#not to mention the way they literally always ignore how Henry’s MOTHER might feel about this

[lunar-years]

I’m hardly a patriotic person but when people act like Ted is actively harming Henry by “making” him grow up in the Terrible U.S.A, where mind you he is surrounded by his family members and his friends in the country he has always known, when instead Ted could have “Saved” him by moving him to *checks notes*…England…where apparently everything is better and perfect and sunshine and rainbows, my patriotic senses do tingle. I end up feeling a need to defend Kansas like I’ve never felt the need to defend Kansas before.

[wibble-wobbegong]

Will Byers and Mina Murray: Exploring a Deeper Mental Link

PART 3!! okay, this actually ended up being shorter than i anticipated because it’s just. So obvious. mina and will are perfect parallels moving in opposition, so perfect that i don’t need to elaborate a whole lot. they’re just like each other for real

mentions of assault and pedophilia marked with orange lines -> —————————————

Establishing Parallels

I barely have to do anything to prove this to be honest. Let me give you a couple lines describing Mina;

“There are darknesses in life, my child, and there are lights. You are one of the lights, dear Mina. The light of all lights.”

I don’t know guys, seems like a stretch. Will has only been given a heavy association with being the light throughout the entirety of the fourth season and is only building up his arc in which he literally saves the world from beings of darkness and dark power because nobody is capable but him. Might be a coincidence :/

“There in the presence of God, I understood at last how my love could release us all from the powers of darkness. Our love is stronger than death.”

Mmmm I’m not sure man. Will has only been the unwavering symbol of love that faces hatred and wins throughout the entire show. It’s not like his story has been building up to him finally winning the boy he loves, learning to love himself, and expanding the love he feels for his family to include people he hasn’t always been fond of because he loves more than he hates. It’s not like the love from his mother literally revived him. Yeah guys i might be reaching

Most of the parallels between Will and Mina are through the mental link I’m gonna be talking about, but those lines are pretty blatant on their own. There are three major aspects to this link: presentation, plot service, and origin. Going through each of these builds a pretty interesting picture.

Presentation

The ways Mina and Will talk about their mental connections are fairly reminiscent of each other, though the tones are different. For example;

“He’s always in my thoughts.” / “I can still remember what he thinks and how he thinks.”

Both Mina and Will directly quote Dracula and Henry as being present in their minds, affecting the way they think. Dracula doesn’t directly control Mina’s thoughts, but rather exists as a constant reminder to her very similarly to the way Will can constantly feel Henry. These presences are constants for them, something that cannot be removed or ignored. They’re united in this lack of escape from it.

On the other hand, Mina doesn’t oppose this presence Dracula has in her mind: she embraces it. At the time she says this quote, she has begun gaining Elisabeta’s memories and feels the love she felt for Dracula, so his presence is a positive thing for her. Obviously, Will is the opposite. He hates this connection he has with Henry. Although they speak about their links the same way, their feelings directly contrast each other.

Whenever Mina speaks of Dracula, she speaks with fondness and love. Even when Dracula has revealed that he killed her best friend, even when he’s hurt her fiance, Mina forgives him. She loves him, she begs him to turn her immortal too so they can exist together forever in the same scene. Mina is bitten and later seen by her fiance as having sex with Dracula, though Dracula is invisible to him. She joins him.

Will, clearly, is the exact opposite. The closer he gets with Henry, the more he’s grown to hate and fear him. The connection Henry forms with him does not foster love, but animosity. Will is there as Henry tries to kill the Party as soon as he recognizes where he is, and he fights back. He doesn’t forgive Henry for any of this; not what’s been done to him or his friends. We know that Henry is very, very likely going to offer Will a position to join him in taking over the world and shaping it so people like them are on top and Will won’t entertain the idea.

Mina and Will are both light, they’re both love, but they move as opposites. At every turn where Mina succumbs to Dracula and his influence, Will fights back against Henry. Their situations are incredibly similar, but they handle it contrarily.

Plot Service

As a plot device, Mina and Will’s links with Dracula and Henry are actually performing alike yet in opposite directions as well.

After Mina’s turning by Dracula, he makes his escape and she is brought to safety with Van Helsing. He, Jonathan, and Quincy are planning to go on the hunt for Dracula and finally kill him, but they need to find him first. Van Helsing looks to Mina for a solution, citing her connection with Dracula to be remarkable and asking for her permission to hypnotize her to get her to lead them to Dracula, which she agrees to, knowing she’s becoming like him. The hypnosis allows Mina to reach through the mental link and see through Dracula’s eyes, hear through his ears, feel what he feels, and think what he thinks. It is because of this that she is able to guide the men to Dracula.

Yeah, I’m sure that feels familiar. Traits of Mina’s hypnosis are very reflective of Will’s possession, in the way she starts experiencing something equivalent to now-memories and is being used as a guide. On the surface, it’s a very blatant parallel, and yet when we really look at it she is facing a situation that is directly opposite of Will’s. During Will’s possession, he ended up becoming a guide for Henry rather than for the party. Mina agrees to her hypnotization, but Will’s is forced upon him by Henry. Mina becomes an effective spy by choice, and she is beneficial to our protagonists, but in the end she is still going against her own preference. She doesn’t want Dracula dead, she just wants to return to him and this hypnotization allows her to do so. That is a similarity to Will, in that she’s forced to go against her own dedication in order to achieve her wants. Will utilized his possession to save Hopper and he wanted to help stop the spread, but was taken over and ended up damaging his own team. Mina utilized her connection to return to Dracula, but the result ended with Dracula being hurt, which is not what she wanted.

Mina and Will are constantly pushing and pulling with each other, but it boils down to Mina being like a version of Will that sided with Henry rather than his Party.

This internal conflict between Mina’s support and whether she wants to be with Jonathan or Dracula, although she ultimately chooses Dracula, is put into perspective by a line she gives;

“Perhaps, though I try to be good, I am bad.”

She wants to choose good, she wants to be good, but she ultimately falls into the hands of evil. Of course, it’s not actually that black and white, but she’s directly presented with the option to stay with Jonathan or Dracula. She tries to choose Jonathan, she tries to rid Dracula from her mind, but she can’t seem to forget him. Her heart is with Dracula no matter how badly she wishes she were able to be happiest with Jonathan who has done nothing but try to protect her.

Will also faces this choice, in a way. He can choose between his own Dracula and Jonathan; Henry and Mike. Except, for Will, even though Henry haunts his mind and body and he literally cannot get rid of him, there are feelings inside him stronger than Henry. We see it in S2 as Will’s love for Mike beats out Henry’s possession, we see it when Mike is able to bring Will down from the fear he feels when the shadow is active, we see it when Will says it’s not possible to move on from Mike, we see it when Will entrusts Mike with the knowledge he carries himself. Mina hid Dracula, tried to deny his existence. Will doesn’t hide from Mike like that because Will trusts Mike more than he fears Henry and what the consequences would be of telling Mike. Will wants to be good, and he is. It’s not possible for him to turn to evil, to become the bad he’s faced his whole life.

Origin

Here’s where things get particularly interesting.

In the story of Dracula, Mina Murray is meant to be a reincarnation of Dracula’s late wife Elisabeta which is why she gains Elisabeta’s memories and feels the things she felt. This is what is supposed to be true, and it may be the intention of the story, but the image that gets painted reflects something very different.

This part took me forever to figure out because it doesn’t make sense for Will to have been a reincarnation of Peter, but the memory issue is so prominent in Mina’s story and such a huge theme throughout S4 that it can’t be ignored. It’s important, in the context of Peter existing, for Will to know who he is and his importance to Henry because he’s most likely going the route of ending his conflict with Henry by displaying compassion towards him and relating to him. By having the context of Peter, the common ground of queerness is built between them on the grounds of their love for one boy. Henry’s love for Peter is meant to parallel Will’s love for Mike: Mike and Will are an example of love that’s allowed to exist and grow, surrounded by supportive family and friends in contrast to the harsh homophobia Peter and Henry have faced. An awareness of Peter is incredibly important in relating to Henry.

——————————————————————

There’s also the matter of Will learning he looks incredibly similar to Peter, concreting that Henry’s obsession with him isn’t entirely based in his powers, but also a predation that precedes sexuality, unlike Henry’s other victims. Unveiling Peter simultaneously creates room for empathy but also maintains that Henry is a horrible person at this point.

———————————————————————

So, if Peter’s presence in Will’s life is essential, how do they fill the shoes of Mina and Elisabeta? If we were to entertain the idea of reincarnation, there would be some pretty major inconsistencies between their personalities and physicality. Will is notoriously against violence and revenge, refusing to commit acts of violence and feeling such guilt for being forced to do so that he breaks through possession to apologize. Peter is much different, if we are to assume that the parallels to Saint Peter’s Apocalypse is intentional (it is). He’s someone who does seek revenge, who wants to watch the people who hurt him and Henry burn even if he would never be able to take the action to do so himself. He would be the inspiration behind some of Henry’s actions in a very direct manner, and absolutely none of what Henry has done is ever anything Will would be capable of inspiring on the side of being a perpetrator. Their personalities don’t match. Alongside that, it’s meant to be significant that Peter (most likely) doesn’t have powers. Powers are a genetic trait, so if Will were to truly be a reincarnation then his gaining of powers doesn’t make a lot of sense either. It could work, but the inconsistency and the time needed to explain why the inconsistency exists and the narrative purpose it holds… it’s way too much to do and changes some of the pre-established rules of powers.

That leaves us with a pretty fucking confusing situation. How the hell do you translate reincarnation into a parallel where reincarnation would actively work against the story? Unless.

When you really watch the movie, really look at it, it can very easily be interpreted that Mina isn’t a reincarnation and never was. At the end of the story, Dracula is reunited with Elisabeta in heaven, fulfilling her dying wish. If Elisabeta is in heaven and has been in heaven, then Mina can’t have been a reincarnation. Mina isn’t a reincarnated Elisabeta; they’re two very separate people. We literally see them in the same room at the same time. Elisabeta did not come back.

Mina isn’t a reincarnation of Elisabeta. That aligns with the story much better, but it raises another problem. How did she gain Elisabeta’s memories? The first time Mina ever remembers something is when she looks Dracula directly in the eyes over dinner, beginning to recall his home which she had never seen. She suddenly describes Dracula’s voice, “...like something from a dream [she] cannot place, but it’s familiar.” Before this, she had recognized him as Dracula through his Romanian tongue as he tried to turn her when they first met, but she hadn’t remembered anything herself. It’s only after looking Dracula in the eye that she remembers.

Mina isn’t a reincarnation and her memories begin after looking Dracula in the eyes.

That we can work with.

Considering the story from this angle, rather than what’s presented on the surface, the puzzle pieces start to click together. Dracula went after Mina because of how similar she looked to Elisabeta. He builds a deep mental connection with her and floods her mind, altering how she perceives and feels about him. Dracula has previously displayed this ability to control people and manipulate their minds, as that’s how he lures Mina to the garden in order to fuck and turn her into a vampire.

———————————————————————

Henry went after Will on a much more personal level because of his similarities to Peter (amongst other things). He forces a deep mental connection with him through the invasion of his body. Mina’s first ever recognition of Dracula occurs in a situation in which he forces himself on her but draws back before turning her permanently. Both of these initial connections are made in situations of assault (Mina’s attack is physical, Will’s is a matter of mind, but both are assault regardless). It’s after this point that he deepens this connection with Will, binding them in a way that allows him to constantly exist in Will’s mind.

———————————————————————

The process in which this connection is built between Dracula and Mina follows the pattern that we see with Henry and Will, but so far Henry’s role has been played from a distance. Mina’s memories are triggered by looking Dracula himself in the eye. For Will to gain ‘Peter’s’ memories, he’ll come face to face with Henry first. I imagine Henry will try and manipulate Will by showing them their likeness through queerness to try and coerce him into joining him. Where Dracula planted feelings of love towards himself in Mina, I think Henry may try and manipulate Will’s feelings about loving Mike into making him see that Henry isn’t the bad guy. Dracula is a bad person, but he'd convinced Mina he wasn’t. She even forgives him for killing her best friend. Henry wants Will to see him as righteous, wants Will to join him, but Will isn’t like Mina. They move in opposite directions.

The origin of both of these memories come not from reincarnation and genuine emotion, but forcible connection and manipulation of feelings. Henry has revealed his own memories to Will before to gain his own advantage, and he has the ability to do it again.

The difference, this time, is that Will is going to be witnessing the extremities of homophobia even he hasn’t encountered. He’ll be forced to see just how much people hate people like him. Choosing love and refusing to inflict that pain on others is his choice, but there is pain in witnessing suffering among your own and taking the harder route so nobody gets hurt.

[kindaeccentric]

When I was writing my university bachelor's degree thesis (that I'm still to defend) about Penny Dreadful as a modern adaptation of Frankenstein I noticed how the original novel's homoeroticism is realized by the series in an interesting way.

In the way he is presented, it seems to me that Victor secretly desires men, but thinks that only through creating a perfect one by himself he's allowed to touch other man's skin. His endeavour to pierce the veil between life and death is an excuse, since Victor from the series grew up lonely after the death of his mother and he searches for companionship, for someone who would love him unconditionally, like his mother used to. He believes he can find such love only in a person he creates himself, brings from the dead, and who would see him as his only friend, calm and obedient. Yet his first instinct is to make a man, not a woman, and a handsome man at that.

I can imagine both Rory Kinnear and Alex Price are not everybody's cup of tea (I do find them attractive, they are quite charismatic), but the way the original Creature and Proteus are shown makes them attractive. Proteus we see through Victor's eyes, when he is tending to his body before its even reanimated, when he sketches him (a sure sign of affection) and when he teaches him how to eat in a way that becomes seductive, because of how the camera lingers on his lips and then, in a closeup, on his fingers running down his long throat, immediately bringing to mind erotic imagery. Some may argue that Victor tries to emulate the relationship between his mother and himself taking the parental role and projecting onto Proteus the role of his childhood self, and as much as it is partially true, their relationship bears these marks of hidden desire on Victor's part from the start. The image at the end of the first episode when Proteus is born shows Victor trembling, teary-eyed, looking at the body, a torn and stitched back together, but human body, of a naked man. He's afraid, but not necessarily of the man, but of finally getting what he wanted, it's a fear resulting from excitement. Then the man is touching his face tenderly and Victor, still trembling, cannot stop himself from a little smile. Their faces are softly illuminated by the orange light of the gas lamp, creating an intimate atmosphere of a warm bedroom. Victor practically gasps hearing his own name smoken by Proteus. I doubt all of it was intentional in the way I read it, but it doesn't change the fact that the final scene can be easily interpreted this way.

Then the original Creature, with the violence surrounding his return, presents him as highly masculine, smart, powerful, a direct opposite to the delicate, clueless Proteus Victor could easily form into whatever he wanted. The Creature throughout the entire series is perceived as ugly by some and easily tolerated by others, making his ugliness purely subjective, since, despite his small deformities he remains strangely alluring with his gothic qualities (black long hair, black lips, white skin, yellow eyes, proportional features) of a dark brooding gentleman. With blood on his face he becomes vampire-like (vampires always a symbol of hidden desires and 'depraved' sexuality, the Creature and Victor becoming a mirror image of Vanessa and vampire Mina, both Creature's and Mina's monstrosity an indirect result of Victor's and Vanessa's desire towards having a same-sex companion). The Creature touches Victor's face, a callback to Proteus doing it, but the Creature is not gentle, he smears blood all over Victor's face (blood in vampire narratives was always a symbol for other bodily fluids, that's why it seems so sexy, it also gained another meaning in the 80s, due to the HIV epidemic, which no filmmaker can shake off if they tried, I could discuss it more with The Lost Boys, but no time for that right now).

The dynamic between Victor and the Creature is a reversal of Victor's budding relationship with Proteus, experience winning over innocence. Victor is under another man's rule, and it terrifies him, because it would force him into a position of having to admit his attraction, whereas as the one in control he could have still easily deny it. The Creature, with all his attributes, symbolizes carnal love, he's all 'body', where Proteus was virginal, pious love (to an extent). In one of the scenes where we see Proteus he looks up into the skylight at Victor's apartment and appears angelic, as if in a halo of white light.

It's revealed Victor never had a woman, and the series wants the viewer to believe it's because of his awkwardness and passion for science that consumed him, but his dedication to creating himself male companions instead of searching for a living female one is exactly what makes him seem more queer coded.

It's clear that the lack of paternal figure results in Victor quickly becoming close with older men he encounters (Sir Malcolm, Van Helsing), but it also puts him into a position where he's constantly surrounded by men, with whom he feels more at ease, and is intimidated by women. The rivalry between him and Ethan is that of siblings, until the moment when Ethan teaches him how to shoot a gun. It might be a stretch (it is a bit of a stretch, I admit), but a gun often, especially in horror, alongside a knife, represents manhood and masculine power. Victor allows Ethan to touch him and encourages him to show off with the gun, which is a scene all too familiar from many other movies where the role of Victor is reserved for a woman and the interaction is flirtatious (can't pull examples out of thin air, but if you saw over 1400 movies like me you know I'm not lying). All this adds to the general image of Victor.

The Creature and Victor, when they are on a walk, have a very revealing conversation in which the Creature points out how quick Victor was to grow attached to his more perfect man, and Victor doesn't deny it, he admits that he did in fact feel affection towards Proteus, although the meaning of it as the scorned past partner expressing jealousy over the love he didn't get while someone else did is largely subtext. When the Creature says that he's lonely, Victor answers 'I cannot love you' (paraphrase, because I can't find the exact quote right now) and the Creature, disillusioned, mocks him, 'I do not want what you cannot give' suggesting that Victor, by making himself a meek obedient man, is selfish, cruel, manipulating, and a coward, therefore could not have loved Proteus truly. Then again, Victor cannot bring himself to love his original Creature, because he's not the ideal man he envisioned and by then the Creature being too aware of his flaws of character. The Creature/Caliban/John Clare knows that Victor is 'monstrous', not just because he's someone who desecrates dead bodies, plays God and abandons his creation, but because of his queer desire. It's important that in the case of Penny Dreadful 'monstrosity' signifies many different things, literal (being a vampire werewolf, witch, and so on), metaphorical (bad deeds, like letting your son die a horrible death, cheating, killing etc.) and wholy subjective, merely condemned by ignorant society (Sembene's blackness, Brona's sex work, Lily's want to be equal or greater than men, Vanessa's want for sexual freedom, the Creature's ugliness, Angelique being transgender and other cases), so it's NOT that much of a stretch this time.

We also have the whole problem with Lily. Victor is so attached to Lily (who takes up both Elizabeth's and creature's bride parts in the novel) because he believes that only by possessing a good woman he'll be redeemed for his 'sinful' desires, but he's foolish to think that. This belief reduces a woman to a semi-maternal, semi-virginal angelic ideal with no sexual urges or agency, like virgin Mary. Lily is a true replacement for Victor's mother, and his imagined redemption. As long as she's similar to Proteus, in that she's not sexual, and pure like an angel. Yet Lily is not a woman in that sense. She is another of Victor's creatures, so she partially also takes over the role of the original Creature from the novel, a male. She's not an ideal of a Victorian obedient wife, she has power, or tries to have it, but power in the context of patriarchal society is masculine by nature. The moment she drops her pretenses of a weak delicate wife-like girl Victor does not want her like this. He doesn't want a woman that is sexually liberated, because he doesn't like women in this way, and yet, by being similar to the first Creature (from Victor's perspective, from hers John Clare is similar to Victor-a man, I could delve into Brona's sexuality, but later, this thing is already way longer than I intended) she's 'the man' he wanted.

There is also Henry. Henry Jekyll takes the role of his namesake in the novel, Henry Clerval, Victor's closest friend, and a character most often cited to have homoerotic tension with Victor. It's true that some of the eroticism might be accidental, stemming from the prevalence of homosocial interactions in 'Frankenstein' which in turn is a result of misogynistic nature of 19th century Genevian society and in-novel universe reflecting it, but like I mentioned before, it still feeds into the queer reading of the text and translates beautifully into Jekyll and Victor being both extremely misogynistic towards Lily and their mutual homoerotic tension. In the scenes where Henry purposes his plan to Victor he practically seductively purrs it into his ear, Lily becomes merely a female buffer that allows for that interaction, a female presence which is an excuse for male closeness (here I have a couple of examples actually: Dead Ringers, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Scream (in a roundabout way, through murder) and a couple others, but that deserves its own article). I won't even mention more references to the novel, because that's a lot already.

Penny Dreadful, although I believe largely unintentionally, expands on what is already there through the changes it introduces in relation to the novel's plot. I have nothing else smart to say, I just think it's worth considering.

*I use the word 'queer', because that's the umbrella term we use in academic writing for years now and even our lgbt+ group at university is called 'queer', so don't come at me with stupid takes

[kiarcheo]

Cousin Trap

Can read on Ao3 here

Anne Boleyn and Catalina Aragon have a lot of things in common. Among those, they are both smart, accomplished women, they both dated the same man, Henry Tudor, and they absolutely loathe each other. These are all things they are both aware of. But there is another matter that connects them and that they don’t know anything about: they both love to death their younger cousins....and said cousins are dating.

For months Katherine Howard and Catherine Parr had been unaware of the fact themselves.

How was Cathy supposed to even start to suspect that the Annie her girlfriend always talked about with nothing but pure love was ‘that Boleyn girl’ - and yes, she hears it in her mind in the same tone Catalina usually spits it out?

How was Kat supposed to connect Cathy’s Lina, the cousin who used to teach her Spanish swearwords when she was a kid and is now almost a maternal figure to her, with ‘Catherine, that massive *insert chosen insult of the day*’ Anne still complains about, even if it has been years since they have last seen each other?

‘And you know, it’s funny. Because her surname is literally Aragon and she is from there.’

Kat abruptly stops laughing along with Cathy. ‘Aragon? Your...Lina is Catherine Aragon?’

‘Catalina.’ Cathy corrects her. ‘It annoys her when people use the English version. That’s not her name.’ She stops. She heard it so many times that she could repeat Lina’s spiel word by word, but that’s probably not the point. ‘But yes? Why?’

‘Annie. My cousin,’ Cathy nods to show she is following. Of course she knows who Annie is. She met her. Scarily smart and scarily funny, once you get over her being scarily protective of Kat. Not that Cathy faults her for it. ‘Anne Boleyn.’

‘What?’

‘My cousin is Anne Boleyn.’ Kat repeats, much to Cathy’s horror, who had been hoping she had misunderstood.

---

‘So, let me see if I got it right.’ Anna looks at her two friends. ‘Your cousins, the ones who are basically your big sisters slash mother figures and would totally kill for you, hate each other.’

Cathy and Kat nod.

‘And they don’t know you are dating? Even if you have been together for…what is it? Four years?’

‘Yes.’

‘How is that even possible?’ That’s the part Anna is most confused about.

‘Well, they never met.’

‘Yes, but they met you!’ Anna gestures to them. She remembers Kat stressing out about meeting Cathy’s Lina for the first time, worrying that she would not make a good impression on someone who was so important for her girlfriend. And she also remembers Cathy telling her about her meeting with Anne and the shovel talk she got. Hell, Anna has met Anne herself!

‘Yes. And they know about Annie and Lina.’

‘Not about that Boleyn girl and Catherine Aragon.’ Cathy picks up Kat's explanation.

‘What about photos?’ Just from her armchair Anna can see at least four pictures on the shelves with Anne and Kat, Cathy and Catalina, and even one of both her friends with Anne.

‘We hide them.’ That had not been a problem until they had moved in together, but once they took that step and they had their first visit...that’s what they did.

‘And you don’t plan to tell them?’

‘Nope.’

‘How is this even going to work? Won't they meet at a certain point?’

‘We alternate for the holidays and stuff. One time at Lina’s, one at Anne’s. Or with them, anyway. No reason for them to meet.’

‘So what? You’re going to wait until your wedding day and have them see each other there?’

‘We discussed it and we feel no need to get married, so...’

Anna shakes her head. Unbelievable.

---

‘You!’ A twin exclamation. Had their hands not been loaded with bags, they would have totally pointed the finger at each other.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘What are you doing here?

‘I asked first.’

If Anne wants to do this in the middle of the street, Catalina will not back down. ‘Visiting family, not that you’d know anything about that.’

Anne ignores the low blow. Her fraught relationship with her family has always been a sore spot, and Catalina knows it very well.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Catalina stops her from ringing the bell, covering it with her hand.

‘Old age getting to you?’ Anne hits back, Catalina’s age – specifically her being older than Henry and consequently also than Anne – being one of the excuses he had used to dump her for Anne. ‘What do you think?’ before adding, ‘Hoping to be saved from having to breath the same air as you for much longer.’

‘You got the wrong house.’

‘And how do you know that?’

‘This is where I’m going.’

‘Impossible. This is where I am going.’

’My cousin lives here.’

‘My cousin lives here.’

They glare at each other.

‘Let’s settle it.’ Anne rings the doorbell.

‘Eager to be proven wrong, aren’t you?’ Catalina scoffs. ‘Let's hear it.  What would your cousin’s name be?’

‘What’s yours?’

They stare at each other silently as if challenging the other to speak first. Tension builds as the standoff continues.

‘Catherine.’

‘Katherine.’

They say at the same time, then stiffen. Is it all a big joke for the other? Is she taking the mick? They look ready to attack when they have a light-bulb moment. Realisation dawns.

‘No!’

‘Sorry, it took me so long, I’m not feeling my best-’ the door opens fully, ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Oh querida,’ Catalina breaths out. Cathy looks...rough. ‘Let me in, don’t stand there in the cold.’ She gently pushes her way in, ignoring how Anne follows her and focusing on Cathy. ‘Have you been to the doctor? Have you been eating? Let me whip up something for you.’ She doesn’t really wait for a reply, moving towards the living room, Cathy trailing behind her wordlessly, shocked and exhausted. ‘How is Kat?’

Right then a scratchy voice calls out. ‘Cathy?’

That seems to jolt Anne out of whatever trance she was in. In three quick steps she is by Catalina’s side and trying to enter the room first.

‘Who was at the door?’ The question is barely finished when the coughing starts, the cocoon on the couch from where the voice came from convulsing. Then a pale face with flushed cheeks from the effort emerges.

‘Katie!’ Anne is immediately by her side.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘That seems to be the question of the hour.’ Catalina mutters while watching, almost captivated, Anne taking Kat’s face in her hands, tilting it up, and resting her cheek on her forehead. ‘Still got a fever. Have you been throwing up? Have you taken anything? Do you want me to run to the pharmacy? Cathy, you need anything?’

‘Annie.’ Kat blinks up at her. ‘Slow down.’

‘Right. Sorry.’ Anne sits back on her haunches.

Cathy joins Kat on the couch, Kat wordlessly lifting the blanket and wrapping Cathy in.

‘That would look adorable if you both didn’t look so terrible.’

‘I haven’t looked at a mirror in forever, but if I look half as bad as I feel...I have no doubts.’ Kat comments.

‘Why are you here?’ Cathy is too tired and sick to care about politeness. Besides, that’s the good thing about close family, isn’t it? No need to sugar-coat and maintain a polite façade when you feel like crap.

‘You call, telling me that you’re both violently sick and you expect what? For me to just stay home knowing there is no one to help you here because all your friends left for the break and you’re in no state to help each other?’

‘As much as I hate to agree with her,’ Anne reaches up to brush some hair away from Kat’s clammy face. ‘You know I’d drop anything if you needed me. And in this case, I already had the days off anyway...’

‘You’re going to get sick too.’

Anne smiles at her cousin’s thoughtfulness. ‘That’s a risk I’m willing to run.’

Catalina clearly agrees, as she puts on the kettle and puts together some light sandwiches after Cathy mentions it’s time for them to take their medicines.

As they are all sitting down having tea, Anne broaches the subject. ‘When were you thinking of telling me about...her?’ She sends a dirty look towards Catalina, who doesn’t hesitate to return it.

Still, they don’t miss the look Cathy and Kat exchange. And the silence is telling enough.

‘So, what? What was the plan? Wait until your wedding day for me to see her showing up at the reception?’

‘I will totally walk Kat down the aisle or whatever they decide to do.’

‘Marriage is not really in the plans, so...not really?’ Cathy says at the same time.

Anne turns to her, hard look in her eyes. ‘Why not? Kat not good enough for you?’

‘Because we talked about it and marriage is not a thing we see in our future.’ Kat stops her before she can get riled up on her behalf…absolutely unnecessarily.

Anne gives a begrudging nod. Overprotectiveness aside, it's not completely surprising considering their family’s history. Still, they will be revisiting the topic, once Kat is better.

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ Cathy hesitantly starts after they had been sitting for a while, ‘I’m not kicking you out or anything. You can stay as long as you want. Both of you. But before we get too dozy from the medicine...where are you staying?’ They have learned the hard way that what they are taking hit them both quite strongly. They found stuff in weird places they didn’t remember having put them in. Which is way better that waking up on the bathroom floor, presumably after one of them threw up but without remembering who was the one who got sick, bodies hurting even more from sleeping in a weird position on a cold, hard floor.

‘Here?’ Anne and Catalina look at each other as they say the same thing at the same time. They narrow their eyes in challenge.

‘You know we’re always happy to have you here,’ both had stayed over before, ‘but do you remember that there is just one guest room, right?’

‘She can sleep on the couch.’ Anne beats Catalina to the punch.

‘You can sleep on the couch!’ Catalina rebuts.

‘Why? Your old back can’t take it?’ Anne snipes. ‘If you admit so, I might be generous enough to leave you the bed.’

Kat’s coughing fit, albeit involuntarily, comes at the perfect moment.

‘Actually,’ Cathy takes advantage of the interruption as she rubs Kat's back, ‘you can’t use the couch, I’m afraid.’ She grimaces, whether it is because of what she is saying or because her girlfriend is currently trying to hack up a lung not clear. ‘If one of us is up at night, to avoid waking the other, we move out here. But if one of you is sleeping here...’

‘Of course.’ ‘You don’t have to apologise.’ Both women reassure her.

‘So either one of you stays and the other stays at a hotel-’

‘Her.’

‘Not me.’

They glare at each other.

‘Or you can share the room. It’s a queen size bed, as you know.’

---

‘Cathy?’

They had retired to their room, medicine having its predicted effect, leaving the older women to settle down in the guest room. And probably take over the house and everything else, if their bickering about groceries and cleaning is any indication.

‘We don’t really use the couch.’ Kat points out. They are out cold at night, the power of drugs. So far they have only woke up for coughing fits or to throw up… which tends to wake the other, and they would not have it any other way. And at that point they prefer to stay together, cuddling in bed and waiting for sleep to come...they are both sick anyway, not like it can get any worse.

‘I know.’

‘Then why?’ Kat looks adorably confused in her drowsiness.

‘So they’ll be forced to get along.’

‘Or kill each other.’

‘But that would make us sad, and they know it, so they won’t.’

Kat nods. That sounds reasonable. Then she squints at Cathy. ‘Are you...cousin trapping them? You know, like The Parent Trap movie but with cousin because they are our cousins?’

Cathy smiles dopily at the over explanation. Kat tends to ramble when she is tired.

‘Or trope-ing them.’

‘What?’

‘You know, there was only one bed. Or,’ Kat’s scrunched up face lets her know she is not following her, so Cathy continues, ‘and they were roommates.’

The response is automatic, no need to even engage the brain. ‘Oh my God! They were roommates!’

[hopevalley]

Season 8, Episode 10: Old Love, New Love, Is This True Love

All right, so...like I said, work has picked up and my eyes feel like old marbles from staring at numbers (the woes of working in accounting I guess) so I want to get this written up and tossed into the nether before I lose steam and motivation to do it. The interesting thing about these little write-ups is that as the week goes on they just get harder and harder to write...

I do apologize in advance to those who like the long-winded write-ups. I’m just not up to it at the moment. Still feeling kind of bleh from the episode.

Let’s go back to an old format, shall we?

The Good

We might as well start out with the things about this episode that I enjoyed! 

Gossip Hour with the Men was one of the best openers they’ve had on the show in a while. It was genuinely funny without being meanspirited. Nobody looked like the bad guy. Everyone just calmly talked about it alike it was a normal thing to maybe call off the wedding. Bill calling out Carson for giving marriage advice was pretty funny, Mike was a delight. I don’t know what to say. I’d watch a whole episode of The Boys just hanging around spending time together.

--

Florence’s worry that she’s ugly was...not a terrible idea for a storyline, but the actress is too good-looking to pretend to be ugly (I saw her in this pretty yellow dress on Instagram a couple years ago and she was smashing)? Also, it’s not like Ned is a handsomely aged gentleman (like Henry lol) so it makes even less sense for the characters. I think they should have gone with Florence feeling she’s “plain” and that dressing up Super Nice makes her feel uncomfortable because she just doesn’t feel like Herself and worries maybe it’s projecting a false sense of Who She Is or something? I guess overall I still liked that an attempt was made to add some depth to Florence and her difficulties in choosing a dress/hairstyle, so...it goes here.

--

Ned asking Henry to be his best man was nice, too. I can forgive the shoddy pacing and weird placement of this request (like I do with almost everything in the show) but only because the scene was just...so incredibly wholesome. 

I like how Henry just casually is like, “Well maybe today’s just not the day.” I think it eased Ned’s mind just a little that he CAN back out if he really wants to.

I think it’s worth thinking about the fact that Ned and Henry would have always worked very closely, since the mercantile would have been a company store before the mine closed down... I like Henry and Ned as pals.

--

I’m glad the “investment” thing with Jesse and Clara’s savings was brought up in a way that...makes sense. And also, glad it wasn’t forgotten.

--

I really liked Molly and Florence in this episode. I’m a little sad Florence married Ned because I AM SORRY BUT I WANTED TO KEEP SHIPPING MOLLY AND FLORENCE TOGETHER UGHGHGHH

But their relationship is so good and maYBE Elizabeth will learn something from them.

Hey Elizabeth...you see that?

YOU SEE THAT?

Just saying.

And then later...

“You are the sister I never had, the mother I forever wanted, the friend I have always needed. From the depths of those dark and terrifying coal mines you’ve walked beside me, picking me up whenever I’ve stumbled along the way.”

AAAAAAAAA IT GOT ME.

--

I’m...really liking Fiona and Mike’s relationship, whatever it is. I kind of think they’re not headed toward anything romantic. Everyone thinks Mike is really into Fiona but at the end of the episode we realize he likes talking to her about business; it’s almost like they have this shared passion for numbers/ideas and he likes infodumping to her (and vice-versa).

I think they’re going to end up being “just friends” and Fiona will end up paired off with the man Elizabeth doesn’t choose. They hinted at Nathan briefly in this episode (with Allie’s hair), but who knows? I’m over trying to speculate on where the triangle is going at this point, but I actually like Fiona’s relationship with Mike so much that I’ll be disappointed if she fades into the background with Nathan or Lucas. Mike deserves more screentime. 

--

Ned and Florence sharing their fIRST KISS. My husband got emotional over this. And I admit, it was starting to get to me, too. I can’t NOT root for them. 

--

I said it before and I’ll say it again: I WOULD DIE FOR THE CANFIELDS.

--

The wedding was nice. I liked that Bill and Joseph officiated it together; it gives Joseph a li’l trial run of pastoring and finally Bill gets to use some of that power of his to officiate a wedding.

“Please, if you’d like” is such a Bill way to say that they may kiss LOL.

--

Also, I have to admit that I did enjoy Lucas calling Nathan out about Allie. She wouldn’t be caught in the middle if he’d leave Elizabeth alone AND HE IS RIGHT LMAO.

The last good thing: Elizabeth telling Nathan she doesn’t blame him for Jack’s death. Nice. Good. Thank you. He probably needed to hear that.

--

...THE BAD

Carson and Faith. UGH. UGHHHHHHHHHH. BREAK UP ALREADY I HATE YOU BOTH.

I appreciated that Carson had the ring ages ago, and I did like his conversation with Minnie—or more accurately, her advice to him. I felt like she was nudging him toward, “Remember why you became a surgeon in the first place.” If he became a surgeon to help people, then there’s no reason he can’t help people where he is. Sure, he might not be doing state of the art procedures but with Faith working alongside him, he can afford time to learn new things and go to doctor conventions or even take a specialized class now and then. No other doctor could get away for very long but he has that chance!

And he’ll arguably be doing more good in the middle of nowhere than in the city. All the doctors want to live in the city. Nobody wants to barely get paid for their time in the countryside.

We had a whole episode that made it clear that Faith and Carson don’t make a lot of money and do a lot of charity work. They also work for trade goods (mostly food). So it’s like...a pretty big difference in lifestyle? 

Half the reason I can’t get invested in these characters is because I really can’t stand Paul Greene. He just...annoys me on every single level imaginable. But he’s a decent actor and I can’t help but feel that his character was a massive waste of space for the past few seasons through no fault of the man himself. Imagine introducing a character like Carson and then leaving him to rot before you try to make him interesting with a romance plot that nobody asked for.

Yes, some people really like Faith and Carson, but as a whole I think the fandom didn’t buy into them as a ship due to the lack of chemistry.

It really is a shame. This episode didn’t do a thing to endear me to either character. Please, Carson. I am begging you to leave town.

--

This one particular line of dialogue almost enraged me.

WE KNOW WE KNOW WE KNOW WE KNOW WE CAN SEE THAT FOR OURSELVES. WHY DID THEY HAVE ROSEMARY SAY THIS LIKE IT’S AN EPISODE OF A CHILD’S TV SHOW?

--

Elizabeth.........

How could Katie have...looked up to her? She was never in her class? That was? Never part of anything? It was just something they threw in here to force Elizabeth to make 1% more sense in the role she’s in but IT STILL DOESN’T WORK.

I felt like I was back in Season 5 again with Lori and Elizabeth putting their nose in everyone’s business except it’s just Elizabeth!! The whole plot, which was boring and contrived anyway, should have gone to Molly, since she’s Florence’s best friend and another woman from town that Katie would have known as a child.

AND ALSO, MOLLY WOULD HAVE KNOWN KATIE’S MOTHER AND WOULD REMEMBER THE GRIEF THAT NED STRUGGLED WITH.

I know they wanted to make Elizabeth give advice so that she’d Realize that she needs to, I don’t know, make better choices or something, but it was too on the nose for me and I hated it.

GinithePooh on Reddit made a good comparison to Elizabeth in this episode by saying she reminded them of Clippy from Microsoft Word, always popping up and offering to help when nobody really needs or wants advice.

To honor their incredible idea, I opened Photoshop and created this gem, which I will also be posting separately so that people can reblog it if they wish to.

I also don’t think I need to say also filed under The Bad is the fact that Elizabeth didn’t even apologize for being awful to Rosemary and then gave her unsolicited advice to other people for two days straight. I can’t believe they wrote that? 

All I can say is that her apology to Rosemary, when it comes, better be good.

--

And I didn’t like this either:

I wish it had been followed up by literally anything: Nathan saying he’s sorry he didn’t tell her sooner or something to make the hand-holding actually be a little more innocent.

As it is, it just seems so deliberate? 

Maybe the next episode starts off right in this scene and we’ll get that? If so, this might actually end up being fine. I just don’t think it is if it doesn’t get a little more direct attention.

--

& THE UGLY

I debated on putting anything in here, because I’m not ready to talk about my feelings on this matter, at least not fully. But I’ve been pretty quiet all season so far, and...eh, why not just mention things in advance? What will it hurt?

Let me preface this section by saying I’m biased and I doubt hardly anyone on this site will agree with me, so feel free to just ignore this part if that’s the case.

There are two things that I really didn’t like in this episode.

I hate the slanting toward Bill/Molly.

I like Molly just fine but I don’t like her with Bill. I’m biased as all getout and also worried about the future/potential Season 9 with regards to this. I don’t want to see it. Like at all. Why, you ask? You should know why if you follow me. I’m super transparent.

It’s because I like AJ AND I WANT HER BACK LOL.

John Tinker rewatched the series so we know he wouldn’t have missed that hanging plot thread—especially since he didn’t forget any of the other things that were brought up this season! So why didn’t she appear this season? The love triangle absolutely needed to be a focus or it would have never ended, so that’s part of it, but I’m also pretty sure Josie Bissett wasn’t interested in doing any filming last year during Covid. My only “proof” is that Wedding March 6 wasn’t filmed last year even though it was scheduled to be filmed, but it makes sense. Last year was chaos.

THAT SAID, Jack Wagner posted on his Instagram the other day that they are actually filming Wedding March 6 now, so... I guess AJ’s re-appearance in Season 9 wouldn’t come as too much of a surprise if they wanted to write it.

You’d think I’d be hyped about that, and I kind of am? But it doesn’t come without its share of worries, too. We just had the worst love triangle in the history of love triangles and I really don’t want another one, especially if it makes any of the characters in question look stupid or mean.

I fully admit a well-written love triangle could be a LOT of fun for them* (low stakes because they’re not front and center characters), but I saw how Nathan was written so far this season and I really, REALLY do not want to see that happen to Molly, Bill, or AJ.

Anyway, not a fan of the Molly/Bill stuff. No chemistry. I don’t want it.

*I would totally write a fanfic like this lmao.

--

And finally...the part that everyone will hate me for:

I DO NOT WANT TO SEE ABIGAIL COME BACK. And I specifically do not want her to come back ‘cause I do not wanna see Henry/Abigail happen.

I fully recognize that a lot of you like it and ship the heck out of it, and that’s...good. I’m glad you enjoy it. I loathe it, though, and I worry that all these hints (more like...mentions) are leaning toward...something. Like, either they’re:

1) Sending Abigail off/tying up that loose end with Henry (since nothing was ever clarified either way), or

2) Warming up the audience to receive Abigail back on the show.

I’m pretty into the idea of one-sided Henry/Abigail. Hindsight is 20/20, regrets, that’s all some juicy stuff to give a character like Henry. Some things can’t ever be made right again. He had too direct of a connection to the death of her husband and son for me to ever want to see them together. Forgiveness? Yes. A careful but meaningful friendship? Yes. Romantic relationship? Uh...no thanks.

I liked the Abigail mentions at first because I felt like...the character still mattered (as she should) but I’m at a point where I feel like they’re trying really hard to steer the fandom’s view a certain way and not knowing where it’s going is extremely unsettling to me.

--

I’ll probably talk more about the things that bother me when the season ends, because I’m hoping to have a better idea of where things are going to be headed, but for now just...know that I feel very apprehensive.

And keep in mind that I primarily watch this show for Bill these days, since all my previous faves (AJ, Frank, the old Abigail, Dottie) have exited, stage left. I also always really liked seeing Henry. So as you can imagine, seeing plotlines I hate for the only two characters I’m invested in? Is making me consider dropping the series next year.

My husband told me I should hate-watch it, but I don’t know if my heart can take it. I’ve been following this series for so long...it just...kind of hurts to feel let down like this? 

But sometimes an ongoing series ends up going where you...didn’t want it to, and it becomes something that’s no longer right for you. I hope that doesn’t happen, but last night’s episode makes me feel like...it might be happening for real this time.

I guess if that holds true it’ll be back to fanfiction for me. Will that novelization I planned ages ago end up getting written? Will I write the best love triangle fanfic known to man? WHO KNOWS.

For now, we’ll all have to wait and see! Two more episodes left. I’m really curious to see how they resolve some of the open plots right now. :>

[singeramg]

Congratulations on your 500 followers! I would like to make a request for 9 .“Just don’t break anything…again!” with Henry. Thank you!

Hey world! Sorry I’ve been a bit MIA when it comes to writing, or at least posting! Don’t worry continuations of my WIP’s are coming but I also wanted to challenge myself to break my mold of writing and try to have a little fun. Also I wanted to show my appreciation of all of you and your support of what I do!

So to anon this is something from my Fluff! Henry collection! I hope you enjoy it as much as I had fun with it!

Title: Lava and Kids Don’t Mix

Characters: Dad!Henry Cavill x Female Reader

Prompt: “Just Don’t Break Anything...Again!”

Rating: G!

Warning: None, just fluff, mention of injury, and a slightly broody Cavill man.

MasterList for more fun!

Henry Cavill was in a panic. 

You only had one rule before you left to spend the day with his mother. Leaving him in charge of your two 5 year old  twin boys Mitchell and Michael for the day. He was supposed to keep it simple, take the boys to the park with Kal and your 2 year old Jack Terrier Russell Sandy. You knew the boys would run off all access energy at the park and after they ate the soup and sandwiches you made for all of them before you left, they would down for their nap, and you would be home and starting dinner just after they woke up.

Simple plan right?

Right?

Wrong.

Needless to say things didn’t anyways go to plan in the Cavill household when dealing with two rambunctious twins that looked and acted like their father and two dogs, and also an unexpected rainstorm that shortened the park trip that saw the Cavill men playing the floor is lava, while Henry warmed up the soup in the kitchen. Ignoring the roughhousing like he tended to do when you weren’t around because he grew up with four brothers and “boys will be boys.” Of course Mitchell managed to miss the couch cushions he was supposed to land on, and landed on his left arm and on top of his brother. The subsequent scream of pain sent Henry flying from the kitchen, and to his horror found two crying kids on the floor. One holding his arm hollering and the other reeling from his brother landing halfway on him, therefore he was crying too. Henry runs back to the stove switching it off and then running back over to his children which now had a dog sniffing at their faces. Henry picks up Michael first sitting him on the couch and his whimpers are already settling down but Mitchell was still hollering and holding his arm.

“Oh no.”

Henry picks up Michell off the floor who curls into his father's side.

“Mitchell can I see your arm?”

Slowly; the still whimpering child lifts his arm, and the second Henry delicately touches the arm, it sends Mitchell into a scream of pain and fresh tears.

Oh dear.

He notes the boy’s arm has begun to swell and is awfully red. He carries him into the kitchen and puts a ice pack on it and knows he is going to have to take him to the hospital.

In the biggest rush known to man he gathers the twins and puts an SOS to you. Tossing things around the house until he located his wallet, and keys, just avoiding a vase on the table, that you loved. His son hollers louder held in his arms.

You were going to kill him.

You literally left the house with a  “ Just don’t break anything again” as a joke but now it looked like it was coming true...

*Hospital*

The small group was ushered back fairly quickly into a room and for once Henry was slightly glad of his celebrity when it came to his family. He often was irritated when he found intrusive photographs of his family plastered all over the web but this time one look at his license had gotten them into a private room and waiting for Mitch to come back from X-rays. He had called you on the way to the hospital, but you didn’t answer so he left a message and tried his mother with the same result. He had tried a few times but he knew coverage could be spotty and he wasn’t exactly sure of what his mother planned for you. He knew you would feel terrible about not answering not to mention he hated putting you through undo stress because you were carrying the third child of the Cavill brood. That had been the only reason you even went today was to get a breather without a five year old pulling at your skirts, especially since he had just gotten back from filming just over a week ago.

Yep. You just might kill him…

At least he thought. He always worried as a father about his children and where you were concerned he wanted to be everything he couldn’t be when he was away filming. You were such a wonderful mother and he just wanted to match what you did for the family. This was not it.

 Mike is sleepily resting on Henry’s arm as his brief stint with crying had left him knackered. Henry happens to look down at the arm that Mitchell landed on and noticed he is starting to bruise over his arm. Henry is just beginning to look over his sons arm for the extent of the damage when simultaneously while he was touching Mike’s forearm ; there is a similar spot to his brother’s just on the opposite arm that is red and swollen and soon as he touches it gently, Mike cries out; waking up from his sleep, and also you walk in the door.

Alarmed to find one of her sons crying. Mike notices you almost instantly, crying and running over to you.

“Oh my little man what’s the matter?”

“Daddy hurt my arm!” The young boy calls out and wants the comfort of your arms but of course you couldn’t lift him. Normally you would get onto him about that, but that could be saved for later. Besides he was child so his thoughts would be more literal meaning that Henry must have touched his arm or something. 

You lean down as best you could with your 6 month stomach which was reaching the point of cumbersome, but not making you totally immobile as it did with the twins at this point, squatting so you are eye level with him and he wraps himself around you, letting you gently lift his arm. He starts hollering at your slight touch coming further into the room with his mother and father close behind.

You only had one rule really when you left the house this morning and that was for Henry not to break anything...again! However considering you had known whatever happened in your way here, this was a mistake.

The last time you left them alone for an extended amount of time the TV had been broken during a game of catch that you had already told them not to play in the house the night before you went out for the Bridal Shower.

Needless to say you hadn’t been happy with the situation at the time and it was a material thing that could be replaced. Now here you were coming to a hospital cradling one child while the other...wait...where was Mitchell?

“Daddy hurt your arm? I think that may not be the whole truth but it’s okay we can deal with it later. Okay well let’s see if we can get a really nice doctor to take a look at it and I’ll talk to Daddy.”

You say comforting him and pretending to be mad at Henry who honestly already looks wrecked about whatever had happened between the time that you left and now. You press the call button and someone comes in almost immediately which notoriously did not happen; but you weren’t complaining. You asked for them to take a look at Mike as well. They agreed without much problem and after creating a little band for his wrist they agreed to X-ray him and gave him something for his pain.

You waddle over to the chair next to Henry who actually picks up Mike and lets him sit on his lap. He says his hellos to his parents who know the look of exhaustion and being resigned to fate way too well. They take seats as well.

“So where’s the other half of our set?”

You mildly joke.

“He should be back any moment; they’ve taken him to get an X-Ray.”

At that moment a wheel chair appears with a sleepy child in it, his blue eyes drifting in and out of lucidness.

“Moooommmmmmy!!!!”

He says but his voice is dragging indicating they had given him something to ease the pain. You let the nurse help him into bed and go over to him while Henry’s parents take over for comforting Mike.

“Hi baby. How’s your arm?”

“It was hurt-ed momma but it’s not anymore. I feels weird. I sleepy.”

You push back his riotous, dark curls with a soft hand.

“Okay baby go to sleep; Daddy and mommy will be here when you wake up.”

He drifts off and the nurse comes to take Mike for his X-Ray and with the alert child gone; a worried grandfather in tow to watch over him and the other sleeping, you sit back down with a sore back and a smile.

“So what really happened in the couple of hours I was gone.”

Henry looks sheepish; and rubs the back of his neck., his natural curls smushing under his fingers.

“Well we went to the park, but the rain washed us out earlier than intended. So we went back to the house and I cut on a movie, but the boys were playing and the floor was lava and the next thing I heard was a scream...”

“Wait...’the floor is lava’?”

“Yes. Our floors are made of lava and seeing as you can’t touch lava it meant jumping around while I warmed up lunch.”

You sigh but one look at the giant puppy that was your husband, you knew he honestly couldn’t feel any worse than what was happening right now. You were just glad no one had head injuries or irreversible damage. You absently rub your stomach and place a hand on a broad shoulder.

“I feel terrible Y/N. I didn’t think a little rough housing would come to this. My brothers and I had injuries but it was usually from tossing each other around and Rugby. Somehow we managed to avoid the hospital due to our roughhousing.”

You sit up and kiss your husband on the cheek. Henry was an internalizer, so you knew if he looked this upset right now then he felt 100 times worse inside.

“Things happen baby it will be okay. If it makes you feel any better they would have created an even more perilous game. They like to invent new ways to make me tear out my hair.”

The room laughs;

“They don’t normally end up in the emergency room when they are with you...or do they?”

He asks and you laugh shaking your head.

“No, but I’ve had a few close calls that made me question whose bright idea was it to have multiple children at the same time. They can be a handful individually. Babe, don’t beat yourself up about it.”

You rub at his shoulder as a comfort. Henry accepts it and caresses the top with his own. Soon Mike is in a similar state as his brother and they got him in a bed next to him. With both of them unconscious the doctor comes back in with X-ray reports that says both of them have a broken arm.

You sigh and Henry looks devastated and you only shake your head knowing the twins never did anything by the half’s nor did they ever do anything alone.

“I guess the Cavill men don’t do anything by the half huh. I asked all of them not to break anything and they managed it times two.”

A/N: This was meant to be fluff about a peak in the life of Henry Cavill with Children. 

More celebration prompt fics will be posted when I wake up in the am because after work today I just do not have it in me to edit anything else tonight, but I hope you enjoyed this for what it is.

TAGLIST: (OPEN)

Henry tag list

@msblkfire84 @magdelen69 @peeyewpeeyew @agniavateira @fcgrizi @diehadess @mary-ann84 @snowbellexx @tearsontape13 @tvdplusriverdale @p3nny4urth0ught5 @laxgirl1799 @crazymexicanfangirl @iloveyouyen @oddduckthatgirl @pinkcollectorparadiseblr @sweetybuzz25 @normatural

[lucarioisinthevoid]

For the Henry in Hell- maybe N. Balloon Boy, Rockstar Foxy, Scraptrap, and maybe Dave (since Henry wants to talk more with him)?

(Okay, I’m way too fucking tired to make these, but dear god, it’s five AM and I WILL fucking get the Henry in Hell stuff done NOT READ THIS OVER I’LL REGRET THIS AFTER HAVING HAD A NAP. BUT FOR NOW? KICK MY ASS AND CALL ME A CANDY CANE. I’M NOT WASTING MORE TIME. I’LL EDIT IT TOMORROW. ENJOY.)

Does he want to talk to Dave? It’s difficult to say. He wants answers. And Dave seems like the weakest link in the chain. There seemed to be certain beings that influenced how the nights played out. For now, he knew of three for a fact. Most obvious, DeeDee. Henry was considering that perhaps she was connceted to the old man- there was a keen smell of lake water whenever she appeared. At first he hadn’t noticed, but now he couldn’t miss it, no matter how badly his anger flared up when he saw her suddenly jump out from beneath the table, or some sort of black hole of vile darkness, where all the annoying thing festered and cross-bred to create worse and worse- He took a deep breath. Stay calm. … yes, the lake. The lake brought him here, it must have some sort of importance. Being capable of changing the rule of the night… that seemed to be within the lakes domain. Then there was the suit. Of course the suit was special. Remaining behind after the night, during the downtime. Sometimes Helpy and Rockstar Freddy appeared to give advice and little prices ‘for the trouble’, but they never remained for long. Also, both of them were bears. Like the suit. He hadn’t yet found a way to make the suit react to any sort of input from his side, thus testing him and the changes he caused to his environment was almost impossible. Even calling him Goldie drew hardly any reaction from him. The most influence he had seen the suit exert was about the TV program, but his continuous presence still was beyond notable. Now, last was… … Dave. Of course. If there was one person capable of manipulating the souls without even knowing how or that he was even doing it in the first place, it was his purple companion. Sometimes he had wondered if there was such a concept as deliberate chaos manipulation. Another thing he might would have figured out if he would have not been brutally cut off from all his studies. But, no time being bitter. All he need was to figure out the variables at his disposal, then he would be able to manipulate them to his own benefit. There was an exit. This was a trap, a way to contain him, a place consuming energy like any other. And there was a way to shut it down. He merely needed to figure it out. For that, however, he needed to start getting some data. Try out different stimulus. That was what he was ready to do today. He had plenty of positive contact with Dave so far, nothing more seemed to be coming out of it. Despite everything, Dave STILL insisted this here was a great place- and Henry did not care for it. There was nothing he could bribe out of his former friend anymore, he clearly was not being cooperative- so he would show him another side, at the risk of ruining any claim to their friendship forever. … not that there were any traces left after Dave had betrayed him. Valuing his object of obsession over him, spitting in the face of everything Henry had ever done for him. Nightmare Balloon Boy slipped into the room- the night had started. “AND WHAT WILL YOU DO TODAY, TOOTHPICK?” “You will be surprised. I am sure of that…” “YOU THINK YOU CAN SURPRISE ME?” “It is not you I plan to surprise, so it hardly matters.” The animatronic looked at him suspicious. “YOU SEEM VERY CONVINCED ABOUT THIS, SHORTSNACK.” “I am.” That was where Henry stopped the conversation. Saving his energy for the one he was meaning to hurt. He glanced at the Nightmare Balloon Boy, feeling barely anything for him. This creature would not attack- it was too weak to go against the rules, so it would be leering at him while he had the camera up, grinding his teeth. Rockstar Foxy he had actually never met before- and he’d try to avoid him tonight too. For some reason he always had the eerie feeling that this bird would never like him- no matter what he tried. He loved birds a lot. That was why birds tended to stay as far away from him as possible. The plastic nightmare snarked something- But Henry wasn’t listening. He didn’t need him anymore. He didn’t have to talk to him anymore, even if he liked it, even if it was entertaining. Henry’s focus was on one thing only. Dave. Namely, how to rip him apart. Slowly his fingers tapped on the table, as he shortly took down the camera to flash the animatronic in his room, before pulling it back up, looking at the little springtrapped head moving along. … why would the one he shouldn’t have killed give Dave so much ability to manipulate the world around him? To a point that he was even allowed to join him in the office without attacking? Probably because he wanted to see them fight. And frankly- Henry wanted to fight him too. He was tired. And angry. He wanted to face the stupid child and-

Talk to him.

There was no spite for him specifically, in some way he could admire this child and the world he created. The animatronics, all filled with at least some level of personality, and somehow convincing two creatures from beyond to aid him. Yes, there was a lot of raw potential here. Perhaps it could use some guidance. … at least he could TRY. Either he would get out, he would get to teach a high potential being, or- worst case- everything would stay the same. Dear god, this place was BORING him. Boring him like constant nails on chalkboard, boring him like itching teeth and a vile smell. Nothing was truly happening- and it was driving him crazy. Even worse so that Dave claimed this place was great, while still acting as though he was Henry’s best friend. There was something so intensely infuriating about it. It didn’t FEEL like Dave was free himself, but he thought if anyone could help him get out- it would be him. Yet he denied everything- The person who kept him here… All of a sudden a terrible idea grew inside of Henry’s mind. What- What if it was the Orange Guy? At least his long lost soul, biding its time until he could come and- That would explain why Dave was filled with so much life and personality. He WOULD know him. And the guy was extremely talented at convincing those around him to aid his wants. … maybe the child form he had taken on had to do with trauma? Dave himself seemed to have at least a second soul that got stuck back from before his mother died, it would not be too unlikely- not to mention that souls were inherently ageless. Perhaps it had been an act of deception, trying to throw Henry off the trail. Yet- that would leave the question… if the soul was here with him, then what was keeping the Orange Guy alive? He shuddered and tried not to think about it. There had to be something, SOMETHING powering him. Something… No matter what, it would be upsetting to hear his friend being insulted. And his glance on the camera confirmed that it was about to be done. A choice. He had to commit, with his very soul. And he would. The vents rattled, Henry refreshed the ventilation and put down the screen, flashing the Nightmare, before looking up at the vent. Almost instantly, Dave’s eyes shined a pale light out of the darkness. His grin glowed out from under the mask, just to gently shift into innocent confusion. “Henry. Aren’t ‘cha gonna let me in?” Coldly the Pink Man looked at his former friend. “No.” Dave’s grin widened for a moment, thinking it was a little game. “Aw, c’mon! What if I say please? Please lemme in? Pretty please!” “I do not think I will.” It was then that Davetrap caught on that something was going on. His expression shifted again, fully this time around. Worry, confusion and- annoyance. Of course, always the annoyance about defiance, Dave was one and the same as him on this topic. However, Henry at least always had the authority of logic- Dave had nothing, nothing but his unstable emotions and violence to justify his wants and get his way. “… why? What’s the problem, Henry?” “I am done with you.” The word came over Henry’s lips utterly naturally. He meant it. Even as Dave recoiled. The atmosphere in the establishment instantly changed, as well as Dave’s entire expression. It was glowing still, as bright and if not brighter… and plenty of people might misunderstand it as him still having fun, still amused, however Henry knew him better than he knew himself. He knew that was nothing but rage. “What did you say there, friend?” “I told you I am done with you. William, you have done nothing so far but to disappoint me.” There was an art to it- To give just enough of a pause to let the words HURT, but not enough to let a counterargument form- to let any resistance develop. “Frankly, I have given you many chances. Too many changes. Failure after failure was all you brought me however. I put all my effort into you- effort that I could have put into ANYONE else, into a damn PET and it would have served me better.” “You-“ “No. No, William, you do not get to talk. I have kept quiet for too long. Giving you mercy, care, hoping and praying for you to turn into something better- and now look at you. Who do you think you ARE?! Using my generosity? Abusing my patience?! You were useless! You never aided me when it counted, you never LEARNED, you were SELFISH, like an ANIMAL, you were IGNORANT, you were an OBSTACLE- All my WORK, all my LOVE for you, our BOND- It never existed outside of my head, did it?!” “What- Henry, I-“ “WHAT. What do you THINK you can SAY here?! WHAT EXCUSE DO YOU HAVE, I AM DYING TO KNOW! DYING, QUITE LITERALLY, BECAUSE OF YOUR DISLOYALTY, YOU SACRIFICED ME. YOU SACRIFICED ME, AND EVERYTHING WE HAVE WORKED FOR. YOU HAVE NO DIGNITY. YOU HAVE NOTHING YOU CARE ABOUT. YOU ARE A SHAM! A SHELL OF A PERSON! A HEARTLESS MONSTER! AND NOT EVEN ONE OF THOSE THAT ARE OF WORTH, OF VALUE, OF USE! Anything that you provided me with was something I could have reached by myself. All you have done was to hinder me.” Infuriated the guy in the vents hissed. “What the fuck do you think you’re sayin’?! I’VE BEEN-“ Mockingly Henry grinned up at him. “What? What have you been doing? When have you ever been useful? Protected me? Face it, William, I pitied you and that was my mistake. I should have known that there was a reason everyone discarded you before. Once you will be gone, nobody will cry for you- nobody will miss you. The Orange Guy- to him you are merely entertainment. You are a fucking TOY at best- and more so an UNLOVEABLE, REPLACABLE TOOL.” Finish it. One last time. Slowly he stood up, stepping towards the vent. “William. Look at me. I want you to look at me, and I want you to know… … everything would have been better if you never had existed.” With that he closed the vents- both the front and the side one, just in time as the entire room was shaking, flickering, as something hysterical was making its way through it- Both sides of Dave being blocked out, as Henry fell back into his seat, raising his monitor, fixing the ventilation just in time. The night was not long after that. When he returned to the office, the suit was positioned in a way that it was looking at Henry as he entered. … somehow looking disappointed. Accusing. But Henry had no interest in that. Instead his attention was drawn to the board. All animatronics were glowing. The board was RED. Good. It was time.

[welcometotheocverse]

💞 Elliot & Henry?

MY BOYS <3

Elliot

1) Elliot and Lorelai: They’re just so soft together and I love the idea of Lorelai being given this neurodivergent child and trying her best to do right by him. She listen to info dump even when she starts only being able to catch one word in 20 and tries to keep up with his interests in different sciences  El just thinks the world of her. And in the earlier seasons they’re just so fluffy ;A;

2) Elliot and Rory: ND Codependent twins ;A;. El and Rory are each other’s best friend and cornerstone. Literally the only time ( s) he’s ever gone against his mother is for her. ( specifically when Lorelai marries Christopher and is calling Rory Incessantly he like literally physically takes the phone away from her because “Let Her Have Space” and is very defensive of Rory’s boundaries) 

The thing that gets me about them is they both think they’re the Looking Out/Protecting Twin like Rory is very protective of El and will raise hell if someone hurts him or acts mean towards him and people think “oh its her being the older twin” but Elliot is just as protective or Rory and her happiness like to the point he doesn’t say anything about his feelings regarding Christopher ( not for a while at least) because he wants to see her happy. They also both read together and infodump a lot together even though they have different interests and listen I’m love them a many.

They also both think the other one’s the nicer twin which everyone thinks is hilarious because “you both have bambi face”

3) Elliot and Lane: They’re a brotp that snuck up on me bc at first I was like “oh she’s more Rory’s friend” but then the more I thought about it the more I’m like “no..no it’s The Three Of Them” and also “okay so not only would El fight Ms Kim in Doose’s parking lot for Lane he also almost got in a playground fight for her”

 Lane is Rory and Elliot’s first ( and possibly only?? Did Rory even Talk to anyone else in SHH in canon??) friend and while there are things she and Rory share that El doesn’t she’s also the one El goes to when he’s frustrated about Christopher or his grandparents ( because no one understand Overbearing and Controlling like Lane) and it’s almost like...the stuff he can’t tell Rory ( being frustrated with his father, feeling like he’s alone being frustrated by his father because Rory all but gets stars in her eyes no matter how many times Christopher lets her down and he loves her okay he loves that’s she’s so willing to hold out and forgive and be patient because she’s Rory  and he would never ask her to be anything or anyone else but he’s...not)

And the thing is Lane gets it. Lane talks about how she has to keep her cds under planks, she can’t tell her mother about  the things that make her happy. She can’t share her feelings with her mother. Her mother doesn’t know her, not really. And she keeps things to herself to keep the  peace and because she loves her mother so so much and she wants to please her so badly. ( and that Elliot gets, keeping things to yourself and swallowing your words because you hate the idea of upsetting someone you love so much even if Rory and Lorelai wouldn’t react badly if he did express himself he just...cares a lot about not upsetting them.)  

They just commiserate a lot together and understand each other on a very basic level. They don’t hang out as much specially after the Yale years pick up but they’re the very definition of “I could not hang out with you for months and then pick up like nothing happened)

Also they’re the founding members of the Protect Rory Squad.

4) Elliot and Luke: Elliot and Luke vibe really easily because they’re both introverted. They can literally just sit together in silence and be okay with that. Also Luke scares people so when Elliot becomes overwhelmed or doesn’t want to deal with socializing ( or answering nosy questions like he knows they mean well but they’re....a lot sometimes) he’s known to hang out there and do homework or read or just do whatever he knows he’s always welcomed there. It’s his favorite place aside from Andrew’s bookstore. Also Luke’s known him since he was a babie. 

At least once someone’s mentioned that Rory takes after Lore but El obviously takes after “his father” more temperament wise when the four are out ( in the season Luke and Lorelai are dating) and Elliot absolutely beams

5) Elliot and Finn&Colin: Literally the top dynamic  and the only one for a while ( like the first image i had of El in my mind was him meeting them i had no plot pre yale I had to work backwards lol) Finn and Colin are the first friends he makes that...hang out with him outside of Rory? Like yeah he has Lane but she still doesn’t see him as much ( as they got older Lane and Rory would do “girl talk or talk about boys and El would kinda..hang back also Ms. Kim doesn’t let him in the house as much because he’s a boy) specially after Yale since they’re far away and “wow the whole Adults Can’t See Their Friends For Weeks thing really bites huh” 

They’re also the first lgbtqa people he meets ( in his canon at least) and it sorta...finally makes him feel less isolated ( something he always felt in Stars Hollow no matter how much he loved his town) Colin and Finn on the flip side basically take one look at him( and recognize that he is isolated and lonely and has never met someone like him before)  and go “we’re adopting you” ( and  like that’s important too, they  approached him not him-and-Rory) and really take him under his wing and Elliot’s very “???” but he also clings to them but fast and they become inseparable like Elliot ends up just walking to  their place whenever  he’s upset or needs company or both ( he goes to their place after the football game at Yale) even as all the drama with Rogan is happening and I’m just really soft for them.

Henry

1) Henry and Jess: Jess doesn’t think he’s a good older brother. Henry heavily disagrees. These two are the only ones who know what living with Liz was like and while people in Stars Hollow are nice Henry really  only trusts his brother. Jess is also they one who’s able to read him best and vice versa and Jess is angry in a very “fuck you all” way and Henry’s mostly scared but  they both will speak up for each other ( Jess will ignore Luke and pop off about “stop tryin to help me” but will also approach Luke because “listen can you save the dramatic rants for when he’s not there? Yelling scares him.” and “you need to Tell him he can grab the food you buy or he won’t know” and really that shows a lot when  you think about Jess’ relationship with communication in season 2 on the flip side Henry often serves as a “Jess translator” and they’re just both very in each other’s corner its ;A;)

2) Henry and Rory: Henry  and Rory bond instantly and I’m v sappy about it like Rory’s never had anything like a younger sibling and she becomes the only person he’ll be around without Jess ( either its her and Luke or Luke then her I’m not sure yet)  for a while and after the whole “Send him back” situation she just up and appoints herself as his older sibling and makes sure he knows that.

3) Henry and Luke: Luke legit can’t say no to him or be mad at him and the fact that he acts as “a Jess translator” means he  sorta tells him a lot about how they grew up and Luke straight up goes “I can’t send  them back these are my kids now.” Luke’s also a lot softer with him because of him being younger and not as angry as Jess and Henry’s a lot more open to having a parent than Jess is and they’re just very soft. Luke helps Henry feel safe and Henry helps Luke learn he can be a dad.

4) Henry and Lulu: Lulu had training (due to her being a teacher ) to spot children with signs of bad homes so she takes one look at Henry and goes “yup” and pays extra attention to Henry which Henry winds up loving her for. She also basically strong arms Luke in accepting her help in re to teaching him about kids because “He’s my student and he needs your help. And to help him you need my help” and is a main factor in Luke and Jess communicating better ( because Jess might not be her student but he’s still a troubled kid) since there’s only so much Henry can do when he’s still scared Luke means it when he rants. ( Henry loves her for this also since it leads to Jess and Luke yelling less at each other) She just becomes a very good presence in his life.

5) Henry and April: Listen Henry  and April are actually close in age ( he’s 8 in season 2 which makes him around 12-13 in season 6 and ever since I realized this I haven’t stopped thinking about how much chaotic sibling energy the two can have and how Henry would just be “Luke’s really good at being a dad right?” and also talk about fantasy books together and just be cute cousins.

send me 💞 + an oc and ill tell you my top five favorite dynamics of theirs!

[lilacmoon83]

Lightning in a Bottle

Also on Fanfiction.net and A03

Chapter 9: Turbulence

Love. It could be messy and complicated. It could be wonderful and bring heartache. It could and often did strengthen over time, but it could also fade over time as well. But once in a lifetime, there was a love that shined brighter than most and rose above other loves. Once in a generation, there is a love that's like lightning in a bottle. It happens once and it strikes, giving way to the creation of something extraordinary. And Margaret had always known that her love with David was extraordinary and destined to be. It had started when they were very young and blossomed over the course of their lives into an all encompassing, soul searing true love that defied logic and reality. It would transcend to something eternal. She knew that wholeheartedly and she thanked whatever power out there that had brought him back to her, for their love was unbreakable, even by death.

She pressed her forehead against his, as she rode the throes of passion with him. His lips on her body drove her to places of ecstasy that were unimaginable.

"David…" she breathed, as kissed at the tops of her breasts.

"So beautiful…" he rasped, as he made love to her. It had always been like this for them. Their love had always been all consuming, yet perfectly balanced. They became each other's home at a very young age. Her hand had been in his since they were very small and it had created waves among their peers.

~*~

Flashback

"So...who are you inviting to your party?" one girl, about twelve, asked.

"Well...all of you, of course and some of the other girls from the neighborhood," Victoria said.

"Uh...is this your list?" another girl, Isla, asked.

"Yeah, why?" Victoria asked.

"Uh...because you have a freak on it," Isla replied in a nasty tone.

"Yeah, why are you inviting Mary Margaret Blanchard?" another girl, Sera, asked. Victoria sighed.

"Mother said I have to, because her father is very important and influential," she replied.

"Ugh...she's so odd though. She's always hanging out with those Nolan urchins," Isla said distastefully.

"Mary Margaret is very nice," Abigail said, defending her friend.

"Oh please Abby...if her father wasn't who he was, there is no way any of our parents would want us playing with her. She's a weirdo and always holding hands with that Nolan boy. Mother says it's very improper at our age," Isla said. Mary Margaret, having been sitting near them at the park, walked away sadly. She didn't really like any of them either, except Abigail, but it hurt to hear those things said about her. She slipped away and collapsed on one of the swings, but didn't really feel like swinging.

"MM?" Emma called, as her shadow was suddenly over the other girl.

"Oh...hi Ems," she said sadly.

"What's wrong? Why are you sad?" she asked, as David got there and she looked up at them.

"Do you think I'm a weirdo?" she asked.

"No way!" Emma exclaimed.

"Of course not...why would you think that?" David asked.

"That's what Victoria and Isla think. Victoria is only inviting me to her birthday party, cause her Mom said she had to because of who my dad is," MM replied.

"Ugh...they're the worst. Did you even want to go to her party?" David asked.

"Well, no...but it didn't feel good hearing that," she murmured, as he knelt down beside her.

"They're wrong and they're just jealous," he said.

"Why would they be jealous?" she asked.

"Because you're prettier than them and smarter and sweet," he said.

"Yeah, Isla and Victoria suck," Emma chimed in.

"You're not supposed to use that word, Emmy," David chided.

"Why? You say it all the time and other bad words," she pointed out.

"Well, I'm older," he argued, making Margaret smile.

"Thanks guys," she said, as she took his hand when he offered it and stood up.

"But Isla and Victoria are the prettiest girls in school," Margaret pointed out, as Emma slipped away for a moment.

"No way...you're the prettiest girl in school, at least to me," he replied and she blushed.

"Oh David…" she gushed, as she kissed his cheek.

"You're always my Prince Charming," she said, making him blush.

"Well, I really like being your Prince Charming," he replied, as they heard some screaming. Emma had gone over to the pond and fished out a couple frogs and some earthworms, never one afraid to get dirty, and promptly went over to share her finds with the snobby group of girls.

"Ugh...you little freak!" Isla cried, while Emma laughed.

"You don't like my frog?" the blonde asked, as she pushed it toward her again and then threw a worm in her face, making her scream more.

"Uh oh…" David said, as they hurried over to pull Emma away, before the other mother's could get involved. The three of them joined hands and laughed the whole way home.

~*~

As they grew, Emma remained her best friend and might as well have been her sister by then. They were very close and equally protective of one another. Margaret had seen Emma through a lot of rough patches in her teen years. She had never been as lucky as Margaret when it came to men and Margaret had done her best to guide her through those years and several rough break ups. While her relationship with Emma developed into a strong, sisterly bond, her relationship with David had evolved as well. It had gone from sweet, innocent puppy love to true and deep love as they progressed through their teens years.

By their teen years, they were deeply in love and still seen as the oddity by their peers and inappropriate by adults. But it never bothered them. They had weathered the criticism from their peers and adults alike, remaining unbreakable.

~*~

Flashback

David parked the old, brown truck at school that afternoon. Emma was hanging out with Lily and Margaret had stayed behind to wait for him. He saw her hurrying toward him excitedly with her backpack and smiled at her. She always took his breath away.

"You got it!" she said excitedly, as he caught her in his arms.

"I did...it's not much to look at, but it's wheels," he replied.

"Are you kidding? I love it," she said.

"Really?" he asked.

"Yes...it's so us," she replied.

"What? Old?" he joked and she playfully smacked his chest.

"No...it's classic and has history," she replied, as they shared a smile.

"Hey Nolan...nice piece of junk," one of the jocks commented, as they went by on their way to football practice with the cheerleaders. But he ignored them, as usual.

"Forget him...he's an ass," Margaret said, as she glared at the stuck up jerk.

"That jerk drives a BMW convertible. Girls seem to like that," he pointed out.

"Not this girl," she corrected, as she slipped her arms around his neck.

"This girl doesn't want to ride in anything that doesn't come with you," she assured, making him blush shyly, as she kissed him tenderly and they got into the truck together.

~*~

As they lay together in the afterglow, with her head resting against his chest, she thought about everything that had happened. Those five and a half long years without him and her son. She had done her best to pull herself together and be there for Olive, but during that time, a smile rarely reached her eyes. It sounded dramatic, but it literally felt like half her heart was gone without him. She was whole again now and she had almost forgotten what that felt like. There were still the unanswered questions in her mind, but she had him back and was ready to brave whatever they had to face.

"So…I know I was distracted today helping Marco, but I didn't forget about that incident you mentioned," he said. She lifted her head and looked at him.

"It was nothing...just some nut. You know how this city can be," she replied.

"I do...but I also know that the attention on us isn't going away, especially after that passenger spoke out," he said, as he kissed the back of her hand.

"It was just some lady that focused on Henry. She kept repeating...he is risen. He is risen," she told him. He sighed.

"I should have been with you...I was supposed to be," he lamented.

"No...you were exactly where you should have been," she admonished.

"David...you helped reunite another family and I can say from experience that getting mine back is the most wonderful gift that I will ever get. The fact that you gave that to another person makes me so proud," she said, as she kissed him gently.

"I just want you to be careful…" he pleaded. She kissed his cheek.

"I will," she promised, as they settled down in each other's arms and sleep finally took them.

~*~

Regina took the vial of blood, belonging to Henry Nolan,and placed a small amount on the slide. After seeing something odd, she put it through the DNA synthesizer and waited for the results to come out. As she went to check some e-mails, she heard a knock at her lab door and saw that it was her mother.

"Hello mother…" she greeted coolly.

"Not exactly the greeting I was hoping for," Cora complained.

"I'm sorry...I'm just very busy," Regina apologized.

"Sweetheart...you just returned on a plane that's been missing for more than five years. Are you sure you should even be working yet?" Cora questioned.

"I love my work and I happen to have a pediatric case that I need to monitor very closely. He just started the treatment," Regina replied.

"Yes...your treatment. It's quite something, but I was hoping we could have lunch," Cora said.

"I suppose I could pop out to the cafeteria for a little bit," Regina agreed.

"Uh no, dear...I meant lunch at my house. I'm having a little gathering and there are many people eager to see you now that you're back," she corrected. Regina sighed.

"You mean all the people in your uppity circle, including all the potential bachelors you're dying to fix me up with," Regina said.

"Is that so bad, sweetheart?" Cora asked.

"Mother...I do not need to be fixed up with a date, especially not some tool from your circle," Regina replied.

"Regina…" she started to chide.

"Mother…" Regina sighed, as they started to argue and Henry's file slipped off the table. Cora saw the photo of the boy and picked it up.

"Henry Nolan...is this the boy?" she asked, as Regina snatched the file away.

"Yes…" Regina snapped.

"He was on the plane, wasn't he? Nolan...he and his father, right?" Cora asked curiously.

"Yes...he was one the plane and his cancer was terminal, but he's responding well to the treatment. His parents are overjoyed," Regina replied. Cora smiled.

"I'm sure they are. I'll let you to it...but please, stop by soon. Leopold is eager to meet you," she replied. Regina forced a smile.

"I'm sure...goodbye mother," she cooed, as Cora got the hint and left, but not without a pensive look on her face. Her daughter had no idea that she was treating Leopold's grandson, the grandson that he had never met, thanks to his foolish, unruly daughter. Cora smirked. Perhaps it was time to meet the Nolans at last.

~*~

"Ha...beat that kid," Emma said, as she and Henry played a game with the magnets on the fridge that morning.

"Oh…I will," Henry insisted, as he took his turn, while David cooked breakfast. He called them to the table and the game was forgotten, leaving the magnets to spell out "own your truth."

"Mmm...it smells delicious in here. Pancakes again on a weekday?" Margaret asked with an impressed tone.

"No job...the least I can do is make sure my family has an amazing breakfast," David said, as she pecked him on the lips.

"You'll find something, baby...and no pressure. We're fine," she assured him.

"I know...but you know me," he said. She giggled and got the orange juice out.

"Oh I know...can't sit still," she teased, as she pinched his rear and they sat down to breakfast.

"I'll get you back for that later," he whispered in her ear.

"Mmm...you better, handsome," she purred back.

As they were finishing up, they flipped the television on to get the weather forecast, but it seemed that the morning news was occupied with something else altogether.

"And if you're just joining us, we're at the scene of a homicide in an affluent neighborhood. The victim is Tisbe Tayor, a passenger on the mysterious returned flight eight-two-eight that disappeared more than five years ago. Ms. Taylor recently defied the NSA order of a media blackout and spoke to us just yesterday in an exclusive interview," the reporter said, as they flashed to the interview.

"She...she was murdered?" Margaret asked.

"Do you think it's connected?" she asked her sister-in-law.

"Not necessarily," Emma replied.

"Em...the passenger that defied the order to not speak to the press is dead. You don't think that's suspicious?" he asked.

"A little...but it's not my jurisdiction," she argued.

"Still...don't you think we should check it out?" he asked.

"We?" she asked. He sighed.

"Yesterday a woman accosted Margaret and Henry about him coming back and now we have a dead passenger? If there's a threat to our family...then we need to investigate this," he said.

"He's right...but be careful," Margaret pleaded, as she kissed him.

"I didn't agree to any of this!" Emma protested.

"Let's just go drive by and since you're a cop...maybe you can glean some information from the other officers," he suggested. She groaned and rolled her eyes.

"Fine...but you're staying in the car, you big pain in the ass," she complained. David smirked and kissed his wife and kids again, before following her out. Margaret smiled, as they went and put the dishes in the dishwasher quickly.

"Okay...backpacks and lunches. Let's roll," she called, as they got their stuff and left for the day as well.

~*~

Emma pulled up the house that was the scene of the crime and parked.

"Okay...I'll see what information I can get. You stay here," she told him.

"No way…" he protested.

"David...I can't take you into an active crime scene," she argued.

"You can if this murder has something to do with the fact that she was a passenger," he argued back. She sighed.

"We don't know that it is," Emma reminded him.

"What does your gut tell you?" he questioned.

"Dammit…" she complained.

"Fine...but you follow my lead and not a damn word," she warned, as they got out of the car. She flashed her badge to the officer on duty.

"Emma Nolan...detective with the twenty-eighth precinct," she said.

"You're a little out of your jurisdiction, detective," the officer replied.

"Yeah...we heard it on the scanner and thought we'd take a look. You can never have too many eyes on a murder investigation," she said. Obviously the officer was green, because her excuse was crap, and he motioned her in.

"Can't believe he bought that," David muttered.

"Shut up," Emma grumbled in irritation, as they went inside. It was a gruesome scene. Tisbe had taken a bullet to the back of the head and she noticed that there was a gathering outside the house of people holding a daylight vigil with signs reading things like the returned and other things that suggested worship of the passengers. And Emma knew from experience that the people obsessed with them could be as dangerous as the ones that seemed to hate them.

"It looks like a robbery gone bad," the officer on duty said.

"What makes you say that?" Emma asked.

"She's missing a gold necklace that she was wearing in her interview and it's not in the house. We think the killer stole the jewelry and climbed out the back window. It was open," he explained. But that didn't sit right with Emma. This didn't seem like a random robbery and she was beginning to think David was right, though she refused to tell him that yet. Before she could ask anymore questions though, Vance arrived and he looked none too happy about them being there.

"Crap…" she muttered.

"Officer...are you aware that you've admitted a detective and her civilian brother to this crime scene. A detective that was on flight eight-two-eight with the victim?" Vance questioned. The officer stammered through an apology to the director, as he looked at the siblings.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't detain you both?" he asked.

"Because we didn't do anything wrong. If passengers are being targeted, then we have a right to know. I have to know if my family might be in danger," David argued. The director sighed.

"Detective Nolan...get your brother out of here, before I change my mind and take you both in," he ordered. They both exited the house and got back to the car, even as the people holding vigil outside started chanting at them, as they were recognized.

"Looks like the same kind of people that approached Margaret and Henry," David mentioned, as they spotted Tisbe Taylor's husband, Jacob Taylor. David gave her a look and she sighed, as they approached him.

"Mr. Taylor?" Emma asked the distraught man.

"Uh yes?" he asked, seeing her shield.

"I'm Detective Emma Nolan and this is my brother David. We were on the flight with Tisbe," she explained.

"Oh…" he said.

"We're sorry for your loss," David offered and he nodded his thanks.

"I tried to stop her from speaking out on television, but she wouldn't listen. She just kept repeating that it was her calling to do so," he said. Something about that phrase pricked Emma's mind, but Mr. Taylor was whisked away by the medics before they could ask him more questions.

"See...even he isn't buying that this was a robbery gone bad," David mentioned.

"That still doesn't mean that this has anything to do with the passengers," Emma chided. He gave her a waning look.

"Okay...it's suspicious, but I'm not ready to jump on the conspiracy train with you," she argued.

"I'm not on the conspiracy train, Ems...I just want to protect us," David said, as he drove them away, but not before seeing that the NSA was taking custody of the body.

"Is the NSA taking custody of a body standard procedure?" he asked, though she could tell by his tone that he knew the answer. She sighed.

"No...it's weird and a complete overreach, but they're the NSA and all they have to do is say that they think she was a threat to National Security," she replied.

"Which means they think that about all of us," David said. She didn't deny that, because she couldn't.

"For the record, I'm trying to protect us too," she pointed out. He sighed.

"I know," he relented.

"I'll do some digging...can you drop me at the station?" she asked.

"Yeah, but you know Dad left you a car, right?" he questioned.

"Yes…I'm just not ready," she muttered. He sighed.

"Okay," he relented, knowing that it was best to drop that subject. If Emma didn't want to drive yet, then he wasn't going to force it. He pulled up to the precinct and dropped her off.

"Do me a favor and stay out of this until we know more," she urged.

"Hey…I'm job hunting today. I promise," he assured. She nodded and he drove off, as she went inside to work. The case was in the early developments, but she would be keeping an eye on it. She hated it, but she knew there was more to it. This passenger wasn't just a random murder.

[wroughtbetwixtfanfic]

A Memory Of The Smell of Smoke, Ch 5.

Fandom: The Society.

Summary: Everyone liked to pretend that Campbell had been born bad. That their fear and hatred were logical, rational, justified, because Campbell was a monster incapable of making the choice between good and evil. Because he couldn’t feel the way they did. Well, fuck that. He was gonna prove them wrong. At least, that had been the plan.

Rating: Mature.

Tags: Canon Divergence, Pre-Canon, Emotional Baggage, Mental Health Issues, Child Abuse, Substance Abuse, Animal Death, Complicated Relationships, Pre-Slash, Denial of Feelings, Antisocial Personality Disorder, Implied Rape, Campbell has mild ASPD and is self aware enough to try and be better, the non-con is NOT Campbell, didn’t add an official warning because it is the aftermath only, yes it is the party becca mentioned and there will be a warning in the notes of that chapter, Campbell/Harry, Campbell/Elle.

Word Count: 4601 (chapter 5/5).

Ch 1 || Ch 2 || Ch 3 || Ch 4 || AO3

Then again, they do say that things get worse before they get better.

For  whatever reason, Becca stopped talking to Campbell. He tried to text her to see if she was alright, but his number was blocked. He tried to talk to her, but she kept on walking. It would have been all too easy to  get pissed off over it, but he shrugged and carried on with life. Perhaps she was embarrassed, or ashamed. Perhaps she wanted to pretend it never happened. Maybe it had been a really bad high. Who knew? But she wanted nothing to do with him, either way, and he didn't waste his time on people that obviously wanted him gone. Caring cost too much energy for that.

The end of the school year play was an adaptation of the film Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.  Cassandra, of course, decided to try out. It was more surprising that Harry tried out, too. Naturally, they both got the lead roles. And why wouldn't they? Cassandra had always been an amazing actress, and now that Harry had cleaned up his image to make himself the cute goody-two-shoes co-captain of the debate team in order to be more appealing to Kelly, it made sense that he'd charm his way in.

Campbell  didn't need to worry about that. He got recruited to help with the set,  and that was fine. It was something to pass the time, as always, and  Elle was often there to help with choreography. It was a nice, long  distraction. By the time rehearsals were over, they had two weeks left  until prom and three until graduation; it was so close to being over that Campbell could taste it, and damn it was good. The play itself would shave one week off, and everyone would be too busy going bananas over prom that they wouldn't have time for much idle gossip.

Perfect.

Or,  at least, it would have been perfect. Just before the opening night of  the play, something began to smell. Literally. Campbell was hanging out  with a few of the drama club kids he'd met through the play, the five of  them sharing a few orders of fries after a long day of getting the  stage ready for the big event. They were on their way out when Campbell  caught a whiff of what smelled like rotting flesh. He gagged, covering  his nose with his sleeve, and soon the other teen were coughing as well.

"What  the fuck is that?" demanded Elaine, a chunky girl with bright pink  hair, ripped jeans, and an MCR shirt. "Jesus christ, Henry, I told you  not to go for the chili fries."

Henry, a scrawny blond, made a noise of complaint. "It's not me!"

"The  wind is coming from the northeast," Campbell interrupted as everyone began to blame each other. "It's probably in the wood somewhere. A sewer  leak or something."

Everyone quieted down and agreed, but the  smell only got worse and worse as the evening went on. The next morning,  Campbell and Sam came downstairs to find their living room filled up  with people. Their parents, Harry's mother, Aunt Amanda and Uncle Jim, a  few other influential members of town... and in front of them all,  their other uncle, Rogers. Frequently heard blustering on about some  damn thing, usually something racist, he wasn't anyone Campbell had any  desire to be around. But there he was, shouting about the smell and what  to do about it.

Campbell tuned it all out and made breakfast for  himself, slipping out the door and heading to school before he was  noticed. The smell was, in fact, terrible. Students were whispering  theories to each other all day. Campbell heard that the smell was a dead  whale washed up on the coast and the wind was carrying the smell, that  it was a terrorist attack, that it was ghosts coming to haunt the town  for some misdeed, it was meth gone wrong... But in the end, there were  no answers. Just a constant, unyielding reek that seemed to be coming  from everywhere.

At the very least, the first night of the play  went off without a hitch. Even if it smelled like a dead skunk basted  with cow farts outside, Cassandra and Harry were beautiful, witty, and  gave a flawless performance. No one really payed attention to the fact  that there was a town meeting among the adults the next day; Campbell  overheard his mother talking to his father about it, and how Uncle  Rogers had contacted some guy named Pfeiffer to get rid of the smell.

Campbell  flopped on Harry's bed as Harry dug around his closet for a suit to  wear to prom. "Who the hell has a job in smell removal? Is that a  thing?"

"Don't know, and who cares? As long as I can go back to  eating without everything tasting faintly like septic tank, that's all I  care about."

Whatever the Pfeiffer guy was about, the day after  the town meeting, the smell did vanish as quickly as it had come. For  short time, things went back to normal. Campbell stayed home-- you've  seen one night in a play, you've seen them all, in his opinion-- to cook  mushroom carbonara while everyone else was out. If nothing else, he  knew how to make a good pan of noodles, and it gave him time to think  about asking Elle to prom. A sort of asinine affair, something he and  Cassandra agreed on, but it was the last big thing of high school. Maybe  it was worth a shot.

On the last night of the play, the smell  returned. It was even worse than before, so strong that it stung their  eyes and made some of the younger kids choke; the adults called yet  another emergency meeting, and this time, it was decided that the EPA  would be contacted. Until then, all students 16 and over would be sent  away on a camping trip until the smell was removed. An exciting prospect  in Campbell's mind, considering his family had never been camping his  whole life. A whole weekend in the middle of nowhere? Roasting  marshmallows, hiking, swimming, freaking Allie out with spooky stories?  Cool.

"Mom and dad wanted to know if you got your toothbrush,"  Sam signed as they stood on the school lawn, everyone waiting for the  buses to pick them up. "Did you?"

"Tell them to get fucked."

Sam  stared. Campbell forced a cheerful smile and headed off to go wait  elsewhere. He was standing at the curb when he heard someone  approaching; he turned his head, ready to tell Sam to leave him alone,  when Campbell realized it was Grizz heading his way. He was pale, his  gait fast and jaw tight as he glanced around. Huh. Weird. The football  player never really seemed nervous about much.

"Hey Campbell," Grizz greeted. "I have a question for you."

"I'm flattered, but I'm already asking someone to prom."

Narrowing his eyes, Grizz glared at him. "Hey. No, it's... Did you tag the wall of the church last night?"

"What?" Campbell blinked. "I'm no fan of Christianity, but no. I didn't tag the church with anything. Why?"

"Just wondering. There's some creepy Bible quote on one of the outside walls. Just thought maybe you'd know something about it."

"Someone's probably just dicking with us, man."

"Yeah. Yeah, you're right."

There  wasn't much time to debate it. Cassandra and her gaggle joined them at  the curb, all of them eagerly chattering at Grizz, who seemed to be the  group Boy Scout and everyone wanted camping advice. Five school buses  pulled up soon after, and everyone began to pile on. One of the few  places left on the bus was next to Elle; she had a look on her face that  was positively icy, but he decided to take the chance anyways.

Campbell rested his hand on the seat and nodded to the empty space next to her. "Hey, I'm Campbell. Do you mind if I sit here?"

Elle glanced up at him. She didn't smile, didn't speak, but she shrugged a little and moved over enough to make room.

"Excited for the trip?"

"Not especially. I prefer indoor plumbing. You?"

"I don't know. It might be an adventure."

"An adventure, huh? From what I hear, you make plenty of your own excitement."

"Oh? Where'd you hear that?"

"I just pay attention."

Campbell  leaned a little closer. She didn't flinch away, but she was watching him with a cautious intensity he hadn't seen from many others before. "It's too bad we've been going to school together all this time, and never really talked, don't you think?"

"What is there for us to talk about?"

"Dance, maybe. How many years did you do ballet before you moved here?"

"You know about that?"

"I pay attention, too."

That earned him the tiniest of smirks. "Okay, smartass. What else do you know about me?"

"Your  family moved here from New York when you were about twelve. You tried to make friends with Lexie and her goon squad, but they ignored you and  ever since then you've kinda just been alone. You spend most of your time reading, or playing the piano."

"Piano."

"Junior year, we had math together and Gelstein let us listen to music during tests." Campbell placed his fingers on the back of the seat in front of  him, moving them along like he was tapping on invisible keys. "You'd move your fingers along to the music, but you thought no one noticed because you sat in the back."

"Ohh, you've got a good eye. Yeah, I can play the piano. But I feel like that's cheating a little. You sat right next to me."

"That's true. I also know that you eat all the green M&Ms first, and that is not something I found out sitting next to you."

Elle leaned back and arched her eyebrows. "You know, some people might considered that level of observation a little creepy."

"Do you think it is?"

"I don't know yet."

"Think you'll know in time for prom?"

"Well, how about this." She was smiling now, and the corners of her eyes crinkled a little. "Ask me when this trip is over."

A  fair enough deal. They spent the rest of the morning discussing music,  art, and entertainment; Campbell had to stop and let Elle ramble from time to time, though he noticed she did the same and wondered if it was  for the same reason. He wasn't used to talking, to the point where he was getting winded. They had similar enough tastes, as far as modern music was concerned, and a similar view on politics. He liked modern dance, while she liked the more traditional forms, but it was still a shared interest.

They continued talking until the sun set and the bus fell silent, with students falling asleep as the bus ride continued well into the night. Elle slumped over near midnight, resting  her head on his shoulder. She yawned, content. "This is fun. How come we've never talked before?"

"I don't know." Campbell allowed her to nestle close. He wanted to stroke her hair, but he kept his hands to  himself. He didn't want to scare her by being too much, too fast. "I guess I was scared to approach you."

"Why?"

"Because you're pretty, and I'm trouble."

Ella closed her eyes, voice muffled as she drifted off to sleep. "Maybe I'm trouble, too."

Cute,  but it was hard to imagine. Not because she was a girl or because she was small-- he'd seen a 4'11" girl take down a two hundred and fifty pound football player with one well aimed kick to the dick-- but because  he'd never heard a single bad word about her from anyone who mattered.  Well, who knew. Maybe she had a rap sheet from back home in New York.  Campbell smiled a little, falling asleep himself soon after.

He  had no clue how much time had passed when the school bus jerked to a halt. He stirred, blinking as the lights on the bus flickered back on. Everyone was murmuring, trying to figure out what was going on. Were they there? It was supposed to be a twelve hour ride, including breaks along the way, but they had left at three in the evening and the time on  his phone said it was only a little past one in the morning.

"Change of plans," the bus driver said. His tone was flat. Bored. "Rock slides. The road is closed. You're back home."

The  murmurs turned into sounds of disbelief. Campbell stood as the bus doors opened, making his way out along with everyone else. He stopped on  the school lawn, and stared out into the darkness; there was no one there, no one besides the other students, and the weird smell was gone.  It couldn't have been fixed that fast. The useless government never did  anything fast, and it hadn't even been a full day yet.

"The fuck," he muttered as the buses all pulled away and left. "What is this?"

Ella stood next to him, frowning. "Strange. That's what."

Everyone  began texting, calling. Campbell tried his father's number, knowing Sam  was probably going to call their mother. It rang, and didn't stop ringing. No answer. No voicemail, even. He glanced around. He could see  the worry and panic on everyone else as they seemed to be reaching similar results. No one was answering. Something was obviously wrong. With the smell gone, he wondered if it really had been a gas leak, and now everyone was fucking dead. Only one way to know for sure.

Plastering  a smile on his face, Campbell looked to Sam and shrugged like it was no  big deal. Make it seem like everything was fine. No need to freak out  and start some kind of mass riot. "Well, I'm going home."

Sam  grabbed his arm. His eyes were wide, and he was obviously at that freak  out point already. "You're not going to wait for me?" he whispered, not  bothering to even sign.

Campbell made a quick sign. "Hurry up, then."

He  kept walking, and soon enough he heard footsteps trailing behind him. They walked in silence for a bit, before Sam signed to him. "Where do you think our parents are?"

"Home. Asleep."

"Do you think that's all?"

"Yeah." Campbell didn't believe it for a second, but Sam didn't need to know that right then. "Probably."

When  they made it home, the cars were still there. All the lights were out inside. Campbell went in first, calling out to their parents, but there  was no answer. Campbell and Sam exchanged a look; Sam's lips pursed, knowing without any words passing between them what the look meant. They  were alone. Campbell searched downstairs, then headed upstairs. He  didn't even care that Sam was right on his heels. It meant that they could both confirm at the same time that they were, in fact, alone in the house.

"No note," Sam said. "No message on the phone. Where could they be?"

Campbell  frowned. He didn't have a damn clue what to tell his brother, but then  their phones both began to blow up. Campbell looked at his, hoping for  the first time in forever that it was their parents, but it was Harry.  His mother was gone. Kelly's parents, too. No one could reach anyone, and their data was all knocked out.

Probably from the storm, Campbell texted back.

Yeah, Harry answered, and did the storm take all our parents too?

A  good question. Suddenly he had texts from Elle and Cassandra, even Allie, asking where he and Sam were and could they find anyone. Cassandra finally texted for the two of them to meet her and everyone else back at the school. ASAP.

"Are you gonna go?" Sam asked.

It  wasn't even really worth thinking about. Of course he was going to go,  if only so he could get some idea of where things were heading. People  were gonna start wigging out, and Campbell knew history well enough to  know that a bunch of teenagers alone and afraid never meant anything good. And maybe someone, somewhere, had actually found something. Campbell nodded to Sam, and they both headed out to meet with Cassandra.  

By the time they got to the school, a crowd had formed. Not  everyone, and mostly seniors, but enough for Campbell to know it'd get  ugly if the impromptu meeting didn't go well. Elle was there; she came  over and stood at his side, one arm crossed in front of her chest and  the other tangled up in her hair, her bottom lip pouting out a little.  She opened her mouth to speak, but then someone else-- one of the  football players, loud and brash-- yelled out.

"Who decided we needed a flash mob?"

Cassandra stepped out of the shadows. She stood on the other side of Campbell, pulling herself tall. "I did."

"What the fuck, Cassandra?"

"Better  than 200 people sending texts. Has anyone been able to reach anyone?" she asked. The crowd was either silent, or mumbled a negative. "No one?  Okay. Well, there's... there's definitely a simple explanation."

A voice Campbell didn't recognize yelled out. "Like what?"

"Um.  They, uh." Cassandra glanced at Campbell. He said nothing, hell, he didn't even move; if anyone thought he was influencing her, they'd never  listen. "They were evacuated, after we left. And there was a miscommunication, and we were brought back here by mistake."

"Someone would still answer a phone," Kelly pointed out.

"Maybe  they're asleep. I don't know, maybe they some place with no reception.  They're in a shelter with... with no reception, or something. In the morning, someone will answer a phone."

Goddamn  it. Cassandra, cool and collected Cassandra, was losing it. Standing  this close to her, Campbell could tell that she was shaking. Not much,  but enough that Campbell felt a spark of worry. They were supposed to be  the reasonable ones. Cassandra was valedictorian, disliked and  unpopular but vocal and well-known in their senior class. If Cassandra  lost it, the rest wouldn't be far behind.

"Maybe it's not safe for us to be here, if they all left."

"A  couple hours isn't gonna make a difference. We'll figure this all out in the morning. Right now, we should just... uh, go home. Yeah, we should go home. And anyone who doesn't want to, uh, be alone can come back to our house. Right?"

Allie smiled when Cassandra looked to her. "Sure."

"Is that your advice, Cassandra?"

It  had to be Harry that challenged her. Campbell cursed under his breath,  and resisted the urge to strangle him. Cassandra and Harry always had been rivals, butting heads over everything and fighting for power at every turn, with Cassandra usually emerging victorious. But what about now, when people were scared and tensions were climbing?  

"Yeah. Yeah, Harry, yeah, just go to sleep."

Harry  rolled his eyes, but people began to disperse. Well, some people. The majority stayed put, hovering around closer to Harry and the jock brigade; they were whispering about the local liquor store, and Campbell  took the moment to sidle over to Cassandra while everyone else seemed  distracted.

"Do you honestly believe any of that?" he wondered, lowering his voice.

Cassandra  shook her head. She took a breath, but it was already all too clear that she was out of her depth. "I have to, right now. It won't do any good tonight to think about it too much. We need to all go home, get some rest, and see what tomorrow brings."

"You know as well as I do that if we don't start preparing for the worst now, tomorrow it's gonna hit and this whole place is gonna go all Lord of the Flies."

"What the hell do you think happened?"

"Cassie, haven't you noticed anything else, besides our missing families?"

"The smell."

"Yeah, the smell. How are you gonna explain that to them? Or did the smell go to a shelter with no reception, too?"

Biting  her lip, Cassandra looked at the crowd gathering around Harry. Before she could say anything else, Allie came prancing up, a cheeky smile on her face. "Cassandra. Campbell." His name was said like it was something  disgusting, and her smile hardened just a bit. "I guess the guys are  planning to raid the liquor store and have a party. Coming?"

"Really?" Cassandra sighed. "No way. I'm going to head home and try to figure this out. Please don't burn anything down."

Allie  grinned and made her way back to her friends. Cassandra, Gordie, and their friend Bean headed off towards home. Campbell knew it'd be for the  best to just leave, but he could see that Sam was staying, and Elle was  watching him expectantly. Harry was waving them both over, and Campbell  sighed. Might as well. Despite how bizarre it all was, the idea of not  having to race home by ten and play Good And Normal Son with his parents  was appealing.

"What was that about?" Elle asked. Her tone was light, but her eyes were sharp. "With you and Cassandra?"

"Oh, just cousin bickering. How about this party, huh?"

It  started as just a bunch of them hanging out on the front yard of the church, with beers getting passed around. Campbell and Elle camped out in a quieter corner, each with their own drink. But within fifteen minutes, Clark had discovered that the church doors were open. It seemed  wrong. So, so very wrong. That's what made it fun. Campbell smirked as  people texted their friends, brought more liquor, and rigged up some  music. The air was just vibrating with bass and the cheers of about a  hundred drunk, high teenagers. It was blasphemous, and oh, they were all loving it.

"Can  you imagine the looks on their faces?" Campbell laughed with Elle as he  downed another cup of alcohol. "Those stuck up fucks would piss  themselves."

Elle answered, but her voice was muffled. Far away.  His vision was dimmer around the edges and he felt good; he grabbed Elle  by the hand and led her out to where people were dancing. Harry's  shitty little pity parties had never appealed to him much, and certainly  not the stiff swaying back and forth of school dances with their  parent-approved music, but this? This was something new, different. They  could do anything and they weren't going to get caught. Not yet. The cats were away, and they were all a bunch of fucking rats  ready to play.

At least, that's what Campbell thought, but after  people started pouring beers off the second story, Elle retreated into  an empty stairway. Campbell followed. A bad idea, in hindsight, but  they'd been having a good time. Hadn't they? She had tucked herself into  a corner, wiping beer off her skin and wringing it from her hair;  Campbell stepped closer, smiling.

"I don't know, I think you look kinda hot this way."

Elle didn't look at him. "Yeah, well, I don't really care what anyone else thinks right now."

"Hey.  Why are you spoiling all the fun?" Campbell asked. She didn't say anything, just giving him an irritated look. "Is it like a ballerina thing? Act all cold? Is that..."

Without a word, she tried to push past him. Campbell grabbed her arm, but she spun around and fixed him with a glare. "Seriously?"

Campbell blinked. He didn't know exactly what was happening, but she was angry, and he let go of her arm.  She kept walking, heading towards the exit. He sighed, mumbling under  his breath so she wouldn't hear. "Your loss."

Everything after  that was mostly a very long blur, ending in a wall of black. Not something he'd done in a while, getting completely wasted, and not something he was eager to repeat when he woke up the next morning with a  throbbing headache. Light hurt, sound hurt. The worst part was that he  just barely remembered what happened with Elle.

"Shit," he groaned as his phone blasted him with full brightness. Still, he managed to tap out a text to her. I'm sorry about last night. I'm an asshole and I was drunk. Forgive me? "Send."

It  was the best he could do at that second. Campbell dragged himself out of bed, stumbling downstairs where Sam was making breakfast. Sam glanced  at him, flipping some bacon. Campbell wanted to gag at the smell, but  there was a small stack of toasted Eggo waffles on the counter, and he  snagged one of those.

"No parents," Sam signed. "No calls or anything."

Campbell  just waved his hand and sunk his face into his arm. He figured. There hadn't been any furious screaming about the state of the church, after all. Sam sat down at the table, and Campbell raised his head enough to watch him for a moment. Now that he was sober, he was back to being able  to read people. He could see on Sam's face that Sam was scared. He kept  eyeing Campbell, then looking away, and shifting like his body just  didn't want to sit still. His body was turned away. Closed off. Insecure. He didn't like being alone with Campbell.

Well, who did anymore, really?

His phone buzzed. He hoped it was Elle, but it was from Harry. Campbell tapped on the notification, and stared at the text. Get to the bridge. NOW.

Sam's phone went off next. "Becca wants me at the bridge outside of town."

Please, a second text read. I'm scared.

Harry  had never said that, not in all the years they'd been friends. Campbell  stuffed another waffle in his mouth, and threw on his flannel shirt.  "Let's go."

It took almost twenty minutes to jog there. Sam kept  up, thankfully. Campbell wasn't about to wait around when Harry was  reduced to begging. Something was wrong, he could feel it in his stomach  more than ever. The closer he got, the more he could see there was a  small crowd formed. Cassandra, Allie, Becca, Will. Gordie, Bean, Kelly.  Luke, Clark, Grizz, Harry. Helena. Sam went to his friends, who were  sitting by the railing of the bridge; Campbell went to Harry, who was  crowded around his far with the jocks and Helena.

"What's going on?" Campbell hissed, pulling Harry off to the side. "You look ready to pass the fuck out."

Harry  just pointed. Campbell followed the line of sight. Trees. Trees had completely demolished the train tracks leading out of town. They just...  ended. Campbell went to turn back to Harry, and noticed the same thing  had happened to the road, too. He rubbed his eyes; maybe he was still  drunk, or someone had slipped him something. But no. It was like a wall  of forest.

Harry spoke, only just audible. "It's like that the  whole way around." He was breathing faster, his voice trembling faintly.  "We tried the internet, Bean tried to call 911. Nothing. There's no one  out there. We're trapped."

Campbell reached out, resting his  hand on Harry's shoulder. Harry leaned into the touch ever so slightly.  Adults and the younger kids, gone. The smell, gone. A natural barrier,  cutting them off from every escape route, and they were-- for the  moment-- alone. How? He couldn't fathom, but how didn't  exactly matter at the moment. What mattered was that this was reality.  Somehow, some way, they were going to have to survive it.

They were worse than trapped.

They were completely, truly, screwed.

[distant-rose]

The Wolf in the Door

Notes: I have three prompts for Little Pirates, a chapter of Once and Future Thing to work on and not to mention cleaning up my Law School AU but what the fuck do I do? I make this little one-shot because I’m a cranky bitch and having a terrible day. This was actually inspired by @katie-dub when we met up and had a chat last week about how everyone seems to forget that Killian was once a villain and a very violent man and while he might be sweet and act all lovely with Emma, if his family was threatened, he would literally burn an entire city to the ground and kill everyone without so much as blinking an eye. I think it’s very easy forget that so we, as Captain Swan shippers, tend to focus more on the more heroic elements of his character and completely ignore that he’s done some pretty shitty and horrible things. I love Killian as much as the next person. He’s my favorite character but I also think it’s important to address he’s got quite the dark side and I don’t think that just went away post-Dark One saga. Summary:  Killian always knew it to be true. He knew it the moment they placed his newborn son in his arms, a suspicion that he had since he found out Emma was pregnant but had solidified when Harrison was alive, red, screaming and still covered in vernix. He knew that he would snap a man’s neck with his bare hand if anyone so much looked at his son the wrong way. And he would do it without a second thought or a hint of remorse.  Word Count: 2,500+ Rating: T+

It is only upon feeling the gentle weight of his son’s body in his arms that Killian feels a sense of calm. He cradles the infant close, a steady relaxed breath leaving his chest as Harrison nuzzles his face into his father’s neck. The riot in his brain that had been buzzing since his son was taken quiets now that he’s back in his father’s arms, safe and unharmed. 

He’s mindful to keep his hand directly on the blanket Harrison is swaddled in, knowing that his mother-in-law will be less than keen if the cute duck onesie she bought gets smeared with blood. It’s something that’s special to Snow in a way that Killian can’t fathom, he doesn’t quite get some of the niceties that his mother-in-law follows. However, Emma humors her and always put their son in that particular onesie whenever they see her parents and Killian isn’t going to let the shenanigans of the day get in the way of that tradition if he can help it. The fuzzy blanket that was a gift from Ruby, however, is a lost cause at this point, dirtied beyond recognition and ruddy smears stretched across the pale blue material. 

(Not his son though. His boy is clean. 

Frightened perhaps. But clean and untouched.

And that’s all that matters.)

Harrison’s small whimpers threaten to turn into full out cries as he starts squirming in his arms. Killian makes soft shushing noises, bracing him tighter against his chest as he attempts to make his way through the obstacle course of slick blood, corpses and uneven floorboards. 

He only pauses for a moment by the door, squatting down slowly and attempting to hold Harrison while pulling his favorite dagger out of some poor bastard’s chest. The slain pirate is young, more boy than man like most of this crew, and Killian wagers he’s not much older than Henry but none of this garners the dead much sympathy.

His death warrant was signed the second he agreed to help kidnap his son on Blackbeard’s behalf.

As Killian pulls the dagger out of the man’s sternum, there’s a cough behind him. He turns in surprise. He didn’t think he had left any survivors. 

One of the men by the makeshift cradle is still alive, pulling himself up and clutching his still bleeding side. A sense of dissatisfaction fills Killian as he turns to face him. Holding his son tighter against his body, he walks towards the wounded man with his hook raised. It’s only when he gets closer that he realizes it’s yet another young boy, but this time no older than thirteen or fourteen. A cabin boy by the looks of it. 

“You will pay for this...” he coughs.

“Highly unlikely,” Killian replies lightly, surveying the remnants of his bloodbath. “As you can see, boy, there isn’t a soul left but you and me and judging by that wound, probably not you for much longer…”

“Captain Blackbeard will make sure you pay for this.”

“Old Eddie isn’t going be living much longer than you. You see, the second you took my son, each and every single one of you were marked for death.”

“We weren’t going to hurt him. We would have given him back to you if you had given us the ship. That’s all we wanted. It’s not like you’re even using her. You’re supposed to have gone soft.” His words are petulant, almost whiney. It’s a childish argument and Killian finds himself even more annoyed.

“Do I look like I’ve gone soft to you?” 

“You’re supposed to be a family man. Captain Blackbeard said so. Said you had a woman who made you weak. And that you gave up your ship for her twice. He thought you would do the same for the baby.”

“That was never going to happen,” Killian replies, tone growing hard. “You didn’t threaten to take my ship. If you had gone just for the Jolly, maybe, just maybe, your crew would still be breathing but you didn’t do that. You didn’t threaten my ship. You didn’t even threat me. That would be almost forgivable. No. Oh no. You didn’t do that. You threatened my son. That’s not forgivable. That’s death…” 

The boy looks up at him, pale faced from blood loss or terror Killian doesn’t know nor does he care. Harrison starts whimpering again and he runs his hook gently down the boy’s back in hopes of soothing him. He quiets after a moment and Killian licks his lips before he speaks again.

“Being a family man doesn’t make you soft. If anything, it makes you even more dangerous…you see, if anyone so much as touched him, I would slaughter them and their entire family. I would burn this realm and any other realm, entire civilizations, men, women and children alike for just looking in his general direction…”

The boy swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing. “I’m sorry. We didn’t know.”

“You should have. I am not a man to be trifled with. Just because I’m retired, doesn’t mean I’m less dangerous…less of a terror…less Captain Hook. I should gut you like a fish, take your innards and use them to string you up by your balls and leave your corpse as an example of why you should never cross me. But I’m not going to do that.”

“What are you going to do to me?” He whimpers, and the familiar pungent smell of piss fills the air. Killian doesn’t even need to look down to know it’s the cabin boy and not his five-month old son who has made a mess of himself.

A dark smile crosses Killian’s lips and he draws his hook against the boy’s cheek, scraping just hard enough to split the skin, blood blooming and beading almost immediately from the fresh cut. Another pathetic whimper leaves him.

“What’s your name, boy?”

“Israel, sir. Israel Hands.”

“Captain,” he corrects, holding the hook just under his jaw. “You will address me as Captain, Israel.”

“Yes…Captain…”

“Good. You’re a good listener. This is good…Now listen to me carefully, Israel. I’m going to let you live, that is if you survive the blood loss…you should probably put some pressure on that... Not because I feel sorry for you or because you’re a pathetic dumb slip of a boy, the second you joined this crew you forfeited your right to my generosity…No, I’m going to let you live because I need a messenger…You see, sooner or later, Old Eddie Teach is going to find you after this debacle and he’s going to see the lovely mess of bodies I left behind for him…and when he does, I need him to know that he’s dead. I have no black spot to give, but he can consider himself marked…I was entirely happy to stay out of the game and leave you lot be so I could live a happy and fruitful life with my wife and our children, but really you left me no choice…you see, I will not stand for threats against my family, you so much as even think about my wife and our offspring, including my wife’s oldest boy who I consider to be like my own blood, I will not just take your life…I will do more than that…I will do every depraved thing that can be done to humiliate your corpse before bleaching your skull and drinking from it like the days of old….do I make myself clear?”

Israel nods his head fervently, looking like he might piss himself again.

“I’m going to need you to speak, lad.”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes…Captain.”

“Good lad,” Killian replies with a razor-sharp grin and a brush of his hook against the boy’s cheek again before pulling himself up and turning on his heel. He doesn’t bother to look back at Israel. As far as he’s concerned, the boy doesn’t exist now that he’s out of Killian’s line of sight. He’s more focused on getting off this blasted ship and getting his son back home to Storybrooke and back to Emma where he belongs.

Harrison starts a round of crying, and Killian immediately lifts the boy higher, unafraid to give the boy’s bottom a good sniff. He breathes a sigh of relief when he smells none of the foul signs of a soiled diaper. He’s not sure what he would have been able to clean himself well enough to handle a diaper changing situation. His blood on his hands is dried, but it’s thick layer that’s also made its way until his fingernails. It will be a bitch to get rid of. 

(His wife is going to murder him.

He can’t bring himself to care.

Harrison is safe.)

Killian always knew this would happen. He knew this simple truth to be true the moment they placed his newborn son in his arms. It had been a suspicion that he had since he found out Emma was pregnant but it had solidified as soon as  Harrison was alive, red, screaming and still covered in vernix.

The simple truth was, is and would always be that he would snap a man’s neck with his bare hand if anyone so much looked at his son the wrong way. And he would do it without a second thought or a hint of remorse. 

He places a kiss across Harrison’s forehead, closing his eyes and breathing in the boy’s scent in attempt to drown out the smell of death that surrounds them. An itch of violence crawls underneath his skin, still riled and unsatisfied. 

(It’s been awhile since Killian has let loose and ran his sword through another human being. He’s forgotten that all human beings are is walking bags of meat and liquid; easily broken, easily killed. He’s forgotten the rush that comes with ending another human being’s life; the ultimate permanent act of destruction.

He’s been on the side of angels long enough to have forgotten just how dark he truly is.)

David and Snow’s faces go pale as they make their way onto the ship, horrified by the carnage they find on deck. They relax only slightly when they catch sight of him with his son. David reaches forward to touch Killian’s shoulder but almost immediately he recoils, his fingers pulling away red. He stares hard at Killian, taking in the blood soaked hands, the rips and stains in the leather as well as the dark purple bruise forming high on his cheek. He knows he looks what like - a man who just cut down thirty men on his own.

“Harrison okay?” He asks quietly.

“Cranky but relatively unharmed. He’s okay. They can’t hurt him or anyone else anymore.”

“I can see that...” David’s eyes scan across the ship, drinking in the massacre. “You certainly went out of your way to ensure it.”

“They took my boy. The punishment fits the crime.” 

“No, no, no, I understand,” David responds quickly. “I get it. In your position, I would have done the same.” 

Killian presses his lips to his son’s dark-haired crown in order to fight the sneering question of “Would you?” that threatens to leave his lips. It’s not his fault. David is a hero, a good person, someone who feels remorse when taking a life, someone who has completely forgiven a litany of people who have wronged him and his family including Killian himself.

But Killian isn’t David. He isn’t...domesticated. David’s a sheepdog, a herder of people, a source of guidance and civility. Killian is a wild thing. He was raised in darkness. It took root in him young, when his father sold him and Liam into slavery and grew inside him with each lash of a whip, each time he was denied food, each time someone was taken from him. It’s a part of him, always has been and always will be. He’s a wolf that’s joined a pack of dogs, pretending he’s one of them.

But Killian isn’t docile. 

Not by a long shot. 

He’s merely been humoring his in-laws, playing the part of a good man while the savage violence inside of him still lingers just underneath the surface. And it’s this very moment that makes this even more apparent.

Because the truth is while the kidnapping of his son was catalyst of the slaughtering of Blackbeard’s crew, it’s merely an excuse. And if he’s honest with himself, an excuse he really doesn’t need but he’s no longer a pirate captain who pillages and plunders as he so chooses. He no longer, by his own violation mind you, plays by his own rules. 

He’s a husband, a father, a deputy on the side of the law. Some might even think he’s a hero, but he will never be a saint.

(He wonders about the boy in his arms, still developing, still a pup. Will Harrison be more wolf or more dog? He hopes beyond hope that its dog; Emma’s goodness and light trumping his wild darkness.) 

“Killian?”

Emma’s voice pulls him from his reverie and suddenly his wife is in front of him, looking as frazzled and out of her mind as Killian had been when he discovered Harrison had been taken. There are tears in her eyes as she approaches him, trying very hard not to run over the bodies littering the deck. She throws her arms around him and Killian can feel her entire body shake against his, from relief or hysteria he’s not quite sure.

Harrison lets out a loud squeal of protest at being squished between his parents, plumb fists swinging wildly in the air. Emma pulls him out of Killian’s arms and into her own, raining down a shower of kisses upon his crown. Killian’s not quite prepared to let them both go however. He wraps his arms loosely around her waist, pulling her to stand between his legs and leaning forward so his forehead is pressed against hers. He moves his hand gently up and down her back in hopes of soothing her. She hums in response.

“Is he alright?” He doesn’t miss the slight fear in her voice.

“I think he’s going to be okay. I got to them before they do anything.”

“Fuck them,” she spits, holding Harrison so tightly to her chest that Killian’s almost afraid she’ll squeeze him in half. “Fuck Blackbeard and every single one of his crew.”

“Well, I’m ahead of you darling,” he replies quietly, taking a lock of her hair and twirling it absently around his fingers.

“You killed them all, didn’t you?” It’s not really question.

Killian squeezes his eyes shut. He doesn’t want to see the look of horror on her face, the same look that David and Snow had given him when they had seen the carnage that he left in his wake. He doesn’t want to see the same judgment and fear in her eyes.

“Aye, love. I did.”

Just as everyone seems to forget that he’s Captain Hook, the villainous terror of the high seas, Killian sometimes forgets that Emma isn’t nearly as domesticated as everyone else. Like him, she’s lived in the darkness, held it inside of her. She’s got some wolf in her too. She’s just better at hiding it than he is.

Which is why he nearly jumps out of his skin when it isn’t fear in her voice but steel when she responds with just one single word that sends a shiver down his spine.

“Good.”

[victor-criss]

continued from:

@slinkhard

- the other side had lots of interesting characters too, but i remember getting annoyed with how they were like all king’s heroes, where their committee is mainly the white dudes in charge again with frannie as secretary and mother abigail being allowed some kind of figurehead position.

oh, and the stupid ‘thank you, men!’ speech, and the bit with her mean mom and saintly dad who thinks ‘life is cheap, but abortion makes it cheaper’, yawn.

(iirc, someone on a03 did a long yuletide fic basically rewriting the end to have frannie, nadine, lucy and sue walking west; which was amazing.)

larry is one of my favorite characters and i was shocked that even he was just like “okay, yeah” at that john wayne men only bullshit. lmao the “thank you, men” bs makes me want to hurt someone. (and holy shit, do i need that fic in my life.) i hope whichever screenwriters tackle the stand do more justice to the women (fran and abagail and nadine in particular) but i’m not holding my breath.

-i liked bev/richie’s friendships a lot in the book, i’ve read fic of the pairing and liked it, although i was also happy with it on a platonic level (isn’t richie one of the three like stan and mike who get skipped over in the sewer orgy ~*loving descriptions*~? cause actually, his reaction might have been interesting, considering he and bevvie seemed to know each other the best prior to the beginning of the book) since she’s so sexualised by everyone else.

i think this is why i tend to skew towards bev/richie (and to a lesser extent, bev/stan and bev/mike) when it comes to shipping bev with the other losers, because you’re right, they didn’t sexualize her the way the others did. richie constantly thinks she’s beautiful, but an off-the-cuff “oh shit bev is gorgeous” thought is usually followed by ten other non-appearance things he admires/finds cool about her, so i allowed it, haha. the biggest thing that sold me on them is when he’s only joking about her not participating in the ritual of chud because she’s a girl, but bill (+possibly some of the others) absolutely fucking isn’t. (and screaming at “colt-like legs and burgeoning breasts”. take a pill and chill, uncle steve.)

- i remember reading ‘thinner’ and getting creeped out how often the daughter, who literally has no characteristics apart from being pretty like her mom was, is described constantly as wearing these old clothes that show the edge of her ‘panties’. like, enough! the unaware ‘she was too young to realise what hot jailbait she was’ trope makes it more humbert-y than it already was.

i read thinner in high school and i remember being so actively grossed out by the descriptions of all the women in it. (and not that the protagonist is a stand-up guy, but the fact that he blames everything on his wife just kept creeping me out because i could imagine legions of male readers nodding along and being like “well, he’s not wrong!! evil blowjob-giving temptress!!” rme.)

- the movie took the traditional ‘your dream girl has been saving herself for your kisses!’, like yes, the big concern i had about this 13 year old girl wasn’t harassment or vulnerability to sexual abuse, it was whether or not she’s easy. and the book took the more neo-liberal ‘hey, i’m a modern man, women have this amazing power of creation and shit, dude; i’m sex positive and anyway, it’s *~her choice~*

yeppppppppp. and let’s not be worried that 15-year-old henry and his even older friends and grown-ass men (and god knows who else) have been harassing and also possibly doing non-consensual things to this 13-year-old girl (i also dislike how both the movie/miniseries age up the bowers gang yet still find time to include the henry/bev undertones from the book, because a 12yo boy lusting after an 11yo girl is apparently no different in their minds than a 15/17yo boy actively sexually harassing and touching a 13yo girl, which says A Lot)

- and he has the nerve to pull the ‘we didn’t believe it!’ bit. like, yes, you did, don’t try and whitewash yourselves now. a line about how you don’t need to explain yourself to us bevvie, we like you, would have worked ten times better.

lmfao when he acts as if he wasn’t the one trying to stop richie from mentioning henry to her. (why you always lying.mp3) and not to mention how gross the rest of them were. (and stan winking at bill when they talk about the play, even though he was so fucking rude to bev moments earlier? because she’s not their friend in this movie, got it, she’s damaged goods, but he’ll still be boyishly proud his friend was ~first to score a kiss from her. cool.) one of the earlier scripts had that scene go along the lines of: bill asks if the rumors are true, beverly gets mad and asks so what if they are, bill says, “you’re my friend and i just want to know that you’re okay.” WHY THE FUCK WAS THIS CHANGED. WHY. (i know, because men. because they don’t see the staggering difference between that scene and the one we got in the movie. or maybe they did, and wanted another chance to turn bev into even more of a fantasy for male audience members.)

- meryl streep couldn’t save the bill/bev/ben triangle for me, haha.

preach to the fucking choir lmao. i really liked jeremy ray taylor’s ben, and he had tons of sweet scenes with bev (ignoring the kidnapping/kiss, because i’m still mad), but i dislike the whole “bev belongs to ben and bill” undercurrent in the text and also the movie - i think even richie has a thought along those lines, acknowledging that ben accepts bill as his rival because it’s ~expected~ and ~just how it is~ and ~his right as the leader of the group~ but if richie would actively pursue bev, it would be a very different and unacceptable thing? wish i could remember the passage. 

- i like suggesting that it would have been more acceptable as the group whacking off each other, nothing enrages them more. the girl getting fucked to the point of pain (and the weird bit after about how men don’t understand how ~*empty*~ you feel afterwards) by everyone is a wholesome paen to group dynamics, but friendship is strictly no-homo guys, srsly! (one of those essays called it Bev ‘steering the boys from their gender insecurities into…safely normal heterosexuality’ which is so on the nose.)

lol i’m gonna start doing that now, too. and wow at that essay. so true, especially for eddie. 

- i read a fic where they’d basically genderswapped leigh for lee and it worked really well with the style, surprisingly.

yet something else i need to read! there’s so little for that fandom and it’s one of my absolute favs (ditto for pet sematary, which seems to yield almost no fan works)

[queen-of-the-merry-men]

Surprise, Surprise

So this past week was the two-year anniversary of What Would They Say and I did a twitter poll to see what flashforward I should write in celebration. The choices were pregnancy reveal, graduation, proposal and Cora’s death. In a massive landslide pregnancy reveal won! So here’s a flashforward of when Regina finds out she’s pregnant, with another surprised tacked on ;) Hope you enjoy it!

-------------

Regina would never forget the day she found out she was pregnant for the second time.

It’d been a slow day at the studio and she’d decided to go out for lunch. Mulan and Tink sat across from her as they ate together out on the Drunken Monk patio. She was glad she’d invited them out. It’d been a long time since the three of them had spent time together. They’d only been half way through their meal when Tink popped the question.

“Do you have a tampon?”

Regina looks up from her plate, a little surprised. The voice behind the question comes from Tink, who’s staring at her expectantly from across the table.

“I thought I had more in my bag but I’m out,” she said, shrugging her shoulders.

Regina nodded her head. “Sure I’ve got one.”

She reached into her purse and passed a tampon over the Tink, who ran off to the bathroom not long after. As it slipped from her hand into Tink’s, a thought flickered into her head. She had tampons in her purse. How long had they been there? Why hadn’t she used them yet?

It’s a been a while, she thought to herself, but how long?

As Mulan continued to talk about one of her arrests at work Regina slipped her phone out of her pocket and pulled up her calendar. She’d had to have had her period recently, or, at the very least it should be coming up in a day or two. Her eyes ran over the dates, and her heartbeat sped up.

She should’ve started a week ago.

She was late. Very late.

Her throat grew tight as she tried to swallow her anxiety. A week ago? Really? Everything started to drift away from her. Everything she saw, everything she heard. It all started to fade as she started doing calculations in her head. If it hadn’t come yet, that means she hasn’t had her period in six weeks. But if it hadn’t come in six weeks, then that meant…

Oh god.

“Hey!”

The sharp sound of Mulan’s voice pulls her back to Earth. She looks up to see her staring from across the table, her brown eyes curious and unwavering.

“Are you alright?” she asked. “Feels like you haven’t heard a word I’ve said.”

Regina quickly tries to recover by offering her a tight, close-lipped smiled. “I’m fine,” she said, slipping her phone back into her pocket.

“You don’t look fine,” Muland pressed, narrowing her eyes. “You look a little flushed actually.”

“Oh,” Regina softly breathed, bringing a hand up to her face. She must’ve gone pale with shock.

Mulan continued to stare at her from across the table, tilting her head. Regina tried to ignore her and reached for her glass of wine. As soon as her hand touched the glass she remembered that drinking probably wasn’t the best choice at the moment.

“Shit,” she cursed under her breath as she pulled back her hand.

“Okay, seriously, what is going on with you?” asked Mulan.

“Nothing… or something. I’m not sure,” Regina vaguely replied, shaking her head. Mulan continued to stare her down and she reluctantly sighed. “It’s just… when Tink asked for a tampon I realized I haven’t used one for a while now. I haven’t needed to.”

“Oh… oh!” Mulan’s eyes went wide when she realized what Regina meant. She straightened up in her chair, lips parted with surprise. Pausing she tried to figure out how to respond. She settled on another question.

“Well, how long has it been?”

“Six weeks,” Regina answered, without hesitation.

Mulan blinked and nodded her head. “Okay, that’s a while. You can’t write that off.”

Regina let out a sharp breath and let her forehead fall against her palm. “Oh my god,” she hissed, shaking her head. “I don’t understand how this happened. I’ve been taking the pill.”

Mulan shook her head. “It’s not one hundred percent effective.”

Regina softly groaned as she leaned back in her seat. How could this happen? How could she be one of the few women to fall in the ten percent mentioned on the warning label?

At that moment, Tink returned from the bathroom, all smiles, and dropped back into her seat. She threw a quick thanks in Regina’s direction before looking between their faces and asking, “So what did I miss?”

Regina’s eyes flickered in her direction but she chose not to respond to her oblivious friend.

“It’s only been a week,” she reasoned, shaking her head in Mulan’s direction. “I might not be.”

Tink tilted her head, confused. “Might not be what?” she asked. “What’s going on?”

“Have you ever been this late before?” questioned Mulan, ignoring Tink’s increasingly desperate confusion.

Only once, Regina thought to herself. And his name is Henry.

She shook her head. “No. Never more than a day or two.”

Mulan let out a slow breath and drummed her fingers against the table. She averted her gaze and went silent like she always did when she was coming up with a plan. Ten long seconds passed before she firmly nodded her head and stood from the table.

“Alright, come on,” she ordered, digging her wallet out of her jeans.

Regina and Tink looked up at her, bewildered, as she threw a few dollar bills on the table.

“Let’s go,” she drawled, commandingly, gesturing at them both when she saw they were still sitting. “Now.”

“But we’re not finished yet,” mumbled Tink, still confused, even as she stood from her chair. “What’s happening? Where are we going?”

Mulan leaned in to whisper to her, “We’re going to the nearest drugstore to find out if Regina’s pregnant or not.”

XXXXXXXXXX

They didn’t have to travel far but it didn’t stop Regina from trying to get out of it the whole way there. She could give it a few more days, wait for her period to turn up. Still Mulan refused to let her back out.

“There are certain questions in life that demand immediate answers,” she’d said. “’Am I pregnant?’ is one of them.”

A bell rang over their heads as they passed through the door of the nearest chain drugstore and made a beeline for the family planning section. The entire time Regina felt like her heart was going to jump out of her chest and onto the floor.

They all stopped when they reached the pregnancy tests. There were so many brands and types it gave them all pause.

“Fuck, there’s a lot,” Mulan observed, under her breath. She turned to Regina. “Which one do you want to use?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know,” she mumbled, shaking her head.

She’d never actually taken a pregnancy test before. It’d been too dangerous when she’d been pregnant with Henry. Her mother had been watching her like a hawk and she hadn’t wanted to risk her finding it somehow. Instead she’d just realized it over time, only getting absolute confirmation when she’d entered her second trimester and was finally able to go to the doctor.

Her eyes ran over the shelves of pregnancy tests, all the brands and types. Digital and two lines. Midstreams and cups. First Response. E.P.T. Clearblue. How the hell was she supposed to pick?

Tink grabbed a Clearblue test off the shelf and handed it to her.

“Take this one. It’s the best,” she said, confidently.

Regina tilted her head at Tink, skeptical, until the blonde rolled her eyes.

“C’mon, I have four sisters-in-law and nine nieces and nephews. This is not my first rodeo,” she reminded her. “Trust me. They all swear by this brand.”

Regina took a deep breath and nodded her head. “Okay.”

XXXXXX

After checking out with a slightly judgmental cashier, they returned to the street with the pregnancy test and a liter of water in hand. Mulan started heading back to the Drunken Monk when Regina stopped her in her tracks.

“No no no no!” she stammered. “I can’t take it there. There are too many prying eyes.”

Robin was a good friend to nearly all his employees at the Drunken Monk. They all knew who she was and if any of them caught her with a pregnancy test, they’d be sure to let it slip to him. She couldn’t have that. Not yet.

Mulan groaned. “Well then where do you want to do it? Do you want to drive to your house?”

“No, it’s too far,” she said. Her heart was still pounding, and she felt herself growing more and more urgent. She had to take this test and she had to take it now.

“Well, then where do you want to go?” asked Mulan, her tone growing more than a little impatient.

Tink stood on the street corner, looked all around and then pointed at a shop a little ways down the street. “Hey look, there’s a Greek restaurant over there! I bet they have bathroom.”

Regina looked where Tink was pointing and twisted her lips in displeasure. The place looked old and unlikely to be clean. But still, beggars can’t be choosers.

“Fine,” she said, twisting the cap off her water. “Let’s go to the greek restaurant.”

XXXXXXX

The restaurant turned out to be cleaner than she expected. It was an old place like she thought, open nearly thirty years if you believed the sign above the door. The brown tiles clacked under her heels as they walked up to the counter.

The smell of lamb hit her nose, causing her stomach to turn. Just another sign that she definitely needed to take this test.

An old man with bushy black eyebrows and a stained apron greeted them at the register. “Hello,” he said, with a thick greek accent.

“Hi,” said Mulan. “Can our friend use your bathroom? It’s kind of an emergency.”

She gestured toward Regina, who was still chugging water like her life depended on it.

The old man immediately shook his head. “No, no. Bathroom is for customers only.”

Mulan glared at him. “Are you kidding me? It’s an emergency.”

Tink leaned forward past Mulan’s shoulder. “Actually, I’ll take a gyro wrap with onions and extra sauce on it.”

Mulan turned to her and shook her head. “Really? You’re gonna order a whole gyro just to use the bathroom?”

“Well it’s not like I got to finish lunch. I’m hungry,” Tink replied, nonplussed.

Regina swallowed another gulp of water. “Can I please just have the bathroom key? I actually really need it now.”

The old man passed her a key attached to a wooden spoon. “Bathroom’s down the hall,” he directed, pointing across the restaurant. She muttered a quick thanks before heading down the hallway, her heart thumping with every step she took.

She reached the bathroom in seconds, her gut still twisting as she turned the lock. She went inside and shut the door behind her, falling against it as she let out a heaving breath. Her chest felt tight and she rubbed her hand against her sternum, trying to relieve some of her anxiety.

It’s alright, she silently told herself. Everything’s going to be okay.

She repeated those words over and over in her head, hoping they’d calm her down. As she did she looked around the bathroom. It was small with island blue walls and a bowl of potpourri stationed on the sink counter. Her gaze fell to the mirror above the faucet and she locked eyes with her own reflection.  

She’d never seen herself look so nervous.

Swallowing hard, she tore her gaze away from the mirror and down to the box in her hands. Looking over the instructions, she nodded her head to herself trying to feign confidence.

Seems simple enough, she thought.

She sat down on the toilet, awkwardly placing the stick between her legs as she finally emptied her bladder. Once she was finished she set the test on the counter and set a timer on her phone. And so started the longest three minutes of her life.

She slowly paced back and forth in the room, sending anxious glances towards the test as if it was a bomb that could go off at any moment. In a way, it was. Oh god, another baby? It could change her entire life and in ways that she wasn’t completely sure she was ready for. She loved Henry but raising him had been such a struggle, especially in the early days. Henry. What would he even think of this? He’d been an only child for his entire life. The closest thing he’d had to a sibling was Roland. Oh god, how were they going to explain this Roland. He’s just a little kid, he couldn’t possibly understand what it all means. What the hell are she and Robin supposed to say to him?

Oh.

Robin.

His face flashes through her mind and she leans against the wall. What would he say about all this? If she was pregnant, how would he feel? Angry, upset, excited? They hadn’t talked about having children. They were nowhere near ready to have that sort of conversation. They’d just barely gotten over everything that happened with her mother. Things were finally in a good place again. She didn’t want to risk that.

She ran her fingers through her hair and took a deep breath. How did this even happen? She was on the pill and she took it every day. Didn’t she? She racked her brain trying to think of a moment when she might’ve missed one.

She slapped her palm against her thigh, shaking her head. “Son of a bitch,” she cursed under her breath.

The flu.

Weeks ago she’d had the flu. She’d been practically comatose, confined to bed, her brain had been absolute mush. Three days and she hadn’t taken the pill once. She’d been too busy shoving other medications down her throat. At least Robin had taken care of her… which was exactly how she’d landed in this situation.

She took another deep breath, filling her lungs as much as she could before exhaling.

What the hell was she going to do?

Her phone alarm went off and her heart rang in her ears. She stared at the test sitting on the kitchen sink, her throat tightening with every passing second. Swallowing hard she stepped over to the sink.

It could be negative, she thought to herself. It could be negative and this whole day could turn into a funny story.

Her heart pounded as she took the test in her hands, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. It could be negative.

Slowly opening her eyes, she looked down at the test and felt her knees go weak.

PREGNANT

There it was, clear in bold, digital letters. She was pregnant.

“Oh my god,” she breathed. Her hands rushed out to grip the counter as she started to sway. A sudden rush of nausea fell over her and she bowed her head into the sink and threw up what little lunch she’d had, letting the pregnancy test fall out of her hand to clatter on the floor.

Finally her stomach stopped twisting and she lifted her head from the sink. Wiping off her mouth with a paper towel, she slumped against the wall breathless. A trembling hand went to rest on her stomach.

She couldn’t believe it. She was having another baby.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

After taking another moment to recover - and rinse out the sink - she finally left the bathroom. She dropped the key off at the counter and joined Tink and Mulan at a table where they waited for her with matching expectant looks on their faces.

“Well?” asked Mulan. “What’d it say?”

“It was positive,” Regina softly answered, nodding her head. “I’m pregnant.”

Concern in her eyes, Tink tried to keep a smile off her face. “How are you feeling?”

“Shocked,” Regina honestly replied, her voice breaking a little. She shook her head. “I didn’t plan for this… at all.”

“We know,” said Mulan, “but that doesn’t mean that it’s bad, right?”

She looked over to Tink for support and she immediately jumped in. “Right,” she agreed, nodding her head. She reached out to rub Regina’s shoulder. “You might not have planned this but it’s a baby. You’ll still love it, just like you loved Henry.”

Regina shook her head. “I do love Henry but when I was pregnant with him… it was… it was just so damn hard,” she shakily admitted.

Memories of her first pregnancy flashed through her mind. How alone she’d felt being cooped up in her family’s house. How heavy everything had seemed back then. Not to mention everything that happened after he was born. It’d been a nightmare. One that she’d thankfully escaped.

“Thing are different now,” Mulan firmly reminded her. “You are not some 22-year-old girl who’s backed into a corner by her mother. You’re a grown woman now. With a home and a business and so many other good things that you can offer this kid. This incredibly lucky baby that’s going to have you as a mother.”

“And you’re not alone this time,” said Tink, grabbing her hand. “You have us. You can’t possibly think we’d let you go through this by yourself.”

“I know,” said Regina, cracking a small smile. “I know I have more than I did then but still… I just don’t feel ready.”

“It’s been less than ten minutes, try giving it another hour,” quipped Mulan with a smirk.

When Regina only rolled her eyes, she sighed resignedly. “Well do you want it?”

Regina’s eyes whipped over to her. “What?”

“The baby. Do you want it?” Mulan repeated forcefully.

“Of course I want it!” Regina replied without thinking. As soon the words hit her ears she pauses, surprised at the certainty behind them. “I mean… yes.”

And for the first time since the thought of being pregnant even entered her mind, she stopped thinking of the situation and started thinking of the baby. Her baby. What would they look like. How they would sound. She wondered if they would have her eyes or Robin’s. If they would be a boy or a girl. She thought of things and felt a spark of love ignite in her heart. The same spark of ferocious love she’d felt when she’d realized she was pregnant with Henry. Unplanned or not, this was her baby. And no matter the circumstances she wanted to have it.

She brought her hand down to rest on her stomach and nodded her head. “Yes, I want this baby.”

A smile appeared on Mulan’s face. “Good,” she said. “Then focus on that, on the baby and how it makes you feel. You can figure out everything else later.”

“Yeah,” agreed Tink. “Just take a moment and let it sink in.” Her green eyes sparkled as a grin lit up her face. “I mean, Regina… you’re having another baby!”

A tear fell down Regina’s cheek as she finally let a smile take over her lips. “Yeah, yeah I am.”

Yes, she was having another baby… and now she had to figure out a way to tell their father.

XXXXXXXX

She called in to work on her way home. Her mind was so muddled with baby thoughts there was no way she’d be able to get through the rest of the day.

She’d left her friends with strict instructions not to say a word to Robin until after she’d had the chance to talk to him. God, she had no idea how to even start that conversation. Her first hour at home had been spent staring at the screen of her cellphone, debating whether or not to call or text him. She hadn’t been able to decide so she gave up. Instead, she chose to curl up on her couch with a throw blanket and an album of Henry’s baby pictures.

Flipping through them she marveled at how tiny he used to be, how easily he could settle in her arms back then. So much had changed since then. His head went past her hip now and she doubted she could even pick him up for very long, not that he’d ever let her try. Still, he’d been a beautiful baby. She’d never forget that.

The album was full of pictures of his first few months. Moments when he’d first smiled, first waved, even one of the two them in the hospital after his birth. Joyous occasions. Still Regina looked at them with a twinge of sadness in her heart. No matter what page she flipped she could always be sure that the pictures would only feature the two of them, with maybe the occasional appearance of her father. During his early days, it’d always been her and Henry.  No friends… or father.

It still broke her heart to know that Henry would never know Daniel like she had. That they’d never share a picture or a memory.

Again her hand settled on her middle. She thought of how different things would be for the baby she was carrying now. They’d have a father. One who would love and cherish them for the rest of his days. If only she could manage to tell him of their existence.

She looked up when she heard the doorbell and the turning of the lock in her front door. “Regina?”

Her heart pounds at the sound of his voice. “Robin?”

He rounds the corner of her living room, still dressed in his Drunken Monk t-shirt, looking relieved when he finds her sitting on the couch. She stares up at him, dumbfounded, as he approaches. “What are you doing here?”

“David said you guys left lunch in a hurry and when I called the studio to see what happened they’d said you called in,” he explained. “I was worried. I wanted to check on you.”

He leaned down to give her a forehead kiss and she felt her cheeks grow hot. “Oh.”

Robin looked down at her, concerned. “Are you feeling alright?”

She hesitates, unsure of what to say. Finally she nodded her head. “I’m alright, I’m just...feeling a little under the weather,” she vaguely responded.

“Is there anything I can get you?” he asked.

She shakes her head. “No I’m fine… just… can you just sit with me for a little while?”

“Of course,” he said, settling down next to her. His eyes land on the photo album in her lap. “Taking a stroll down memory lane?”

She chuckles, nervously, and nods her head. “Yeah, it’d just been a while. Thought I’d jog my memory.”

She passes it over to him and he smiles down at the pictures of her and baby Henry. “My god,” he breathed. “I still can’t believe that either of them used to be this small.”

“Or that they’ve gotten so big,” she softly replied.

Robin nodded his head in agreement as he flips to another page. “I haven’t looked at Roland’s baby pictures in ages. It gives me panic attacks seeing how much he’s grown.”

Regina watched him look over the pictures with thoughts of the baby in the back of her mind.

Just do it now, she silently ordered herself. Do it before you can back out.

She reached out to lay her hand on his wrist. “Robin… we need to talk.”

Nervousness flashed over his blue eyes as he looked up at her, put on guard by the solemnity in her tone. “Okay,” he mumbled, setting aside the photo album. “What about?”

She anxiously pressed her lips together as he stared at her expectantly. There were millions of words in the world and somehow not one of them seemed worthy enough to start this conversation. Again she’s reminded that she’d never had to this Daniel. She has no idea how to proceed.

“Regina?” he gently prods.

She lets out a soft breath. Here we go.

“Robin...I…”

She trails off letting the words get stuck in the back of her throat.

For God’s sake, just spit it out!

“Robin, I’m pregnant.”

The words rush from her mouth like a freight train. They fall from her lips and immediately fill the room with their weight. Yet somehow,  even with the almost superhuman force she’d pushed them out with, it still takes ten seconds for them to actually reach him.

He silently stared at her and she watched as the realization of what she’d just said play out on his face. HIs eyes widen in surprise,  his jaw drops and the whole time his eyes never left hers.

He finally manages to speak. “What?”

“I’m pregnant,” she shakily repeats. Swallowing hard she starts to explain, “I took a test today and it was positive. I’m pregnant.”

She waited for him to say something, anything but he didn’t. It seemed as though he left her, retreating into his own mind to have what looks like a very intense conversation with himself.

Unable to stand the silence, she continued to talk. “Look I know that it’s fast, and that we haven’t even talked about kids or anything like th-”

“I want to marry you.”

It’s her turned to be stunned now. His words come so quickly, stopping her own in their tracks, that she can’t even be sure that he’s actually said them. But she sees the conviction in his eyes and feels it in his touch when he takes her hands in his own.

“I mean it,” he said. “Marry me.”

Again her words are stuck in her throat and her heart pounds in her chest. She stares at him, wide-eyed and completely thrown off. God, she loves him. She loves him so much… but this isn’t the way she wants him.

Her eyes drop down to their hands as she shakes her head. “Robin I- we can’t,” she softly stammers.

“Why not?” he asks. “Really why not? I love you.”

“I love you too,” she says, gently squeezing his hands. “I really love you but we can’t. Not like this.”

“Not like, what?”

“Robin,” she says, softly shaking her head at him. “I don’t want you to propose to me just because I’m pregnant.”

“That’s not what I’m doing,” he promises.

“Yes, you are,” she argues. “You know there’s no way you’d be asking me to marry you right now if you hadn’t just found out that I’m pregnant.”

Robin sets his jaw as he stares into her brown eyes. “Is that really what you believe?” he asks, in a low voice.

Slowly she nodded her head. “Yes, it is.”

Pressing his lips together, he pulls his hand from hers and reaches down into his pocket. Regina’s eyes widen when she sees him pull out a small, red velvet ring box. He opens it revealing the diamond engagement ring inside.

He stays silent for a moment, taking in her reaction,before asking, “What do you believe now?”

Regina’s hand flies to her mouth at the sight of it. She looks up at him, tears forming in her eyes,  completely stunned. “Robin…”

He smiles at her, his own eyes growing a little watery. “I’ve had this on me for a couple of days now. The boys helped me pick it out. They’re really hoping you like it.”

She nods her head, a smile growing on her face at the thought of their sons helping him pick it out for her. “It’s beautiful,” she manages to say.

Her throat has gone tight,she can barely hold back the tears in her eyes at she looks down at it. It really is a beautiful ring. It’s a halo diamond ring with a criss-cross band. Simply gorgeous.

“I was gonna wait,” he said. “Plan something more romantic, or elaborate. But if I wait any longer now, you’ll always be wondering if I asked because of you or because of the baby and I don’t want you to wonder about that.”

A tear streamed down her cheek and she hastily wiped it away as she listened to him speak.

“Regina, I’m asking you to marry me because I love you. I love you so much, every piece of you. Your past, your flaws…. your son, especially. I love both so much and after everything that we’ve been through I don’t want to risk living a life without either one of you in it ever again. So will you, Regina Mills, marry me?”

“Yes,” she says, fervently nodding her head. “Yes, I will marry you.”

A wide grin breaks out on his face before he leans in to capture her lips in a kiss. She passionately kisses him back, her heart overflowing with joy.

Regina Mills would always remember the day she find out she was pregnant for the second time. It was the happiest day of her entire life.

[tomeandflickcorner]

OUAT Episode Analysis- Awake

Now, this is what I’m talking about! I’m finally feeling like I’m watching the show I fell in love with again.  It makes me wonder what in the Land Without Magic they were doing during the Patchwork arc.  I don’t know if they’re only upping their game now because of the uncertainty surrounding Season 7, but at least they’re making an effort to end this season on a high note.  And this episode is probably one of my all-time favorites.  Leave it to this show to make me say ‘I have no idea what’s going on, but I’m still loving every second’

As the episode begins, Regina and Zelena are teaming up to bring an end to the Sleeping Curse hanging over Snowing’s shared heart.  Because, thanks to Henry’s little trance-induced sketches, they know Emma’s final battle is fast approaching, and Snow and Charming don’t want their daughter to have to face this battle without both of her parents by her side.  So, the Mills Sisters do this thing with the Snowing heart, placing the two halves into what looks like one of those deep fryer nets and dunking them in a potion that was apparently supposed to weaken the Sleeping Curse somehow.  But it turns out Evil Queenie Poo placed a fine print clause on this new strain of the Sleeping Curse.  And, by the Mills Sisters trying to weaken the curse, they actually weakened Snowing’s heart.  Which means that in a few hours, both Snow and Charming will succumb to the effects of the curse, and they’ll both be asleep at the same time.  I do wonder, however, why Regina seemed taken by surprise from this revelation.  I thought they said Evil Queen passed on everything there was to know about the advanced form of the Sleeping Curse before she headed off to Wish World with Robin Clone.  So, did Evil Queen forget to mention this little detail?  Because that’s a pretty significant element to have slipped your mind.

Regardless, before Zelena goes back to being nonexistent alongside Baby Neal and Baby Robyn (who are once again nowhere to be seen), they go break the news to Emma, along with a video message from Snow.  And it’s clear this is a pretty hefty blow.  Because it’s looking like Emma’s going to have to go into her final battle without either of her parents.  And, since Killian is still unable to return home because of the spell Gideon placed on him, it doesn’t look as if he’ll make it back in time, even though Daddy Charming does his best to reassure Emma that he’s undoubtedly fighting to make it back to Storybrooke.  But that’s when they end up noticing something strange in Snow’s video message. There are flower petals blowing past her.  But they’re no ordinary flower petals.  Zelena, magical protégé that she is, is able to identify the petals as Pixie Petals. Because apparently there are Pixie Flowers now.  Sure, why not?  After six seasons, I’m not even going to question it anymore.  Anyway, these magic flowers are supposed to be super valuable, as they have the power to reunite you with someone you share True Love with. But they can only grow in the presence of a great evil.  

So this is both good news and bad news.  The good news is that they can turn these flowers into a potion that can lift the Sleeping Curse and reunite Snow and Charming again.  The bad news is, the presence of these flowers indicate the Black Fairy is in Storybrooke.  Deciding there’s no time to lose, Emma heads off into the woods to locate some, with Snow accompanying her.  

On a side note, I’m kind of scratching my head why Snow and Charming are still switching off at this point. They know time is off the essence, so why are they taking the time to tag team each other?  Because I’m sure it’s wasting valuable time filling the currently awake person in on what they missed while asleep.  Maybe they’re trying to prepare for the worst case scenario and ensuring that they both get to spend a little more time with Emma while they can?  I don’t know. Regardless, Snow and Emma locate an entire field of these magic Pixie Flowers in the middle of the woods.  But before they can harvest any, the Black Fairy pops up, pretty much being all ‘hi, I’m here to ruin everything.’  And then she orders Gideon to get rid of all the flowers.  

After those two teleport off, Snow starts to feel despair begin to creep in, because she knows that they’ve lost their chance at ending this Sleeping Curse, and Emma’s going to have to go into her final fight without them.  And she also begins feeling guilty for placing the burden of Savior on Emma’s shoulders in the first place.  Emma tells her mother that it wasn’t her fault, but Snow disagrees because of the events within this week’s flashback story.

Back in Year 10 of the original Dark Curse, when everything was still stuck in that Groundhog Day loop, everyone in Storybrooke were doing their standard routine.  Mary Margret is heading down to her volunteer job at the hospital, but she’s bringing down some flowers to leave on the bedside table of John Doe, the comatose cursed!Charming.  Along the way, she bumps into Regina, who is as snippy as always. After Regina delights in being all around nasty and unpleasant, she heads off, and Mary Margret throws out the flowers she was carrying, as her literal run-in with Regina caused the flower heads to fall off.  But that’s when she notices a single flower growing out from the pavement.  Seeing that reminded me of those flowers of hope that grew in the Underworld.  But this flower was apparently one of those magic Pixie Flowers.  Which is interesting, as they’re only supposed to grow in the presence of a great evil.  I guess they’re telling us that Regina was evil enough to conjure up these flowers.  I’m kind of wondering what the script writers are planning to do with Regina, considering they’re giving us all these reminders of how evil and corrupt Regina was.

Anyway, Mary Margret ends up bringing that flower to John Doe instead.  But when she places the Pixie Flower down next to him, the magic of the flower activates, and Charming wakes up.  While he’s initially disoriented, it’s clear Charming’s true memories are intact.  I guess the coma protected Charming’s mind, preventing the cursed memories to sink in.  After a few moments of confusion from Mary Margret, the magic of the flower affects her as well, and her memory is also restored.  Which leads to a rather beautiful reunion.  I’d almost forgotten how much I loved Snowing as a couple, so I really appreciated this moment.  It was a much needed reminder that this was Snow White and Prince Charming, the iconic couple whose love story laid the very foundation of this entire show.

After Snow and Charming are reunited, they decide that it’s time to locate their daughter, Emma.  But that is easier said than done, as Snow points out that they’re the only ones who remember.  And Regina is probably not going to react very well if she finds out they’ve regained their memories.  So Snow, keeping up her persona as Mary Margret, comes up with a cover story that she saw John Doe sleepwalking out of the hospital and heading off into the woods. While Snow leads everyone out on a wild goose chase, Charming makes his way to Gold’s shop to question Rumpelstiltskin on Emma’s whereabouts.  But it seems Gold honestly doesn’t remember anything.  Which puts an end to a headcanon I’ve had up until now.  I thought Gold had always remembered who he was, and every time he acted ignorant of the truth around Regina, like in the ‘Save Henry’ flashback, he was just playing mind games with her.  But it looks like that wasn’t the case, and he genuinely didn’t remember.  Until Charming starts to leave the shop.  Right when he’s leaving, he mention’s Emma’s name, which seems to be the trigger word for Rumpelstiltskin’s memories to activate.  I guess that was the clause he added to Regina’s curse- Emma’s name would be the magic word that jogged his memory.  With his memory restored, Rumple is able to speculate that Snow and Charming were able to remember who they were with the help of the magic Pixie Flower. He tells Charming that if they find another flower, they might be able to open up a door portal that would bring them to Emma, stating that the flower can reunite the user with someone they share True Love with.

While Charming is off grilling Rumple for information, Snow is still in the woods with the party looking for John Doe.  When Archie decides to check the mines, Regina begins to voice her suspicions. She is (correctly) speculating that Snow has somehow regained her memories, especially considering the disappearance of John Doe/Charming.  She decides to try and test Snow by threatening to set off a detonator that will trap Archie in the mines, stating that Mary Margret would never have the courage to stand up to her, but Snow White would.  And this was the point when I regained my respect for Lana’s acting. With this performance, she proved she does remember how to act the part of the Evil Queen.  I was seriously starting to question that, especially after her campy over-the-top performance she gave during the Patchwork arc.  (Seriously, Lana.  What was with the twirling in ‘The Other Shoe?’)

Thankfully, before Snow had the chance to prove Regina’s suspicions by stabbing her with a scissor that she just….happened to be carrying with her (did I miss the part that explained why Snow/Mary Margret was carrying around a pair of scissors?), the rest of the search party show up, with Marco stopping Regina from pushing the detonator button. Taking advantage of the distraction, Snow slips away, meeting up with Charming at the abandoned farmhouse that will one day be claimed by Zelena.  By this point, Snow has managed to find a magic Pixie Flower that they could use, presumably in a deleted scene.  But before they could go off to find the door portal that would bring them to Emma, they’re stopped by Rumple, who informs them that it’s too early for them to act. It’s only Year 10 of the Dark Curse, and they still have 18 more years to wait before Emma reaches the designated age. He advises them to drink a potion he’s brewed that will return them to their cursed states.  I do wonder how Rumple managed to concoct this potion, as he’s not supposed to have magic at this point, but this isn’t the first time we’ve seen magical happenings occurring in Storybrooke during the duration of the Dark Curse.  In the ‘Welcome To Storybrooke’ flashback, we clearly saw Regina Heart Controlling Graham.  Not to mention the magic contained within Daniel’s ring that enabled Jefferson to retrieve The Apple so Regina could make the turnover laced with Sleeping Curse.  So obviously, there is still a residual amount of magic within the town, despite the fact that magic hasn’t been allowed to enter Storybrooke yet.

Initially, Snow and Charming are planning to ignore Rumple’s words and use the magic flower to create a door portal.  When it opens, they catch a glimpse of 10-year-old Emma.  The scene that follows is a rather touching one, with Snow and Charming reacting to seeing their long-lost-daughter, who is busy reading a book while listening to an old Walkman.  (As such, she doesn’t notice them.)  But that’s when Snow realizes that they can’t go through with reuniting with Emma.  As Rumple pointed out, the curse over Storybrooke remains, and if they do anything to alter the prophecy of Emma being the Savior, then the town and everyone in it will remain cursed.  So they decide to let the door portal close and drink Rumple’s potion, resulting in Charming to become comatose again, and Snow to once again return to her Mary Margret persona.

Now, I can see the arguments for both sides in this moment.  On the one hand, how would Snow and Charming’s presence in Young Emma’s life keep her from breaking the curse over Storybrooke?  Wasn’t the original plan be for Snow to go with Emma and guide her along the way?  So wouldn’t that mean the presence of her parents wouldn’t automatically keep her from that path?  Logically speaking, I’d have thought the presence of Snow and Charming would be aiding Emma in fulfilling the prophecy.  Because there would be someone who could tell her what needs to be done.  (Because Pinocchio/August is doing a pretty poor job of that.)  I’m just saying, they’re putting a lot of faith in sheer chance here.   Storybrooke is a town that doesn’t appear on any established map, as it technically doesn’t even exist.  How is Emma expected to even find the place unless someone is there to tell her where it is?

On the other hand, I can see the reasoning behind Snow and Charming’s decision to not go through with their initial plan on reuniting with Emma prematurely.  Where exactly would they go?  If they brought Young Emma back to Storybrooke with them, Regina’s gonna notice there’s a child walking about who wasn’t there yesterday.  That alone would probably raise some alarm bells in her head. On the other hand, if Snow and Charming stayed on the other side of the door portal with Emma, Regina’s also going to notice Mary Margret and John Doe have both vanished.  And that’s also going to put her on alert.  Not to mention it wouldn’t be farfetched to believe she’d start resorting to her old tactic of killing random people to try and draw Snow White out of hiding.  Obviously, this was a no-win situation.  And, to Snowing’s credit, their brief glimpse of Young Emma didn’t give them any indication of what kind of life their daughter was living.   10-year-old Emma is just sitting on the bed, doing her own thing.  All they have to go on is this brief moment in time.  And there was nothing in that moment that would make them believe their daughter wasn’t being well-cared for by a loving pair of adoptive parents.  There was no way they could have known that their daughter had been living on the streets just three years prior to this moment.  Or that she would end up back on the streets 5-7 years later.  So, when Snow and Charming decide to leave things as they were and drink Rumple’s position, they believed they were doing the right thing.  While they knew they were denying their daughter the chance to grow up under their care, they knew they couldn’t forsake the rest of the town. And again, they had no way of knowing from that brief glimpse of Young Emma that their daughter didn’t know love of any kind.  For all they knew, Young Emma might have had a pair of loving adoptive parents.  So, I can’t completely fault Snow and Charming for their decision in this flashback.

 Now, I’ve seen some people say this whole flashback was a retcon, but I really can’t bring myself to agree. While it’s clear this little flashback story wasn’t a part of the original plan for the show, they at least made an effort to keep it within the rules of pre-established canon.  Sure, it does make you wonder why no one made any mention of ‘John Doe’s’ habit of sleepwalking in his coma in ‘Snow Falls,’ but there are worse plot inconsistencies. And it makes me wonder a few things. It eventually became a plot point that S1 David Nolan had blackout periods, when his memories as Charming apparently tried to resurface.  I don’t think it was ever explained what that was about.  Unless we were supposed to conclude his coma kept the memory-alteration aspect of Regina’s curse from sinking in too far, and the blackouts were the result of it.  And, after seeing this, I wonder if Sleepwalking ‘John Doe’ was only looking for Snow like Henry speculated.  Maybe he was also trying to locate that door portal to Emma again?

Returning to present day, Snow and Emma are coming to terms with the fact that they’ve lost access to the field of Pixie Flowers.  Until they notice Gideon missed one.  They hurry back to the loft apartment, where Regina quickly whips up a potion that would lift the curse on Snowing’s shared heart.

However, this is where Killian’s storyline comes into play.  We rejoin him where we left him- running from the Lost Boys.  They eventually surround him, stating they plan on making him pay for what happened to Pan.  To be fair, if the Lost Boys want to avenge Pan’s death, they probably should be going after Rumpelstiltskin, as he was the one who actually killed him.  But I guess that’s just semantics.  Killian, while stating he doesn’t want to hurt the Lost Boys, still draws his sword, willing to fight them if he has to.  Because he’ll do what he must to survive and get back home to Emma.  Before the fight could begin, however, the Lost Boys are all hit with tranquilizer darts. The person responsible for this turns out to be Tiger Lily, who clearly knows Killian somehow.  It’s not really explained how they know each other, though. All we get is a throwaway comment about Skull Rock.  I guess it could be similar to the part in the original story by J.M. Barrie, which had Captain Hook hold Tiger Lily hostage on Skull Rock.  But if memory serves, the Captain Hook in the book was trying to get Tiger Lily to surrender the location of Peter Pan.  I can’t think of a reason why Killian/Hook would need to hold Tiger Lily hostage to locate Pan.  So I’d like to get more backstory on this.

Anyway, Killian is initially pleased to see Tiger Lily, which does suggest they weren’t necessarily enemies.  But then Tiger Lily states she didn’t knock out the Lost Boys because she wanted to help save Killian, right before she jabs him with another tranquilizer dart she had hidden in her fist.  And I’m once again wondering why they couldn’t have placed this scene in the last episode. Leaving off with Killian getting knocked out by Tiger Lily seems like a much better pausing point than him just running away from a horde of angry Lost Boys.  But maybe that’s just me.  Regardless, when Killian comes to, he finds himself tied up in Tiger Lily’s lair. Obviously, he’s less than pleased, and demands to be let go, as he knows Emma is in danger and he HAS to get back to her immediately.  Tiger Lily is completely uninterested in his story and tells him that she needs him to do her a solid by delivering a specific weapon that can put an end to an approaching battle.  But Killian doesn’t give a bat’s behind about Tiger Lily’s war, because he only cares about getting home to his Swan.  It isn’t until Tiger Lily mentions the weapon she has is meant for a great hero called The Savior that Killian’s attention is fully snagged, with him realizing that they have the same goal in mind.  He tells Tiger Lily that the woman he’s trying to get back to is the Savior.  At first, Tiger Lily is skeptical, as she has a hard time believing them man she knew would ever fall in love.  Strange thing is, Tiger Lily seems to scoff at the notion that Killian Jones would fall in love.  I think the script writers made a slight goof there.  Because Killian Jones was always capable of falling in love. Or did they forget about Milah. Personally, I think it would have made more sense for Tiger Lily to question the fact that Captain Hook would fall in love.

To prove his story, Killian shows Tiger Lily the ring he bought for Emma.  That alone is enough to convince Tiger, as she knew Captain Hook would never be carrying around a ring, let alone buy one.  So the fact that he has one proves he’s sincere.  Now that she knows they’re on the same side after all, Tiger Lily explains the weapon she has is a piece of an old wand that was used to banish the Black Fairy to the Dark Realm years ago.  If it can be brought the Emma, then it could be used to defeat the Black Fairy again.  In Tiger Lily’s story, she reveals that she was once a fairy herself.  But after the Black Fairy’s banishment, Tiger imposed exile on herself, feeling like she should have done more to keep the Black Fairy from going astray.  Which makes me wonder what Tiger Lily’s relationship with the Black Fairy was.  Were they best friends once, or is this going to turn out to be a story of romantic love gone wrong?  I suppose we’ll get our answers in the episode after next.

Either way, the question remains as to how Killian can bring the wand shard to Emma, as Gideon’s spell is still preventing him from getting home.  Tiger Lily comes up with the idea of utilizing some of the magic Pan had stored up in his old camp.  But she warns that the camp is being guarded by the remaining Lost Boys.  Despite the unfavorable odds, Killian is not to be swayed, as his determination to return home to Emma is epically strong.  He doesn’t care what he has to face, as long as it gets him home.  So they head off to the Lost Boys’ camp, and while Tiger Lily acts as a distraction, Killian sneaks in to infuse his hook with the magic that can make your shadow become a conscious entity.  But when he’s in the process of cutting off his shadow so it can carry him back to Storybrooke, a random Lost Boy notices him and alerts the others.  Despite Killian’s best efforts, the Lost Boys manage to apprehend him.  Before they can tackle him to the ground, however, Killian is able to pass the wand shard to his shadow, instructing the shadow to bring the wand to Emma.  No sooner are the instructions given that Killian’s hook breaks off from its brace, remaining attached to the shadow’s foot as the Lost Boys overtake him.

Killain’s shadow ends up making it back to Storybrooke, entering the loft apartment just when Snow was about to drink the Pixie Flower potion.  And I adore this entire scene and everything it stands for.  The moment they identify the entity as a shadow, Emma is instantly able to realize its Killian’s shadow.  While the shadow does have a hooked hand, which is probably a dead giveaway, I’d like to think this was synonymous with Killian recognizing Emma’s handprint on sight in ‘Smash the Mirror.’  She immediately stats asking the shadow where Killain is, but being a shadow, Killian’s shadow cannot reply.  All it can do is pass the wand shard to Emma.  Emma is understandably confused, unable to tell what the wand is for.  And when Killian’s hook falls to the floor, her trepidation skyrockets.  Because the fact that Killian is somewhere without his hook doesn’t bode well.  And it is entirely possible that Emma is having flashbacks to that moment in the Underworld, when Hades showed her Killian’s bloodstained, chewed up hook.

So Emma is visibly scared what this might mean.  What happened to Killian?  Why doesn’t he have his hook?  Is he bleeding out in a ditch somewhere?  The shadow, of course, cannot answer Emma’s questions.  All it can do is reach out to stroke her cheek.  This moment, though, was so masterfully done, it’s probably in my top 5 favorite CS moments to date.  Killian’s Shadow is basically just a black silhouette apart from having a pair or white ‘eyes,’  But in that moment, Killian’s Shadow is still somehow able to display sadness.  It’s clear that this shadow contains at least a trace of Killian’s feelings for Emma, and as such, it tries to express it by reaching out to her in an attempt to give Emma some comfort.  Even so, it’s clear that the shadow’s touch is meant as a farewell.  Because Killian, and therefore his shadow, knows that the Lost Boys have no intention of letting him live.

Seconds later, Killian’s Shadow vanishes from sight, which leaves Emma feeling frantic.  She has no idea where Killian is, or what happened to him. She doesn’t even know if he’s even still alive.  That’s when the heavily lethargic Snow makes a decision.  For the first time in a long time, she decides to put her daughter first, instructing Emma to use the Pixie Flower potion to find Killian.  Because the potion can bring the user to someone they share True Love with.  (And hooray for the show for acknowledging that Snow knows Emma and Killian share True Love. I’ve always wondered if they ever told anyone about how they passed that True Love test down in the Underworld.) Snow goes on to explain how she and Charming were able to use a Pixie Flower to open a Door Portal that would bring them to Young Emma, but they decided to not go through for the sake of everyone else in Storybrooke.  But this time, Snow is putting Emma first, by allowing her to use the Pixie Flower potion to find Killian, stating that Killian’s need is greater, and that she’s sure the Nevengers will find another way to cure Snowing’s Sleeping Curse. Before she succumbs to the curse, Mama Snow laments how they took so much from Emma, but she’s not going to take Emma’s True Love away from her.  I have to say, I felt the need to award Mama Snow a gold star for this one. I’d pretty much given up on her in terms of her relationship with Emma.  While this moment isn’t quite enough to negate how many times Mama Snow has virtually ignored Emma unless it involved scolding her for something, it’s a start.  (I still prefer Emma’s relationship with Daddy Charming, of course.)

In Neverland, the Lost Boys are preparing to have Killian burned at the stake.  But our pirate prince is resigned to his fate.  And he has no regrets, as he’s sure his shadow was able to get the wand shard to Emma.  As long as Emma has what she needs to get through her final battle, nothing else matters to him.  At that moment, a door portal appears a short distance away, and Emma charges through, having used the Pixie Flower potion.  After a very brief scuffle, Emma is able to get Killian back through the portal leading back to the loft apartment, and Tiger Lily takes her chance to escape as well.

Once they’re safely back home, Killian wastes no time, apologizing to Emma for not admitting what he did to Grandpa Robert sooner, and for even considering leaving.  Emma insists that he’s already forgiven, acknowledging that she wasn’t blameless either, as she didn’t really give him much of a chance to explain.  But when she starts to move in order to tend to the injuries Killian sustained from his ordeal with the Lost Boys, Killian stops her, stating that there’s something he needs to do before anything else could happen.  As he speaks, he pulls out the ring.  (And props to Regina for stepping away to give them privacy here.)

And so commences The CS Proposal: Take Two, with Killian delivering the typical romantic speech that most proposals feature, stating he wants Emma to know that he will always be by her side, no matter how uncertain her future is.  And, in a symbolic gesture of how they’re equal partners in the releationship, Emma kneels down so she’s on the same level as Killian before accepting the proposal.  

But while the CS engagement is back on, there’s still the matter of Snow and Charming, who are both under a Sleeping Curse.  That’s when Regina gets an idea.  She calls in the dwarfs, Granny, Marco, Archie and a few other townspeople and proceeds to talk about how much Snow and Charming have given up for the town. She suggests it might be time for everyone to return the favor.  Regina’s plan involves everyone taking a little of the Snowing Sleeping Curse upon themselves, theorizing that doing so might end up weakening the curse enough that it would break on its own.  While Leroy briefly voices his skepticism, Killian doesn’t hesitate to be the first to step forward, stating that he owes Snow and Charming his life, as he would have been burned at the stake if Snow hadn’t given Emma the Pixie Flower position. One-by-one, the rest of the group drink the Sleeping Curse elixir.  Seconds after everyone has drunk, there’s magical shockwave, and everyone drops to the ground, with Snow and Charming both waking up.  At first, it looks like the plan backfired, as everyone else is asleep with only Snow and Charming awake.  But slowly, the others regain consciousness as well.  And it’s all’s-well-that-ends-well all around, complete with Killian getting verbal confirmation that Charming forgives him for the death of Robert.

However, in the final moments of the episode, we get a confrontation between Gold and the Black Fairy.  While they had another run-in earlier in the episode, there really wasn’t much to say about it.  Just the Black Fairy popping in to announce her presence and show how much stronger she is than her long-lost son.  She even proves she can take the Dark One Dagger from him without him even noticing.  Although, I’m glad we didn’t have to see Black Fairy insulting Belle, or making her feel bad for sending Baby Gideon away.  Because she wouldn’t have done that if Rumple hadn’t made her afraid for Baby Gideon’s safety.

Anyway, in this second confrontation, Gold reveals he knows Gideon is being Heart Controlled, and tells Granny Black Fairy that Gideon is still trying to resist her in spite of the Heart Control.  To prove his point, he mentions how Gideon intentionally left one Pixie Flower behind for Emma and Snow to find, which indicates he’s trying to fight against the Heart Control. So kudos to Gideon for that. However, I’m now wondering if Gold’s going to bother telling Emma and the other Nevengers about Gideon being Heart Controlled.  Because they genuinely believe Gideon is acting on his own accord.  So how are they supposed to know that Gideon is not actually their enemy?  As much as I don’t particularly like Gold, I will consider cutting him a bit of slack if he does the smart thing this time around and actually level with the Nevengers about this.  If he really wants his son to stay safe, why not inform Team Hero that Gideon is being Heart Controlled, the way Killian was during the Frozen arc?  That knowledge will most likely give Emma and the others reason to reconsider their current ‘no mercy’ stance they’re taking with Gideon. Of course, this is Gold we’re talking about.  He does have a tendency to go through things thinking that his way is always the right way, despite the fact that the Nevengers have a relatively better track record than him.  So, I guess we’re going to have to see which way he goes this time.

(Click here to read more Episode Analyses)

[mermaidsirennikita]

Wait y was nick's casting controversial

The actor who plays Nick, Henry Golding, discusses it a bit here:

http://variety.com/2017/film/asia/henry-golding-talks-crazy-rich-asians-casting-controversies-1202622817/

I’m a huge fan of the book series but I’m also white, so it’s really not my place to say anything definitive, but I can hear what Asian fans of the series are saying and…  I can see why a lot of people feel like Henry Golding isn’t right for the part.  I will say that he doesn’t look anything like what I imagined when I pictured Nick.  I’m fucking BASIC, so I pictured Godfrey Gao.  I’m not well-versed enough on the subject to say, but perhaps he wouldn’t have been the best choice either as he’s Taiwanese/of Malaysian descent?  China and Taiwan historically have a pretty rough history, so I’m not sure how that would have played out.  Then again, Constance Wu is Taiwanese-American, and I do think she’s pretty perfect for Rachel as an actress, so.

Obviously, a big issue in casting Asians in Hollywood is that Asian actors have historically just been sort of thrown into roles because they’re Asian, whether or not they’re of the proper ethnic background for the roles they’re portraying.  Perhaps most famously, Zhang Ziyi, a Chinese actress, played the Japanese lead in Memoirs of a Geisha.  Gong Li also played a geisha in that movie.  Geisha are Japanese–historically, culturally, in basically every way.  The tradition of the geisha is Japanese, the movie is about issues that are specific to Japan (World War II, the fallout surrounding it, and of course the life of a geisha) so… casting a Chinese actress as a the title role is just wrong.  No matter how beautiful that movie is to watch–and I get it, I’m guilty of enjoying it though I know it’s offensive as fuck for plenty of reasons–that will always be a problem.  I mean, it’s especially iffy in that case because of what was happening between China and Japan in World War II.

So, most of the characters in Crazy Rich Asians are of Chinese descent in some way or another, though they might be from Singapore like Nick, Hong Kong, mainland China, etc.  Henry Golding is of Malaysian and European descent.  To put it shortly: he is mixed.  I’ve seen him called Eurasian; not sure if that’s the proper term for him, but the point is that he is an actor of mixed descent.  Nick is not.  Nick’s last name is spelled Young, but if I remember correctly it’s adapted from Yang.  He’s from a very old, literally royal Chinese family and the fact is that in the books much is made of his heritage and how adverse his family is to mixing their ranks even with lower-ranking people in Singapore, let alone white people.  Sure, he speaks with a British accent thanks to his schooling, but the buck stops there.

It reminds me of the whole controversy wherein Amandla Stenberg made some pretty ignorant comments about how she stopped auditioning for the role of Shuri because she wanted to “give dark-skinned actresses a chance”, basically.  When in reality, Amandla doesn’t look anything like a character who would have been descended from an African family with no mingling with other races.  That’s what Shuri is.  Nick Young is a character who does not have a lick of European ancestry.  Henry Golding ain’t that.

For a lot of fans, from what I’ve read, this sort of taps into something I mentioned in my post about Shang in the Mulan live action remake (or rather, his absence). Western movies have traditionally been very hesitant to portray Asian men as male leads, strong and masculine and sexy.  Takeshi Kaneshiro is this total babe in House of Flying Daggers and the movie makes it clear that you are supposed to see him this way, with all of the panning over his pretty face and all of the flirting and the beautiful fighting and just the LINGERING.  He would not (and he and actors who look like him haven’t) get that portrayal in an American-made Hollywood movie.  There were plenty of thinkpieces about Dev Patel being revealed as this object of desire in Lion (a movie that, though it definitely had some beautiful shots that were meant to highlight how beautiful and desirable Dev is, still was fairly sexless) because that almost NEVER happens in American movies.  Asian men are often portrayed as feminine, or creepy, or nerdy, or most of all weird pervs.  Think The Hangover, think Breakfast at Tiffany’s.  

I think it is a bit of a slap in the face for many fans to see Nick Young being cast in a way that could be read as “but not TOO Asian”.  In a movie called Crazy Rich Asians, of all things.  Because Nick is the FANTASY.  That is how I read him, and he wasn’t even my favorite guy in the book.  Like, Nick is probably almost too nice for me, but God I’d date him, insane mother and all, because who wouldn’t?  He’s an aristocrat, he’s handsome, he’s insanely wealthy, he’s old money, and above all he is sweet and kind and caring and he’s even good in bed.  I think many Asian fans of the series seem to be responding to the fact that for all that, Nick still isn’t being portrayed by an actor whose heritage reflects who Nick is.

Again, I’m sure there are counter-points to be made but that’s what I’m getting about this movie.  

[theconservativebrief]

Stephen King knows how to cook up a scare. The key isn’t monsters and mayhem so much as exploring the horrible things of which normal people are capable. That’s why Misery’s resolutely human Annie Wilkes is still one of King’s most terrifying villains. It’s also why there’s something grim about the adults in It and their ignorance of or complicity in several children’s plights, even more so than the dancing clown that pursues the kids.

Castle Rock, created by Sam Shaw and Dustin Thomason, doubles down on that domestic sense of horror. Though the Hulu series doesn’t shy away from the supernatural, its most unsettling elements come from the way its characters begin to twist and turn against each other. Sometimes it’s at the prompting of a greater evil force; sometimes it’s at the prompting of the evil within themselves. It’s when the two mesh that Castle Rock is at its best.

For devotees of King’s work, the title of the series should be familiar, as it refers to the fictional Maine town in which a number of his stories are set, and indeed, almost every resident of Castle Rock features in King’s oeuvre in one way or another. It makes the new series a bit of a game of “spot the story,” but not to worry — a familiarity with King’s work isn’t required to follow along. All you’ll need is a little patience for the myriad storylines to begin to coalesce. At times, it’s a clunky ride, but judging by the four episodes (out of 10) that Hulu sent to critics for review, Castle Rock will be worth the payoff.

Given just how many different stories are being sliced up and stitched back together to put flesh on the series’ bones, some anchoring is necessary to keep the narrative from breaking apart. At some points, mostly when exposition is necessary, the balance seems tenuous —but Castle Rock boasts some incredible performances that help smooth the show’s seams.

At the center of it all is André Holland as Henry Deaver, a death-row attorney who has returned to his home of Castle Rock after a mysterious call tips him off to a strange situation at Shawshank State Penitentiary. As is demanded of at least one primary character in any series like this, Henry is a skeptic, and isn’t immediately inclined to believe there are any supernatural forces at work despite how things in town keep getting weirder and weirder. But as the details of his case — not to mention his personal life — begin to unravel, he’s forced to confront the fact that something may be fundamentally wrong in Castle Rock.

Doubt is arguably one of the most human traits of all, and Deaver’s deeply held skepticism gives Castle Rock a center as other characters begin to succumb to darkness. That darkness is given human form by Bill Skarsgard (recently seen as Pennywise the Dancing Clown in last year’s big-screen adaptation of It). As “the Kid” found in a cage in an abandoned wing of Shawshank — and now Deaver’s newest client — he’s intense in a way that could be read as helplessness and fear, or as a manifestation of pure evil. His duality makes it easy to understand why some of the guards charged with watching him are afraid of him, and why others want to help get him out.

Between the two poles represented by Deaver and the Kid is Noel Fisher as prison guard Dennis Zalewski, giving what is easily one of the most impressive performances on the show despite having a relatively minor role. Zalewski epitomizes what works about Castle Rock; Shawshank is corrupt through and through, with guards regularly abusing the prisoners, but it’s also Castle Rock’s only significant employer.

As Zalewski tells another character early on that if there were a Walmart anywhere nearby, he’d be working there instead, but as things stand, he needs the health care provided by the penitentiary. He’s stuck in a contemporary American horror story, and as he’s pushed and pulled by his environment, his sanity begins to warp. It’s horrifying to watch, especially as that change doesn’t suddenly make him unrecognizable, or unsympathetic.

The closer that Castle Rock hits to home, the scarier it gets, and the show is full of very true-to-life horrors.

The hold that Shawshank has over the town — and the way it’s run as a private prison — isn’t born entirely out of fiction, as America has the largest prison population in the entire world, and its prison system is notoriously fraught.

Then there’s the fact that Castle Rock’s population is, as one character puts it, “lily white.” Deaver is the only person of color in town, and while his singular status is easy enough to forget when he’s on his own, it’s jarring when he’s around other people. It doesn’t help that other characters often comment on his race in a way that comes uncomfortably close to how such scenarios play out in real life.

As Deaver’s own adoptive mother Ruth (Sissy Spacek) struggles with her memory and fails to recognize who he is, she attempts to put him at ease by telling him that she’s not like the others in town, that she even adopted a black son. Moments like this, which touch on the way that Castle Rock is decaying as an isolated relic of American history, are more unsettling than those that suggest that a supernatural curse is what’s really affecting the people who live there.

These moments, of course, require more build-up than simply casting a spell. (Don’t worry, Castle Rock doesn’t have anything so literal as that.) Pacing this build-up isn’t a process that the show always nails, but when it goes to the trouble of leaving clues instead of dumping a lot of exposition on the audience all at once, it’s transporting. Deaver’s story is doled out piece by piece, as is the rising timbre of Zalewski’s distress, and the resulting tension is one of the best things about the show.

It helps, too, that the musical cues have a David Lynchian quality to them; Lynch staple Roy Orbison even makes an aural appearance. A soundtrack full of cheerful oldies laid over the rotting guts of Castle Rock makes for a cognitive dissonance that brings to mind the delirium of not knowing whether to laugh or to cry, which feels fitting given that the characters of Castle Rock frequently find themselves stuck in an emotional rut. It’s a uniquely human conundrum, which is what ultimately makes the series tick.

King’s work is at its most frightening when its monsters are more familiar than abstract, reminiscent of the darkness we might encounter every day in others and in ourselves. Castle Rock manages to capture the fear that comes from recognizing that darkness, and as long as the show doesn’t get too preoccupied with the more conventional horrors lurking just off-screen, it may just become the scariest series on TV.

The first three episodes of Castle Rock premiere July 25 at midnight ET on Hulu.

Original Source -> Hulu’s Castle Rock gets what makes Stephen King so scary

via The Conservative Brief