. 

Y/N watched as the man unnervingly grinned and hopped up to a full standing position. “Wonderful. First things first, we need to get you some clothes. It’s proper for a woman to wear more feminine attire.” 

He gestured to her riding pants and button up shirt tucked into her waistband as he sauntered off into the darkened cave. 

Bastard. 

Y/N silently swore, eyes drifting from what she assumed was the entrance of the cave and the environment around her. She skimmed all around for any kind of sharp object that could be used to cut her free, but none existed. It seemed that he was more thorough than she originally thought. 

And now that she was looking around she paid more attention to what was actually contained with this, mining shaft as it were. There was the lantern still sitting in front of her, but there was also a second one in a near corner and it illuminated a padded bedroll with a pillow. 

The mere sight of it caused a bubbling in her stomach and burning sensation inside her throat. Her mind began to imagine the most horrible things if she let him take her to it. 

Thoughts of him forcing her to lay down, tearing her clothes from her body, all the while he’d trail poisonous kisses against her flesh making her flesh feel as though it were rotting and his hands caressing her skin with sandpaper before he did the unthinkable.

“No! No, that’s not gonna happen.” Y/N pleaded to herself, shaking her head briefly to wave the vulgar thoughts away.

Snapping her from those thoughts were the sound of footsteps echoing through the mine. 

Her eyes whipped over to the sound, gulping down the saliva gathering in her throat, trying to steady the heart that beat so wildly inside her ribcage. 

The man turned the corner with an obvious outfit in hand, a simple white blouse and plaid skirt. “This should do you very nicely.”

He walked over to her, setting the skirt onto the ground and throwing the shirt on top. 

Y/N shifted uncomfortably as she set the trap. “Can you take these ropes off me?” 

“Excuse me?” He said incredulously, raising a brow at the suggestion. 

“Well..” Y/N tilted her head, bit her lip, as she tried to appear more docile. Innocent. “I can’t change in those clothes, if my hands are tied up. Don’t you want me to be pretty for you?”

In his moment of contemplation, Y/N thought he’d flat out refuse. His lip quirked up, and he clicked his tongue like it was a difficult question. However, to her surprise, he let way to a smile. “Of course, darling. You make an excellent point.”

He leaned down and yanked her up with one swift motion. “As long as you promise to behave for me, dear.”

Y/N nodded slowly and without hurry for fear that any expression of emotion would upset him. 

Softly, he untied the itchy ropes from her wrists leaving her standing awkwardly in front of him. It took a second before he gestured to the clothes. “Well?” 

Arthur suddenly flashed to her mind, giving her the false presence that he was with her right now and she silently hoped that he would forgive her for what she was about to do. Hesitantly, she began to unbutton her own blouse followed shortly by her pants leaving her in her bloomers. 

Once she got the fabric off her, the heat of shame flowed through her cheeks from standing so exposed in front of a man she didn’t know. The reality of it almost sent her to tears, but she hardened her resolve to appear calm for she needed him to let down his guard for her escape. Although she could sense the hunger in his eyes even if she tried her best not to look at him.

She started on the blouse first, and it was on in less than a minute so she switched to the skirt. The skirt itself was by no means complicated, but it took some adjustment to get it around her hips and it was in the middle of doing so that an idea popped into her head. 

Instead of methodical tugs on the garb to fit, Y/N tugged hastily, and with seeming difficulty around her body (not to mention a few puffs of air to sell her plight).

“What is it, my love?” 

Y/N huffed again, pouted almost. “I’m..having some trouble. It doesn’t seem to want to-” 

Without warning, she fell forward; tripping on her own feet and into his arms. The man’s arms instinctually extended out to break her fall and Y/N’s hand inconspicuously smoothed over his waist to feel for a weapon. 

No gun, no knife. She concluded, moving onto her next move. 

“Clumsy.” He uttered condescendingly causing Y/N to dip her head back to gaze up at him and give him the best doe eyes she could muster. 

“Oh! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to.” 

He chuckles as he brings a hand up to cup her cheek. “It’s alright, you didn’t hurt me.”

From his waist, Y/N brought her hands to rest on the back of his neck. “Oh yeah?” She tugged him a little closer to her and smiled. “Well, that’s too-”

She brought up her right knee in an upward motion, managing a single blow to the man’s groin. “Bad!” 

A choked moan from his mouth punctuated the dark cave and he fell to his knees and when he did so, Y/N gave him one quick jab to the side of his jaw and made a run for it down the same way he had returned. 

Her rapid footsteps reverberated off the stony walls, along with her shallow breaths for oxygen as she sprinted for the exit. In the first few minutes of running, and she only kept seeing the rock surrounding her, Y/N worried that they were a lot deeper inside than she suspected which devolved into the thought that this could be a maze. 

Those thoughts were dashed once she caught the night of the starry sky. 

It was cool outside despite the hot sun during the prime hours of the afternoon. The open air cold water against her burning lungs, the sound of trees rustling in the wind a sweet symphony, the light of the full moon a beacon of hope. 

To her immediate right, there was a well traveled footpath leading, maybe, ten feet until the drop off to the solid dirt floor. She wasted no time hiking down the trail. Y/N was in such an adrenaline fueled hurry that she ended up actually tripping the last few feets and rolled on the forest green grass below her. But she crawled her way from the ground to begin in a mad sprint toward the trees where a populated trail would more than likely be. 

She burst through the shrubbery, avoiding many rocks, fallen logs, and dirt holes in the process. 

It took several minutes (though it felt like hours) before Y/N caught a glimpse of a road just beyond the treeline. 

A glimmer of relief surfaced from the depths of her fear and repulsion of that man. 

So close, she was so close. 

Just then, a brutal force from behind tackled her to the forest floor.

She knew who it was, she didn’t need to look and with that retaliation, the panic flooded her veins and she let out a blood curdling scream. 

“Shut up!” The man shouted over top of her screaming. 

They tussled with each other on the grass, Y/N attempting with all her might to pull away from him and the man pulling her under him and pinning her hands above her head. 

“Let me go! Let me go, you bastard! Just let me go!” Y/N continued to screech and now, beginning to cry, for the fear became too much to contain. 

With her plea, the man ripped the front of her shirt open to expose her to the open air. “You should’ve done what you were told, you little slut! Now, I’m gonna show you who you belong to!” 

He leaned down to harshly kiss her neck, running his tongue along the pressure point all while Y/N kicked and screamed and cried and begged for him to just stop. 

“HEY! You get away from her, you son of a bitch!” The growl of a voice shouted from somewhere. 

Y/N opened her eyes to witness the man being yanked off of her and thrown to the ground again, only this time someone was on top of him, and this time, met with the fury rage of another man’s fists. 

Through the bleary tears, she saw the back of a familiar tan jacket along with a familiar black hat. 

Could it be?

The touch of someone’s hand made her jump, almost recoiling from the sensation. 

“Hey, hey it’s okay. You’re alright.” 

She recognized that voice. 

“Charles?” 

“Yeah, it’s me. Everythings’ okay now. Let’s get you out of here.” He gently coaxed, lifting his hand out for her to take. 

In a daze, she took his hand in her’s in order to let him lift her from the ground. Once she was standing, he tried leading her away from the man but she stopped. 

“Wait, I want to see.” 

Charles offered no rebuttal or suggestion, opting to let Y/N do what she wished and turn back to the event unfolding in front of them. 

Before her, Arthur, the man she loved so dearly, was beating the life out of the man that had threatened her mere moments ago. By this point, the man’s face was covered in blood and one eye was horribly swollen, turning shades of purple. 

The sight of it was awful, downright brutal as Arthur brought down blow after blow to the man’s more than broken cheekbone. Yet seeing him in pain as Arthur wore a pure predatory expression sparked the slightest bit of satisfaction in her gut.

After what that man had done, not only to her; kidnapping her, and attempting to have his way with her, but what he did to all those other women, he would pay for it. And perhaps the law would have caught him someday, who knows? But that didn’t matter, not now, not to an outlaw who had nothing to lose except the love of a woman who he’d thought he never deserved.

In a split second, Arthur had stopped punching the man in order to begin choking him to death. He gasped, sputtered for air as his hand desperately grabbed Arthur’s jacket sleeves to somehow loosen his grip. It quickly proved useless especially when the man’s eyes finally closed, and the rapid breathing of his chest slowed to nothing. 

Arthur pulled his bloodied hands away, stumbling back as he came back to standing. His body contracts with the stuttering breaths of heightened exhaustion. 

“Arthur…” 

Barely a word, a whisper really, regardless it draws his attention. The hardened expression full of a white hot rage softens to one of unadulterated love. 

“Y/N…” 

He rushes to her, nearly colliding with her but once he takes her into his hold, she wraps her arms around him tightly fearing that if she let go, he would disappear along with her hope that she had survived. 

“Oh Arthur..” The beginnings of a deeply wounded sob burst from her mouth, tears rolling down her face. 

Arthur cradled the back of her head and held her back, whispering sweet words into her hair. “Shhh, it’s okay, sweetheart. I’m here, I’m here. I gotcha.” 

He proceeded to press kiss after kiss into her hair, temple, and cheek while he gently rocked her back and forth. 

“He..he was gonna-” 

Y/N started but Arthur quickly cut her off from her train of thought. “I know, I know, you don’t gotta say it. But he ain’t gonna hurt you ever again nor anyone else, I promise.”

She cried harder at his loving proclamation causing him to hug her tighter.

Charles, who had been standing off to the side, carefully took a few steps toward the couple. “Arthur, we should go.” 

Arthur’s eyes flicked up to meet Charles’ and nodded before gently tugging Y/N away to look at him. “Let’s get outta here, okay?”

She simply nodded, saying no more as Arthur led her to his horse nearby. He got up on the saddle first, then extended his hand down to Y/N which she happily took and resided to sit behind him, letting her arms wrap tightly around his waist and bury her face in his back. The smell of smoke and gunpowder with a hint of the earthy forest filtered through her nose, soothing over her every nerve. 

His distinct, musky aroma brought her back to the sweetness of his love and adoration for her; a sense of being that brought about the comfort of undeniable safety. 

Before she knew it, they were in motion; the familiar bouncing of being on horseback allowed Y/N time to readjust back to reality. The entire ride back to camp was a long, tired one. Once the surge of adrenaline had worn off, her body began to feel the effects; particularly the urge to sleep. 

She had such a difficult time keeping her eyes open that she barely noticed when they’d finally gotten back and Arthur helped her down from the horse. 

As soon as he escorted her to sit on his cot, she snapped out of her sleepy state.

“You with me, darling?” 

Y/N finally looked up at him out of her daze, “Yeah, I’m with you.”

He nodded, suddenly pulling out a handkerchief and dabbing it against her cheek. 

“What’s wrong? Is there dirt on my face or something?” Y/N asked, pulling her head away. 

“No, but you got a cut on your cheek; bled quite a bit.” Arthur softly answered as his hand hovered in the air, waiting for her to let him help. 

“Oh..” She uttered, leaning back to let Arthur wipe off her, unknowingly, bloody cheek. 

A couple of quiet minutes passed of Arthur focusing hard on wiping away the blood, and Y/N watching him. Her eyes first observed on his own green-ish blue eyes then down to his lips, then to the old scar on his chin; the one she’d spent days memorizing, and eventually to his wickedly bruised knuckles, obtained when he beat her would be rapist to death. It got her wondering.

“How did you find me?” 

“Uh…” He breathed for a moment, startled from his deep thoughts, “It wasn’t too long after you were taken that Charles and I followed the tracks left behind. It was actually Charles who had realized something was wrong. He woke up everyone in camp and then we started after you.”

“In the dark?” Y/N asked surprised. 

More often than not, she was advised against hunting or tracking at night. It was nearly impossible to track at that time especially with moonless skies, and it was also more likely that you'd get lost or start following your own tracks so to hear that Arthur and Charles followed her through the forest at night shocked her. 

“Of course.” He huffed as if the answer was obvious, “After you told me about that little confrontation in Strawberry, I wasn’t about to wait ‘til morning.” 

She watched as Arthur swiped the handkerchief across her cheek one final time before setting it on the table nearby, figuring he’d probably wash it when he got up tomorrow. He stood from his crouched position in front of her to instead sit beside her on his cot. 

“Thank you. I mean it, Arthur. I-I don’t know what I woulda done if you hadn’t been there in time.”

“Don’t go worrying about it,” He reassured, “It didn’t happen and I won’t ever let it happen. Not as long as I’m with you.”

Y/N nodded, then leaned down to rest her head on his shoulder. He brought one arm to settle around her shoulder while he used his free hand to take her small hand in his much larger one. They enjoyed the silence of the night, the gang already having gone back to bed once they saw Y/N was alright and the hidden crickets all around providing a lolling symphony 

“Would it be alright if I slept in your tent again tonight?” Y/N asked, a hopeful fluttering residing in her stomach. Though, she pretty much already knew the answer.

Arthur playfully scoffed, kissing the top of her head. “After today, sweetheart, I ain’t never lettin’ you sleep alone again.”

Y/N smiled fondly. “I look forward to it.”

[randomfoggytiger]

The Scully Family Actors' Thoughts on Their Characters

Found some incredible tidbits.

All quotes taken from this October 1995 interview (which was written before Melissa Scully's death.)

THE CONCEPTION OF BEYOND THE SEA AND ONE BREATH

The conception for “Beyond the Sea” originated with a desire on the part of scripters Glen Morgan and James Wong to write a “Scully episode” with the goal that such a story would both highlight Gillian Anderson’s acting ability, and humanize the dour Scully. They believed the best way to achieve that was to tie the episode’s X-File case to her in a personal way: by introducing her parents and having her father die before the teaser ended, and then linking her need to speak once more with her father to a psychic prisoner on death row.

Morgan recalled that, “In the pilot, Scully mentioned that her parents didn’t want her to become an FBI agent. We found that interesting. So many people want their own lives, and yet need their parents to accept that life, and we thought it seemed to be a common phenomenon around us. So we put it into the story and hoped it would connect with people. And we thought maybe Scully’s parents lived in Washington. And if they live in Washington, what could her father do? It was kind of obvious to us he was in the government and we put him in the military. Then we thought, ‘OK, he has to be a higher rank, a Navy captain’s kind of neat. And we just worked backwards from that.”

“Melissa was someone who had to understand Scully and yet be different to challenge Mulder’s actions,” said Morgan. “Who better than a mother or a sister? Considering where Mulder was at that time, we thought it would be interesting to see Mulder’s reaction to a believer of ‘positive’ ideas. So, again, it was a character that was created from the needs of Mulder and Scully’s characters.

CAPTAIN SCULLY, DON DAVIS

“The character is very similar to Briggs on Twin Peaks,” Davis noted. “William is a military man who, although he loved his child deeply, was unable to verbalize that love until it was too late. ...this was a guy who was at the top of his field and the way he showed his love to his family was to give his children an example to follow and to provide them with great security. That’s kind of where I started off from with the character.”

Although William had died, on The X-Files anything can happen, and he reappeared in “One Breath” to deliver to the comatose Scully the paternal message she had longed for in “Beyond the Sea”. Davi[s] said that director Bob Goodwin’s concern was that his monologue would not “become maudlin. He wanted me to be on the verge of being overcome, but he didn’t want it to happen. He wanted the character to be strong, to be very much the man that had fathered Dana. So what I tried to do was to show a man holding himself in, a man who was filled with emotion but who, as a military man, controlled the emotion. We did a few takes and each time Bob was bringing me down.”

MAGGIE SCULLY, SHEILA LARKIN

Scully’s mother Margaret was portrayed by actress Sheila Larken, and in the X-Files world, where almost everyone has a hidden agenda, Larken’s maternal warmth and sincerity was a bright spot within all the bleakness.

Larken was reluctant to take on the role of Margaret Scully.... Her hesitation stemmed, she said, from her own father’s death the year before from a heart attack.

“It wasn’t really something I really wanted to do or pull up,” she said. “But I did it anyway. I never thought the part would repeat. My interpretation when I did that scene at the funeral was of a woman so involved with her own pain, she couldn’t even react to what her daughter was asking her. And they allowed that, even though the daughter was the lead in the show.”

Larken saw Margaret as “a military wife, married before I graduated college, someone who never gets to finish her college degree or find a career for herself, but mainly gets enmeshed in her family. You know, the Everymother. Part of her emergence in becoming self-sufficient was during the course of this show with Dana. I think Margaret is ever-evolving. ”

Larken’s favorite scene came in “Ascension, ” when Margaret and Mulder meet at a park and talk about the missing Scully. “You explore a scene and try to find what you’re thinking, and what you’re not thinking, and that one just jelled together. There were just so many little itsy-bitsy things that came together and they came together on camera.” She found working with Anderson and Duchovny to be a particular treat. “Their depth is multi-layered. A lot of times you work with actors, and when you look into their eyes, they’re a blank. You’re working alone. But when you get to work with Gillian and David, whatever you send is received and vice versa.”

Larken said that as Margaret she usually does not draw on her own experience as a mother, because “it’s almost too vulnerable to let in. ” She did admit to an exception: “There’s one scene where being a parent did work. In ‘One Breath’ where Margaret says to pull the plug on her daughter, Mulder doesn’t want her to do it. He moved away on me, and I called him his first name. I just went, ‘Fox!’ I could hear that ‘mother’ voice. And David stopped cold, he stopped in his tracks. It was like the voice of every mother; in that sense, the mother did come through.”

MELISSA SCULLY, MELINDA MCGRAW

Coincidentally, McGraw said, she brought up the idea of making Melissa a psychic, and found Morgan and Wong had already had the same thought.

McGraw felt that Melissa “was the black sheep in this family, probably a very difficult teenager, in trouble, very curious. She experimented, I’m sure, with drugs and boys, was very political and was always a bit left of center and always pretty conscious of developing her psychic ability.”

Morgan and Wong had also played around with making Melissa a girlfriend for Mulder, and although that idea was jettisoned, McGraw said she felt the element of attraction was still there, “Certainly from Melissa’s side. We had talked about that, and I think that for various reasons it wasn’t to be. Mulder had just had a romance the week before (in “3 “).

McGraw felt that in the end, it was a good idea that the relationship “didn’t go that far, because that left grounds for something later. I think they wrote Melissa in a neat way, because she wasn’t all pure and light. She had this dark side to her, and this slightly jealous side, of being jealous of Dana.” But, she concluded, there is also a “total love. The bond of sibling love is so intense. It’s an age-old dramatic theme, and it’s one of the greatest loves that human beings have. It’s undeniably bigger than any other connection, because you’ve shared not only the same parents, but the same actual physical experience of being born to that mother.”

CHARLIE SCULLY, a Note

Since McGraw's vision lined up neatly with Morgan and Wong's, I find it interesting that she (indirectly) groups Charlie Scully with the rest of the "normal" Scullys-- as if he, too, were a "God and country" man like Capt. Scully, Maggie, Bill, and Scully herself.

CASTING

Director David Nutter cast Don Davis, familiar to genre viewers as Major Briggs in Twin Peaks, as William Scully, and Sheila Larken as Margaret Scully. “Scully needed to have a father and mother both of real strong qualities and charisma and three dimensions,” he said. “I felt that Don David and Sheila Larken would bring the required weird to the parts.”

Nutter had worked with Davis previously on several shows, including Broken Badges, and called him personally to ask him if he would accept the role of William Scully, despite its brevity.

David Nutter had met Larken when he auditioned her for his 1985 film Cease FIRE, and although he didn’t cast her, she made an impression on the director.

Larken’s husband, X-Files’ co-executive producer Bob Goodwin, mentioned her at one point to Nutter, and Nutter immediately thought of her for Margaret. “She was perfect. She was the one, and I hired her.”

The arrival of Scully’s sister Melissa, in ‘One Breath’ was an unexpected one. Scully’s two brothers, of whom she spoke in ‘Roland,’ were glimpsed in “Beyond the Sea” and were seen as children in a flashback of ‘ One Breath.’ Yet the sibling who turned up in that latter episode was a previously unheard of sister, Melissa, played by Melinda McGraw. 

"Most importantly, we [Morgan and Wong] wanted to write a good part of Melinda McGraw, with whom we shared a frustrating time on The Commish.”

TRIVIA

In between “Beyond the Sea” and “One Breath” Davi[s] made an uncredited, off screen appearance as a dialogue coach for “Miracle Man.” As a native of the Ozark Mountains region, and a former theater professor, he lent his expertise to the guest cast to help them properly pronounce Southern accents.

The New York native [Sheila] had left acting several years ago and had obtained a master’s degree in clinical social work. But after moving to Washington state with her husband, X-Files’ co-executive producer Bob Goodwin, she found herself busy with acting offers.

McGraw enjoyed playing a softer role after several years as a police detective. “It was really great for me to play a different character,” she said.

LASTLY, AN ANECDOTE

From the compiler:

I once had the opportunity to ask what Glen Morgan thought about Chris Carter killing off Melissa Scully.... He told me that most networks have what’s called “character payments”. If a character that a writer created returns in another episode, they get a couple hundred bucks. This doesn’t happen on FOX, so there goes any cash for the Lone Gunmen, Skinner, Tooms, Scully’s Ma…etc. “If we did get character payments, I would have been more bummed that they killed Melissa...."

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

[2stepadmiral]

Been listening to the Thrawn trilogy again recently, and it brings to mind some of the shortcomings of how Thrawn has been portrayed in the Disney Canon.

To be clear, I’m not saying that Thrawn in the Disney Canon has been badly done, or that his character is out of whack, or even that he hasn’t been portrayed as intelligent, let alone, strategically, brilliant. The real problem with his portrayal narrows down to two specific aspects. Number one: his lack of competent subordinates, and number two: his lack of situations where his strategic genius can really be displayed.

On the first problem, Thrawn was introduced in Heir to the Empire with his second in command being Captain Pellaeon. Throughout the trilogy, they are given a clear Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson dynamic. This works on many levels, offering the reader Pellaeon as a stand-in for the reader, having him ask questions about and work out for himself the admiral’s actions and thought process. This provides an organic way to explain Thrawn’s plans, his analysis of problems, and demonstrate his character and brilliance without relying on monologue or use forced exposition. The dynamic is sort of re-created with Jorj Car’dass and Kinman Doriana in the novel outbound flight, with both characters filling the Watson role to some degree.

In rebels, Thrawn has no competent subordinate to do this with. He either has some random, incompetent officer of the week who we don’t see again for a while, a recurring incompetent officer who we’ve seen before, and will likely see again, Ruhk, in very brief instances which gives no means of understanding Thrawn’s character or intellect, or Governor Price, who is decidedly not a military officer and has a very distinctive flavor of incompetence related to her political nature. With most of these characters, the grand Admiral doesn’t waste time breaking down his analysis of the rebel plan or gives a few hints that go completely over their heads. There is one occasion where this dynamic works in his favor, specifically when the idiot captain wasn’t picking up on the fact that they had captured Hera while Thrawn dropped increasingly obvious hints as to who she was. this made for a dramatic and pretty well done revelation as to how intelligent he was, but it only worked the one time. Moving forward, he continued having a deal with these idiots subordinates, which gave no opportunity for him to really stretch his strategic muscles in that same Sherlock/Watson dynamic. The one episode featuring Colonel Yularen was an exception, as the Colonel’s competence gave Thrawn a good partner to work with and demonstrate this dynamic with, but very briefly and only this one time. The rest of the time, he’s working with idiots that don’t provide this kind of competence for him to play off of.

In Ahsoka, Thrawn gets captain Enoch and Morgan Elsbeth, and both characters have an air of competence that should have translated to the Sherlock/Watson dynamic, but Enoch literally never questions anything Thrawn orders him to do, making him completely useless for this dynamic, and Morgan has the dynamic only in a few brief scenes, scenes where the situation makes it difficult for Thrawn to really stretch his chops.

The second problem stems from the situations that Dave is putting him in. Thrawn is a military and strategic genius, who thrives in situations where it is straight up one fleet fighting another fleet, both in large scale campaigns unfolding over a period of months as well as individual battles. He can identify an enemies likely tactics through understanding of his enemies psyche, and understanding he gains through careful study of artwork, artwork that can be created by or simply enjoyed by individuals or entire cultures/species. He can use this understanding to carefully craft strategies against enemy factions and commanders, and he can do this in the heat of an impromptu battle, or in the context of carefully laid out campaigns put together in whatever time frame he required. The entire Thrawn trilogy puts both of these abilities on display, introducing him by immediately crafting the perfect battle plan against a suddenly appearing New Republic task force in the first chapter of the first book, and then later consistently crafting one brilliant plan after another that builds on each other like a series of chess moves.

Now, the thing is, it’s pretty easy for a strategist to show his competence in a theater of war against affection of close to equal strength, such as the Empire and the New Republic in this timeframe of five years after Endor. It’s difficult to show the same kind of cunning and brilliance when the context is in all powerful galaxy spanning Empire trying to track down and eliminate a number of small rebel cells instead of going toe to toe with an enemy fraction of equal strength. As such, it makes sense that Thrawn was sort of out of his element in rebels. Even so, he was never really given an opportunity to demonstrate his strategic brilliance, simply because the circumstances of this timeframe made that impossible. They could show him being just barely one step ahead of the rebels as they try to escape his ship, or the factory he was inspecting, or a trap he had laid the plans for and entrusted to a less competent officer, but the effect of this makes him seem simply competent instead of brilliant. When they could show him engage in a proper battle, the sheer volume of resources, personnel, and fire power at his disposal, makes his victory pretty much certain when his enemies are a ragtag group of rebels, with significantly fewer fighters, warships that are significantly weaker and older, and transports that are completely unarmed. This lineup makes any real strategy to defeat the enemy, excessive, and unnecessary, and really difficult to show. That’s why the only two real battles he engages in (Atollon and the attack on the Lothal factory) do nothing to display the grand admirals intelligence. He wins by default based on his overwhelming firepower and resources, not based on a specifically tailored strategy for that particular situation with that particular commander.

In Ahsoka, they touch on his strategic brilliance and tendency to read his opponents, but because his overall goal here was simply to escape, and buying time rather than actually destroying his opponent was all he really needed, it doesn’t come off as brilliant and it doesn’t give him an opportunity to really show off his intelligence. In the final episode of Ahsoka, they could have had a five minute scene when Thrawn returns to the galaxy and meets a new Republic task force, and then proceeds to utterly annihilate the force, despite having only a single damaged Star Destroyer at his disposal.

I remember reading recently that when adding Thrawn to rebels, the biggest challenge was creating situations where he would be involved, but it wouldn’t be his fault that the empire lost. My response to that is simply, then why not have the rebels lose every now and then? Why not have them barely fail to acquire their goal simply because the Grand Admiral was distantly involved, or have them fail outright every now and then because he outthought them at every turn? Maybe have an episode or an arc where they try to help Senator Garm Bel Iblis (who I am very sore about his exclusion from rebel specifically and Disney Canon in general) defect from the Empire and escape Corellia, but due to Thrawn intervening at the last second, the senator’s family is killed.

Point being, I believe that Canon Thrawn is just as intelligent and strategically brilliant as expanded universe Thrawn, he just hasn’t been given situations where he can thrive and truly demonstrate that ability.