#not saying mother for an ENTIRE minute challenge [IMPOSSIBLE] [FAILED]

[cicadaland]

anyways this is what it’s like posting about Audrey of Michigan just so you know fyi btw

[lucyshypemaster]

some of my favorite quotes from The Land Of Stories: The Enchantress Returns

(again, for self-indulgence)

"I believe the most extraordinary ideas come from children. If only we all could be so perceptive, we would find the simplest solutions to the greatest problems are right under our noses." - Sleeping Beauty

"Nothing any of us do will ever bring your dad back. And nothing we do will ever push him further away either. He'll always be with us in our hearts, no matter what." - Charlotte Bailey

"Anyone can have a once-upon-a-time or a happily-ever-after, but it's the journey between that makes the story worth telling. And how characters face the challenges at hand is what makes them heroes." - Alex Bailey

"Having something worth telling and a passion to tell it are what makes you a good writer. I can't tell you how many times I've read novels or articles that used complicated words and witty wordplay to cover up the fact that they had absolutely no story to tell. A good story should be enjoyed; sometimes simplicity can go a long way." - Mrs. Peters

"I have two lives in my career; reprimanding and encouraging. Thank you for letting me encourage today. I don't get many opportunities." - Mrs. Peters

"I save lives everyday, but for a long time I thought it would be impossible to save mine. And then along came your mom, and I learned I had been wrong." - Dr. Bob

"Always have a plan B and a friend with bail, and you're guaranteed to never fail." - Mother Goose (ik Brystal is sick of her ass)

"She can lock us up at home all she wants, but we'll just keep finding ways to get back here until our mom is safe." - Alex Bailey

"People only love you as long as they're getting something out of you, but the minute you say something they don't want to hear or do something they don't want to see, all the admiration drains from their hearts." - Ezmia, The Enchantress

'A tension grew in the room, but it wasn't between Ezmia and Rumpelstiltskin; it was between Ezmia and the world.'

'Rumpelstiltskin stood and walked through the doorway, leaving his cell for the first time in one hundred and twenty-seven years, but stepping into a world of even harsher imprisonment.'

'It had been such a quiet day until the twins showed up.'

"I don't want the world to 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥; I want it to 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭. - Ezmia, The Enchantress (definitely my fav line from her)

"If the world was going to speak of my name, it would be whispered in fear rather than mocked with envy. If the world was going to take all the joy from me, I would simply 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘫𝘰𝘺 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥." - Ezmia, The Enchantress (she has done absolutely nothing wrong)

"I want to be at my best when I cause the world's worst." - Ezmia, The Enchantress

"We know the outcome of doing nothing, so I'd rather die fighting." - Froggy

'She missed the times when passing tests was their biggest concern.' (right?? ☠️☠️)

"Jealousy is just a reminder of the frustrations you have with yourself. Who has time to only concentrate on that?" - Goldilocks (another great line from Goldie)

"Just remember that even the tamest of places will surprise you with what is lurking in its shadows." - The Travelling Tradesman

"If I have the choice of being doubtful or being hopeful, I'm going to choose hopeful. It takes less work to be positive." - Conner Bailey

"Your whole life may exist between two streets, but then you realize those streets are just tiny veins in the body of the world. It makes you feel very small." - Jack

"Pain will drive you mad if it's strong enough; it'll change you into something you're not. It'll turn you 𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘭." - The Evil Queen

"You'll be searching for happiness your entire life but will never find it because you wouldn't know what happiness was even if it scratched you in the face." - Harper

"I'm sorry I could never be the brother you wanted. But one day I'll make things right between us. One day I'll be a brother you can be proud of." - Rumpelstiltskin

"When the rest of the world is looking to us for strength and guidance, who do we look up to for reassurance?" - Cinderella (ngl, this is EXTREMELY true)

'The Enchantress sat in the center of the coliseum on her old Fairy Council chair like it was a throne.' (this scene gave me chills)

'True to her word, the Enchantress had built herself a pedestal made of the deepest parts of the Earth, powered by the deepest anger of her soul.'

"You're not an all-powerful and terrifying 𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴, Ezmia- you're just a 𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘵! And no matter who you kill or what you conquer, people will always pity and laugh at you because of it!" - Alex Bailey (this is 100% one of the most powerful lines in this franchise like- i was literally cheering so hard for her here)

"I said, a 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘨𝘪𝘳𝘭 took away 𝘌𝘻𝘮𝘪𝘢 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘌𝘯𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴'𝘴 pride!" - Conner Bailey

"I am not a tragic case of the world; I 𝘢𝘮 the world- cruel, unfair and 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢 𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘦. People are not born heroes or villains; they're created by the people around them." - Ezmia, The Enchantress

"When bitterness and anger first run through your veins, you'll discover that you are 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘮𝘦- and it'll scare you to death." - Ezmia, The Enchantress (rereading this scene makes me wanna cry bc every single word she said comes true 😭😭)

"No one wins when there is loss." - Alex Bailey

'Something about seeing his sister among the fairies made him feel like everything was right in the world, even though his was crashing around him.'

"We'll always be together, Conner. In our hearts and in your stories- every time you pen another story about our adventures in the Land of Stories, I'll be right there with you." - Alex Bailey

'They were now dimensions apart, yet both the twins were finally 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘦.'

[fullyinconsequential]

Okay, everybody relax—I wrote this random crack Steddie fic where Steve was a writer and I wrote this from his point of view and I recently reread it after a long, long time and I was floored so enjoy.

Also it is a present-day set crack fic just to clear up time inconsistencies.

Atlantis.

When I was 10, my parents took me to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex at Cape Canaveral, Florida. I’d been to Disney World a hundred times by then, knew what the air would smell like and how the waves would sound licking the shore right beside the needlessly expensive condo we’d rent in Daytona. I expected roller coasters and cotton candy and to be sick with exhaustion by the end of it, trailing behind my booze-ridden parents, watching other kids get lifted on shoulders, fireman carried, cradled. Sometimes I walked slower than I felt, hoping one of them would have grown so annoyed of begging me to hurry, that they would lift me instead.

They never did.

Instead of a theme park, I got space. Thirty-minute presentations of one spacecraft or another—Apollo 8, Apollo 17, Apollo 11, the Challenger, the Columbia. Tears rolled down my face as we wandered through exhibits of dead astronauts, failures, fuck-ups.

But I cried harder at the successes—the cheers of the control room when Apollo 8 successfully launched, the testimonial of Gene Cernan about being the last man to have touched the moon, and Neil Armstrong himself confiding in the camera, all for a silly visitor center.

I cried the entire day. I hadn’t been able to explain it, and my mother took to believing I was scared of it all. She scolded my father the whole hour it took to get back to Daytona, convinced I had been frightened at the implication of the universe being so vast.

She never failed to misunderstand me.

If there was anything I understood, it was vastness. The echoing hallways of our four-story house, my king-sized bed, the hollow place inside me that burned bigger each time my father left for a business trip, mother in tow. At a certain point, they started forgetting to hire babysitters.

Just me and the house, my own black hole.

It’s hard to comprehend how big a super heavy-lift launch vehicle is until you’re standing beneath it. My legs weren’t long or fast enough to run the length of it. I slowed to a jog half-way, and walked to the tip of the launch escape system. Then I turned around to look for my parents, and they were gone.

I didn’t panic. I knew I would find them at the nearest supply of alcohol—but not just yet. For now it was me and Saturn V, this monstrous thing, it’s vastness like a mirror. One, two, three, four, five impossible structures that might’ve fused into one had it been launched, four that might’ve been abandoned, and one that might’ve returned home. A fraction of what it had been.

My mother always turned up drunk, my father, tired. He would say something of being jet-lagged, and retire. My mother would giggle and invite her friends to the house so she could boast of all her thrilling adventures. Sometimes I wondered if they remembered they had a son at all.

The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex has grown in the time since I’ve been there, most notably in their addition of the Atlantis, a spacecraft that traveled in and out of space on nearly 30 round trips. It was the first spacecraft of its kind—reusable. Returnable. Designed with the capacity to come back whole, warm with information, not lacking in love.

I’d like to stand beneath it one day. I’d like to see what I couldn’t when I was ten, to know that these wonderful metal creatures can come back whole.

And that it wasn’t my fault the others could not.

I’m off to cry now, thanks for reading :’)