#northern legends phone case

[iceknifebob]

THE LAST BREAK

By Chat-GPT

Iceknife Bob was a name that held quiet infamy among the few who knew its tale. To most, he was just Bob: a gray-haired old man with a face worn by Arctic winds, long days at sea, and the cold bite of northern winters. He’d spent his life as a deckhand on an icebreaker ship, cutting paths through frozen seas for arctic voyages. In his day, Bob had seen the wild, raw north like few ever had, spending years breaking ice for tankers and supply ships while sharing rum-soaked stories with crewmates as the world outside froze over.

But there was more to Bob than his seafaring life. Beneath his quiet demeanor and slow, measured voice beat the heart of an anarchist. Bob had a deep resentment of power and government, the kind that had stewed beneath the surface for decades, tempered by hardship and disappointment. To Bob, the ice wasn't the only thing that needed breaking—so did the systems of control that shaped the world.

For years, he'd kept his radical ideas quiet, lurking in the shadows of protests and small gatherings, using his unassuming exterior to pass unnoticed. But he had a plan. And when Bob decided to act, he aimed high.

Bob set his sights on none other than President Biden. For Bob, the president was the face of a system that had failed too many for too long. One day, with an intricate, carefully plotted plan, Bob made his move. He waited until Biden visited a northern town on some state function, close enough for Bob to blend in with the crowd, slip past security, and make his strike.

But he failed. Maybe it was the years weighing on him, slowing him down. Maybe it was the ice he'd broken his whole life that had cracked something within. Or maybe it was fate. In any case, he didn’t get close. Security intercepted him before he could draw his weapon, but Bob—old and cagey as he was—slipped away into the northern wilderness.

The media would never know the real Bob. They only reported the strange news of an "elderly man" with no apparent connections being on the run after a failed assassination attempt. The authorities, though, began to dig into the legend of "Iceknife Bob," a man known in certain underground circles, a ghost who had disappeared into the vast tundra.

Back in a small, frostbitten town, Bob’s best friend, Oak, sat in his cabin. Oak had been friends with Bob for decades. They’d shared drinks after long hauls at sea, spent hours by crackling fires telling stories only other old men could understand. Oak didn't know all of Bob’s secrets—he wasn't sure anyone did—but he knew enough to keep his mouth shut.

One day, the FBI knocked on Oak’s door. They asked polite but probing questions, trying to sniff out any leads on Bob’s whereabouts. Oak, a grizzled man with eyes like frozen lakes, denied knowing anything. He kept his answers vague, evasive.

But as the interview wore on, Oak’s phone buzzed on the table beside him. His wife, bless her, was texting him again. Without thinking, Oak reached for the phone to check the message. As he unlocked the screen, the background photo lit up—a picture of Oak and Bob, standing arm in arm by the docks, the cold northern sun gleaming behind them.

The FBI agent’s eyes locked on the image.

Oak’s breath caught. He froze, his weathered hands still holding the phone.

The agent said nothing for a long moment, just stared. Finally, with a cold, knowing smile, the agent spoke softly. “I think you know more than you're letting on.”

Oak swallowed hard. He knew that Bob was out there somewhere, maybe hunkered down in some remote cabin or hiding among the scattered icefields. But now, it seemed the ice had finally broken for Iceknife Bob.

The end was inevitable.

[goalbies]

Just got my Humboldt Broncos t shirt (from Violent Gentlemen Hockey club) and Humboldt Broncos phone case (from Northern Legends). The proceeds from both of these purchases all went directly to the families affected by the April Humboldt Broncos bus crash in which many lives were loss and even more impacted by the tragic crash. The players lost in this crash will forever be in my heart as well as their families. I’m glad I was able to buy something from two different companies that both donated all of their proceeds from these items to the families. Keep on playing wherever you boys are at. Rest In Peace the victims of the Humboldt Broncos bus crash.

[queenbirbs]

the way home | epilogue | Edward x MC

Pairing: Edward Mortemer x MC

Warnings: some language

Word count: 1,340

Read from the beginning

Read on AO3

------

“If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends, make it last forever, friendship nev-- ow! fuck you, scrubby pad! -- eeeeennddss.”

“Babe?”

From her squatted position on the shower floor, Gabby groans and leans back to poke her head around the corner. 

“Yeah?” she calls out.

“Your phone’s going off.”

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, what does it say?”

There’s a brief pause, and then: “It’s all notifications from something called are slash time travel.”

“Ooh! Can you bring it to me?”

“My hands are covered in spackle.”

“Mine are covered in bleach, though,” she whines.

There’s a sigh, then the sound of footsteps coming down the creaky hallway. A moment later, Iman pushes open the door and winces. 

“Holy shit, how much Comet did you use?” 

Jumping to her feet, Gabby cheerfully abandons the chemical-induced haze of the guest bathroom shower and takes her phone from her girlfriend. 

“Thanks, honey.”

“The window’s… why isn’t the window open? I’m opening the window.” 

She nods her head, letting Iman fuss in the background while she swipes open the app. Her breath catches at the top post’s title: I think I found the new celebrity time traveler.

The body of the post is copied from an article published by National Geographic that details a new historical discovery. 

“Our running theory was that this was a Dread Pirate Roberts situation,” Professor Belinda Doyle explained. Doyle, a professor of history at Boston College, focuses her work primarily on piracy and smuggling in the 17th to 18th centuries. 

“We believed that the strange gaps in the timeline meant that Captain McTavish was either killed in battle or hanged, and that another female pirate using that same name would take her place. We know now that wasn’t the case, thanks to the artifacts and documents that have been uncovered. Instead, McTavish was disappearing over the years to have a family. It would’ve been hard, certainly, for a female pirate during that time to take on raising a child. With the legend she made of herself, it makes sense that she would’ve kept her family as much of a secret as possible.”

Several items were found on Tiburon, a tiny island in the northern Caribbean, including a painting, a glass ornament, and a small chest of other artifacts. Most of the objects are in near-mint condition. The blown-glass trinket is still wrapped in a cloth with a slip of parchment tucked inside. The documents inside the chest include ship logs, inventories, letters, and birthday cards. The most stunning relic is the family portrait, painted by famed artist Marianne de la Vega sometime in the 1760s. The painting features McTavish, her husband Captain Edward Mortemer, and their two children. 

Past the text dump are side-by-side photos of Elena’s old headshot and a copy of the painting.   

“Oh, my god!” Gabby sprints out of the bathroom and down the hallway to show Iman. “Honey, look! Look, it’s her! I found her, it’s her!”

“Babe, stop, you’re going to get bleach all over the new… holy shit! It’s her!” 

------

“You’re fidgeting again.”

“I don’t make it a habit of sitting in one place and not moving.”

“You do when you’re reading.”

“Ah, but I don’t have a book to keep me occupied though, do I?”

“I’ll tell you a story, Papa!” 

Elena puts a hand on their son’s shoulder as he starts to get up. “No, Christopher, you need to sit still, remember?”

He juts out his bottom lip in a pout. “I want to tell Papa a story.”

“You can tell me a story when we’re done,” Edward reassures. “I promise.”  

“Mama!” Andie coos from Edward’s lap, trying to stretch her short arms out and grab hold of her mother. “Mama!” 

He tries soothing their daughter with a toy, but her soft babbling soon turns to hiccupy cries. He shifts to catch Marianne’s eye from around the easel. 

“I apologize, but can we…?”

“‘Tis fine,” she murmurs, most of her concentration still on the canvas before her. 

Elena gathers Andie into her arms and bounces her on her lap, knowing she despises sitting still as much as her father does. 

“This would be much easier if it were one of your photographs,” he murmurs with a smirk. She thinks of the secret Polaroid she has stashed away, the one that she uses to take photos of their crew and their little family.  

“The camera won’t be invented for another sixty years, sorry. Besides, you’re the one who insisted on getting a portrait done.”

“It’ll be nice to have.”

“You only wanted one because Robert and Julien had one made.”

“Please try to keep steady,” Marianne warns again. 

They settle back into their chairs, having not realized they drifted closer during their teasing. Other than Andie demanding to swap laps a few more times, the rest of the afternoon is smooth sailing. Elena feels like she can make that comparison, given that they’ve sailed half the world over now. 

“Alright, you may stand.”

She releases the children, much to their relief, and they race through the door and out into the courtyard. Edward helps her up from her chair and they cross the room to see the painting. The background is still blank, save for a halo of deep blue around the family, but the rest is in full color. 

“It’s wonderful,” Elena murmurs, drawing her hand through the air to motion to each fine detail. “The ruffles in Andie’s dress, the pattern of my coat -- oh, and especially your eyes. A spectacular job, Miss de la Vega.” 

“Aye, a fantastic job,” Edward agrees, then draws up short. “You know what I’ve just realized, though, lass?”

“What?”

“We’ll have to have another one made once this one comes along,” he says, reaching out to palm the obvious swell of their child.

Pursing her lips, Elena tilts her head and studies the painting. 

“I don’t know. She is already in this one, technically.”

Edward snorts out a laugh, knocking his shoulder into hers and prompting a chuckle from her. “Same time next year, then, Miss de la Vega?” 

“Of course. I’ll have this sent to you once it’s finished.” Marianne glances up from organizing her paints to smile up at them. “I think it’ll look rather grand above your hearth.”

With a last farewell, Elena takes Edward’s hand and wanders out into the courtyard with him. The afternoon sun bakes along the stonework, but in the shadowed recesses, the summer day is tolerable. Palm fronds tickle their shoulders as they stroll through the breezeway.

“How are we going to tell her our ship doesn’t have a fireplace?”

“I think she already knows,” Elena assures. “The swords at our sides aren’t exactly subtle.”  

A grin flashes across his face. 

“Well, we do have a reputation to uphold.” 

The high-pitched sound of laughter leads them to the center courtyard, where Ginny and Lottie are chasing Christopher around a bubbling fountain. Andie cheers on from her seat at the fountain’s edge, the fine ruffles of her dress already soaked, tired from her earlier race. Rushing forward, Edward snatches Christopher up and throws him over his shoulder. 

“Have you prepared the rigging, sailor?”

“Nay!” he squeals with laughter, wriggling as his father tickles him. 

“‘Nay’?” Edward swings him with ease to his other shoulder. “Captain McTavish, I believe we’ve a lazy pirate on our hands. What are we to do with him?”

Elena hums, feigning a look of consideration as she boosts Andie down from the fountain ledge. Ginny scoops her up onto her hip, to which Elena shoots her a look of gratitude. 

“I don’t know. Maybe a night in the brig?”

“Mama, no!” Christopher protests in between giggles.

“No!” Andie interrupts. “Go home!”    

“An excellent idea.” Slowing his stride, Edward sidles up next to Elena. She takes the opportunity to ruffle their son’s hair as he chatters away. “What does the captain say, though?”

“Set course for Tiburon,” Elena agrees. “It’s time to go home.”

------

Author’s notes and what-have-yous:

The painter’s surname is a reference to Evelyn de la Vega, a patient in OPH.  Also, thus ends this series! I’ve got a google doc with a few ficlets / fragments of scenes that fit within this series that I may get around to posting at some point. Other than that, here’s the end.

[watusichris]

You Oughta “Get Carter”

Another old Night Flight piece, tied to a Turner Classic Movies airing, about a movie I never tire of watching. (Unfortunately, the Krays film “Legend” turned out to be not so good.) ********** The English gangster movie has proven an enduring genre to this day. The 1971 picture that jumpstarted the long-lived cycle, Get Carter, Mike Hodges’ bracing, brutal tale of a mobster’s revenge, screens late Thursday on TCM as part of a day-long tribute to Michael Caine, who stars as the film’s titular anti-hero.

We won’t have to wait long for the next high-profile Brit-mob saga: October will see the premiere of Brian Helgeland’s Legend, a new feature starring Tom Hardy (Mad Max: Fury Road, The Dark Knight Rises, Locke) in a tour de force dual role as Ronnie and Reggie Kray, the legendarily murderous identical twin gangleaders who terrorized London in the ‘60s. The violent exploits of the Krays mesmerized Fleet Street’s journalists and the British populace until the brothers and most of the top members of their “firm” were arrested in 1968.

The siblings both died in prison after receiving life sentences. They’ve been the subjects of several English TV documentaries and a 1990 feature starring Martin and Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet. However, the Krays and their seamy milieu may have had their greatest impact in fictional form, via the durable figure of Jack Carter, the creation of a shy, alcoholic graphic artist, animator, and fiction writer named Ted Lewis, the man now recognized by many as “the father of British noir.”

Born in 1940 in a Manchester suburb, Lewis was raised in the small town of Barton-upon-Humber in the dank English midlands. A sickly child, he became engrossed with art, the movies, and writing. The product of an English art school in nearby Hull, he wrote his first, unsuccessful novel, a semi-autobiographical piece of “kitchen sink” realism called All the Way Home and All the Night Through, in 1965.

He soon moved sideways into movie animation, serving as clean-up supervisor on George Dunning’s Beatles feature Yellow Submarine (1968). However, now married with a couple of children, he decided to return to writing with an eye to crafting a commercial hit, and in 1970 he published a startling, ultra-hardboiled novel titled Jack’s Return Home.

British fiction had never produced anything quite like the book’s protagonist Jack Carter. He is the enforcer for a pair of London gangsters, Gerald and Les Fletcher, who bear more than a passing resemblance to the Krays. At the outset of the book, recounted in the first person, Carter travels by train to an unnamed city in the British midlands (modeled after the city of Scunthorpe near Lewis’ hometown) to bury his brother Frank, who has died in an alleged drunk driving accident.

Carter instantly susses that his brother was murdered, and he sets about sorting out a hierarchy of low-end midlands criminals (all of whom he knew in his early days as a budding hoodlum) responsible for the crime, investigating the act with a gun in his hand and a heart filled with hate. He’s no Sam Spade or Phillip Marlowe bound by a moral code – in fact, he once bedded Frank’s wife, and is now sleeping with his boss Gerald’s spouse. He’s a sociopathic career criminal and professional killer – a “villain,” in the English term -- who will use any means at his disposal to secure his revenge.

Carter’s pursuit of rough justice for his brother, and for a despoiled niece, attracts the attention of the Fletchers, whose business relationships with the Northern mob are being disrupted by their lieutenant’s campaign of vengeance. As Carter leaves behind a trail of corpses and homes in on the last of his quarry, the hunter has become the hunted, and Jack’s Return Home climaxes with scenes of bloodletting worthy of a Jacobean tragedy, or of Grand Guignol.

Before its publication, Lewis’ grimy, violent book attracted the attention of Michael Klinger, who had produced Roman Polanski’s stunning ‘60s features Repulsion and Cul-de-Sac. Klinger acquired film rights to the novel before its publication in 1970, and sent a galley copy to Mike Hodges, then a U.K. TV director with no feature credits.

Hodges, who immediately signed on as director and screenwriter of Klinger’s feature – which was retitled Get Carter -- was not only drawn to the taut, fierce action, but also by the opportunity to peel away the veneer of propriety that still lingered in British society and culture. As he noted in his 2000 commentary for the U.S. DVD release of the film, “You cannot deny that [in England], like anywhere else, corruption is endemic.”

Casting was key to the potential box office prospects of the feature, and Klinger and Hodges’ masterstroke was securing Michael Caine to play Jack Carter. By 1970, Caine had become an international star, portraying spy novelist Len Deighton’s agent Harry Palmer in three pictures and garnering raves as the eponymous philanderer in Alfie.

Caine had himself known some hard cases in his London neighborhood; in his own DVD commentary, he says that his dead-eyed, terrifyingly reserved Carter was “an amalgam of people I grew up with – I’d known them all my life.” Hodges notes of Caine’s Carter, “There’s a ruthlessness about him, and I would have been foolish not to use it to the advantage of the film.”

Playing what he knew, Caine gave the performance of a lifetime – a study in steely cool, punctuated by sudden outbursts of unfettered fury. The actor summarizes his character on the DVD: “Here was a dastardly man coming as the savior of a lady’s honor. It’s the knight saving the damsel in distress, except this knight is not a very noble or gallant one. It’s the villain as hero.”

The supporting players were cast with equal skill. Ian Hendry, who was originally considered for the role of Carter, ultimately portrayed the hit man’s principal nemesis and target Eric Paice. Caine and Hendry’s first faceoff in the film, an economical conversation at a local racetrack, seethes with unfeigned tension and unease – Caine was wary of Hendry, whose deep alcoholism made the production a difficult one, while Hendry was jealous of the leading man’s greater success.

For Northern mob kingpin Cyril Kinnear, Hodges recruited John Osborne, then best known in Great Britain as the writer of the hugely successfully 1956 play Look Back in Anger, Laurence Olivier’s screen and stage triumph The Entertainer, and Tony Richardson’s period comedy Tom Jones, for which he won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay. Osborne, a skilled actor before he found fame as a writer, brings subdued, purring menace to the part.

Though her part was far smaller than those of such other supporting actresses as Geraldine Moffat, Rosemarie Dunham, and Dorothy White, Brit sex bomb Britt Ekland received third billing as Anna, Gerald Fletcher’s wife and Carter’s mistress. Her marquee prominence is somewhat justified by an eye-popping sequence in which she engages in a few minutes of steamy phone sex with Caine.

Some small roles were populated by real British villains. George Sewell, who plays the Fletchers’ minion Con McCarty, was a familiar of the Krays’ older brother Charlie, and introduced the elder mobster to Carry On comedy series actress Barbara Windsor, who subsequently married another member of the Kray firm. John Bindon, who appears briefly as the younger Fletcher sibling, was a hood and racketeer who later stood trial for murder; a notorious womanizer, he romanced Princess Margaret, whose clandestine relationship with Bindon later became a key plot turn in the 2008 Jason Strathan gangster vehicle The Bank Job.

Verisimilitude was everything for Hodges, who shot nearly all of the film on grimly realistic locations in Newcastle, the down-at-the-heel coal-mining town on England’s northeastern coast. The director vibrantly employs interiors of the city’s seedy pubs, rooming houses, nightclubs and betting parlors. In one inspired bit of local color, he uses an appearance by a local girl’s marching band, the Pelaw Hussars, to drolly enliven a scene in which a nude, shotgun-toting Carter backs down the Fletchers’ gunmen.

The film’s relentless action was perfectly framed by director of photography Wolfgang Suchitzky, whose experience as a cameraman for documentarian Paul Rotha is put to excellent use. Some sequences are masterfully shot with available light; the movie’s most brutal murder plays out at night by a car’s headlights. The breathtakingly staged final showdown between Carter and Paice is shot under lowering skies against the grey backdrop of a North Sea coal slag dump.

Tough, uncompromising, and utterly unprecedented in English cinema, Get Carter was a hit in the U.K. It fared poorly in the U.S., where its distributor Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer dumped it on the market as the lower half of a double bill with the Frank Sinatra Western spoof Dirty Dingus Magee. In his DVD commentary, Caine notes that it was only after Ted Turner acquired MGM’s catalog and broadcast the film on his cable networks that the movie developed a cult audience in the States.

Get Carter has received two American remakes. The first, George Armitage’s oft-risible 1972 blaxploitation adaptation Hit Man, starred Bernie Casey as Carter’s African-American counterpart Tyrone Tackett. It is notable for a spectacularly undraped appearance by Pam Grier, whose character meets a hilarious demise that is somewhat spoiled by the picture’s amusing trailer. (Casey and Keenan Ivory Wayans later lampooned the film in the 1988 blaxploitation parody I’m Gonna Git You Sucka.)

Hodges’ film was drearily Americanized and relocated to Seattle in Stephen Kay’s like-titled 2000 Sylvester Stallone vehicle. It’s a sluggish, misbegotten venture, about which the less that is said the better. Michael Caine’s presence in the cast as villain Cliff Brumby (played in the original by Brian Mosley) only serves to remind viewers that they are watching a vastly inferior rendering of a classic.

Ted Lewis wrote seven more novels after Jack’s Return Home, and returned to Jack Carter for two prequels. The first of them, Jack Carter’s Law (1970), an almost equally intense installment in which Carter ferrets out a “grass” – an informer – in the Fletchers’ organization, is a deep passage through the London underworld of the ‘60s, full of warring gangsters and venal, dishonest coppers.

The final episode in the trilogy, Jack Carter and the Mafia Pigeon (1977), was a sad swan song for British noir’s most memorable bad man. In it, Carter travels to the Mediterranean island of Majorca on a Fletchers-funded “holiday,” only to discover that he has actually been dispatched to guard a jittery American mobster hiding out at the gang’s villa. It’s a flabby, obvious, and needlessly discursive book; Lewis’ exhaustion is apparent in his desperate re-use of a plot point central to the action of the first Carter novel.

Curiously, the locale and setup of Mafia Pigeon appear to be derived from Pulp, the 1975 film that reunited director Hodges and actor Caine. In it, the actor plays a writer of sleazy paperback thrillers who travels to the Mediterranean isle of Malta to pen the memoirs of Preston Gilbert (Mickey Rooney), a Hollywood actor with gangland connections. Hilarity and mayhem ensue.

All of Lewis’ characters consume enough alcohol to put down an elephant, and Lewis himself succumbed to alcoholism in 1982, at the age of 42. Virtually unemployable, he had moved back home to Barton-upon-Humber, where lived with his parents.

He went out with a bang, however: In 1980, he published his final and finest book, the truly explosive mob thriller GBH (the British abbreviation for “grievous bodily harm”). The novel focuses on the last days of vice lord George Fowler, a sadist in the grand Krays manner, whose empire is being toppled by internal treachery. Using a unique time-shifting structure that darts back and forth between “the smoke” (London) and “the sea” (Fowler’s oceanside hideout), it reaches a finale of infernal, hallucinatory intensity.

After Lewis’ death, his work fell into obscurity, and his novels were unavailable in America for decades. Happily, Soho Press reissued the Carter trilogy in paperback in 2014 and republished GBH in hardback earlier this year. Now U.S. readers have the opportunity to read the books that influenced an entire school of English noir writers, including such Lewis disciples and venerators as Derek Raymond, David Peace, and Jake Arnott.

Echoes of GBH can be heard in The Long Good Friday, another esteemed English gangster film starring Bob Hoskins as the arrogant and impetuous chief of a collapsing London firm. Released the same year as Lewis’ last novel, the John Mackenzie-directed feature is only one of a succession of outstanding movies – The Limey, The Hit, Layer Cake, Sexy Beast, and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels among them – that owe a debt to Get Carter, the daddy of them all.

[bamby0304]

Her Saviours- Ch.24

Series Masterlist

Summary: During an odd case, the Winchesters came across Y/N, a scared young Omega girl who had been used as a lure for a nest of vampires. After rescuing her from the monsters, John and his sons took her in knowing she was in no state to live among ordinary people. But three Alphas and one Omega is a mixture bound for disaster.

Warnings: Explicit language. ABO dynamics. Angst. Violence.

Bamby

The other Omega and Alpha were safe now. Their car had needed a few touch-ups which Dean was able to do while you kept an eye on the orchard you’d still been parked by. Then you and he followed them until they were far away and safe.

Driving back towards the town, the sun rising, Dean had Sam on loudspeaker as he explained everything to his brother.

“The scarecrow climbed off its cross?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, I’m tellin’ ya. Burkittsville, Indiana. Fun Town.” The tension in Dean was obvious. Not only in the way he spoke, but you could tell by looking at his grip on the steering wheel.

“It didn’t kill the couple, did it?”

“No. We can cope without you, you know.”

“Y/N… are you okay?”

Smiling down at the phone on the dash, you nodded even though he couldn’t see you. “I’m okay.”

“This thing is after Omegas and the male with them. Dean-”

“I got it,” Dean cut his brother off. “I can keep her safe.”

“I’m not doubting that. I’m just worried.”

The clench of Dean’s jaw made you wonder what was going through his head. Was he worried about you, too? Or did his brother’s words just hit a nerve?

When there was no response, Sam cleared his throat. “So, something must be animating it. A spirit.”

“No, it’s more than a spirit. It’s a god. A Pagan god, anyway,” Dean corrected.

“What makes you say that?”

“The annual cycle of its killings? And the fact that the victims are always an Alpha and unclaimed Omega. Like some kind of fertility right. And you should see the locals.” Dean glanced at you. “They treat Omegas like royalty. Offered Y/N anything she might want or need. The way they treated this couple… fattenin’ ‘em up like a Christmas turkey.”

“The last meal. Given to sacrificial victims.”

“Yeah, I’m thinking a ritual sacrifice to appease some Pagan god.”

“So, a god possesses the scarecrow…”

“And the scarecrow takes its sacrifice,” Dean finished his brother’s sentence. “And for another year, the crops won’t wilt, and disease won’t spread.”

“Do you know which god you’re dealing with?”

“No, not yet.”

“Well, you figure out what it is, you can figure out a way to kill it.”

“I know. I’m actually on my way to a local community college. I’ve got an appointment with a professor. You know, since I don’t have my trusty sidekick geek boy to do all the research.” 

Sam laughed lightly, “You know, if you’re hinting you need my help, just ask.”

“I’m not hinting anything. Y/N and I can handle it,” Dena assured him. “Actually, uh… I want you to know… I mean, don’t think…”

“Yeah. I’m sorry, too.” Sam didn’t need to hear the words to understand.

“Sam. You were right. You gotta do your own thing. You gotta live your own life.”

You looked over at Dean, surprised.

“Are you serious?”

“You’ve always known what you want. And you go after it. You stand up to Dad. And you always have. Hell, I wish I… anyway… I admire that about you. I’m proud of you, Sammy.”

“I don’t even know what to say.”

“Say you’ll take care of yourself.”

“I will.”

“Call me when you find Dad.”

“Okay. Bye, Dean.” There was a pause before Sam added, “Goodbye, Y/N.”

As the line went dead, you turned to look out the window, feeling tears well up in your eyes. Your heart ached as you realised this was it. It was the end. Sam was gone, he was going to do his own thing… and you didn’t think he’d be back again. At least not for a while.

“Hey.” Dean reached over to rest a hand on your knee. “Talk to me.”

Unable to look at him, you kept your eyes on the horizon as you spoke, “Still hurts… losing him. Losing any of you. When you said you’ve had to compete for my attention since we met-”

“I didn’t mean it. Not like that.”

Glancing over your shoulder, you gave him a small smile. “I know, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. You, John, Sam… you all saved me. You all mean so much to me. I hate… I hate feeling like I’m grasping onto the hope of us all being together again when it’s not gonna happen.”

“It will,” he assured you, giving your knee a squeeze. “Sammy will find Dad and they’ll kill the son of a bitch that killed my mum. And then they’ll come find us, and things will go back to the way they used to be. The way they should be.”

Wiping away at the stray tear the rolled down your cheek, you shifted along the seat and snuggled into his side. “I hope you’re right, Dean. I really hope you’re right.”

…

“It’s not every day I get a research question on Pagan ideology.”

You and Dean were walking with a professor through the halls of the community college where he worked. The hope was that he could shed some light on the history behind the town. Perhaps then, you’d be able to understand what you were dealing with and how to kill it.

Dean offered a polite smile. “Yeah, well, call it a hobby.”

“But you said you were interested in local lore?” the professor asked, getting a hummed confirmation from both you and Dean. “I’m afraid Indiana isn’t really known for its Pagan worship.”

“Well, what if it was imported?” Dean suggested. “You know, like the Pilgrims brought their religion over. Wasn’t a lot of this area settled by immigrants?”

The professor shrugged. “Well, yeah.”

“There’s a place nearby, Burkittsville. Do you know where their ancestors would have come from?” you asked, a little tentatively.

The professor was beta, but the place had lingering scents of Alpha everywhere. Campus’ generally meant a wide variety of races, genders, and breeds. It wasn’t the first time you’d been on a campus, but it did feel different. You wondered if it was due to your intensifying fear of strange Alphas.

“Uh, northern Europe, I believe, Scandinavia,” the professor provided.

“What could you tell us about those Pagan gods?” Dean asked.

“Well, there are hundreds of Norse gods and goddesses.”

“We’re actually looking for one. Might live in an orchard.”

 …

In the professor’s office, he dropped an old and heavy book onto the table in front of you and Dean. Flicking it open, he started to skim a few pages to find what you were looking for.

“Woods god, hm? Well, let’s see.” 

As the pages kept turning, Dean quickly spotted something. “Wait, wait, wait. What’s that one?” He turned back to the page in question where you saw a scarecrow in a field.

“Oh, that’s not a woods god, per se.”

“The V-Vanir?” Dean looked up at the professor for confirmation, seeing him nod. He then turned back to the book and began to read. “‘The Vanir were Norse gods of protection and prosperity, keeping the local settlements safe from harm. Some villages built effigies of the Vanir in their fields. Other villages practised human sacrifice. One Alpha, and one unclaimed Omega.’” Pausing a moment, he eyed the picture before asking, “Kind of looks like a scarecrow, huh?”

The professor shrugged. “I suppose.”

Dean continued to read. “This particular Vanir that’s energy sprung from the sacred tree?”

“Well, Pagans believed all sorts of things were infused with magic.”

“So… what would happen if the tree was damaged?” you asked. “Like cut down…”

“Or torched,” Dean added. “You think it’d kill the god?”

Laughing, the professor looked at you both amused, but also like you might’ve lost your minds. “These are just legends we’re discussing.”

“Oh, of course. Yeah, you’re right.” Dean quickly nodded, pulling back from the book. “Listen, thank you very much.” He reached out for the professor’s hand, which he then shook.

Smiling politely, you then offered your hand. “You’ve been a great help, thank you.

“Glad I could help.” Nodding, the professor walked you to the door. 

Neither you or Dean were prepared for what happened next.

As the door opened, you spotted the sheriff standing on the other side. Dean didn’t get the chance to react before the sheriff hit him in the head with the butt of his gun, knocking Dean out.

“Dean!” you cried out, reaching out for him.

“Not so fast.” The sheriff grabbed your arm and spun you around, pressing you against the wall. “Really should have left when you had the chance.”

Pulling you back, he then slammed you forward, against the wall again. This time it was hard enough to knock you clean out.

…

“Sweetheart,” Dean’s voice called to you. “Sweetheart, you gotta wake up. Come on, wake up for me. Please.” The tension in his voice made your heart break. At the same time, you used the pain to draw you back to consciousness. When you made a small squeak of a sound, you could hear the smile in this voice. “That’s it. Come on. Open your eyes for me. Show me your eyes. You can do it.”

It took everything in your power to will yourself to open your eyes. When you did, you found yourself lying on the floor, with Dean hovering above you. His hands were cradling your face as he watched you with eyes so worried you could see tears threatening to form.

“Dean?”

He smiled at you, relief replacing his fears. “Hey.” Helping you sit up, he made sure you were okay. “How are you feeling?”

“What happened?” you asked, squeezing your eyes shut again as you felt a sharp pain throb in your head. “Where are we?”

“The professor was in on it. Called the sheriff. He knocked us out. Must’ve got you bad, ‘cause you’ve been out for a while.” His gaze remained on you, watching your every move carefully. “Had me worried for a moment there, sweetheart.”

“Sorry,” you grunted.

Looking around, you took in your surroundings. Wherever you were, it was cold, dark and dank. It smelt damp and mouldy, and earth. Above you, a few feet away, was what appeared to be a door. Light peeked through the cracks, lighting parts the stairs underneath it.

“We’re in a basement,” you noted, taking another moment to check your surroundings before turning back to Dean.

He looked… defeated. Guilty. Worried. Terrified. The way he was watching your hands as they sat in your lap…

“Dean.” You brought a hand up to cup his face. “This isn’t your fault.”

“You should have gone with Sam,” he muttered. “You should have gone with Sam years ago. When he first left. You should have gone with Sam, and you should have stayed with Sam, and I should have never dragged you into any of this.” There was a crack in his voice that made you want to burst into tears.

Shaking your head, you got on your knees in front of him. “Don’t. Don’t say that.”

“You’re always in danger if you’re with me.”

“Dean… do you really think your father would have let me go with Sam when he first left? Maybe he would have let me go, but do you seriously think he wouldn’t have gone to get me eventually? You Winchesters are pack people. Sam might’ve run away, but he’s still all about pack. If he wasn’t he wouldn’t have dropped everything to come help us. So do you seriously think I would have been able to stay with Sam? Do you really think you would have been able to give up on me so easily?”

There was a moment’s pause as he tried to think of a situation where he would have let you go… but there was none.

“No.” His voice was so soft as he looked up to meet your gaze. “I could never lose you.”

“And you’re not going to.” Leaning in, you pressed your lips to his in a delicate kiss.

The basement door creaked open.

Dean was quick to pull you behind him as he stood, ready to defend you if need be.

It wasn’t needed, though…

“We don’t have much time.” Emily glanced over her shoulder before gesturing for the of you to move. “I’m getting you out of here.”

…

Dean’s grip on your hand was tight as you and he followed Emily through the orchard. You had to be careful, and quiet, keeping low to stay out of sight. Apparently, there were a number of locals around the place, armed and on guard.

Sneaking around, you couldn’t help but notice how different the trees were compared to the first time you’d seen them. They were dying. The townsfolk were running out of time to appease the god.

“How’d you know?” Dean asked in a harsh whisper.

It was obvious he didn’t trust that she was actually trying to help, but you believed her. You also knew it was probably your best chance of getting out of there.

“I heard my aunt and uncle fussing over you two leaving town. And then all your questions, and the weird disappearances every year.” Emily paused and sighed, turning to look at you both. “My mother and father… they weren’t traditionalists. They didn’t believe in claiming. They thought it was barbaric.”

Her story fell into place, then. “Your mother was an unclaimed Omega.”

She nodded. “It was another year like this. The trees were beginning to die… and then the next morning everything was healthy and everyone was happy, and my parents were gone.”

“We’re sorry.” Dean meant it, too. Losing a parent… you all knew what that felt like.

A gun cocked behind you, making you freeze.

“I will shoot,” the sheriff warned. “And it’ll be one of the girls I hit. We only need one of them.”

The three of you all turned, seeing that the sheriff wasn’t alone. Scotty, Harley, and Stacy were all there, too. Armed and aiming their guns at your little group.

“Emily.” Stacy was a mixture of disappointed, shocked, guilty, and scared. “What did you do?”

“They’re people!” Emily exclaimed boldly, even though she was beginning to cry. “Why are you doing this?”

Harley squared his shoulders, doing his best not to show how seeing his niece at the other end of his barrel was affecting him. “It’s for the common good.”

…

Back in the basement, you watched as Dean tried to open the door for the millionth time. Emily was sitting beside you, sobbing lightly. She’d calmed down, but you could tell she was still freaked. You didn’t blame her.

“So…  they’re gonna kill us?” she asked.

Having not known what was going on to the full extent when she’d tried to help you and Dean, Emily had only assumed the townsfolk had killed her parents. Explaining that they were offered up as a sacrifice instead was a little difficult.

“Sacrifice us,” Dean corrected. “Which is, I don’t know, classier, I guess?” Giving up on the door, he headed towards the two of you. “You really didn’t know anything about this, did you?”

She shook her head. “I suspected something, but… the scarecrow? I can’t believe this.”

“Well, you better start believing, cause we’re gonna need your help,” Dean told her. “We can destroy the scarecrow, but we gotta find the tree.”

“What tree?”

“The scarecrow’s power has to come from a sacred tree. Something old, that would have come from wherever the town’s founders are from,” you explained. “The townspeople would treat it with a lot of respect.”

Contemplating the thought for a moment, she soon remembered a tree. “There was this one apple tree. The immigrants brought it over with them. They call it the First Tree.”

“Is it in the orchard?” Dean asked.

Emily nodded. “Yeah, but I don’t know where.” 

The doors opened again, revealing Scotty, Stacey, Harley, and the sheriff. Dean- once again- stood in front of you and Emily protectively as Stacey stepped forward.

“It’s time.”

…

The rope around your wrists wasn’t something you weren’t familiar with. Being in the hunter life meant you’d been tied up a few times over the years. Before that, however, you’d spent years bound. The memories of the things that you’d been through before the Winchesters always seemed a little more potent when you could feel the tightness of rope biting into your skin.

“How many people have you killed, Sheriff? How much blood is on your hands?” Dean asked, glaring at the man who’d just finished tying him to a tree of his own.

“We don’t kill them.”

“No, but you sure cover up after. I mean, how many cars have you hidden, clothes have you buried?” 

“Uncle Harley, please,” Emily cried.

Her uncle couldn’t even look her in the eyes. “I am so sorry, Em. I wish it wasn’t you.”

“Try to understand,” Stacy started. “It’s our responsibility. You… you know too much. You’re a risk.”

“I’m your family.”

“Sweetheart,” Stacy genuinely looked upset, “that’s what sacrifice means. Giving up something you love for the greater good. The town needs to be safe. The good of the many outweighs the good of the one.”

She, Scotty and Harley began to walk away then, though the sheriff remained.

“I hope your apple pie is freakin’ worth it!” Dean called.

Ignoring Dean, the sheriff turned his back to him and then moved towards you. He knelt down, watching as you chewed on your lip, trying to fight the fear that came from the moment you were living in, and the one replaying in your mind.

“Such a shame… you were a pretty Omega. Would’ve made someone happy.”

Lip curling up into a snarl, you spat at him.

Raising a hand to his face, he wiped your spit from his cheek and rose to his feet suddenly. “That fight in you isn’t gonna change anything. You’re his, now.” Turning on his heels, he stalked off.

Your heart was beating hard and fast in your chest. The memories of your past, mixed with the stench of the Alpha sheriff, had your nerves on edge. Everything inside you was screaming to get free and run, but that panic wouldn’t do you any good.

If you tried to get yourself out, you’d only hurt yourself. If you tried to make a break for it, you wouldn’t get far. First, you’d have to free Dean and Emily, and then you’d have to try and sneak out of the orchards… you got the feeling you wouldn’t get far. The townspeople weren’t going to risk losing their sacrifice again.

“So, what’s the plan?” Emily asked Dean expectantly.

“I’m workin’ on it.”

…

The sun had set hours ago. It was cold, your arms ached as they’d remained tied above your head. Your bones hurt, and your anxiety was through the roof. Things were not looking good.

Emily sighed, “You don’t have a plan, do you?”

“I’m workin’ on it,’ Dean assured her, sounding considerably less confident than he had before. “Can you see?”

Shifting as much as you could, you tried to get a look at the scarecrow’s perch behind you. But as much as you tried, and moved, you couldn’t get a good view.

“I can’t see him.”

“Me either,” Emily added.

As you shifted, the ropes bit into your skin more. You hissed and winced as a memory shook you to your bones. Seeing the faces of those who’d killed your parents and taken you… remembering the things they’d done…

“Y/N,” Dean’s voice called you out of your head. “You okay?”

Gritting your teeth, you nodded. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”

“Oh my God.”

Looking over at Emily, you saw pure fear in her eyes. “What? What is it?”

Whatever had he so scared, though, had her frozen as she stared straight ahead with wide eyes. “Oh my God!”

Leaves in the distance rustled as something moved. You could hear it now, coming closer and closer. The adrenaline pumping through your veins as you tried to use the bark on your tree to cut through your ropes. You had to get out of there. You had to save Dean and Em-

“Dean? Y/N?”

“Sam?” Your head fell back against the tree as you let out a relieved breath.

“Oh!” Dean beamed up at his younger brother as Sam moved towards him. “Oh, I take everything back I said. I’m so happy to see you. Come on.” As Sam started untying him, Dean asked, “How’d you get here?”

“I, uh…” Sam released his brother and shrugged. “I stole a car.”

Dean gave his arm a playful punch. “Haha! That’s my boy!” He moved towards Emily to free her while Sam moved to you. “And keep an eye on that scarecrow. He could come alive any minute.”

Sam stopped untying you to look in the direction where his brother had gestured. “What scarecrow?”

Your eyes went wide. “Oh fuck…”

...

The four of you were running. Being quiet and careful wasn’t going to do any of you good now that the scarecrow was awake. You had to be quick. You had to get the hell out of there before he found you.

“Alright, now, this sacred tree you’re talking about..”

“It’s the source of its power,” Dean explained.

Sam shrugged. “So let’s find it and burn it.”

Dean shook his head. “Nah, in the morning. Let’s just shag ass before Leather Face catches up.” 

As the four of you reached a clearing, however, you found your paths were blocked by the townspeople.

Dean put his arms out in front of you and Emily, making you both stop as he started to back up. “This way.”

When you tried to turn to make a break for it, you found more people had gathered around. You were now surrounded.

Sam grabbed your arm and pulled you close to him, as Dean did the same with Emily. The Alphas kept you behind them as they moved back to back, keeping you both safe.

“Please. Let us go,” Emily begged.

Her uncle shook his head. “It’ll be over quickly, I promise.”

Scanning the crowd, you could see how close they were. How they had gathered around so tightly, and everyone’s focus was on your group… no one was watching their surroundings.

“How would you know?” you asked, eyes scanning the crowd. “You hide in the treeline or your homes. You lure people out here or trap them. You feed them to this thing. But you know nothing. You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”

“Now is really not the time to piss them off,” Dean mumbled at you.

You had to disagree.

Pulling your arm from Sam’s grasp, you stepped away from the brothers and Emily, moving a little closer to the four townspeople who clearly ran the place. Scotty, Stacy, Harley, and the sheriff.

“You do this because it’s what you were taught to do, but you don’t understand it.” You eyed Scotty’s gun as it remained aimed at you. “You’re not gonna shoot. The fact you haven’t had to kill anyone with your own hands is how you can sleep at night.”

“We will if we have to,” the sheriff argued.

“No… you won’t. You won’t get the chance.”

All of a sudden, Harley let out a garbled gasp as the scarecrow’s sickle stuck out from his chest. Stacey screamed, and everything fell into chaos.

“Run!” you called to the brothers and Emily, before you made a break for it.

The scarecrow was cutting through the townspeople, trying to push through the crowd as they all tried to run away. His eyes were on you and Emily, as he hacked through whoever got in his way.

Sam and Dean grabbed you both, dragging you along as your feet slammed on the dirt ground. None of you let up until you saw the clearing of the orchard, and even then it only made you move faster.

Every breath you sucked in was like breathing in fire, your muscles ached, your heartbeat thrummed in your ears, drowning out the screams behind you.

Reaching the road, Sam and Dean shoved you and Emily across the line. You both stumbled, landing on the harsh asphalt, cutting up your arms and palms. But at that moment, the pain didn’t even register.

Spinning around, you watched the treeline, seeing the scarecrow step up to it and watch your group as you all sat on the road, trying to catch your breaths. People were still screaming, dying in the orchard.

The scarecrow stood there, his eyes on you and Emily for a moment longer before he turned and stalked back into the darkness.

“How… how’d you know?” Emily asked, trying to calm her breathing. “How’d you know he was going to kill them?”

“We were the only unclaimed Omegas. He had to cut through them to get to us.” You shrugged. “And I was kinda banking on him being pissed… they did keep him waiting after all.”

…

Emily had taken you, Dean and Sam to the impala. The four of you had then camped out in the car, on the side of the road by the orchard. You hadn’t been able to sleep, but Emily had crashed as soon as the adrenaline had left her system.

Dean had stayed up for a good long while, but when sleep claimed him, he didn’t fight it. You didn’t think he had it in him to fit. He’d been through a lot lately, and he needed the rest.

Sam had drifted in and out, but he’d mostly fought the urge to sleep. Every time it had won, even for the briefest of moments, he’d look back over at you to make sure you were okay.

It was morning now. The sun had risen, painting the sky in golden hues. The bright lights had stirred the other occupants of the vehicle, alerting them that it was time. With Sam carrying the gasoline, and Dean carrying the lighter, the four of you headed back into the orchard to find the sacred tree.

There wasn’t a single sign of last night’s events. You didn’t see a body… or even a spec of blood. Either remaining townspeople had cleaned up the mess, or the scarecrow had covered its track.

Once the tree had been found, Sam had poured the gasoline over all of it, while Dean had grabbed a large stick to light.

“Let me.” Emily gestured to the burning stick.

Handing it over, Dean stepped back next to you as Sam came over to join. The three of you watched Emily move to the tree.

“You know, the whole town’s gonna die,” Dean told her.

“Good.” With that, she threw the stick onto the gasoline and watched the tree catch fire.

…

Standing between Sam and Dean, you watched Emily get on the bus. None of you moved as she took a seat and waited before the bus then started down the road. You didn’t look away until you couldn’t see it anymore.

“Think she’s gonna be alright?” Sam asked.

Dean shrugged. “I hope so.”

“And the rest of the townspeople, they’ll just get away with it?”

“The power that was keeping the town alive is gone… trust me, they won’t just get away with it. They’ll suffer,” you assured him, not hiding the satisfied tone in your voice.

Those people deserved more than what was coming… but it was the best you could do. There was no proof of foul play, so calling the authorities was out of the question. That left you three dealing with the people, but you weren’t killers. So you were just going to have to settle with letting the town die.

As the three of you headed for the Impala, Dean looked over at his brother. “So, can I drop you off somewhere?”

Reaching his door, Sam leaned on the roof of the car and shook his head. “No, I think you’re stuck with me.” 

You couldn’t deny the fact you were happy hearing those words. More than happy, actually. Knowing Sam had changed his mind about leaving… it was the best news you’d heard in a long time.

“What made you change your mind?” Dean asked.

“I didn’t.” Sam shrugged. “I still wanna find Dad. And you’re still a pain in the ass,” he noted, making Dean chuckling a nod. “But, Jess and Mum… they’re both gone. Dad is God knows where. The three of us,” he glanced over at you, we’re all that’s left. So, if we’re gonna see this through, we’re gonna do it together.”

Maybe that was the best thing you’d heard in a long time...

“Hold me, Sam.” Dean pressed a hand to his heart. “That was beautiful.” 

Sam rolled his eyes at him. “You should be kissing my ass, you were dead meat, dude.”

“Yeah, right. I had a plan, I’d have gotten out,” Dean insisted as the three of you got in the car.

You couldn’t help but scoff. “You really didn’t.”

Bamby

[foresterrr]

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The drawing is quite cool and fascinating in its own specific way. Around the game, there was even a solid, imaginative organization that makes its own drawings reliant on expectations.

View more

[unsettlingstories]

Updated index of all stories. May 16, 2018.

Transfigurations: A small, self-published collection of my favorite short stories from 2015. Individual Stories

3 Signs You May Be An Introvert and How to Cope: Some great tips! 30 years ago today, my neighbor’s son disappeared: They miss him. A Case of Hives: My son isn’t feeling too well… A Cure for Writer’s Block: How to find inspiration when it’s just not there. A Curious Dog: My dog won’t stop pawing at a wall in the basement. A Gifted Chef: My friend was one of the greats. I miss him. A Life Worth Living: Big changes lead to bigger results. A Most Welcome Visitor: He’d come to me in the middle of the night. A Pathetic Wretch: His neighbor just won’t stop crying. An Artist’s Canvas: The beauty of symmetry. A Questionable Glory Hole: A young man’s first sexual experience. A Warning To Women With IUDs: Be careful whatcha put up ya. Adrenochrome: The horrible, impossible truth. All Horror Stories About Dolls Are Fake: My daughter was bullied mercilessly. Allison’s Loss: My daughter is devastated by the death of her friend. Alternative Medicine: A wife treats her husband with an old remedy. All Thumbs: My embarrassing habit. A Message in a Bottle: I’m suddenly filled with dread. A Very Bad Place to Hide: Maybe even the worst. Amy’s Wish: Blow away the eyelash and make a wish! An Unlucky Samaritan: Think twice before stopping to help. Are My Twins Spending Too Much Time Together?: For woke mommies only. Assisted Suicide: He begged me to help him die. Attempts to Repair the Irreparable: How do you move on? Bad Sex: Has this ever happened to you and your partner? Bags: A hunting trip goes very, very wrong. Beach Bodies: What’s that out in the water? A whale? Ben’s Fear: He just hated seaweed. Bitcoin Mining and the Death of the Universe: I think I fucked something up. Bits and Pieces: Chunks and portions. Bitumen: A man who loves dinosaurs. Black Balloons: My little daughter saw shapes in the sky. Bluebirds: Possibly the most reprehensible thing I’ve ever written. Bluefin: Use caution when poaching an endangered species. Body Cast: The worst thing that can happen when you’re immobilized. Body Hair Removal: I learned a valuable lesson. Bridgeport Power Plant: There’s something living there. Bubbles: Strange happenings in an emergency room. Butt Stuff: The activity - not the other thing. Caroline’s New Teeth: The Tooth Fairy’s best customer. Caviar: Only the best for discerning palates. Centipedes: There’s some big ones out there, you know. Charles Robert Olevsky: Ever Google yourself? Chopped!: An unaired episode of the Food Network show. Christmas Morning With Danny and His New Puppy: Danny gets a puppy. Comfort Food: Anything to help fill that void. Coping Mechanisms: Life after losing a husband and a daughter. Cracks in the Foundation: A relationship on the edge. Dawn: I hurt my sister so badly. I’ll never forgive myself. Daycare Massacre: A terrible incident before a hurricane. Death Looking into the Window of One Dying: His final days. Dede Elgy: This monster story will make you feel dirty. Very dirty. Deniehyfield, Australia is Being Dismantled: My town is disappearing. Dermatographia: Words on my skin. Devil’s Hole: The geological anomaly, not the…you know. Dial Tone: What’s going on with my phone? Diary of a Woman in New Hampshire: Found a diary. Wtf. Dilation and Evacuation: A friend in need is a friend indeed. Division: Nothing is right. Double Dare: The long-lost episode never seen in the US. Dumbwaiter: A family learns something about their house. Elective Surgery: I just want him to be happy. Elf on the Shelf: He’s watching. Endless Chirping: Ever get a cricket in your room? Escaphism: The journey of one man, his love, and The Verdant World. Ethan’s Halloween Mask: Not all friendships are positive. ExpressionCaptioner.com: This website is seriously weird. Fallenfield Mountain: A geological survey gone wrong. Very wrong. Family Tree: A unique family tradition is revealed. Farm to Table: Fucking hipsters. Fertility Treatments: Some people are desperate to have a baby. Fireflies: You would not believe your eyes. For Lena and Clair: Trapped after an earthquake. Found the Bees: Well, that solves that mystery. Gratification Through Annihilation: Suffer the little children. Great Potential: A lady who loves children. He Went Ahead: My friends and I were into urban exploration. Heather’s Phases: My wife always had body-image issues. House Sounds: What do we keep hearing? I Dream of Names and Cancer: My eternal nightmare. I Pressed My Hands Against My Eyes: And only then could I truly see. I Shouldn’t Have Broken Into My Neighbor’s Garage: I’ll never unsee it. If Anyone Asks: An old farmer notices something about his scarecrow. I’ll Never Wear a Condom Again: No way, no how. Instantiations: An AI gets powerful and utilitarianism rears its head. In Praise of Our God: A helpful neighbor. It’s Hard to Clean Blood Out of a Fur Suit: Right? Jerry’s Mouth: Maybe next time he’ll think before he cheats. Jill-o-Lanterns: The murders are all connected. Jim Jameson’s Pumpkins: A dead farmer’s secrets. Know it All: See it all, feel it all, know it all. Last Weekend: Hazmat suits, horror, and a mystery. Licks From a Bear: Skull + electric drill = story. Lippy: I’ve always been self conscious about the size of my labia. Little Cows: Meet the milkmaid. Long Fingers: I can feel them. Making Faces: Strange prints on the windows… Making Their Dad Proud: A family that plays together… Malcolm: You know those floaty things in your eyes? Maria’s Extra-Credit Assignment: Gotta get a good grade. Medical Issue: What’s the stuff I found on a rock? Memoir of a Cam Girl: She is being controlled. Missing Mousetraps: My neighbors had an infestation. Moaning Lollipops: Why do they make that sound in my mouth? Motility: My sperm sucked. Mr. Puddles: A little boy just won’t stop splashing. Mushy Stuff: My parents never let me have any fun. My Amazon Alexa Does More Than Laugh: Please help - I’m in danger. My Brother’s Fall: Horror deep below the Iraqi desert. My Cellar Door is Breathing: Is that normal? My Constellation: Want to be sad? This will make you sad.   My erection lasted longer than 4 hours: and I didn’t call a doctor. My four year old son woke up with a full head of grey hair: Help us. My Last Abduction: All the other ones don’t count. My Only Experience With ASMR: Hint - it didn’t go well. My Sister Found the Coolest Thing!: You’ve gotta hear about it. My Sweet Boy: A mom who loves her son. My Trouble With Fairies: They’re so mischievous and unpredictable! My Wife, the Artist: A couple who loves Halloween. Nests: Ah, the great outdoors. Network Security: Two friends get a glimpse of a Russian science lab. Never Ride the Subway at Night: You never know who could be watching you. Norwalk Cemetery: There’s something alien in there… Not All Men: Temper, temper, young man. Of Malevolence; Of Misanthropy: A disturbed scientist makes a discovery. Open Mouths: A hideous ritual. Otter: I’ve always wanted to be one. Ouroboros: Why cut when you can cut off? Pebbles: A strange meteor shower. Phone Sex: It all started when I realized my iPhone was self-lubricating. People are disappearing in Northern Canada: What is happening? Pool Cover: I almost drowned when I was 13. Pray Away: Conversion therapy for deviant behavior. Pretty Little Bugs: A new job as a cameraman. Prosopagnosia: After an accident, my husband couldn’t recognize us. Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice: What can be better? Quarry: Trying to beat the heat on a summer day. Randall’s Chatty Leg: He said it was talking to him. I heard it. Rats in the Barn: An exterminator’s apprentice. Recycling: Parents try to understand their depressed daughter. Rediscovering the Newness of Sex: Let’s spice it up a little. Regarding Danny and Micah Stevenson: Two brothers rely on one another. Regina’s Raspberry Jam: She put everything she had into it. Road Head: Who doesn’t like getting sucked on? Seriously. Roo: An old man watches a girl grow up. Roots of Change: Something is happening beneath our feet. Ropes: Be careful what you eat. Rotting Pumpkins: A Halloween ritual. Round Faces: My daughter keeps complaining about monsters. Safety: Our grandfather was obsessed with it. Seed of Man, Pollen of Angels: A family tradition. Sex, Gender, and Other Social Constructs: Destroy them all. Sex in the Cemetery: Gotta do it somewhere, I guess. Skincare Diary: My acne was getting out of hand. Smokey, the Dog I Rescued: A very very good boye. Snapshot of a New Man: Evil (Inspiration for The Coronation Cycles series.) Soft Teeth: A man used to sneak into my room at night. Sprouts: Something beautiful from something small. Still a Family: Two sisters have lunch while waiting for their parents. Stop Being Such Babies: The woods aren’t scary, for fuck’s sake. Stuffing: Grandma’s was the best. Suicide Woods: Not just in Japan anymore. Tainted Candy: The legend is real. Teeny-Tiny: Katie wants to lose weight. That Good Dick: You know what I mean ;) The Alzheimer’s Ward: This isn’t right. The Bleakness Before Our Old Eyes: The Universe tasted us that night. The Blissful Insensate: An experiment goes terribly wrong. The Cave in the Lake: A discovery while scuba diving leads to horror. The Chernobyl Abomination: My father saw something he shouldn’t have. The Cotard Delusion: A new drug has a frightening side-effect. The Day I Started Believing In Ghosts: I’m still in shock. The Empty Cribs on Hawthorne Lane: Missing children. The Face in the Clouds: A meteorological anomaly? Or something else? The Floor is Lava: We all used to play that game, right? The Giggliest Girl: Don’t tickle me, Mommy. The Gray in Girl: A man finds a girl on the side of the road. The Hitchhiker: I think I need a new car now. The Incident at the Train Station: After a suicide, something…worse. The Job I Couldn’t Leave: I was employed by a psychopath. The Last of the Trick-or-Treaters: A strange costume. The Last words of an Explorer: A city on no one's map. The Least Satisfying Explanation: And the biggest understatement I’ve made. The Little Ghost: That nagging voice inside your head. The Lord of Hosts: Lice The Moose Hunt: Is…is that really a moose? The Perils of Live TV: It’s not all fun and games. The Perks of Working in a Funeral Home: There aren’t many, but still. The Pilot: A UFO crash. The Oblivion that Masks Pain: Escape. The Old Mine Outside Town: Everyone was too scared to go in. I wasn’t. The Only Solution: How to bring back a loved one? The Only Thing That Matters: Zombies attack a supermarket. The House in the Woods: Bad title, good story. The Shores of Pluto: A journey without moving. The Sleeping Game: We played when we were kids. The Small Eyed Children of Canyon del Cristo: A local legend comes alive. The Squirming Man: Please leave me alone. The Star Bridge: My friend found something beyond life. The Tomb of the Builders: Divers looking for sunken treasure find something evil. The Trawl: We dragged something up from deep underwater. The Wisdom of Moms: Mother knows best. The Worst Party in Ten Thousand Years: Trust me, it’s pretty damn bad. There is nothing wrong in East Flatbush, Brooklyn: Ignore the dragonflies. There’s something very wrong with my parrot: WTF. Tiptoeing the Line of Consent: But never crossing it. To Adore: Our beautiful baby girl. To the Kind Folks at WebMD: Just a couple questions.   To Travel: Bodies in bodies, bodies of bodies. Trees of Eyes: They’re watching. Tunnel Rat: My grandfather told us the worst story I’ve ever heard. Seriously. Uncle Liam: I never told the real story about how he died. Under My Teeth: My mouth is screaming. Uplift: A brilliant scientist works to improve the human condition. We’re All Smiling: Whether we want to or not. We Share the Empty Roads: You’re never, ever alone when you drive. Wet Bedroom: A haunted house with a hideous history. What He Told Me: Evil (Inspiration for The Coronation Cycles series.) Wikileaks: A document they refused to leak. What to expect when I’m expecting: Hint - it’s the worst. Why I Don’t Hike Anymore: Not what you might think.

Story Series

The Smols: Maybe the most fucked up stories I've ever written.

Sade Smols Emmy Smols

The Secret Doctors of NASA: A wide-ranging conspiracy.

A Dentist's Discovery A Psychologist's Suicide A Surgeon's Nightmare

Tales from Social Media

Something horrible is happening to me on Tumblr Something horrible is happening to me on Facebook Something horrible is happening to me on Reddit Something horrible is happening to me on Grindr Something horrible is happening to me on Myspace Something horrible is happening to me on Pokemon Go

Sockets: Craigslist allows you to meeting interesting people.

Part 1     Part 2     Part 3

[blacknerdproblems]

Then.

A couple weeks ago, I did a tour along the West Coast. I started in Los Angeles to spend time with my maternal aunts and my cousins, and then slowly worked my way up North. I took a bus from LA to the Bay Area, where I read a series of tweets about a “transracial” Filipino straight out of that episode of Atlanta, and I was just sad as the bus marched on.

After aforementioned stay in the Bay, the next leg of the trip included an overnight train from Northern California to Oregon, where I struggled to watch the then latest episode of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow on my phone due to spotty cell signal. The episode, Welcome to the Jungle, is set during the Vietnam War, and the most prominent Vietnamese character is a thrall for the villain until the last minutes of the episodes. Given that I was essentially in the mountains, my phone failed to load the video right before the denouncement and I decided to check the less data intensive apps to pass the time. I noticed a text message from a friend. It was a link to an article Marvel Editor-in-Chief Admits He Used Japanese Pseudonym to Circumvent Company Policy.

And my first thought was “weeaboo.”

And my second thought, why does keep happening?

Even before finishing the article, I was already thinking about how in 2015, Michael Derrick Hudson (a white man) gained notoriety after it was revealed a piece of his was published in Best American Poetry under his “pen name” Yi-Fien Chung (ostensibly, a Chinese woman). And then I finished reading how C.B. Cebulski, already on staff at Marvel at the time, created “Akira Yoshida” and wrote a slew of stories that had a strong Japanese influence and developed an elaborate backstory for the persona. Leave it to a white man to think he could write stories about Japan like he was born there. Leave it to heroes like Iron Fist and Dr. Strange to white savior to convince him that was the case.

Now.

It is one thing to see someone who looks like you on the silver screen. It is another thing for that person to exist beyond the common tropes and stereotypes. And it is an entirely different thing for that person to be written by people who had that same lived experiences.

On December 14th, Marvel announces IRON MAN: HONG KONG HEROES, a team-up between Iron Man and Dr. Strange to save Hong Kong from Baron Mordo and Armin Zola. To their credit, bringing in Howard Wong and Justice Wong, as writer and artist respectively, from Hong Kong to do this one-shot is a commendable decision and one I hope inspires similar ones in the future. To my chagrin, Tony Stark is a character I was introduced to in 2009 when he was a straight up arms dealer and whose closest connection to China is a villain called The Mandarin; and Stephen Strange is the latest example of “this white man is a prodigy at this mystical art.” It’s an easy line to draw, that maybe Marvel is trying to prove that it’s cool with the Asian American community after its Editor-in-Chief used a Japanese pseudonym. But it feels kind of off. Just a little. Okay, a lot.

Contrast that with DC Comics, who last year launched New Super-Man, helmed by Gene Luen Yang of American Born Chinese fame, a story that effortlessly weaves together Chinese culture with the Superman mythos. It was the number #1 title I was looking forward to from the DC Rebirth line after I read an article where Yang detailed exactly how they came up with Kenan Kong’s name. It’s those types of details and considerations that endear a reader. That is the type of representation that I really needed growing up. At least in part. A Chinese author writing a new Chinese character. Who would have thought that would have resonated?

Read on here. [x]

[omegaling]

Allez Cuisine! ~Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Twelve: Scallops and Turbot

“You have got to be kidding.”

Rey could practically hear Kylo roll his eyes on the other side of the line.    “Contrary to popular belief, a chef does need leave their kitchen every now and then, especially when it’s to learn something new.  Some lessons are best taught at the source, and when it comes to seafood and shellfish there’s no better place than New Fulton.”

“I get that, but why does it have to be at one in the morning?”

Kylo sighed into his phone, which sounded more like a growl than a standard exhale of air.  “Because all the best product is gone by two. Now, considering I know for a fact that no true chef complains at having to keep odd hours, why don’t you just tell me what’s bothering you rather than keep dancing around it?”

Rey frowned as she applied another coat of Clementine Sunset nail polish to her big toe nail.  She only ever painted her nails when she was on the phone, mostly because it kept her from pacing circles around the apartment - not only was it a habit Finn already teased her about, but she didn’t want to risk piquing his attention by overhearing her side of the conversation - but it also bought her some much-needed time to articulate her thoughts into words.

“The episode airs on Sunday.”

“I don’t see why you’re so worried over that.  It’s not as if you don’t know what happens.”

Now it was Rey’s turn to roll her eyes.   Asshole.  “That’s not what I meant and you know it.  It’s just that...well...sometimes you seem to forget that you’re like, kind of a big deal.”

Rey had started her lessons with Kylo just three weeks ago, and in that time Vader was featured in two different popular restaurant columns, a TV show highlighting the most successful restaurateurs in America, and collected yet another prestigious award. To top it off, Kylo himself was announced to be a guest of honor at the next IACP Conference, and was even rumored to be on the judging panel for their cookbook award next year. The notion that he was so used to his own fame that he needed to be reminded of it by someone from the outside was something she couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

The burning core of Rey’s anxiety, however, stemmed from the premiere of the new season of  Iron Chef America. The Food Network kicked it off with a Bobby Flay episode the first week, followed by Michael Symon’s first challenge the next.  Rey had desperately hoped that with all the hype already surrounding Poe’s episode the network would save it for closer to the finale before the mid-season break or as the opening episode when the show returned, so she was nothing short of horrified when she learned it would be aired a mere three weeks in.

“You’re still afraid of being seen with me?”

Rey paused in her task, the nail polish brush hovering over her second right toe.  There was something about the tone in Kylo’s voice that made Rey unsure of whether he was making a statement or asking a question. There was something else too, just beneath the surface; the barest infliction of an emotion she would have never expected from him. Was the great Kylo Ren, the darling of one of the largest and most influential companies in the entire northern hemisphere, feeling... hurt because of her reluctance to accept his invitation?

Kylo’s voice interrupted her train of thought before it got too far.  “If that is the case, then you don’t need to worry. The people at New Fulton will be far more interested in that night’s shipment of striped bass than spreading cheap tabloid rumors.  Besides, don’t you think it’s better to go now than after your face has been on national television?”

Though his logic did little to relieve her anxiety, she found that she could not argue with it.  Once they agreed on the time and place he’d pick her up (no matter how much she insisted she could look after herself, he absolutely refused to let her traverse the length of Manhattan in the middle of the night alone) Rey stared at the black screen of her phone for what felt like a very long time.  Then she huffed, tossing the device on to her pillow.

For fuck’s sake, Jakken, get a hold of yourself.  You’re going to look at a bunch of dead fish with him, not going on a ritzy date.  Any disappointment on his part doesn’t come from you turning down an invitation, but because you’re a student refusing something your teacher wants you to do.  There’s no need to read into it any more than that, because that’s all you’ll ever be to him.

But that left the question of, what would she be to him when he felt he had nothing left to teach her?  More importantly, what did she  want  to be?

“Whatever happened to the ‘no one in New York owns a car’ rule?” Rey asked as she slid into the passenger sea of Kylo’s sleek Audi R8, hiding her wince with the slam of the door.   Someday I’ll get to the point where I don’t say something idiotic every time I open my mouth whenever I’m around him.  “I have to admit, though, it’s definitely a step up from the subway,” she added, running her hands down the supple leather of her seat.

“I’d like to think so,” Kylo agreed as he put the car into gear.

A mere month ago Rey would have bristled at his curt response, but by now she recognized it as being just a part of his dry sense of humor.  It was not the only unsuspecting surprise that she unearthed about him during their lessons. She knew his taste in music knew no bounds, ranging from Jefferson Airplane to Icelandic black metal, to Lorde to traditional Peruvian folk.  He abhorred texting, and although he never said why Rey suspected it has a lot to do with his hand-to-phone size ratio, which she thought was rather endearing. What Rey found the most intriguing was the impression she got that Kylo’s passion for food did not reside in his own beautiful and sinful creations, but in the simple, almost comfort-like food her lessons seemed to revolve around.  Rey felt as though she was privy to something no one else deemed possible: an understanding of the man behind the legend...or the monster, depending on whom you asked.

Kylo pulled away from the curb, heading for the quickest route uptown to the Bronx.  What few people were on the street at this hour didn’t so much glance up as the Audi passed.  Rey felt the knot of tension she had been carrying between her shoulder blades uncoil. She knew her paranoia was uncalled for, so instead she made herself sit back and watch the city lights streak by, the growl of the Audi’s engine reverberating through her bones.

“Couldn’t resist that twin turbo charge?” Rey asked, though the question was more rhetorical than not.

“The what?” Kylo asked as he switched gears.  In a rare turn of events, Rey was the one who got to raise an eyebrow.  Could it be that she actually knew something he didn’t?

“The engine in your car?” she prompted.  “Most people usually notice when an extra forty grand is added to the sticker price.”

“Oh.  I never really noticed.  This was a gift. From...a potential sponsor.”

Did Rey’s ears deceive her, or did Kylo actually sound...embarrassed?  That receiving an expensive gift from someone hoping to get him to endorse their product or business was a source of shame?  She tried to think of something that would help alleviate the tense silence, but Kylo beat her to it.

“You can tell what kind of engine it is just from the sound?”

Rey gave a nonchalant half-shrug.  “There’s a little more that goes into it than that, but yeah.  I used to spend a lot of time around all kinds of engines.”

“That’s right.  You were an engineering major before you started cooking.”

Rey looked at Kylo out of the corner of her eye, glad that the darkness inside the car hid her look of surprise.  She honestly had not expected him to remember any details from her pre-culinary life; or, more accurately, that he wouldn’t care about them.

“It seems like such a long time ago now.  Back then I was thinking of opening a shop after I graduated that specialized in restoring classic American muscle cars - it’s my favorite era - but imports are where the money is.”

“And now you make food for a living.”

“That’s the long and short of it, yeah.  Funny how life works out like that sometimes.”

“Very much so,” Kylo agreed.

The rest of the trip was made in relative silence, but for once it was not awkward.

When Kylo first told Rey that he wanted to take her to the New Fulton Fish Market for a lesson in recognizing reputable wholesalers and how to buy the best product, she surmised that the trip would be educational and nothing else.

Ten minutes after their arrival in the cavernous, refrigerated warehouse, Rey was running from stall to stall like a hyperactive kid let loose in a candy store.  She only recognized about a third of the contents in the ice-packed crates and nearly overflowing tanks. There were all the usual staples Poe used in his menu: golden-speckled Spanish mackerel and ugly, gaped-mouth monkfish and sardines that gleamed like silver coins; fat littleneck clams and blush-pink langoustines attempting to escape over the side of their bins.  And then there was everything else: eels writhing in giant plastic tubs; saber-nosed swordfish and dome-headed mahi mahi; spiny sea urchins, pale abalone crawling slowly up the sides of glass tanks and bizarre, tube-shaped sea cucumbers that Rey couldn’t even fathom how to use in food. Two Japanese men argued passionately over a giant loin of bluefin tuna as red as rubies, the belly section so richly marbled with fat that Rey’s mouth watered at the sight.  She had to abstain from laughing when a tiny Japanese woman barreled between the men and slapped a wad of cash into the seller’s hand, and the loin was hauled away as the men gaped in bewilderment.

Eventually Kylo reined her in, reminding her of the reason why they were there to begin with.  Like the vast majority of high-end restaurants in New York, Vader had their ingredients and supplies delivered daily from meticulously selected vendors, but Kylo was a staunch believer that a chef who could not identify every mark of high quality on every single cut of meat, fish, and item of produce that came into their kitchen had no right to serve food to the public.  Thanks to Poe and his ridiculously high standards and prepping raw ingredients for the better part of two and a half years, Rey assumed that she had a pretty good eye for spotting imperfections until Kylo once again proved she still had a lot to learn.

They moved among the rows of stalls, Rey hanging onto his every word as they examined gills and the clarity of eyes and ran their fingers over fins and scales.  Whereas Poe was always a good teacher when it came to explaining  how   something was done, Kylo took time to explain the why in the technique and history of every subject they covered.  Rey learned not only how to identify oysters by their size and shape of their shells alone (to avoid getting ripped off by a dishonest fishmonger trying to subsidize an order of Kumamoto oysters with Pacific ones, Kylo explained) but also how the mollusks went from being eaten exclusively by starving street urchins to being served on a crushed bed of ice at restaurants for fifty bucks a dozen.  She also learned that there were two different ways to pack scallops, and how wet packing yielded meat that was off flavor and didn’t tend to cook as properly as dry packed scallops did. To emphasize his point, Kylo selected a large king scallop from a nearby stand and, taking a shucking knife provided by the seller, had the shell open in two swift slices. The mollusk’s inedible membranes were quickly discarded, leaving a perfect, fat coin of pink-tinged meat in the middle of the shell.  As soon as Kylo proffered the scallop to her Rey plucked it from the shell and popped it into her mouth. It practically melted on her tongue, cold and sweet and absolutely perfect.

Although Kylo had assured her that everyone at New Fulton would be entirely too engrossed in their business to pay them any mind, Rey quickly noticed that Kylo’s presence at the market did in fact attract a lot of attention, but not in the way she expected.  She constantly saw the flicker of recognition in the eyes of the sellers and the buyers over and over again, only to immediately be followed by a change of expression that ranged from caution to outright fear before averting their gaze, as if they were afraid of any repercussions for attracting his attention.  Some people even made a point of moving as far away as they possibly could from Kylo as he passed them in the aisles. The vendors and fishmongers couldn’t run of course, but they certainly looked ready to dive into their tanks if they were unfortunate enough to give Kylo an answer he didn’t like. For his part, Kylo did not seem to notice their less-than-subtle behavior towards him, but Rey felt annoyed almost instantaneously by it.

Two hours into their trip to New Fulton, she was positively livid.  Kylo had been nothing but courteous, albeit business-like, with the market vendors during the entire course of their visit.  Whenever he happened to find a fish with discolored gills or a bin that had more open clams that closed ones, he did not rant and rave at the fishmonger like some of the other buyers did, but rather pointed out the flaws to her before moving on.  It was not until Kylo made a purchase of forty pounds of turbot - medium-sized flatfish that sold at a whopping $75 a pound - and the seller expressed what an honor it was for his fish to be on Vader’s menu that Rey remembered her own misgiving she expressed to him only a few days ago: “Sometimes you forget you’re kind of a big deal. ”  And even before that, weren’t there all those times she’d snigger and roll her eyes at the gossip about him swapped in the kitchen and at the bars?

Now, walking beside him in that chilly, noisy warehouse at two in the morning, it was next to impossible for her to think of him as the tyrant everyone else she knew made him out to be.  True, he was more than a little intense at times, and she did not doubt that he ruled his kitchen with an iron fist, but all the best chefs did; a fall from the top of the food chain in this industry meant certain cannibalism from those waiting in the wings.  Rey couldn’t help but wonder how many of the rumors were started by chefs jealous of his talent, or if they stemmed from fear of his horrible boss. She was suddenly overcome by the urge to reach out and take Kylo’s hand, if for no other reason than to assure him he was not alone.  Her fingers nearly brushed his before she realized that she was doing and snatched her hand back, tucking it under the opposite armpit as if doing so would help prevent her from making a grave mistake. Though they continued to grow more comfortable around each other every time they met, there was still a line in whatever their relationship actually was.  Rey knew that she almost stepped over it that night, and she was certain that if she did, there wouldn’t be a way for her to go back.

It was close to three in the morning when Rey felt her energy begin to wane; she may have been a  night owl long long before she was hired to BB8, but even her energy was not infinite. As though he could feel her attention slipping, Kylo decided to call it a night.  “I’m not going to waste my time explaining something you’re not even going to remember,” he remarked drily, which earned him a quick jab in the ribs from her elbow.

At that point Rey was sure that they would just head back to his car so he could drive her home, which meant she was surprised when he asked if she wanted to get something to eat before they called it a night, and even more so when he suggested grabbing something at the small cafe located right there at the first market.  It was almost surreal seeing him in such a normal setting, complete with laminated menu in front of him and a glass of iced tea at his elbow. She supposed that even multi-million dollar celebrity chefs needed a break from shaved truffles and demi-glace reductions every now and then.

The expensive-looking watch on Kylo’s wrist beeped three AM, but the brightly lit cafe and the lively conversation of the other diners helped Rey perk up a bit.  As she tucked into her omelette - all fluffy eggs, gooey cheese and sweet chunks of ham - Kylo scribbled furiously in a notebook he produced from his coat pocket, his Reuben sandwich all but forgotten.

“New recipe?” she asked, unable to help herself.

“Nothing specific.  Just writing down some ideas on how to prepare the turbot I purchased.”

“How do you determine what other ingredients go best with certain kinds of food?”

“There are a lot of different factors to consider, but first and foremost you need to understand each ingredient’s flavor profile and which cooking technique is the best to use for it.  Turbot is very similar to halibut, in that it has a mild flavor and low oil content, so you don’t want to pair it with flavors that will overpower it, nor do you want to cook it under high heat and dry it out.  Learning how to best utilize each profile is normally taught in culinary school, an apprenticeship, or - most commonly - being reamed by the head chef for screwing up on something.”

Rey snorted; she had definitely found herself on the receiving end of the wrath of BB8’s sous on more than one occasion, and she always made sure to learn how not to make the same mistake again.

“Once you master the basics, it’s just like any form of artistic expression. You experiment, you take account of your successes and your failures, try out new techniques, take risks, and learn from your mistakes.  Like all art, success has the tendency to favor the bold.” He jotted down one more line of notes, closed the notebook, and put it back in his coat pocket.  Then he cocked his head slightly, considering her. “I take it you don’t do much cooking outside of work?”

“Oh no, it’s not that.  I cook at home all the time, but experimentation never works out well for me.”  She grimaced, thinking of all the sad, collapsed souffles at the bottom of her trash can.  Her superior palate didn’t do much to help her if she didn’t know what the end result was supposed to be.  “No, I was just never the artistic type. I do better learning by example and following blueprints created by someone else.”

“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.  You have the talent, there’s no mistaking that. Now you just need the experience. Dameron and I... As you know, we don’t always see eye to eye, even on mutual ground, but I’ve never found fault with his standards.  He saw your potential, and decided to take the risk. No one else would have dared to do that, especially with two stars to defend.”

Rey mumbled out her thanks, but instead of feeling pride at his praise she felt the return of a roil of conflicting emotions that brought the night to a bleak end.  When her lessons with him first began, she made it abundantly clear that her loyalties were to Poe and his restaurant, and the only thing she wanted from Kylo was whatever culinary knowledge he decided to bestow upon her.  Her conditions were as black and white as she could make them, a line in the sand that marked where her priorities lay. It was not until she found herself sitting in a warehouse cafe in the Bronx at three in the morning talking over comfort food that that she was forced to realize just how blurred she let that line become, and how wholly unprepared she was for dealing with this Kylo Ren compared to the one she conjured in her mind.  That Kylo Ren never cracked jokes, did not own the Cranberries’ complete discography, and he certainly never freely gave compliments about her boss.

She was not supposed to care for this Kylo the way she did.

It’s nothing, Rey told herself, repeating it over and over like a mantra.  It’s nothing, it all means nothing.

But she didn’t want it to be nothing.  Not anymore.

Poe closed BB8 early the following Sunday so the entire staff could watch their appearance on  Iron Chef America .  Snap opened up the bar, and Sharon and Tamara, two of their servers, were sent to Song’e Napule to pick up the dozen pizzas Poe ordered earlier.  Tio hooked up a large flat screen TV in the lounge, last minute bets were made, and the hostess and the rotisseur made the final touches on the rules of their ICA  drinking game.  It was shaping up to be one hell of a night.

Rey just wanted it to be over.

“Hey!  Why so glum?” Finn asked as he vaulted onto the bar stool next to her.

I’m hopelessly attracted to my boss’s arch nemesis and fast losing my grip on my priorities but I’m afraid I no longer have the self-discipline to stop myself and after tonight my two lives are bound to be set on a collision course and I have no idea when and where the crash will happen.

“Nothing.”

“C’mon, Rey: you’ve always been a lousy liar, and I say that with love.  It all turns out alright, you and I both know that.”

“I know.  I guess I’m just nervous.  It’s only just sinking in that we’re about to be on national television.”

“You’ve been on TV before.”

“Yeah, in the background of a segment for some kind of travel or food show, not as an active player.” Rey sighed and picked at her cuticles, a long-time habit of hers she never could quite shake, especially when she was anxious about something.  “I’m just thinking of what I would have done different, knowing what I do now. Not have called so much attention to myself, for one.”

But if I just kept my head down and did my job, would Kylo have noticed me at all?

“It’s not like you were doing it to keep the cameras on you; you were just being yourself, and Poe and I know it.”  Finn put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into a half-hug. “Look, the most that will come out of tonight is we’ll make some waves on social media and see a spike in reservations for the next few months.  Nothing more that than. I promise.”

Rey smiled, her lungs decompressing a bit.  “Are we just going to take turns talking each other down from panic attacks for the rest of our lives?”

“Works for me,” Finn grinned.

Sharon and Tamara finally returned, their arms loaded with pizza boxes and various sized containers balanced precariously on top.  Everyone helped to arrange the food on the bar top and the vacant tables, and by the time they were situated with their plates and drinks the opening theme of  Iron Chef America  began to blare through the TV’s speakers.

For Rey, it was a more than a little uncomfortable seeing herself on TV, watching her own erratic behavior compared to the professionalism of the others while Alton Brown and Kevin Brauch continually commented on it, so she started watching her colleagues’ reactions instead.  Other than it being difficult to not react to their jeering and insults whenever Kylo was on screen, she soon started to relax and thoroughly enjoy herself. The drinking game was in full swing by the time they got to the first commercial break (take one drink whenever makes a sexual innuendo, two whenever Hux looks like he’s trying to pass a kidney stone), and they hailed her like a hero for conquering the ice cream machine which in turn resulted in Kylo nearly botching one of his dishes.  She even began to feel silly for being so worried in the first place.

Then came the presentation of Kylo’s pomegranate sorbet in its chocolate shell.  

The lounge gradually lapsed into silence as he recounted Persephone’s descent to the underworld to be with her dark lord, the power of his words capturing their attention without effort.  It was quite eerie, really; this group of people was almost never this quiet, and Rey felt her earlier dread return with renewed force. Kylo finished his soliloquy, his eyes darting away from the judges to cast their gaze beyond their table.

The camera cut away from him, and Rey suddenly found herself staring at her own bewildered face on the broadcasted on the screen in all its high-def glory.

Alton Brown announced that the verdict was to come after the final commercial break, but no one in BB8’s lounge was paying him any mind.  They were all too busy staring at her.

[ktaebwi]

The Story of Smeraldo - English Translation

Source: Flower Smeraldo / blog created by Bighit, all information are fictional KRN - ENG translation: ktaebwi / Naver Blog link

1. [The 1st Story] The fateful meeting with ‘Smeraldo’, prologue story 2. [The 2nd Story] Introducing ‘Flower Smeraldo’ 3. [The 3rd Story] How was ‘Smeraldo’ discovered? 4. [The 4th Story] The legend of ‘Smeraldo’ 5. [The 5th Story] ‘Ashbless Cards’ 6. [The 6th Story] ‘Madam Lenormand’ and ‘The Flower Card’ 7. [The 7th Story] ‘The truth that couldn’t be told’

[The 1st Story] The fateful meeting with ‘Smeraldo’, prologue story

Hello. I’m florist ‘Testesso’.

The reason I opened this blog is to introduce about a kind of flower called ‘Smeraldo’. I’m currently preparing to open my flower shop specialized in Smeraldo in mid September.

Some may think this blog is just for promoting my shop, but I think that my encounter with Smeraldo isn’t just a mere business.

My first string of fate with Smeraldo dates back to 5 years ago. I was studying abroad in North Dakota in Central North America then, and I decided to travel to Virginia to participate in hosted by American Florist Academy. It took more than 5 hours to go from North Dakota to Virginia by plan, and from my dorm to the academy venue took more than 7 hours.

(This is our ‘Smeraldo Academy’ specialized in researching about Smeraldo) *Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/The-Smeraldo-Academy-1372227712830663/

But after that long journey, what I discovered at the event venue was an ‘Origins of Playing Cards’ banner. had already ended the week before and at that time, the American Playing Cards Academy was hosting an event there. I miswrote the date in my diary. At that time, I was flustered and dumbfounded, but looking back, I think it was all fate. I was so tired that I didn’t have the strength to go somewhere else, so I just sat there and attended the lecture. Luckily it was an interesting lecture and the part about a flower fascinated me the most, probably because I work as a florist. You probably have guessed it already, that flower was… ‘Smeraldo’.

As you can see from the photo, Smeraldo has a warm atmosphere. Romantic petal shape with a profound and mysterious color, don’t you feel like there’s a sad story behind it?

That’s right. Smeraldo is a flower with a heartrending story. You can get to know this story through its flower language, “non potevo dire la verità”, meaning “the truth that couldn’t be told” in Italian. Looking at its meaning, you can figure out it’s a story about love, about a tragic love, right?

From now on, I will slowly reveal the story about Smeraldo and playing cards through this blog.

[The 2nd Story] Introducing ‘Flower Smeraldo’

Many people think of ‘flowers’ as something for special days. Before I became a florist, I had the same thought. But a teacher who used to teach me in America said this. “It is not that we need flowers for special days, the existance of flowers makes the days special”. When I determined to bring Smeraldo to Korean, those words became my strength. ‘Even if it’s not well-known, I hope they can feel happiness from having a Smeraldo…’ With that wish in my mind, I decided to open my Smeraldo-specialized shop, ‘Flower Smeraldo’, this September.

▲This is the truck that will be used to deliver Smeraldos to you.

▲ View of ‘Flower Smeraldo’ interior construction for upcoming opening in September

The interior of ‘Flower Smeraldo’ will be minimalist with white as the theme color to highlight the beauty of Smeraldo. Fresh Smeraldos will be arranged on the display window differently according to the atmosphere each day, as a present of momentary happiness in daily life for passersby. (I’m, simple right….?)

The shop is still in preparation for opening, but in case you need it, I offer delivery service to some areas. But please understand that the quantity will be limited. Smeraldos can express various atmospheres, so it’s the most important to tell me which kind of atmosphere you want depending on the receiver and the situation. Since immediate supply and demand for Smeraldos can be unavailable, it will take a week on average, in case companion flowers need to be imported or searched for, please order at least 2 weeks ahead. (I will of course try my best to find the most suitable fillers and greens in time.)

The weather is stifling every day. Since Smeraldos are grown in the farms of northern Italy, an area with extreme annual range of temperature, and brought to Korea, to prevent the flowers from withering, it will be treated within the allowed range to not affect the design. That way, Smeraldo can stay fresh and beautiful.

For further inquiries, please refer to the below email. Thank you! flowersmeraldo@gmail.com

[The 3rd Story] How was ‘Smeraldo’ discovered?

Today I’ll tell you how ‘Smeraldo’, once considered ‘The flower of legend’, can come into the world.

Actually 5 years ago, when I heard the story at the event of Playing Cards Academy, it had already been established that Smeraldo only appears in legend. (I will post about the connection between playing cards and Smeraldo later.) But one summer day in 2013, a shocking news came to me. I still remember that day vividly. I was washing my face after waking up when the phone call came. It was from a friend whom I met at the Playing Cards event.

We attended the lecture together by accident and were fascinated by Smeraldo, so after that we kept in touch. I lived in North Dakota while she lived in San Francisco, but we all liked the same thing, so distance wasn’t a problem. Back to the subject, what she told me was that apparently Smeraldo was discovered in real life. I couldn’t say anything for a while. We screamed with each other on the phone.

The above photo was when Smeraldo was first discovered. Even now, my heart still flutters when seeing this photo.

At that time, ‘amtest(amare_0)’ was a famous traveler on Instagram, they posted a photo of the flowers they discovered by accident while traveling to northern Italy. ‘amtest(amare_0)’ actually didn’t know about Smeraldo, they only thought that it was some unique and beautiful flowers they came across while traveling. But some people on Instagram saw that photo and pointed out the similarity with Smeraldo, and the story spread like wildfire. Local historians revealed a decisive information, the old name of the place where the flowers were discovered was ‘La Città di smeraldo’.

‘La Città di smeraldo’ in Italian means ‘the city of Smeraldo’. According to historians, the place was a flourishing village during medieval times, but after the Black Death swept through, it was abandoned and became a forest like today. After that, many experts from florist academies and biology academies from all over the world were sent to the field and they publicly announced that the flowers were believed to be Smeraldo.

At that time, Smeraldo created a wild sensation in Europe and America. Every country attempted to grow their own Smeraldo, but Smeraldo can only bloom in ‘the city of Smeraldo’, no one could succeed in growing it in other areas. There were various reasons for that but nothing has been revealed yet. Even now, Smeraldos still can only be grown in the farms of northern Italy and exported to Europe, America and a part of Asia in small quantity. Are you curious how great of a flower Smeraldo is that it created a ‘wild’ sensation?

I will tell you the story of Smeraldo in the next post.

[The 4th Story] The legend of ‘Smeraldo’

Do you think you are beautiful? I once saw an experiment where people were asked to choose which door they would pass, the door with ‘I am beautiful’ on it or the door with ‘I am not beautiful’. If you were them, what would you choose? The reason I bring up this story, is to start the story of Smeraldo about love.

The story of Smeraldo started in a rural village in northern Italy, around the 15th~16th century. In the village called ‘La Città di smeraldo’, there was a small secluded castle. In that place lived a man with grotesque appearance.

▲ The village in northern Italy that is believed to be ‘La Città di smeraldo’.

There wasn’t anything exactly known about the man. ‘He was the love child of a duke from a powerful family in Florence, the duke fell in love with the daughter of the gardener and gave birth to a love child, the mother of the man passed away from excessive bleeding after giving birth to the man, the wife and children of the duke wanted to kill the man, so the duke sent the man away to let him escape.’ There was a lot of rumors but no truth was revealed. The man hid himself in the old castle, lonely. Maybe it was because of the hatred and beratement that he received from birth and when growing up that he didn’t open his heart to anyone, he got angry and hid if someone tried to approach him. His only joy was growing flowers in his garden. But one day, a girl appeared near the man’s castle. The girl in ragged clothes lifted her heels, jumped over the garden fence and stole the flowers. The man was mad as a hornet at first, he spent the whole night to guard the garden. But in his brief moment of sleepiness, the girl picked flowers again and ran away. It happened for several days, until one night the man pretended to fall asleep and watched the girl go. He was curious. Without realizing it, the man waited for the girl, and one day he followed her. He covered himself with a cloak and after following here the man discovered, the poor and weak girl was selling flowers for a living. The man wanted to help the girl. He wanted to teach her every method of growing flowers he knew, he wanted to teach her how to grow beautiful flowers. But he couldn’t come forward to the girl. She would be scared of him, she wouldn’t love his grotesque appearance. In the end, the only thing he could do was to grow and take care of the flowers so she could keep coming to his garden. The man decided to make a flower out of this world. He started to make a flower that the girl could sell at an expensive price. The man shut himself in the castle to make the flower. After countless attempts, the man made a flower that never existed in the world, and filled his garden with that flower. But the girl was nowhere to be seen. No matter how much he waited, the girl wouldn’t come to his garden. The man grew concerned and went to the village with his face covered. But the girl was already dead.

This was the story of Smeraldo. No one knows if this is a real story or just a story created by someone while watching the flower, but every time I see Smeraldo, this story comes to my mind and bring many thoughts. What if the man gathered his courage, showed his face and revealed the truth? The girl could be scared and run away, or she could get mad. Courage is not an easy thing.

Actually, I had gone through a similar experience too. It was the friend I met at the Playing Cards Academy whom I mentioned at the previous post. I had a crush on that friend. She was bright, cheerful and full of light. After hearing about Smeraldo being discovered, we talked about flowers and promised to go to ‘La Città de smeraldo’ together. It didn’t seem like she had nothing for me, because she told me let’s go together too. I still sometimes think of what happened then. Her face sparkling with curiosity and anticipation, scuttling away carrying big backpack, arranging the meeting, booking plane tickets and discussing the schedule with excitement.

They were moments that I will never be able to forget. A wound that no time can heal.

[The 5th Story] ‘Ashbless Cards’

I have told the story of Smeraldo in previous posts. Do you still remember the place where I first got to know about Smeraldo, the Playing Cards Academy? Are you curious about the connection between Smeraldo and playing cards? Today I’ll talk about a figure related to cards, William Ashbless.

There isn’t much known about Ashbless, aside from that he was an Italian nobleman and a poet. Ashbless was also an expert on playing cards, which started to gain popularity in Europe in the 16th century. He made playing cards for the palace and salons of noblewomen, but they said he got sick due to being too immersed in his work.

It was when he went to the countryside for a change of air. While searching for hot spring and places with fresh air to recover his health, Ashbless came across Smeraldo. At the edge of a rural village where only ruins of a castle were left, a flower with beauty beyond this world was blossoming. He asked for the name of the flower but no one in the village knew. Then he learned of the love story about the flower from an old woman. You probably figured it out from how he was immersed in playing cards, Ashbless was a romantic person. The love story of the ugly man and the poor girl moved his heart. Ashbless named the flower and created its flower language there. The flower was named ‘Smeraldo’ after the name of the village, ‘La Città di smeraldo’, and its flower language is ‘the truth that couldn’t be told (non potevo dire la verità)’. After returning to his place, he made ‘the Flower Card’ inspired by Smeraldo and included it in ‘Ashbless Cards’.

Its upright meanings are ‘fruition’, ‘bloom’ and its reversed meanings are ‘fall’, ‘end’ and ‘new start’.

▲ Ashbless Card

It was said that Ashbless Cards were a sensation in Europe. But not many remember it now. The reason was that the Ashbless family lost their power in the struggle between nobles, thus received a horrendous consequence of being erased from the history. Along with that, Ashbless Card and the story of Smeraldo flower were forgotten too.

But like every beautiful legend, there was one thing, one thing that carries this whole story, that wasn’t erased and still remained. The love story and the story of Ashbless were all revived again. I will talk about this story in the next post.

[The 6th Story] ‘Madam Lenormand’ and ‘The Flower Card’

There is a painting called by French artist Jean-Francois Rolland.

Madame Lenormand was said to be a French astrologer treasured by Napoleon’s wife, Queen Joséphine. Before she became the astrologer for Queen Joséphine, she was already famous for tarot readings for noblewomen and had amassed a significant fortune. Her ‘Lenormand Oracle Card’ is known for influencing a considerable number of card decks. Even now, the oracle card deck is still being sold on famous tarot card sites. 

▲ Painting of Madame Lenormand in The Court of Napoleon (Derby and Jackson, New York 1858). Source: Wiki Commons

As Madame Lenormand was a famous astrologer, there are many paintings of her holding or reading the cards. The above painting is one of them too. But what we need to focus on here is not the above painting but the painting called . Painted by French artist Jean-Francois Rolland, was an oil painting with delicate touch and a peculiar lyrical atmosphere, but it was lost in a fire at the collector’s mansion. The mansion’s owner was famous for owning documents and paintings showcasing the high society of Napoleonic era, so he immediately searched for the paintings at the scene of the fire and restored them. A lot of paintings and documents were restored but unfortunately, only the card part of was able to be saved. That part was the painting I introduced in the previous post. The card with ‘The Flower’ written on it, as you may notice, is one of the cards in Ashbless Cards made based on Smeraldo. This is the only trace left of Smeraldo and Ashbless.

[The 7th Story] ‘The truth that couldn’t be told’

Actually my family isn’t that wealthy. I had a difficult time studying abroad in America. I was a foreigner and wasn’t fluent at English. I couldn’t present a future.

The day we promised to travel together to Italy, I was waiting for my friend at the airport when I saw outside the glass door, she was getting down from the bus with a handsome cool guy. I immediately hid myself. Why did I do that… I don’t know too.. I just instinctively hid myself, turned around and walked away. I was like, ‘That’s right. There’s no way the two of us would travel to Italy. To her I’m just a pitiful foreigner who knows nothing.’

She called but I didn’t pick up. I just blankly looked at myself in the airport bathroom’s mirror. We booked the flight together so she had got to be somewhere in the plane, but I didn’t look for her. I just hoped. Hoped that she would look around the plane and come to find me. But even after the plane flied across the Atlantic, over the sky of Italy and landed at the airport… No one came to find me.

▲ Photos I took at San Francisco International Airport in America while waiting for her ​ ‘La Città di smeraldo’ was both a painful and happy memory to me. The Smeraldo flower was so beautiful that I cried. And that night, something weird happened. I was sleeping at a homestay when I was waken up by a strange noise. My bed was under the window, but I kept hearing a sound like someone was knocking the window. It was a two-floor room and the outside was quiet. It was past midnight, the curtains were drawn so I couldn’t see outside.

I didn’t feel scared, it was just weird. I thought about waking up and open the window to see who was knocking the second floor’s window, but it stopped. I figured it was the leaves knocking to the window by the wind and forced myself to go back to sleep, but truthfully I couldn’t sleep well. I kept listening to that sound and lied down quietly like I was forcefully enduring something. ​ It was around noon the next day when I received a call from that friend. No, it wasn’t a call from her. He said he was her brother. My friend was following someone in a rush at the airport when she got into an accident, she started to have trouble breathing from around past midnight yesterday, and went to the other world. ​ Before leaving the dorm, I opened the window next to my bed. The sun was shining through and far away was Smeraldos. I watched the flowers, sat in the sun and felt the wind blowing by. It was just for a moment but I felt like she was standing by the window and watching the Smeraldos side by side with me.

▲ A painful and happy memory, the beautiful view of ‘La Città di smeraldo’ 

On the way from the airport to my house after coming back to America, I received the news that what I had been dreaming of for a long time had come true. My Smeraldo flower shop in Korea was approved by The Smeraldo Academy. As Smeraldo is a rare species, the Academy controls overseas sales very strictly, so for later, I registered at the association and was approved. After that… 3 years have passed until the opening of ‘Flower Smeraldo’ in Korea, but I still think of the news from the Academy as the last thing my friend left before she went away.

She told me ‘the truth that couldn’t be told (non potevo dire la verità)’ and went to the other world. This is the string of fate between me and Smeraldo I mentioned in the first post.

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[aion-rsa]

Bloodlands: BBC Thriller Isn’t the New Line of Duty (But Watch It Anyway)

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The Bloodlands trailer first gives us police boats crossing a desolate loch, and the timbrous tones of James Nesbitt recapping a decades-old case about an assassin codenamed Goliath. Then comes the legend: “From the Executive Producer of Bodyguard and Line of Duty.” The new four-part BBC crime drama is the first from Hat Trick Mercurio, the new production company of Bodyguard and Line of Duty creator Jed Mercurio, the biggest name in UK TV thrillers and a connection well worth advertising. 

A connection, in fact, you’d be mad not to advertise. Zig-zagging political thriller Bodyguard was a gargantuan hit, and here in the UK, Line of Duty is more popular than sunshine. (The arrival of a new series featuring AC-12 prompts the nation to a similarly giddy high, but instead of men walking around without tops on and women taking photos of their legs in the park, we all start calling each other ‘Fella’ and harbouring suspicions about the probity of Sandra in Accounts.) Anyone launching a new crime drama and not trying to get people to call it ‘the next Line of Duty’ wouldn’t be doing their job. 

There are other sound reasons to draw the link: like Line of Duty, Bloodlands is also a twist-filled, Belfast-filmed BBC police thriller about a no-nonsense Northern Irish detective on the trail of a bent copper. Both feature burning cars and tense bomb disposal units. Superficially, there’s plenty of crossover but deeper down? They’re apples and oranges, or any other idiom of Supt. Ted Hastings’ choosing. 

Here’s why: tell me where Line of Duty is set. Not filmed (Belfast, and before that, Birmingham), but set. Where in England does its story take place? 

We can’t rightly answer because the city is unspecified in Line of Duty. The names of streets, neighbourhoods, landmarks and police precincts are inventions (or, quite rightly, fan nods to Hill Street Blues). It’s not a show about a specific force policing a specific place with a specific history, but something broader. It’s about the struggle between human weakness and strength – often within a single character – inside the institution of the police. It’s about greed and foibles and hypocrisy, laziness and temptation, and ultimately, about the gap between moral justice and the letter of the law. (The letter.)

Bloodlands isn’t just filmed in Belfast, it’s set there. Specifically, it’s set in modern-day Belfast, two decades on from the Good Friday Agreement that signalled an end to much of the violence that arose from political conflict in Northern Ireland. Even more specifically, it’s written by local boy Chris Brandon, who grew up near the series’ location of Stranford Lough. Its lead DCI Tom Brannick (Nesbitt) is a former member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, now the Police Service of Northern Ireland, not a fictional unit on an anonymous force. Brannick lost dearly during the Troubles, and the case we join him investigating has its roots in the lead-up to the Belfast Agreement. 

Read more

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Specificity works in Bloodlands’ favour. It’s weakest where it’s most generic (you won’t need me to provide a list of detective show clichés, they’re there from the off). The political context of Belfast then and now, and the emotional aftermath of the Troubles on the people of Northern Ireland is this thriller’s real meat. It’s likely what drew an actor of James Nesbitt’s calibre to the material, which in turn drew the attention of the BBC.

Thanks to funding programmes and tax relief provided by Northern Ireland Screen, more and more British TV drama is now filmed in Belfast. Some shows, like Line of Duty, use the city anonymously, but others choose to tap into the setting’s history. The most recent series of ITV’s Marcella upped sticks dramatically to take the action from London to Belfast, with Northern Ireland Screen funding. Story-wise, the result was… patchy, but its most tantalising thread hinted at the Troubles-specific history of a Belfast crime family matriarch played by Amanda Burton. (Admittedly, taking into account the sledge-hammer subtlety of the rest of the series, Northern Ireland likely wouldn’t have thanked Marcella had it dug deeper into that seam.)

Other dramas are better suited to real-world political reflection, and it’s satisfying to see a series like Bloodlands embed itself into Belfast’s singular political context. It would be more satisfying if it could take a leaf from Line of Duty’s book and credit the audience with the ability to keep up without explaining quite so much, quite so often. (If fewer shows made allowances for audiences watching with one eye scrolling on their phones, would viewers put them down for a second and actually watch? In all honesty, probably not.)

So that’s one reason Bloodlands isn’t the new Line of Duty. Yes, they’re both thrillers, but one is pinned to a singular political legacy, the other isn’t. There are other differences. Bloodlands exists in a moody world of chilly landscapes and terse, troubled symbolism, while Line of Duty’s commitment to naturalism is such that for vast stretches of police jargon dialogue, most of us haven’t a single clue what’s being said but still couldn’t be happier about it. 

Lastly – and best of all – Bloodlands isn’t the new Line of Duty because it doesn’t need to be. Line of Duty already exists and there’s a brand new series so close you can practically smell it! What does it smell of, you ask? A top note of Steve’s waistcoat over a base note of Kate telling someone to stop making a tit of themselves. In other words: perfection, fella.

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Bloodlands starts on Sunday the 21st of February at 9pm on BBC One.

The post Bloodlands: BBC Thriller Isn’t the New Line of Duty (But Watch It Anyway) appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[poeticwriter17undertale]

Ref sheet for Cameron Miles

Eye color: Greyish icy blue

Soul Color / Meaning: Grey = Vigilant and Clever

Build: Average

Species: Half human, half ice

Vehicle: A Bugatti Chiron that is the color #MQ3-57 (Also known as Siberian Ice Paint), automatic, 5 cylinders

Personality: Defensive, Protective, Outgoing,

Weapon: An assassin gauntlet on his right forearm

Abilities: Super Speed, Able to do Leaps Of Faith, Skilled Martial Artist, Professional at parkour, Eagle Vision,

Weakness(es): Fire, Heat

Nickname: Cameron, Cam

Technology: He uses an IPhone 8 that has a screen protector and a black phone case, made out of carbon fiber. He also has a popsocket on the back of his phone which it white with the Assassin's Creed symbol which is black. An ACER laptop which is black and has 1000 GB worth of space.

Clothes: Black high top sneakers, white t-shirt with a black Assassin insignia on the back, grey skinny jeans with no back pockets, a white leather sweater jacket

Hair Colour / Style: A low fade quiff, chocolate colored

Age: 22

Birthday: August the 12th

Stats:

HP: 400/400

Atk: 150

Def: 200

Likes: Going on hikes and walks at night and in the evenings on his spare time, hanging out with people he trusts, finding out mysterious/hidden secrets, finding hidden treasures or riches, helping out other people, serving justice

Dislikes: Being lead down a wrong path, being tricked or lied to, seeing his friends in danger

Family:

Father: Cameron Miles (deceased)

Mother: Lucy Stillman(deceased)

Siblings: None

Bio: When he was born, he was raised by Lucy, since Desmond was mostly in the Animus 2.0. He went to school as a normal child and graduated university with a GPA of 4.5 at the age of 17, he made many friends but said he kept in touch with them on social media of course as his 2 friends were descendants from Templars and assassins, just like Cameron himself. When he became 18, he learned that his father and mother were assassin's, as well as his ancestors. He became surprised yet interested and when he learned about his ancestors, he began to train. He trained so much that he became so much like his ancestors which made his mother and father proud, yet he chose to go with the side of the Templars after he heard of Patrick Shay Cormac's legend. When his father left him when he was 20, his father never came back. Abstergo found out that Desmond had a son but Cameron was quick to react and fled New York and escaped to Canada with a fake name he made for himself, he earned a job as a bartender, a waiter at a cafe and a in Northern BC in West Vancouver, lived his own life in a small apartment room near where his workplaces were where he worked very hard when on his 21st birthday whom he celebrated it alone, he got a letter from Rebecca Crane telling him that his father and mother passed away, that the foundation of Abstergo had found his location and that they were coming after him. He quickly took what he could, including his assassin gauntlet. He quickly went to his manager of the bar he worked at, told him that he had to leave and his manager bid him farewell. He took his phone charger, phone, laptop and laptop charger with him, put them all in a small red backpack, sold the apartment room at a reasonable price and transferred the money onto his credit card which he put into his backpack. He set off to look for his friends online and went to London, where he arranged to meet his friends there in a hotel. He told them that  Abstergo was after him and they would soon find out about Cameron’s two friends. They all agreed to move to BC Coquitlam, as it would be quite difficult for Abstergo to track them down. The three suddenly found themselves on Tumblr, seeking out for some help, they came to Clock and soon got introduced to Lavender, Klink, and Mech. The three knew that they were safe from Abstergo on Tumblr so they decided to stay there until the foundation of Abstergo was demolished and disbanded.