#planned to give her a Wizard of Oz name | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

miss-celestia13 · 11 months

Text

For Your Entertainment

Jake x MC Smut One Shot

Words: 5.7k

Halloween. The gang head to the Aurora for Phil’s Halloween party. While their friends get wasted and dance up a storm, Jake and Manon battle for dominance. You never truly lose when orgasms are handed out like party favours 🤭

Before I hunker down to panic write smut for a challenge, I thought I’d do some for these two nymphos! As usual, this can be read without knowing the main story these two are from. It’s just smut; anyone can read it and not get lost. It's another dual POV; the names are bolded when it changes!

~*~

Jake refused to believe Manon was wearing what his eyes were telling him she was wearing. She walked into the club like she owned the place. Black lycra hugged her curves like a second skin as she sauntered into the Aurora with Jessy and Lilly flanking her. Jessy wore cat whiskers, ears, and a tail. Lilly was Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, but he hadn’t a clue what Manon was supposed to be other than a pain in his ass or a fresh attempt to give him blue balls. Thigh-high patent leather boots with heels so sharp and tall she could use them as a weapon covered Manon’s toned legs, and a thick leather choker like a collar decorated her throat, drawing his eye and sparking memories of his hands in its place. He knew that was her intention, but it didn’t dull the effect it had on him. He stood stock still, hand gripping his glass too tightly, gaze locked on the wicked woman currently making Jessy toss her head back and laugh.

They didn’t celebrate Halloween the year before; all felt it was too soon after their shared ordeal. It felt like tempting fate to don disguises and party mere weeks after people died. As if she sensed his attention, Manon’s venom eyes latched onto his, and he shook his head once, just barely. No one else noticed, but Manon saw everything when it came to him and never forgot it. She knew everything he said and didn’t say, all that he did and wished he could do before it left his lips. Able to read his mind, he often worried, and she would giggle, wink, and refuse to answer the question whenever he asked if she could. She didn’t say a word, only blew him a kiss before putting her back to him, and he tossed the contents of his glass down his throat. If she was on one of her taunting missions, he’d need more than whisky to get through this night.

A rough hand clapped him on the shoulder. He slid his masked eyes to Dan and smiled lightly, nodding hello as the other man ordered them new drinks. He leaned closer, focusing on the trio of women as they joined Hannah, Thomas, Cleo, and Richy at a table in the corner. Cleo hadn’t bothered with a costume, so he wasn’t the only one without an elaborate getup.

“You’ve got your work cut out for you with that one,” Dan joked, dressed as Batman, and his eyes twinkled as he pushed a glass full of amber liquid to Jake.

Jake gave a wry chuckle, grinning as he said, “Don’t I know it...”

“What’s she supposed to be? A dominatrix?”

“I have no idea. She lives to fuck with me and get under my skin. I just go with it now.” Jake laughed, knowing damn well he delighted in her games and schemes to drive him mad.

Dan looked him up and down, brows furrowing, and Jake knew what he’d asked before it left his bristled mouth.

“And you? I’m drawing a blank.”

Jake wore a black shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, black dress pants, and shoes completed the look. The black satin mask around his eyes kept slipping. It was annoying, but he had no choice in his outfit that night.

“Manon left it out... As I said, I just go with it. It’s easier and usually works out well for me.”

Dan snorted, nearly choking on his drink as Jake sipped at his and relished the slow burn as he swallowed it.

Manon kept one eye on the bar and the other on her friends. Jake and Dan laughed together, it made her heart happy to see Jake enjoying himself. Something about the mask she’d picked for him really did it for her, and she planned to convince him to keep it on when they got home, and he took out his frustration with her scandalous outfit on her willing body. Her dress was so short that she couldn’t bend down and had to be very careful how she sat, or she’d give everyone a show. It was worth it for the dark look in Jake’s lapis eyes when he spied her. There was no scary element to her costume. She’d had more than enough of myths and legends coming to life and had chosen to provoke the life out of her man instead. She was already three tequilas and a fruity cocktail down, and her buzz warmed her through as Jessy brought another round to the table. It was easy to ignore the curious eyes of the other patrons enjoying Phil’s Halloween party as they whispered about her and her friends.

Hannah, who came in a matching Barbie and Ken costume with Thomas, seemed more aware of it than everyone else, and Manon took to giving those nameless folk dagger-filled stares each time their gaze landed on Hannah. They were a novelty whenever they ventured into Duskwood and Manon had two fists full of middle fingers for every judgmental encounter with a stranger in the quaint, twisted little town. Alcohol flowed too freely, voices rising in pitch and volume as the music played louder and the lights went off. A few souls immediately ran to dance, and Manon didn’t object when Jessy grabbed her hand and hauled her up, tottering on her high heels as she followed the excitable redhead. The alcohol made them stumble as they danced, the music a physical thing it was so heavy, a pulse on loudspeaker that matched the pounding of her blood as it roared through her.

The others soon joined them along with people they didn’t know, and Manon chuckled as Richy tripped over his feet, trying to keep up with Jessy. Jake observed from the bar, catching her eye every time she looked over at him and it was like a lightning strike when their eyes met. She and Dan engaged in a terrible imitation of a line dance as Cleo and Lilly spun circles around them. Giggling and shrieking, Hannah shook her head at the two women and Jessy hissed at her, causing Lilly to cackle. Despite the chaos around her, her attention snagged on a scantily clad woman sidling up to Jake at the bar. Wearing the guise of a sexy nurse, the raven-haired woman reached out and slid her hand down Jake’s arm as Manon arched a brow. Jake had his back to her, whirling the instant she touched him, and his smile faltered as he greeted the woman and discreetly stepped back. Not deterred, the other woman flicked her hair over her shoulder and encroached on his space again. Manon saw red but waited. Jake could handle himself, but her hands curled as the brunette wouldn’t take the hint, and something predatory inside her opened an eye at the ownership in the woman’s touch as she patted his arm again.

“Calm down, Nonbon,” Dan said in her ear, and she prided herself on not jumping as she turned to him. He went on, “Hackerman has it handled.”

Turning back to the bar, Jake was indeed pushing the woman’s hands away as she went in for another tease. Manon bit down on the inside of her cheek, catching Phil coming up from the basement with a crate in hand, and an enticing idea popped into her mind as the woman attempting to flirt with Jake walked away with a scowl on her pretty face. Manon crowed internally as Jake’s gaze zoned in on hers, and he lifted his glass to her. She licked her lips, held eye contact for a beat too long, and tilted her head toward the entrance to the basement. Not waiting for his response, she strode for it, heartbeat rising with every step down to the basement door. She had no doubt he’d follow her.

A pull like an invisible thread tethered them to each other, going loose as she lost sight of him then taut as he neared. Her blood raced, veins lighting up as desire clouded her mind. Her breathing quickened, her burgundy painted lips tingled as her mind skipped ahead and she wouldn’t allow him to stop her this time, would take him for all he had to remind him he was hers. Reaching the bottom, the echo of Jake’s footsteps as he descended matched the flickering pulse in her throat, and her mouth watered as she shouldered the heavy door open and slipped inside. She quickly pulled her underwear down and clenched it in hand, standing with her back to the wall beside the door as Jake stopped outside and drew in a deep breath. Lust and discontent at the woman’s audacity were a potent blend, heating her skin and making her reckless as the door slowly inched open.

Jake entered the dim basement, holding his breath. He sensed her before she grabbed his shirt and shoved him against the door hard enough it shook in its frame. Red light gilded her sharp features as she wasted no time and kissed him with enough aggression he knew she’d seen every skin-crawling moment of the stranger’s advances. The thought brought forth a smirk, demanding and forceful; she breached his mouth and kissed the liquor right off his smiling lips. His trousers were too tight, cock rapidly hardening as she rubbed against him and chased his tongue with hers, his fingers playing with the hem of her dress. The hinges rattled as she shoved a knee between his legs, mouth bruising his as his cock gave a painful twitch, harder than he’d ever been as she ground down on his thigh. He took hold of her hips and attempted to back her up to a table he saw before she was on him, but she firmly pushed his shoulders again, and he rocked into the door as her hand slid down the front of his pants, stroking over him and sending what remained of his blood straight to his cock.

Her scent was sugar, and spice, heaven and hell all wrapped up in one heady fragrance and he wanted to thank that woman for making her respond so boldly. A woman on a mission, she didn’t let him breathe or touch her, whatever had gotten into her, this was about him and he wasn’t about to tell her to stop. He tried again, gripping her hips and bending at the knee to lift her, but she broke away, maroon lips puffed by his as she lay a possessive hand over his pounding heart.

“You’re with me, or did you forget that?” She murmured, voice husky as her sea-glass eyes burned hot enough to scald him.

His knees weakened at her sudden show of dominance, head shaking as sense fled and animalistic lust took its place. His cock took all his brains when it took his blood. There was nothing but white noise in his head and he couldn’t hear the music upstairs anymore.

“You’re impossible to forget.” He said reverently, cupping her face to capture her lips in another kiss, but she didn’t allow it. Shaking out of his hold, her mouth was on his neck, leaving a trail of small nipping bites, marking him, claiming him for all the world to see. Something was shoved into his pocket but he soon forgot all about it.

Feverish fingers flicked the button of his pants open, and the zipper was pulled down. She pushed the trousers down over his ass before her hand dove inside his boxers and wrapped around his cock, stroking firmly then gently. Just another way for her to drive him insane and prod at his restraint. He was seconds away from bending her over and fucking her hard, but she gave him a slow blink and dropped to her knees, mouth opening as she stared up at him through her lashes. His mind eddied out, heart bouncing off his ribs as she took him into her hot mouth, cheeks hollowing as he hit the back of her throat and cursed. His head thudded back against the door as he let out a moan; she stroked the base of his cock as she sucked, mouth and hand moving in tandem to work him to the edge as fast as she could.

Tongue swirling, toe-curling suction, long, deep drags of her sanguine lips along his rigid length, and teasingly gentle teeth making him tremble and sink his hands into her silver hair, torn between pulling her off to feel her tight cunt around his cock and fucking her face. She didn’t make it easy to choose, and he was curious to see how far she’d take it before her own desire ate away at her control. He panted, frantic as her hands moved to grip his ass, fingers digging in as she encouraged him to rock his hips into her face, mouth tightening as she took it and didn’t choke like he feared. Her eyes watered as she held his gaze and hollowed her cheeks again. The crown of his cock hit the back of her throat, and an odd wolfish noise came free of his chest as she relaxed to take more of him. She was going to kill him or leave him unable to function. Either way, he was fucked.

Release already shimmered and pooled low in his spine; everything she was doing worked too well, and when she swallowed around his cock, his eyes crossed, and he reflexively tugged her hair, earning a muffled moan from her. He wanted to finish inside her, see her splinter and fall apart before he did, but she wouldn’t allow it. He was merely an observer as she somehow took him even deeper, lips nearly as tight as her cunt, throat constricting and relaxing around him, nostrils flaring as she struggled to breathe, and it made a monster out of him. His head swam and short-circuited as she slowly began to bob over him, swallowing him down, a hand cupping and playing with his stones as he sobbed and shook helplessly.

His vision narrowed, the world blurring as it whited out and black speckled the edges, gripping her head and rocking into her mouth so she took him impossibly deeper. Her defiant moan as he tried to push her away didn’t help matters, the sound so filthy and satisfying he wanted to record it as his cock jumped in her clever mouth and release swamped his system. She wouldn’t have it and tightened her lips so much he couldn’t have moved if he wanted to. It rolled down his spine in rippling waves of flame, igniting every nerve as his body bowed over her, knees turning to water as he came violently down her throat. She took it all. Drank him down, draining him to the dregs as he groaned and growled her name. All of him felt as if someone had flain his skin and he was too exposed, so sensitive he could hardly stand the soft sweep of her tongue as she cleaned his cock of every drop before she finally released him and rose to her feet.

Her pink tongue snaked out, licking at a stray drop of cum at the corner of her mouth, her lips curled into a satisfied smirk as she eyed his quaking form with eyes darker than a midnight sky. The hold she had on his heart and soul never wavered. He leaned weakly against the door, sure his legs would fail him if he moved away. His chest heaved, and sweat trickled down his neck as she finally spoke.

“The next time some woman puts her hands on you, Jake, remember this,” She purred and pushed him away from the door, leaving him staring at nothing as her clacking steps ascended the stairs.

It took him longer than he’d ever admit to wrangle with his numb limbs and wait for his breathing to slow. There was no hope of calming himself down. He quickly tucked himself away, righting his trousers and smoothing shaky hands down his crumpled shirt. His mind still raced, spinning with all she’d done to him, and he did his best to act normal as he left the safety of the basement. A smoky chuckle slipped free as he followed her back to the bar and felt in his pocket to find she’d stuffed her underwear in it. She was an evil little thing. He stopped at the bar to order a double shot of something that burnt his throat as he threw it back and shuddered. Leaning heavily on the bar, Jake jumped as Jessy appeared at his elbow and demanded Phil make her something pretty. She looked him over, brows rising and head shaking. It was an expression that Jessy often wore when she was around him and Manon.

“You look like you lost a war with something that likes to bite,” The redhead said, cocking her head at his wrinkled clothes and kiss swollen mouth.

Jake chased his last shot with a vodka cola and laughed, “I lost a battle. The war hasn’t started yet,” He returned, eyes seeking Manon and catching her whispering to Richy as the man smiled and gestured toward Jessy.

“I don’t think I want to know anything more, okay, Jake. You two have no shame. You’d make a fortune online. Let’s leave it at that!” She jested and thanked Phil when he handed her a bright pink drink with too many tiny umbrellas, a squiggly straw, and a sparkler. She was gone before Jake could summon a response.

He watched her sit beside Richy and Manon, the latter smirking over at him as he noted the flush on her chest and the stiff way she held herself. He knew she would be soaked, utterly fired up, and primed to be fucked until she knew only his name. It wouldn’t take much, her emerald eyes smoldered and she couldn’t sit still, he could probably make her come just by talking to her. Still, he knew she would avoid him the rest of the night and drag out the anticipation until she couldn’t stand it. Beautiful but savage, she would string it out until she begged him to take over. But he couldn’t wait that long. She had a lesson to learn, and he would rejoice in teaching it as he sank his last drink and swiped the keys to Phil’s office from behind the bar when the man’s back was turned.

Manon was well aware she was playing a dangerous, risky game. But it was worth every second of nerve-straining anticipation as he prowled toward their table, a little ungraceful in his stride as he gave their friends a look that made them all clear off to the dancefloor. The power of bringing a man nearly twice her size to his knees with nothing but her mouth lay over her like a glowing shield as she watched his face harden. Manon grinned, leaning back in her chair and crossing her legs to dull the burn between them as he braced his hands on the table and leaned until he loomed over her, masked eyes blown black with lust as they pinned her in place.

“Phil’s office. Five minutes.” He growled, and then he was gone while she blinked after his broad shoulders and bit back a whimper at the unyielding order.

He was a man of few words, but he knew how to wield every last one to fuck with her and make her a needy, whiny mess. She fucking loved it. Five minutes passed at a glacial speed. Every passing second was marked by her furious heartbeat and tapping fingers on the sticky tabletop. She staggered away from the table, glancing at her friends and Phil to ensure no one was paying attention as she escaped to meet Jake and pay the toll she owed for sucking the soul out of his body. His taste still lingered on her tongue, earthy and salty, and a tang of something she always associated with him. She’d been dying to know how he’d taste since they met. Jake always stopped her before he came, preferring to get on his knees for her, but his surprise worked to her advantage, and she finally made her selfish wish come true. The other woman was just the excuse she needed to make it happen, and she wanted him riled up and had hoped he would attack her the moment they were alone. She hadn’t anticipated this outcome, and her filthy mind and slick cunt couldn’t wait.

Phil’s office was up a short set of stairs. The music thumped through the floor as she neared the door, blood roaring in her ears and cheeks heating as she knocked before letting herself in. The thud of her heels on the carpet seemed over loud as she crossed the threshold, but her focus went to the man who held her black heart in golden hands. Jake, seated behind Phil’s desk, arms folded, muscles straining, and ankle crossing his knee, his heated gaze moved over her body like a caress. She locked the door behind her and moved to stand before him. Laughter and joyful cries seeped into the room from below, but she only had ears for him.

“What game are you playing, Manon?” He husked, those singular eyes blazing and filling with smoke as she gave an indolent shrug.

“One I believe I’m winning.” She said to make his mouth flatten, one glorious brow arching as she shifted on her feet.

“You sure about that? I don’t have to touch you to know how wet you are right now.”

Fuck, her thighs were slippery as she clamped them together and replied, “Hmm... What are you going to do about it, Jake?”

He crooked a finger and said two clipped words she followed like a lost puppy, “Come here.”

Rounding the desk, he dropped his foot and widened his legs so she could stand between them. The chair had no arms, he studied her and swiped his thumb along his bottom lip. His other hand patted his knee as he gave another order.

“Show me.”

Catching on, she lifted her leg, balancing her booted foot on his knee and letting her skirt roll up to expose herself to his searching gaze. Hunger, endless and roasting, glazed his eyes as he saw the state she was in after her show in the basement. It always affected her to make him feel as unhinged as he made her feel on a daily basis.

Jake breathed her in and groaned, eyes tracking the droplet of essence trickling down her inner thigh. She wobbled as he reached under her dress, taunting her folds with a fingertip as he cursed and his eyes darkened to navy.

“You should have let me take care of that earlier,” He crooned, filling her empty cunt with two long fingers, and she nearly fell on her ass in shock, but his free arm snaked out and grabbed hold of her.

He gave her two twists of his fingers before pulling free of her and silently urged her to drop her foot to the floor. She held herself very still as he took his time looking her over and committing her to memory. His mind worked away behind his eyes, and she knew he was calculating how much time they had before someone came looking and what would send her over the edge fastest. Her dirty mind supplied many scenarios, each one filthier than the last but she held her tongue. She knew he’d made his mind up when his mouth quirked into a sinful smirk.

“Kiss me,” he demanded, and something inside her perked up at the authority in his tone.

Taking her time, testing his patience to the limit, she moved to stand behind him, sliding her hands under his chin to jerk his head back and kiss him upside down. Inelegant and messy, it was worth the surprise in his eyes before hers shut, and she let him lead the way. His beard scratched her skin, adding to the sensation coursing through her as the sound of a zipper broke through the bass beat thumping through the floor. She didn’t have to look to know he was palming his cock, she had seen the sight so many times she could conjure it instantly, but it didn’t stop the wanton moan from escaping as her imagination sparked vivid and beautiful. Her empty cunt clenched around nothing at the alluring mental image, more wetness stickied her thighs, and her battle for control fell apart with the stroke of his tongue in her mouth.

Sensing he’d won, she bit his smiling lips and whined, a hand falling between her legs to toy with her clit as he wouldn’t do it for her. He hissed, breaking away as she shivered and circled that bundle of nerves to take the edge off. He batted her hand away, ignoring her cry of irritation.

“That’s it, come here,” his voice went lethally low, “Straddle me. Take it all at once.”

Swallowing hard, Manon knew he was fighting dirty, had secretly known taking the reins from him would lead to this, and only just managed to smother her pleased smile as she came around the side of him. Swinging her leg over his thighs, she peeled her skintight dress up to her hips, and her hands collared his neck, mimicking the choker around hers as he swallowed thickly. She hovered over him, hips quivering as he ran the fat head of his cock through her drenched folds and lined up with her entrance. Doing as told, she took him to the hilt in one sinuous stretching slide, body going rigid as her resisting muscles burned, and she felt him knocked too deep to breathe through the sensation like a charge under her skin. His hands held her down as her cunt pulsed around him, forcing herself to loosen to accommodate him and gritting her teeth as he held eye contact through her struggle.

“Move.” He commanded once she softened enough to roll her hips and whimper her impatience.

Jake knew she expected him to take charge, and he would, but first, it was time she learned her lesson, and he was nothing if not a studious teacher. Her cunt clasped him so tightly he couldn’t form thoughts, a perfect fit that always had him half way to release the moment he was inside, but he let none of it show as she moved over him. Slowly at first, lifting in a slow drag and dropping down with a slight wriggle, her vicious eyes flamed as they held his in thrall. He shoved the selfish part of him aside as she bounced and picked up her pace, her mouth falling open as she whined. Her boots caught his eye as her hands flexed around his throat and sent a bolt of fire straight to his cock, like a strippers and high enough that a fall would break something, but he’d be damned if they didn’t turn his blood molten as she pushed up in a taut slippery slide. His nails dug into her hips as he took control, slamming her back down hard enough her teeth rattled, and she yelped in a delicious blend of shock, pain, and pleasure.

He helped her ride him, glorying in the silken glide of her inner walls around his rock-hard cock, and every little spasm they made felt like heaven. Capturing her mouth, he poured all the love and desire he felt for her into the kiss and knew she understood by how her fingers dove through his hair and pulled. Her familiar spiced scent heightened the desire coursing through his bones. Their bodies had always spoken to each other in a silent language, a complex tongue neither could speak on their own, pushing and pulling, electricity zipping between them as they moved. She was soaking wet, utterly saturated, as he lifted her off him, turned her around, and bent her over the desk.

“Hold on, Sweetheart,” Was all the warning he gave her before he sank inside her taut heat, and she scrabbled to find purchase on the desk. Fucking her on Phil’s desk had been his primary motivation for bringing her here. He still remembered those days when Phil asked Manon out or flirted with her in front of him. Payback made it all the sweeter, and he slowed his pace to breathe through the urge to come as Manon keened and griped at him to fuck her. Her boldness and eagerness to share her body with him never lost its potency. He couldn’t put a value high enough on the trust she so readily handed him and never pushed it farther than he knew she could take. An undercurrent of respect and great affection ran between them through all aspects of their lives, but never so tangible as during these encounters. She was hell in a hand basket, a whirlwind of fire and fight, and it was fucking fantastic.

Her grip on the desk slipped and slid as he pounded into her, deliberately tensing her inner walls to drag a ragged moan out of his throat, and he rewarded her with a sharp tap on the ass, smoothing his hand over the hurt so she rolled back to meet his thrust. It didn’t matter what life threw at them. They always had this. He spread her legs wider, wanting to see it as he split her pretty cunt in two, and she glistened like diamonds as she made no effort to hide herself, shameless for him. Her cries turned desperate as his thrusts turned shallow and slow, dragging it out and relishing in how much she needed him. His ego preened as her hands curled around the edge of the desk, knuckles bleaching white as he snapped his hips viciously and chuckled darkly as she pleaded with him to do it again.

Manon resolved to deep-throat him more often if this was the result. Even when she lost, she never really felt like she had. No, every drag of his cock inside her dripping cunt felt like a win. It was building so fast, fire spiraling down her torso to settle low in her belly, and every brutal plunge of his cock only stoked the flames of her ardor. A tremor ricocheted through her and a high-pitched keening tore from her throat as he slammed into her and gave a grunt so rough her skin prickled with gooseflesh. Her inner walls fluttered, tensing herself to hold him captive as she drowned in sensation. He pushed down on her lower back, deepening her arch until her chest was flat to the table, and the angle changed, steeper now, hitting that spot within her that made her cries turn crazed.

Every thrust hit more intensely than the last, wetness flooding from her as she clung to her sanity and vocally urged him on. He made her feel free, unleashed, and uninhibited in a way she never had before. Her usual need for total control dissolved when they were alone, and it made him all the more addictive, she was always chasing the high he could give her. It was all she could do to hold on as he fucked her, his grinding cock, the press of his fingers as they moved to toy with her clit, and his other hand bruised her hip. It didn’t take long for release to spark its warning. His growl when he felt it added gasoline to the fire, devouring her from the inside.

“You’re mine, and I’m yours. Don’t forget that.” He rasped, each word punctuated by another savage snap of his hips.

A whine of pure distress left her then, cunt tensing and relaxing as he fucked her to the edge. The desk groaned under her hands as she clutched it to keep from melting to the floor. Jake’s low laugh as she shook her head didn’t help her calm down. Too much to take for long, she sobbed in relief as her orgasm broke violent and all-consuming, shouts from below drowned out her breathless wail. Her cunt possessively gripped his cock, his ragged moan music to her ears as she flailed under him. Chemistry or biology, she didn’t care what it was between them as long as he kept fucking her like he hated her. She couldn’t breathe, so overwhelmed and unable to form sentences, she babbled as sumptuous heat licked through her. Her entire body quivered and went boneless, every ripple of release dulling the sharp edges of her mind as he pounded her harder to join her in bliss.

It dragged her orgasm out until it was torture to withstand, and when he cried her name, a warning and win, burying himself so deep it forced a scream past her teeth. The filthy feel of him cumming inside her, her shimmering orgasm, and his hands gripping her hips in a fierce hold, made it the best Halloween she’d ever had. Her noise of contentment blended with his whispered praise and words of worship as he slipped free of her still-flickering cunt and turned her around. His lips were on hers, his tongue licking at hers, bristling and biting as he nipped at her bottom lip and possessed her mouth so completely she couldn’t tell where she ended, and he began. Gasping for breath and unsteady on her feet, their kiss turned rough and ravenous, his low groans making her blood sing as he made sure she knew he loved her.

His care for her was the most compelling thing about him. He could fuck her like she was his worst enemy, ordering her around and taunting her until she begged, make her hurt, but he always made sure she felt safe and loved after. She melted into him, smiling into the kiss as he blindly tugged her dress over her ass and grabbed handfuls of it once she was covered. He slowed it down, taking his time to undo her and make her heart grow wings with every tender brush of his tongue. His hands ran up and down her spine, massaging gently as she sighed happily. They kissed until she was sure he could go again, but they had pushed their luck enough, and she could wait until they got home.

They righted the room and themselves as best they could, but her overbright eyes and the sheen of sweat on her skin would give her away. Secret smiles were shared as they checked the office for anything that would point to them. Leaving together, Jake locked the door, and they descended the stairs, the music was a solid wall of sound as he went to the bar, and she went to the bathroom to clean up. When she returned to him, perched on a stool, Jake had a drink waiting for her, a sly smirk on his bearded mouth, and she didn’t hesitate to jump in his lap as they watched their friends enjoy themselves. Phil kept catching her eye, but she avoided him, wanting to giggle childishly at the thought of admitting what they’d done upstairs.

Leaning her head on his shoulder as he stroked her hip with his thumb, she said, “I love you. I’ll win next time, though.”

Jake’s laugh made her grin as he held her tighter and lowered his head to her ear.

“We’ll see, Sweetheart. We’ll see. Love you, too.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Thank you for reading ❤️ I hope you enjoyed it 🥰 this will most likely be the last one shot for a while. I have my sequel to publish, a smutty challenge and a battle to win! Busy. But I’ll be back at some point. Thank you, have a lovely evening ❤️

If you enjoyed this, I have many more smutty JakexMC one shots on my Masterlist 🥰

36 notes · View notes

caswensworld · 3 months

Text

Let’s get Wicked

Introducing Thea! The daughter of the Wicked Witch of the West. We’re gonna say after the events of Wicked, she found solace in Auradon until Beast trapped her on the Isle

Thew is a realist, she won't try to think of ways to be positive when she grew up on the Isle, she knew how hard it is so she doesn't try to have hope. She is evil and has her Coven. While a villain, Thea has a sense of justice and fairness. And even with the Barrier down, she's not ready to let go of the pass just yet

Thea is a pragmatist, molded by the harsh realities of the Isle. She doesn't indulge in wishful thinking; she accepts the world as it is, even if it's bleak. To her Coven and her mother, Thea is unwavering in her loyalty. She would do anything to protect them, even if it means defying the established order. Despite her villainous upbringing, Thea possesses a strong sense of justice and fairness. She believes in truth and exposing the real villains, even if it means going against the grain. Thea is not one to be pushed around. She makes her own decisions and stands by them, even if it means facing opposition. Thea is quick to anger when she feels injustice is being served. She can be impulsive and prone to acting before thinking, but her heart is always in the right place.

Thea is a striking young woman with vibrant green skin (but knowing Disney, if this did happen, they’d probably just give her green markings on her skin), a legacy she proudly wears. Her dark brown eyes hold a shrewd intelligence and a hint of mischief. Her long, black braids are adorned with emerald-green tips, a subtle nod to her heritage. Thea's fashion sense is a mix of rebellious and elegant. She favors ripped leather skirts, knee-high boots in shades of emerald green, gold, and black, and always tops it off with a miniature witch hat.

**Background**

Thea is the daughter of the Wicked Witch of the West, a legacy that has shaped her life. Growing up on the Isle, she witnessed the cruelty of the King Beast and the unjust imprisonment of villains. Her mother taught her to fight for what she believes in, to never accept injustice, and to always seek the truth.

While Thea is a villain, she doesn't subscribe to the same cruelty and malice as some of her peers. She believes in fairness, even for those deemed villains. Her mother's imprisonment, orchestrated by the King Beast, fueled her desire for justice. She plans to travel to Oz, expose the King Beast's and the Wizard's true nature, and clear her mother's name.

**Other Relevant Information**

Thea possesses powerful magic, inherited from her mother. She is skilled in various spells and potions, making her a formidable opponent.

Thea has a close-knit Coven of friends and allies on the Isle, who share her beliefs and support her mission.

Thea's journey to Oz will be fraught with danger, forcing her to confront her own beliefs and biases. She will have to navigate a world where good and evil are not always clear-cut, and where she might be forced to make difficult choices.

Thea is like Uma. At least, that’s what I wanted. A character one of redemption, justice, and fighting for what you believe in, even when the odds are stacked against you.

#leah sava jeffries #wicked witch #wicked #wicked witch of the west #disney descendants #descendants #descendants original characters #descendants oc #we went to Wonderland now let’s go to Oz #the wizard of oz #oz #witch

11 notes · View notes

gliyerabaa · 6 months

Note

i Heard you wanted writing prompts...how about #1 from this prompt list if you're feeling up for it!

YAY tysm!! :) gelphie angst, my beloved. little For Good angst for a monday night <3

prompt: “Since when did you ever care about me?!” “Since fucking forever, you idiotic dunce!”

will be taking slight liberties with the dialogue again lol

"Promise me you won't try to clear my name--"

"What?! No, Elphie, you can't just give up! I have the power, the- the influence, I can still make this right!"

"Why?! Why are you so determined, now, to fix this? You had your chances and you blew them!"

"I know, and that was absolutely foolish of me." Glinda says. It stings, admitting she's wrong. But it's the right thing to do at this point. How else will Elphaba listen to her?

Glinda looks up, and Elphie is off in some corner, preparing a bucket of water and her broomstick. What ever is she planning? It doesn't matter-- she knows she's running out of time.

"I care about you."

"Since when?"

"Since forever, you idiot!" Glinda feels tears pooling in her eyes, "Why can't you see that?"

"Hm." Elphaba grumbles, "It's hard to tell if someone cares when they spend five years working for the enemy."

"Fair enough." This will be a fruitless argument, so Glinda lets Elphaba have her way. "I promise you, Elphie, I won't clear your name."

"Thank you, my sweet. We will be reunited again someday, I swear it."

They share a parting kiss, and Glinda watches on in agony as Elphaba dies at the hands of a child. In her heart, she knows it's all just smoke and mirrors, she knows that if she waits long enough in the castle, Elphie will come out from whatever magic hiding place she's chosen and they'll get to live their happily-ever-after.

But Elphaba never appears. And then, the Wizard's guards come looking for her, to see that wretched farmgirl off.

And after she sends Dorothy back to her star called Kansas, she stands in front of Oz and tells them the story of the Witch of the West, and how she was not as Wicked as the world made her out to be.

She feels guilty, breaking the promise she'd made to her dear Elphie.

But then again, Elphaba hadn't kept her promise, so why should she?

#wicked #wicked the musical #gelphie #writing prompts

19 notes · View notes

mad4turtles · 2 years

Text

big bro michelangelo

part 2/2

(part 1 here)

---

Mikey understands why Splinter gets pissed whenever they wake him up from a nap.

Sleep is amazing.

After rolling out of bed and treating himself to the longest shower he's ever had, he returns to the t.v room to find the toddlers and Splinter all asleep in the fort. They'd left it up overnight at the behest of the kids, and Splinter hadn't complained once about the room being overtaken or missing his shows as he'd sat with them, picking up from where Mikey had left off in the Wizard of Oz. Mikey had been herded to bed early by April after wolfing down a whole pizza courtesy of Cass—a not completely rare bout of kindness—and Splinter had still been in the fort when he left, the little ones taking up his lap and shoulders as they listened to him read with wonder in their eyes.

He's just in time to watch as Draxum carefully removes the book from where it'd fallen over Splinter's eyes and lifts the blanket to cover all four of them. Leo shifts in his sleep, brows furrowing until Draxum hushes him, gently stroking his head until the little slider settles down again, cuddling against Donnie. Automatically, Donnie shifts to cling to Leo. Draxum leans back on his heels with a smile.

Mikey has never whipped out his phone so fast in his life.

Draxum still notices, though, and the poisonous glare he sends the box turtle is dampened only by the pink blooming across his cheeks. He points a warning finger. “Not. One. Word.”

Mikey waggles the phone in his hand. “Get Dad to double my allowance, or this baby goes viral.”

Draxum splutters. “Wh—why in the—why in Spirits' name should I bend to the whims of—?”

“I took care of three screaming mutant ninja toddlers by myself four hours before your woolly ass got here,” Mikey says with dead eyes. Draxum goes very still. Good, 'cause Mikey ain't playing. “I deserve a little somethin'. Even if I gotta blackmail my way to get it.”

Draxum stares. “I'll talk with your father.”

“Thanks, Papa!” Mikey chimes, skipping over to give his step-father a hug and a kiss on the cheek he can't dodge fast enough. The sheep yokai rolls his eyes and pats Mikey's hand.

“I'd say I'm proud, but quite frankly, Michelangelo, you frighten me.”

“Dr Delicate Touch can be a petty bitch.”

“Language.”

“You don't really care.”

“I really don't.”

They leave the sleeping tots and Splinter in the fort and head for the kitchen where April and both Jones' are waiting. April smiles when Mikey steps through and pulls him in for a cuddle. “Sleep well, big bro?” she asks.

“Like a baby, sis,” Mikey says, squeezing her waist and lifting her off her feet to make her laugh before setting her down to take the plate of fresh pancakes Casey offers him, He knew he'd smelled something good. “Thanks, Jr. Damn, these look fine!”

Casey smiles in that shy, thoroughly pleased way that melts Mikey's insides like goop. “Learned from the best,” he says. “Figured you'd be happier going over a game plan with a full stomach.”

Hopping up to sit cross-legged on the table, Mikey takes a big bite out of the pancake stack and sighs, blissed. “A man after my own heart,” he says around the mouthful. “Bless you, Casey Jones Jr.”

Draxum huffs a laugh poorly disguised as a scoff. “Let us continue with the plan. As Michelangelo told April over the phone, Hypno-potomus supposedly picked up a book of spells and cast a random one during battle. He had no idea that it would result in... well, that,” he jabs a thumb at the doorway where their napping charges lie, “which means tracking him down and forcing him to reverse the spell would be pointless.”

“What if we persuade him?” Cassandra asks, playing with a kunai with a terrifying grin splitting her face. Mikey has learned to stop asking where she keeps them.

April glares. “Cass, put the knives away. We're not torturing him.” Cass obeys, not without muttering and pouting. “Drax just said there's no point. What would beating the answer outta him do if he don't even got the answer? The spell was random, and besides that, he's kinda hard to find.”

“He's roommates with the worm guy, is he not?” Draxum asks. “Or am I mistaken?”

“Pretty sure they're married now,” Mikey says after swallowing.

“Oh. Congratulations to them, then.”

“Back on topic,” Casey cuts in, hands splayed on the table the way Mikey has seen Leo do a dozen times, and it makes him smile. “Hypno might not know what he did, but we can find out how to undo it without him. All we need is the book of spells or another book on how to break this one spell.”

April perks up. “Oh, right! Then Draxum can do his Mystic thing and bring our boys back!”

“And bring an end to this adorable torture!” Cass declares, waving her kunai (again) until Casey puts her arm down with practised patience. Draxum rolls his eyes again, and Mikey—

Mikey feels torn.

He misses his big brothers. He misses Raph's big booming laugh and hugs, Donnie's dry humour and the tangents he goes on about whatever special interest he has that week, and Leo's stupid jokes and reassuring smiles. He wants all that back, so bad it hurts. But...

Mikey sets his empty plate on the table. He needs his team and his big brothers back. He wants them back. But not at the cost of their happiness, this new (old) innocence...

“Mikey?”

Mikey realizes with a start that everyone's looking at him expectantly. Except for April, her brows furrowed in concern.

Right. Game-plan. Get his brothers back, and get the team back.

He shakes himself and smiles. “Sorry, zoned out. What did you say?”

April regards him a moment before smiling. Of course she knows. Big sisters just know everything. “I asked if you knew where we might find a spell book like what Hypno used? Or something that'll tell us how to break it?”

Mikey freezes. “... I may have an idea,” he says slowly. “There's... um... there's always the Mystic Library—”

“Of course!” Draxum exclaims. “The fountain of all mystical knowledge! How could I forget? I know exactly which section to look... but I cannot accompany you there as I am still not entirely welcome in the Hidden City, let alone the library.”

Mikey feels sweat gather along his brow. “Yeaaahh, about that—”

Draxum's smile falls like bricks. “Spirits above, Michelangelo, so help me—”

“We maybe kinda sorta might be banned?”

Draxum sighs, slapping a hand over his eyes. “Of course you are. I'm surprised you've not been barred from the entire Hidden City at this point.”

“You're one to talk, goat man,” Cass snips. Draxum ignores her.

“I'm sure they'll let you back in for an emergency, right?” April ventures. “I mean, who bans someone from a mystic library?”

“Library?”

Every head spins to face the doorway. Donnie, rubbing his eye with the heel of one hand, the other holding a droopy-eyed Leo, stares up at Mikey on the table. He hadn't heard them get up!

Baby ninjas. No wonder Dad went grey so fast.

“Mike's goin' to library?” Donnie asks, more awake now as hope and excitement sparkle in his eyes. He hops from foot to foot, jostling Leo. “Can I come? Can I, can I, please, please? Can I see library, Mike?!”

Oh hell no.

Desperate, Mikey turns to the other adults and teens in the room. None of them look at him, suddenly very interested in their phones, claws or, in Cass' case, the damn kunai, whistling loud and tuneless.

Mikey feels rage.

He turns to Donnie with a beaming smile—“Sure thing, Donnie D!” he says through his teeth.

“Can I come, too?” Leo asks, which throws Mikey for a loop until Leo continues with a yawn, “don' wanna let Don go 'lone. Gotta... gotta stay together. Rahpie comes, too.”

That breaks Mikey's heart and warms its shattered pieces all at once. Now he really can't say no.

“Of course, Little Blue! Go wake up Daddy if he isn't up already and let him help y'all get dressed! We're goin' on a feildtrip, baby!”

Leo and Donnie cheer with their whole bodies, throwing their arms up and stomping their feet before running off to find Raph and Dad. Mikey watches them go, love and warmth in his chest.

He turns to the others and the warmth turns to ice. “Expect a visit from Dr Delicate Touch in the next twenty-four hours.”

The sound of four people gulping has never sounded so sweet.

~0o0~

The bat yokai librarian doesn't look overly happy to see him as she peers over her desk.

One look at the three wide-eyed, slack-jawed toddlers holding his hands and clinging to his back softens something in her gaze, but her soft tone is strict when she says, “I don't even want to know, do I?”

Mikey smiles and shrugs helplessly, shaking his head.

“If I allow you to browse, I trust you will be quiet?”

“Yes, ma'am,” Mikey whispers.

“And your young charges?”

Mikey looks down at the little ones. “Remember our talk, lil' bros?”

Three heads bob in rapid nods, putting their fingers to their lips. “Library voices, shh,” they whisper.

Mikey beams. “Rad.”

The librarian almost cracks a smile. No one is immune to turtle tot cuteness. “Very good. You may proceed. But one word and all of you will be in the Kiddie Room.”

Mikey's pretty sure he's the undisputed ruler of the Kiddie Room, but he's not going to chance it today. He salutes and turns to scour the shelves Draxum told him about, but Donnie hops off his shell and races toward the desk. Mikey bites his lip against a shout, but he hisses Donnie's name frantically. He goes ignored.

Donnie carefully taps the pedestal. “S'cuse me, miss library lady,” he whispers.

She raises a brow. “Yes?”

Donnie beams, hands flapping by his sides. With his glasses on, sizes too big for his face, he looks younger than he is and far cuter than he has any right to be. “Thank you very much for letting us come to your beau—bootiful—boot—pretty library,” he chimes quietly. “I love books so much!”

The librarian stares, eyes slightly wide. And then her smile is small but real. “You're quite welcome, young man. Take as long as you need to.”

Donnie flaps his hands again, excited. “Thank you, I love you, buh-bye!” he chirps and trots back to Mikey, hopping onto his back and clinging, muffling giggles against Mikey's hoodie.

It's all Mikey can do to keep from squealing, eyes welling up. The librarian doesn't seem to be faring any better.

It takes forever, especially with three excited babies all wanting to do their own thing and trying to run off, barely evading the Hush Bats' wrath, but he finds the section he's looking for and has the boys sit in a reading nook with colouring books he'd brought with him. Donnie forgoes them and settles in a massive armchair with Sherlock Holmes's complete collection on his lap.

Mikey finds the book he's looking for after half an hour, and by then, he's exhausted, eyes burning, limbs aching as he plops onto the floor with Leo and Raph. They're quietly discussing who would win in the ultimate fight between Lou Jitsu and Jupiter Jim, with Leo on the side of their father. He smiles as he skims the index and flips through the pages.

Ah-ha! There! De-Ageing Spells, hell yes!

Grinning, Mikey reads. And reads. And...

His smile falls.

Oh.

He lifts his head from the book, turning to face the toddlers smiling and softly giggling in their own little bubble, safe and sound from reality's sharp, unforgiving needle.

His heart sinks.

Oh, man.

~0o0~

The good news is the spell is easily reversible; no blood oaths or sacrificial virgins required. All they have to do is want to be big again, remember who they're supposed to be and let go of who and what they were.

The bad news is it's been three days since they went to the library, four since they were changed.

Mikey knew from the moment he'd read the article. They don't want to change back.

He doesn't blame them.

It's easy to forget sometimes that they're teenagers. Mikey is fifteen, for crying out loud. Raph is—should be—seventeen, a kid in a law that will never touch them, not really, as they are. They've saved the world from evils beyond comprehension, have nearly died on many occasions, and they're not even legally allowed to drink! Much as they hate to hear it due to whatever dumb hormones tell them otherwise, they're children. They shouldn't have to do any of this. That's why most superheroes in media are adults—severely messed up adults, but still!

Why should Mikey take this away from them? Why should anyone take it away or force them to want to let it go? The world will always be in danger, so why can't someone else 'rise to the challenge' and defend it? Why does the world have to fall on the shoulders of kids who barely get the chance to be kids? Why can't they be selfish for once?

Tensions were high in the two years following Splinter's decision to make Leo the leader—a position Leo had never wanted and Raph was doing so well in despite the challenges—and then things change after the Krang. Leo cracks fewer jokes and trains more often, Donnie triple-checks and quadruples his time in the lab pouring over defences, upgrades and fail-safes, and Raph is twice as jittery at night, can't sleep without a light on or checking on his family several times each night. Not that Splinter is much better—Mikey hears him every night, feigns sleep when his father tucks him in and kisses his cheek, lingering a moment before moving on to the next room.

This is the happiest he's seen his family in what feels like forever.

But as much as Mikey wants his brothers' happiness, his true wish is just as selfish. And he feels horrible for it, he does. But—

“I want my big brothers back,” he says, muffled in the folds of Draxum's robe on the night of day five. Sitting on his bed, he clings to his stepfather with all his strength and lets the tears fall. Draxum holds him with one hand on the back of his head, the other rubbing circles along his shell. It's a show of affection he's still getting used to two years down the line, and as much as it's appreciated it only makes Mikey cry harder.

Raph used to do this. Used to pick me right off the floor and crush me with all the love he had in him.

“I don't want them to hurt anymore,” he says through his tears, “I don't want them to fight or, or carry everything all the time 'cos they feel like they have to. I want them to be happy. But... I miss them! I miss my big brothers and I want them back! I don't wanna be the big brother anymore!”

“Hush,” Draxum soothes, holding Mikey tighter as he cries himself out. “I don't know your brothers as well as I'd like to, but I do know how much they care about you. A part of them knows and remembers who they really are. A part that knows this can't last, no matter how much they want it to. The past is in the past, and all that's left is the present and what we have to look forward to. They won't stay like this forever, Michelangelo.”

Mikey sniffles messily, not that Draxum seems to care about the mess he's made of his robe. “That's... that's prolly the wisest thing you've ever said, Papa,” he says. Draxum huffs fondly, but Mikey's smile dims quickly. “What if they do? What if they... what if they love being kids again more than—?”

“Don't you dare,” April hisses from where she's suddenly materialized in the doorway, “finish that sentence, Hamato Michelangelo.”

Mikey stares at her. Draxum loosens his grip and stands in time for April to take his place on the bed, taking Mikey's face between her hands and giving him a firm shake.

“Mikey,” she says, eyes burning like coals into his. Her worry is buried deep beneath, but Mikey sees it through the cracks. “Your brothers adore you. If you asked for the moon in a basket or the sun for a night light, you bet your little ass they'd find a way to make that happen. Ain't nothing in this world more important to them than you. No amount of Jupiter Jim marathons, bedtime stories or piggyback rides could ever hold a candle to having you as their little brother. They'll break this spell no matter what it takes or how long. You know this, I know this—hell, Draxum knows it!”

“Why do you sound so surprised?”

“So hang in there, okay?” She smiles, pressing a kiss between his eyes and wiping his tears away with her thumbs. “Give 'em time. They'll be back before you know it.”

Mikey breathes in deeply and tries to believe. He nods. “Okay,” he croaks, throwing his arms around his sister's neck when she pulls him in.

(Outside the door, a pair of tiny feet quickly scurry away.)

~0o0~

He takes his eyes off them for a second.

They're playing in the park, hanging off the monkey bars and the swing set, and Mikey, sitting on the bench, reaches for the buzzing phone in his pocket.

Then Leo shrieks his name, and terror freezes Mikey's blood.

Hypno has Leo and Raph by their hoodies. Donnie screams at him to put his brothers down, kicking the mutant hippo's shin to little effect.

“Aw, aren't you lot adorable?” the magician coos. “Can't believe you're still so tiny, but, I'll take what I can get. Which is you lot, to get Orange over there to come running right into my trap! You won't be much of a nuisance if you're all pint-sized tots!”

Mikey doesn't hear what the fat creature says over the ringing in his ears. His body moves on its own, faster than he's ever moved in his life, and even then, he's too late. Hypno vanishes in a puff of purple smoke.

Leo, Donnie and Raph are gone, too.

Mikey stares at where they'd stood. Donnie's glasses lie forgotten on the wood chippings, the lenses cracked. Carefully, Mikey scoops them up. He shuts his eyes and grits his teeth.

When he opens his eyes, the world is red.

~0o0~

He uses Donnie's tracker to find them—thank god for Donnie's paranoia and mildly invasive meddling tendencies. They're holed up in some run-down warehouse, empty save for boxes no doubt filled with Hypno's assortment of traps, support pillars that creak ominously to the time of dripping pipes.

And, of course, Hypno and his little-big brothers, tied up and crying out for him from the little cage behind the magician.

The world is still red around the edges, and Mikey ignores whatever villainous spiel the hippo spouts, nunchaku ablaze and spinning.

“Give. Me. My. Brothers.”

Mikey's voice sounds foreign to his ears, and whatever look Mikey has on his face makes Hypno stammer into silence and take a step back. “Whoa, nelly, that's quite the look you've got on your face! I-I'm actually starting to regret my decisions leading up to this moment.”

“Mikey's gonna kick your big fat butt!” Leo cries, struggling against the ropes binding him shell-to-shell with Raph and a sniffling Donnie.

“Yeah! He's gonna beat ya up, good, ya—ya big butt head!”

“B-Bitch!” Donnie says through his tears.

Hypno looks at them flatly. “Right, I'm over the regretting thing. Let's dance, shall we, Orange?”

Mikey scowls. “Gladly,” he hisses, and charges.

(He understands Raph's rage, now, barely hidden under layers and layers of love. He wonders if it's this scary to him, too, knowing how much of it he has and what it does to you when the people you protect are in danger.

Perhaps that's what ultimately freed Raph from the Krang that day. It's what led Mikey to Leo, after all.)

The fight is as messy and chaotic as usual. But Mikey's not having fun, and Hypno won't let him get close to the tots until he's one of them. He must've finally studied the book, which is just great, really, and adds fuel to Mikey's growing fire. Figuratively and literally.

An explosion gets too close to the kids, and Donnie wails at the loud noise.

Then Mikey gets angry.

He traps Hypno in the extended chains and swings him straight through a pillar. It's the straw to break the camels' back as the whole building crumbles around them.

Mikey remembers himself and nearly chokes on his horror. What did I just do?

He hears his brothers scream his name. He shakes himself and sprints to the cage, tearing it open with sheer adrenaline and slicing the ropes away with the jagged piece of metal that bites into his skin. He ignores the sting and pulls the crying tots into his arms.

“It's okay, guys,” he says, dizzy with relief—he's got them, they're safe, he'll get them out, and they'll be safe, they'll be okay—“It's okay. Big bro Mikey's here.”

Something gives above their heads. Mikey looks up in time to see the giant slabs of concrete hurtling towards them.

He doesn't think twice. He shoves the boys as hard as he can, and—

And he blinks awake to a ringing in his ears and copper in his mouth. He feels numb from the waist down.

He's buried under the rubble.

His vision is spotty with hints of actual red—blood, most likely—but he can see the boys. They're not hurt. Covered in dust and soot from the collapsing debris and crying their hearts out, but they're fine.

They're okay. Good.

“Go on, guys,” he coughs. Raph stops tugging his arm to stare at him with open horror. It's not something he ever wants to see on a toddler's face, but there's not much he can do about it now. “T-There's... not much time. Y'gotta get outta here, the buildings' comin' down...”

“NO!” Donnie shrieks, stomping his feet, big fat tears dripping down his chin. “No no no! Not leaving Mikey, no! Not leaving you!”

“Stay together!” Leo sobs. Mikey wants to reach out and hold him, but his left arm's buried under the rubble, the other clutched in Raph's trembling hands. “Gotta help, Mike, gotta—gotta get back to normal 'n be big together again!”

Ah. It was Leo who overheard. Heh. Baby ninjas.

Mikey huffs. “S'okay, Little Blue,” he says, words slurring together as it gets harder to stay awake. “You guys... It doesn't matter how big or small you are. I love you anyway. I'll always love you because you're still my brothers.”

He smiles big and wide, fighting tears. “Big Bro Michelangelo loves you. Always.”

They stare at him, masks soaked with tears. It's not the best thing to see right before you die, but Mikey thinks it could be worse.

He can't keep his eyes open anymore. He feels Raph drop his arm. Good. They're leaving. He hopes Donnie can still work a phone to call Dad. Hopes they don't blame themselves.

He hears another pillar give above him, and he knows it's over.

They'll be okay. Mikey did what every good big brother is supposed to do. He did good.

There's a familiar whirr of machinery, a crackle of energy that Mikey knows as intimately as his own, a flash of purple—

“FIBONACCI!”

Mikey's eyes snap open. He looks up.

Donatello stands over him—sixteen years old, a pillar of armour, defined muscles and gangly limbs—a mystic shield keeping the worst of the debris from crushing them. He meets Mikey's gaze and grins through the strain.

Mikey's jaw hangs. “... Donnie?”

“In the half-shell!” Donnie declares, and Mikey could cry.

Lightning crackles against the stones pinning Mikey. A circle of brilliant blue sparks to life beneath them and pulls them under. The world spins until it rights itself in the form of Leonardo catching him before the portal can spit him onto the asphalt. Mikey blinks the white spots away until the striped face of his grinning older brother remains, his smirk set at an angle that's equal parts arrogance and affection. Behind them, the warehouse collapses.

“Leo?”

“Were you expecting DiCaprio?” Leo quips. It's not even remotely funny, but Mikey throws his head back and laughs.

Then he freezes. “Wait, wait!” He squirms in Leo's arms, but Leo settles for dropping to his knees and setting him on the ground. Mikey paws at his shoulders desperately. “W-where's—?”

“SAVING LIKE A BOSS!”

A red goliath bursts from the rubble in a shower of brick and twisted metal and leaps out of the wreckage, leaving small craters in the ground as he lands superhero-style. He drops Hypno off to the side before re-calling his ninpo.

And then there's only Raphael, smiling right at him as he lumbers over to kneel before them.

Mikey shakes. Leo's arms wrap around his shoulders and hold him close. “Raph...”

“You did great, little brother,” he says, reaching out with one massive hand to gently cup Mikey's cheek in his calloused palm. His eyes shine with unshed tears and pride. “You really did. You saved us, buddy. I'm proud of you.”

“Same here,” Leo says, nuzzling his cheek against Mikey's. His mask is still damp. “Sorry it took us so long to come back, little bro.”

“Indeed,” Donnie adds, typing something onto his holographic before joining them on the floor. “Though my memories of being toddler-fied are hazy at best, I do recall enjoying elements of it. However, no amount of piggyback rides or weaponising cuteness for a mystic library pass could satisfy my need to reach the freaking kitchen countertop by myself and slice my own goddamn fruit, thank you very much!”

Raph rolls his eyes with a smile that's equal parts fond and exasperated. A smile that Mikey gets now. “I think what Don's tryin' to say, is that, yeah, being kids again was fun while it lasted. And spending time with Dad like that again was really great...”

“But Draxum was right,” Leo adds, drawing back enough to wipe the soot and blood off Mikey's face with his mask tails. He smiles. “We gotta let go of the past. That's done. What matters now is what we do in the present—”

“And the things we have to look forward to in the future,” Donnie finishes, reaching out to rub the top of Mikey's head. “For instance, I am most looking forward to wiping every single freaking picture and or video you've taken these last six days. Tech gods as my witness, I will leave no SD card unturned, no RAM un—oh. Oh, Mikey...”

Mikey doesn't realize he's crying until Leo pulls him back for a hug, holding tight. Then the floodgates burst as he gives way to heaving sobs, curling into Leo's chest. Donnie drops all pretences and joins the embrace, his snout nuzzling Mikey's head. Raph gathers them all up and squeezes.

Through the haze of bone-deep, exhaustion, aches, pains and relief, Mikey smiles.

They're back. My big brothers are back. April and Draxum were right.

Just when Mikey thinks he could stay like this with them forever, there's a groan near the mound of rubble. A ripple goes through the (now) older trio as they lift their heads and turn as one. Mike follows a beat after.

Hypno rubs his head and looks around him, rumpled and rough-looking as Mikey feels, but mostly intact save for a nasty black eye. Both eyes widen when he sees the turtles staring back at him.

He blinks. “Um. I can explain.”

Raph, Leo and Donnie narrow their eyes to slits at the cowering hippo mutant. Mikey stifles a giggle.

Oh, he 'bout to get it.

Raph looks back down at Mikey and smiles. “You sit tight for a sec, Little Man,” he says, kissing Mikey's forehead before letting them all go and standing, cracking his neck.

“Yeah, we'll be right back,” Leo pats his cheek and joins Raph. His claws peek out, hands fluttering at his sides.

“I've sent April a message. She and The Parents are en route, E.T.A three minutes, so keep an eye out, m'kay? Cool.” Donnie nudges his shoulder against his and extends his battle shell, hovering over Hypno.

Mikey, for once, is content to sit on the side and watch. He's already given Hypno a piece of his mind. Now it's his big brothers' turn.

“So,” Raph bumps his fists together, red armour encasing his arms. “You shrank us.”

“You kidnapped us,” Leo's swords flash into his palms.

“And you nearly crushed our baby brother,” Donnie's bo extends into a mini-missile launcher.

Hypno goes white. “A-Ah, hey now, let's not be hasty! It was all in good fun, we had a few laughs—!”

“Not only that, but you owe Mikey so much child support!” Leo cries, raising his swords. “You goddamned—”

“Big-mouthed—” Raph pulls his fists back.

“Blue gumball, simpleton—” Donnie spins his bo and lifts it high.

“Wait, wait, wait—!”

“SON OF A BITCH!” they holler and bring their weapons down in a burst of soot, brick and screaming hippo.

Grinning hard enough to hurt, Mikey throws his head back and cackles.

“That's my boys!”

#rottmnt #rottmnt fic #turtle tots #big bro michelangelo #weirdly enough i was listening to a slow reverb version of titanic while writing the last part #and i teared up XD #YOU'RE HEEEERE: just as Donnie turns back into a teen! POETIC CINEMA!!!#i really enjoyed writing this #Donnie in the library was kinda me projecting but actually little Donnie at the same time #my writing

105 notes · View notes

waywardxrhea · 9 months

Text

Part Six - Trying to Catch my Breath

[slow burn romance between you, a SHIELD investigative journalist, and Steve Rogers]

Warnings: 18+, contains humor, fluff, mental health, family trauma, romance, angst, language, violence, smut later on.

installment list

Word count: 3k

This one’s just sad, honestly.

One chilly evening a couple of months into the task force assignment after a long mission, Steve and you headed back to your place to watch movies. Before you could choose a movie out of your collection though, you noticed that The Wizard of Oz was playing on the movie channel so you decides to leave it. "I didn't know the TV played movies this old, I watched this when it first came out," Steve commented as he sat on the couch.

"Oh, are you calling yourself old now?" you teased.

"Touche," he replied with a smile breaking out onto his face.

Your phone let out a noise signaling a new text so you checked your phone and saw a text from Maria. After reading it, you said aloud, "Maria is gonna swing by somewhere and get pizza for all of us, what kind do you want?"

"Cheese is good," Steve replied absentmindedly while staring at the screen.

"Whenever we end up back in New York, remind me to take you to my favorite hole-in-the-wall pizza place. Their food is phenomenal!" you told him while texting Maria back.

When you didn't get a response, you looked up to see him watching the movie with a far away and almost sad look on his face. Sensing the sudden change in demeanor, you asked softly, "Hey, is everything okay?" as you made your way over to sit beside him on the couch.

When the cushion beside him dipped was when he finally knocked out of his daze and replied, "Yeah, yeah. Just...missing the past a bit is all." He paused and sighed, adding, "When I was flying that plane down into the Arctic, I thought it would be the end, but I still made plans with Peg. For those few seconds, I thought everything would end up okay."

You felt your heart sink but elected to ignore the feeling in your chest and told him, "I'm so sorry, Steve. I'm glad you did try and feel less scared in those moments though. Optimism pushes people through a lot of tough situations." You paused for a beat before adding, "You know, you haven't told me much about this Peggy girl. She seems to have a big place in your heart, but you never talk in detail about her. Just some stories from the dance halls. What was she like?"

At the mention of Peggy, Steve's smile lit up the room as he told you, "Oh she was one of the bravest women I knew back then. Tough as nails. Gutsy too." He paused and laughed, adding, "When I got my shield, she shot straight at it before any other testing was done. If that thing didn't hold up, I'm not sure I'd be here right now."

"She sounds like a firecracker. What was her rank?"

Steve thought for a second before replying honestly, "All I ever really heard anyone call her was Agent Carter."

You nearly choked on the sip of water you had in your mouth when you heard the name. You regains your composure before asking, "Did you say, Agent Carter? As in Agent Peggy Carter? Founder of SHIELD?"

"Wait Peg founded SHIELD?"

"Yes, she founded SHIELD!" you exclaimed. "Have you never paid attention to the pictures on the walls at HQ?"

"I guess not?" Steve asked with a chuckle. A small smile snuck onto his lips and he said quietly, "Wow, she went on to do such great things after everything went down."

"That she did."

Steve thought for a second and then asked, "Well, how did you not know it was her I talked about all this time?"

"There's only so much you can read in a museum, Steven," you told him with a quiet laugh. You thought for a moment before informing him, "I'm pretty sure she's still around and it sounds like you could use some closure with her. I couldn't give you many details but I'm sure Maria could."

"Maria could do what?" came Maria's voice as she entered the apartment carrying pizza and a case of drinks for the three of you.

You clutched your chest at the sudden appearance of your friend and chastised, "Maria, I know I always give you a spare key to my place, but at least knock next time!"

"Fine, fine, but really, what can I do to help whoever?"

"Well, Steve needs some closure on his past with Peggy Carter, I'm assuming you'd know something about her whereabouts."

"Off the top of my head I don't, but I can do some digging," she said as she sat the pizza on the coffee table.

"Thank you," Steve told both of you as you all relaxed into your seats to watch the rest of the movie.

One morning on your day off, you called up Grammie to check on her. When the line picked up, you smiled and started off quickly, "Hey Grammie! Were you ready to finally tell me that story about Captain Rogers? It's been so busy I kept forgetting to ask you about it!"

A voice came from the other end of the line as they said you name quietly. It wasn't Grammie. "Emiliano?" you asked. "Is Grammie busy? I can call back another time."

"No, no," the nurse said. He paused and asked, "Would you mind sitting down?"

Panic instantly flooded your body but you tried to remain optimistic about what he was asking you to do because that's what Grammie would do. So you sat down on the couch and said, "I'm sitting. Is Grammie okay?"

There was a long pause on the other end of the line before Emiliano sighed again and said quietly, "She just passed away."

"Oh my god," you breathed, tears instantly flowing from your eyes. You felt your body go numb and the air leave your lungs completely as you tried to figure out your next words as your world began crashing down around you.

Emiliano spoke first, saying, "I know you're in DC right now, so if you want the home to make funeral arrangements so you don't have to worry about it, just say the word."

You took a deep breath and managed to force out the words, "No, I'll do it. She...she always had a specific vision for her funeral and I want to grant her that wish."

"As you wish," he told you. "I'm really sorry about this Miss."

"Thank you," you replied before hanging up the phone.

Once you ended the call, you sits there, staring at the phone not knowing what to do. Your body felt like lead as you tried to stand up to get your laptop to look up numbers for arrangements back where Grammie was living. Time got away from you as you began the first of many calls back to New York.

Meanwhile, across town, Steve sat on a bench outside the Smithsonian with his sunglasses on and a ball cap pulled down over his eyes. He checked his watch and thought to himself, It isn't like her to be late... Steve dug his phone out from the pocket of his leather jacket and dialed your number only to be sent straight to voicemail.

Steve furrowed his eyebrows, wondering what was going on. It wasn't like you to miss a call from him. After calling your other number and not getting a response out of that one either, he got off the bench and made his way back to his motorcycle to head over to your place to check on you.

Back in your apartment, you were on the phone with the funeral directors trying to get them to understand exactly what Grammie wanted for her funeral. You looked at the notebook with scrawled-out notes on it trying exasperatedly to explain what she wanted through your jumbled thoughts. As the person put you on hold, you sighed and muttered to yourself, "This is useless trying to make arrangements from a different state..."

There was suddenly a knock at the door which startles you out of your brain fog. You quickly jumped out of your seat and walked to the door with the phone still on your ear in case the director took you off of hold. As you approached the door, you could hear Steve's voice calling your name and asking, "Are you okay?"

"Shit," you cursed, remembering you two had plans that day. You caught a glance of yourself in a mirror you had hanging in the living room and realized that you looked exactly how you felt: awful.

Steve knocked again and asked a bit louder, "Is everything okay?"

You quickly threw your messy hair up as best you could and opened the door for Steve. You couldn't even fake a smile and lie that everything was fine, so you replied quietly, "No."

You shrank back into the apartment and wrapped your arms around yourself in an attempt to provide some comfort while Steve stepped into the apartment and shut the door behind him, asking, "What happened?"

"Grammie passed away..." you whispers, your voice breaking as reality sets in once again that she was really gone. You broke down in tears once more, but tried to stop them, saying, "I'm so sorry Steve, you probably don't want to deal with all of my emotions right now. I'm being such an inconvenience, I'm sorry, I-"

Steve, not knowing what to say, simply wrapped his arms around you, cutting off your sentence before you could fumble through more of an unnecessary apology. Your phone fell to the ground but you disregarded it as you accepted the embrace. Your body shook slightly as you cried in Steve's arms as he attempted to calm you down by gently running his hand up and down your back, whispering, "It'll be okay. It's gonna hurt for a while, but pain can't last forever."

You nodded at the words, trying to get the tears to stop flowing with deep breaths. When you finally managed to stop, Steve let go of you and squeezed your shoulder gently. From the floor, a voice, barely audible, called out your name.

This brought you back to reality and you quickly grabbed the phone off the floor and cleared your throat. "Hi, yes, I'm still here. We were talking about flower arrangements and a location?"

As you talked on the phone quietly, Steve went to the stove to grab the tea kettle to make the two of you some tea. You always made him tea when he wasn't having the best day, so he thought he would repay the favor. When the tea was done, Steve sweetened it and sat a cup down in front of you. He then sat across the table while you wrapped up the call.

When you put the phone down, you said to Steve, "Thank you," as you wrapped your hands around the warm mug.

"It's what you would have done for me," he replied with a soft smile. "Is there anything I can help with?"

"Actually yeah, if it wouldn't be any trouble," you replied with a sigh. "I know you have some old jazz records and I was wondering if I could borrow them? Grammie had a lot at some point but I don't have the time to go find them before...before the funeral."

"Of course, whatever you need," he said. "We can swing by my place and see what I have. May I ask why out of curiosity?"

"Well," you replied, finally cracking the smallest of smiles, "Grammie always said she didn't want a depressing and boring funeral like Gramps had. She wanted music and bright colors and smiles on people's faces. She wanted everyone to celebrate the life she lived, not for them to be sad because she's gone." Your voice broke at the last part. Trying not to break down again, you cleared your throat of the emotions building in it once more and stared up at the ceiling, counting down from 100 as you did.

"I think that's a good, optimistic attitude to have," Steve told you, "and even better that you're working to make sure it happens for her."

"I just hope she would be happy with what I'm doing for it," you replied once you finally felt like you could speak without breaking down again, taking a sip of the tea afterward. The sweetness of honey burst on your tongue and you sighed contentedly as the warm drink attempted to warm you from the outside in.

"I'm sure she would," he told you, happy with himself for being able to at least make your tea correctly. You both sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes before Steve finished his tea and asked, "How about we go to the National Mall? Just walk around and get some fresh air? It'll be good for you to get out. We could even stop to get some food at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant you'll no doubt find and put it in your blog."

You formed your lips into a semblance of a smile and nodded. "Outdoors, hipster restaurants? You're really speaking my language here, Steve."

"That's what friends are for aren't they?"

"Right..." you said, trailing off slightly. Friends. That was what you were. Friends, fellow agents, but nothing more. And that word at that moment wounded you because something inside you had shifted when Steve wrapped his arms around you a few minutes before. You didn't realize how much you had fallen for Steve over the past few months until he just called the two of you friends. You shook the thought out of your mind and tried to ignore the new ache in your heart as you said, "Just let me make myself more presentable, and then we can head out."

"I'll meet you on my motorcycle. The freedom of the road always makes me feel better, maybe it will with you too."

You nodded before you disappeared into your room to get ready, trying not to think because of the whirlwind of thoughts in your mind. Grammie, Steve, funeral arrangements, making time between missions to go to New York. Everything was overwhelming and you just wished you could be in Steve's embrace again because when you were, even for a moment, everything felt like it would be okay.

After a whirlwind few days of planning between meetings and missions, Maria and you made your way up to New York to attend Grammie's funeral. The ceremony was held in her hometown in upstate New York at the local park. The gathering attracted the whole town because Grammie had been such a notable figure there up until she had to move into a home closer to the city.

You dressed in a yellow swing dress for your celebration of life speech and somehow managed not to fall apart while speaking. After the funeral, many of the guests gathered at the family's lodge to have a potluck dinner and reminisce over Grammie and how she helped them out at some point or another in their lives.

At one point during the celebration, you wandered up to the guests who were currently renting the property and said, "Thank you so much for letting us use the space for this. It means a lot to everyone."

"It's no problem," the sweet southern woman told you. "My family has rented out this property enough over the last decade that we know how much your grandparents meant to this town."

"Thank you, I'll make today's stay free because of your generosity," you told her. You laughed a little and finished with, "Man, I'm sure Gramps is rolling in his grave at the word free to a renter."

"How about next year we stay an extra day to make up for it?"

"Sounds great."

That was hours ago. Now, you and Maria were driving back to the airport so you could get back to DC for a mission early the next morning. You leaned your head against the cool glass of the window as Maria drove, lost in the brain fog that came customary after a funeral of a loving parental figure.

Maria has put on 90's and early 2000's pop music as you went to try and make the mood a bit peppier. Not that it was working. At one point, you turned down the radio and Maria scolded teasingly, "Hey I was listening to that!"

"Well I have a question about work," you told her quietly.

"I thought we established no work talk until we're back in DC."

"I thought we established no work talk in front of people until we get back to DC," you retorted. "Besides, it isn't about a mission or anything. It's about...I guess rules of conduct for agents."

"What did you do? You know there's only so much I can do to get you out of things. What Fury and I did when you first started, that was a one and done thing that we can't do ag-"

"No, no, it's nothing like that," you interrupted her. "I didn't do anything."

"Then what is it?"

"It's about one of my other writers, Sandra. I've been getting closer with her and we went out for drinks once or twice when you were too busy to hang out," you rambled trying to figure out how to slyly ask your question. "Anyways, she was telling me that she had feelings for an agent she works closely with and reports on. So she was wondering if I'd ask you what the protocol is if something like that happens. Agency protocol, not like...what she should do about... said feelings."

Maria glanced at you out of the corner of her eye and noticed your body language as well as how you were just rambling on. She ignored the hunch developing in her brain and told you, "Agency protocol would be to separate the two agents from working closely together. When it comes to things like that biases get involved, especially if one of the parties is a reporter. There's also the factor of if whoever the agent was going after gets wind of said romance, someone could get captured and compromised. All around, we just find it easier to keep romances out of agent partnerships for everyone's benefit."

You took in the words and felt your heart shatter, but still nodded nonchalantly, saying, "Thanks, I'll tell her." You paused for a moment before adding, "And if she wanted to act on these feelings, would she just have to report to her higher up or what happens then?"

"She would have to report to a superior agent, yes, then one or the other would get reassigned to a different unit."

"Good to know," you replied with another nod before you turned the music back up and tried to decide whether or not it would be worthwhile to confess your feelings to Steve. You hadn't felt this exact kind of attraction to anyone before though and didn't know how to navigate it. No one had ever cared about you like Steve does and you just couldn't escape the feelings that seemed to grow stronger every day.

You also couldn't escape feeling almost guilty for having feelings for him because after all, he was still in love with Peggy. Ever since you and Maria helped the two of them get back into contact, Steve always seemed to be with her when he wasn't on a mission. The guilt came in when you got jealous over these meetings because you knew that she was all Steve has left of the past. Of course, he wants to hang on to that! But you always had the thought of oh how I wish that was me when he talked so lovingly about her.

Trying to shake these thoughts away, you turns sang along with Maria to escape your crumbling reality at least for a little while.

#fanfic #marvel #captain america #slow burn #steve rogers #writing #wow this was a heavy chapter #unrequited love #Spotify #marvel fanfic series #avengers fanfiction #steve rogers romance #steve rogers friends to lovers #steve rogers slow burn #steve rogers fic #captain america fic

7 notes · View notes

new-components · 8 months

Text

su review

so I read the first entry in su, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: Toki Pona Edition by Sonja Lang. i have many positive thoughts about it

my perspective of the book is coming from someone who would consider itself roughly a beginner-intermediate toki pona-knower, and someone who had very little knowledge of the original story going in.

the book is very clearly an abridged version of the story (and paraphrasing jan Sonja, super-fans of the original Oz might be a bit disappointed at cut ideas), but it didn't feel like a dry synopsis. i found it easy and enjoyable to get into the story, and this was helped a lot by the wonderful illustrations by Evan Dahm! the book is also fully bilingual in toki pona written in sitelen pona, and a literal translation of that back into English (partially to help beginners, partially because of publication restrictions). i found myself occasionally using the english back-translations to make sure i was on the right track understanding things, especially as it was the longest toki pona text i had read up to this point. perfect for me- but absolute beginners will likely struggle.

it's worth noting that jan Sonja has stated that "su" refers to a series of books that jan Sonja plans on writing- with the wizard of oz being the first entry in that series. i look forward to finding out what the next entries she writes are!

kon toki:

I found the writing style fun to read. very deliberately matter of fact/terse as a lot of toki pona writing is in my experience- but it didn't shy away from clever wordplay, evocative descriptions, and emotional writing. "waso laso kin li pana e sike mama laso" made me smile and tense moments had a degree of grave weight and the writing reflected that. a simple "pakala" can be devastating. jan Sonja is a clever writer, and is very proficient with the language, and it shines through in the book.

as for how well it represents the original story- i can't say as i'm not very familiar with it! everything I knew about Oz was in there but that was mostly "there is a metal guy and Dorothy and Kansas and a green city". the illustrations by Evan Dahm really brought the book to life and helped me have confidence that I was understanding the words, giving context to them.

nasin sitelen:

the formatting of the sitelen pona text was a delight to read and i think is a model that should be considered by all tokiponists writing in sitelen pona. there are no special punctuation symbols and sentences are broken by line breaks. when a subject has multiple li predicates, the li phrases are often indented to be in line with each other to break up the text and make it clear they're applying to the same subject. there is no use of compound glyphs making it easy to understand. name cartouches are written with one glyph per letter (which is to say, sitelen kalama is not used), which makes names long but also means there was ample opportunity to make the symbols fit each character, group, and place. Dorothy's (jan Towasi) cartouche for example is "tomo olin wile alasa suwi ijo", which i feel fits her character and narrative very well! names are abbreviated to the first letter after their first use in a chapter.

as for uncommon words/glyphs, there are a few! majuna, lanpan, namako, and one other i can think of but don't want to spoil make appearances. the glyph for majuna was one i was unfamiliar with but i do like it! also, a quad-luka variant of mute for use in the information page for writing "2024" using nasin nanpa pona. one neat nasin was using two glyphs for sewi: a secular variant that is similar to the other positional words for where it is meaning "up" or "above", and the pu variant for a mention of a divine/holy thing.

beginners may find these rarer words and alternate glyphs slightly challenging- but i think the back-translation will help a lot in identifying any unfamiliar words. jan Sonja is also making/made a sitelen pona lookup page which, while i've seen similar materials already, is notable in the context of su because it uses all the same glyphs as su (or at least in Oz.) i half-expected something like this to exist as an appendix in the book proper, but i didn't miss it too much, most books don't have a dictionary in the back after all!

pini:

all in all i highly recommend the book to toki pona learners who are past the absolute beginner level and are looking for an actual Thing to read. absolute beginners will likely struggle to understand it as it is not a reference of the language itself, unlike pu or ku, especially if they took the approach of learning the language as written in sitelen Lasina first and learning sitelen pona later.

still, out of the three jan Sonja books i think it is probably the most valuable to learning. there are many guides to toki pona vocabulary and grammar out there, some of which i would argue are probably more up-to-date and comprehensive than pu (that's not to say that pu isn't useful, but it isn't essential to learning the language in a way that maybe it once was) and ku, while a good reference for the semantic space of words and figuring out translation, does not have any full examples of written toki pona and so its use learning practical toki pona as it is written and spoken is somewhat limited.

su, so far, is a great jumping point after learning the basics of toki pona and getting to read actual story written in it and learning through that. full stories written in toki pona, while not unheard of, are pretty scarce, doubly so stories by proficient storytellers, translators, and toki pona speakers, and so su is a very welcome addition to the bibliography. i am excited to see what jan Sonja makes next!

i give the wizard of oz: toki pona edition a "pona a!"

#toki pona #su #the wizard of oz

3 notes · View notes

real-time-twilight · 1 year

Text

Breaking Dawn in Real Time

September 11th, 2006 (Monday)

Moon Phase: Waning Gibbous 🌖

🌄 Sunrise: 6:45 AM

🌅 Sunset : 7:44 PM

Breaking Dawn, Pgs. 309-360

Ch. 16 ("Too-Much-Information Alert")

Ch. 17 ("What do I Look Like, the Wizard of Oz? You Need a Brain? You Need a Heart? Go Ahead. Take Mine. Take Everything I Have.")

Ch. 18 ("There Are No Words for This")

Note: Today's post contains blow by blow descriptions of a graphic birthing scene, which may be read under the cut.

4:00 AM (Approx.) - Jake leaves the Cullen house and returns to Seth and Leah to make a sweep of the area to ensure that it's clear for the Cullens planned hunting trip

5:00 AM (Approx.) - Leah comments that Jake has changed, Jacob notes that she has as well

5:15 AM (Approx.) - Leah thanks Jake for letting her join his pack and commends him on his leadership skills; Jake and Leah discuss the future, agreeing that Seth should go back to La Push as soon as the current situation passes, but Leah asks to stay connected with Jake's pack, planning on quitting as soon as possible and moving on with her life now that she's no longer connected to Sam--Jake asks for time to consider it

6:50 AM (Approx.) - Jake and Leah hunt; they eat in silence as Jacob thinks over Leah's request

7:00 AM (Approx.) - Seth turns in for the morning; Jake and Leah discuss the future more; Leah points out that she understands Jake's situation with Bella, as it is similar to her own with Sam; Leah says she understands Rosalie's perspective, as she believes her anomalous active wolf gene indicates that she is infertile; the conversation turns toward imprinting and Jacob becomes uncomfortable, phasing back to human form and returning to the house.

7:15 AM (Approx.) - Jake considers sleeping until he hears x-ray machinery operating inside the house and goes in to investigate; Alice meets him on the stairs and informs him that the fetus may have now cracked Bella's pelvis

7:16 AM (Approx.) - Bella is brought back downstairs; Jake tells Carlisle that the coast is clear to go hunting and gather supplies; everyone leaves but Edward and Rosalie

7:20 AM (Approx.) - Jake annoys Rosalie with blond jokes

7:25 AM (Approx.) - Edward hears the baby's thoughts and realizes that it is cognizant and that it likes hearing his and Bella's voices; Bella mentions her chosen baby names: Edward Jacob it's a boy, and Renesmee Carlie (portmanteaus of "Renee and Esme" and "Carlisle and Charlie") for a girl

7:26 AM (Approx.) - Edward says that the baby loves Bella and realizes that their doting has completely alienated Jacob; he gives Jake a set of keys and urges him to get away from the house to spare him further pain

7:27 AM (Approx.) - Jake runs to the garage to find that the keys are for Edward's silver Aston Martin Vanquish, which he drives to Tacoma

8:45 AM (Approx.) - Jake arrives in Tacoma and finds a park to wander around in, in the hopes of finding a girl to imprint on

3:00 PM (Approx.) - Unsuccessful, Jake returns to the Vanquish and dawdles

3:03 PM (Approx.) - Jake is approached by a girl named Lizzie; they talk about cars and lament the discontinuation of the Vanquish in favour of the new V8 Vantage; Jake lets the conversation peter out, saddened that a nice girl like Lizzie can't solve his problem and heads back to Forks in no hurry

6:00 PM (Approx.) - Jake finds Edward waiting for him in the garage; Edward asks Jake to get a handle on Leah, who thoroughly castigated Bella on Jacob's behalf; Edward also tells Jacob that the baby is extremely mentally developed, and given how physically developed it is as well, that it would likely be safest to remove the baby before Bella goes into labour--hopefully as soon as Carlisle returns--and asks Jacob, as the great-grandson of Ephraim Black-- for a dispensation re: the treaty so they can turn Bella when necessary without repercussions

6:03 PM (Approx.) - Jake and Edward meet Seth on the way back to the house, and Jake tells him to tell Leah to lay off; they return to the house to find Bella awake; Bella tries to apologize to Jacob, feeling guilty after being chewed out by Leah, but Jake tells her not to; Jake mentally agrees to the dispensation

6:04 PM (Approx.) - Edward and Rosalie help Bella stand so she can use the bathroom; Bella accidentally knocks over her cup and bends to pick it up; in the act of bending over, the placenta detaches, and Bella vomits copious amounts of blood before seizing

6:05 PM (Approx.) - Edward and Rosalie hurry an unconscious Bella upstairs; Bella regains consciousness, begging Edward to deliver the baby before v it suffocates; Edward protests, wanting to give the morphine time to take effect

6:06 PM (Approx.) - Rosalie insists there is no time, beginning to cut into Bella's stomach; Rosalie is over taken by a frenzy at exposure to Bella's fresh blood; Jacob tackles her and Alice wrestles her from the room

6:07 PM (Approx.) - Edward instructs Jacob to administer CPR on Bella, who has stopped breathing; Edward and Jacob hear a crack and realize that the struggling fetus has broken Bella's spine; Jacob begins CPR while Edward cuts into Bella and cuts through the vampire-hard amniotic sack with his teeth; Bella regains consciousness; Edward succesfullt removes the baby, which is a girl

6:08 PM (Approx.) - Bella, barely conscious asks to hold her; Edward places the baby close to Bella's chest; Renesmee bites Bella's left breast; Edward draws Renesmee away, admonishing her

6:09 PM (Approx.) - Bella's heart stops; Jacob immediately begins CPR again; Rosalie returns to the library and takes the baby so Edward can help Jacob; Edward Nikki Sixx-es a syringe full of his venom directly into Bella's heart and begins to bite all of Bella's main pulse points as Jacob continues to manually pump Bella's heart

6:10 PM (Approx.) - Jacob gives up hope of saving Bella; Edward, manic, tells him to go and assumes CPR duty

6:12 PM (Approx.) - Bella's vampire transformation begins.

6:11 PM (Approx.) - Jacob walks downstairs, pausing on the last step; he sees Rosalie bottle-feeding Renesmee blood; Jake plans to kill the child for killing Bella; Rosalie lifts Renesmee to her shoulder and Jake makes eye-contact with her, instantly feeling a profound sensation of purpose, as though his world revolves around Renesmee and realizes that he has imprinted on her.

6 notes · View notes

asmodeus-fallen-principality · 1 year

Text

From the diaries of A.S.Morris:

Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as the great philosopher "Meatloaf" might say. (Strange name.)

My universe has its own share of problems, and I ought to concentrate on finding a way home. Not inserting myself into the drama of this backwards (in the most literal sense) place. Besides, any help I could give is probably quite unwanted by... Aziraphale. (Oh, it feels terribly odd to write that name down!)

But... I've always had a bleeding heart. A terrible feature for a demon, I know. And Aziraphale is- if I could stop him from doing anything that might cause a Fall-! I can't go back in time to fix my own life, but- oh, but I mustn't meddle-! What torment is this?

Crowley- I know he isn't Sam, I mustn't treat him like Sam- he isn't mine, not that Samael was either, but Crowley definitely isn't mine, stop all this pining! I oughtn't interfere either. He has a plan, it's his battle to fight, I know he can do it. In any universe, if there's one thing I believe in, I believe in him! Only if he asks, and he won't, because it's none of my business-!

Whatever is going on with the so-called Metatron and Her, I want no part of he's trapped Her in a book but which book is it The Book of Life or The Wizard of Oz or was that just a clue to say She's been sent somewhere is She in a book in the bookshop how am I supposed to find anything in this mess I just wanted to find a way home! And he wants to destroy the Book of Enoch so that MUST be incredibly important and if his counterpart or what-have-you sent me here, he could do all sorts of terrible things to the people who are/aren't my beloved friends

Such is the life of a demon. The suffering is never-ending! How long must I atone? I still don't know what it is I am atoning for- therein lies the problem, I suppose.

Samael, darling. I miss you so.

#diary entry #reverse omens #demon aziraphale #good omens rp #good omens roleplay #good omens askblog #((names of Certain Angels may differ from universe to universe of course))

5 notes · View notes

riverstardis · 2 years

Text

not in holby anymore:

oh this is the wizard of oz one skdjjfgj that opening’s so weird

charlie and duffy are treating a patient dressed as dorothy and then standing playing snog marry avoid and jacob tells them off for chatting SJDKFJJ duffy would snog louise, marry ethan, and avoid jacob

lmaoo charlie tells jacob he doesn’t have to go round shouting at everyone because of how bad the inspection report was and he bets him he can improve things in a different way and they come up with a plan

sdjkfkg jacob tells the nurses and noel the trust have come up with a new team building exercise where they have to work on their weaknesses and tells louise to “be kind”, noel to “engage your brain”, and david to “grow a pair” hmmm remind you of anything?

some people parking directly in front of a fire exit… there is no way this could end badly is there

lmao max and jez stole alicia’s tablet and posted on her social media and apparently her mum now thinks she’s a pregnant white supremacist💀💀💀

was this a special for a specific occasion or something???

ohh this scene with cal and ethan at their lockers!! with ethan looking at his dating profile and cal’s like “had any nibbles, nibbles?” skskkfkg

cal steals ethan’s phone to look but there’s no one there and ethan says he’s waiting for the right girl and cal says “come on there’s loads of talent on here” and starts looking through them

“oh look, that’s the fit f1 on keller” jasmine burrows. she was an actual holby character right? rather than someone they just made up? her name and face do ring a bell.

he keeps looking through them like “oh hang on- i’ve had her” and ethan’s like “unfortunately there isn’t a filter for girls my brother has slept with” SJDKFKF

cal starts editing his about me bit and ethan tries to protest but he’s like “trust me on this one bro, give it an hour… or two, and they’ll be ethan out the palm of your hand” THATS SO BAD😭😭😭

ethan tries to get his phone back but cal says he’ll hang on to it and leaves skdkfk

fun fact when i last rewatched this episode last year i posted a clip of that scene on twitter and RICHARD WINSOR QUOTE TWEETED IT ! he follows one of my mutuals and she’d rted it so i assume that’s how he saw it bc otherwise??? that was a wild day because on top of that i posted sahdor fanart on insta and both arin smethurst and milo clarke saw it, commented, and shared on their stories and milo followed me and then arin followed me the next day!! i was like what on earth is going on today?!?!

yup someone sets the fire alarm off and now people are getting crushed at that blocked exit

david being a hero jumping down from an upper floor to move the car!!

wait a second… a crush… like the wicked witch being crushed by a house?? i never realised that before😭😭

charlie going “somebody please pass me an oil can, i think she’s rusting up!” lmaooo. louise says why’s he acting weird skskfkjf just you wait louise

aw no one believes david that he jumped off a three story building

big mac mention!

sjdjjfjg there’s a drunk frequent flyer and neither ethan or cal want to take him but cal’s like “tell you what, you take him and you get your phone back” and ethan goes “that’s not how it works! … apparently it is” bc cal’s walked off already😭

charlie going “we don’t need you to be a cowardly lion, david. we need you to roar.” and then making him repeat it and making him roar and he does a massive roar in the middle of resus SJDKFKGKKG

david impressing jacob finally

cal gives ethan his phone back and he has 8 messages but only because cal changed his bio to say ‘easy going doctor💲💲💲 …looking for some fun. NSA’ 😭😭😭 also i think one of those messages is from the f1 on keller judging by the profile pic

aww his likes section lists literature and french films yep that sounds about right. also his age is 30 according to his profile which means this episode is not set when it aired because it aired on the 26th november when he would’ve still been 29.

he asks what nsa means right as alicia walks in and she answers “no strings attached. didn’t think that was your sort of thing?” and he’s like “no! it was cal’s idea. i’m certainly not looking for an… nsa”

she says there’s nothing wrong with a bit of online dating and asks to see and he gives her his phone and she rewrites his bio “keep it brief but meaningful. who’s that physicist that you like again?” and ethan looks a bit shocked but goes to answer but she remembers so they say it at the same time and then she types out a full quote/poem by his favourite physicist FROM MEMORY and then smiles at him and cal is just completely oblivious… mate your brother and your girlfriend are having an emotional affair right in front of your eyes WAKE UP MAN

anyways scibblesssss🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

and here we see ethan falling in love😭 in s33 he tells alicia that that was his favourite quote and this was the moment he realised he “loved being around [her]”🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 actually after this i may go screen record those two moments and post them side by side because THEYRE SO CUTE

lmaooo louise david and noel are all remarking on how well they did to jacob and then louise mentions the name of the person in HR who supposedly came up with the team building exercise and david recognises it as the name of dorothy’s uncle and that makes them all realise it’s a stitch up SKDKKFKGKG

loll the flashbacks to earlier with charlie betting jacob he can get better results out of people only using the wizard of oz references than shouting at them

then another flashback showing that duffy promised to buy charlie breakfast if he could stop jacob shouting at everyone sjskdkkf and now jacob’s just as mad as the others

this is such a wild episode, who came up with the idea of doing a wizard of oz based episode like?????

#classic casualty #not in holby anymore

17 notes · View notes

witchesoz · 2 years

Text

Volkov lore: Wood soldiers and Ore-Diggers

Volkov published his « The Wizard of Emerald City” in 1939. He published its sequel, “Urfin Jus and his Wooden Soldiers” in 1963. It is a… major reinvention, let's say that, of “The Marvelous Land of Oz”.

The story speaks of Urfin Jus (basically a mix of Jinjur, Ugu the Shoemaker and a few other minor Oz villains). Urfin Jus is a Munchkin living in Blue Land, however Urfin absolutely hates the other Munchkins. He is taller than them, he did a conscious effort to stop his jaw from munching constantly so as to differentiate him, and he does not wear the traditional blue but rather brown. He also is a grumpy, sly, selfish man – so much that he actually willingly became a servant and assistant of Gingema, the Wicked Witch of the East. After her death, crushed by Ellie’s trailer-house, he explores her cave and takes from it several magical items that can be useful. One turns out to be… the Powder of Life.

Urfin Jus, in his every-day life is a joiner. It isn’t much to ruin and harass the so-hated Munchkins, but he manages – notably by crafting dolls that have scary faces so as to terrify Munchkin children. When he discovers that the Powder of Life can animate objects, he creates a wicked plan: he crafts an entire army of wooden soldiers he brings to life with the Powder and has them marching on the Emerald City to become king of the Magic Land. At first, the heroes of the city (Faramant Guardian of the Gates, Din Gior the long-bearded soldier, the Iron Woodman and Strasheela the Wise, new ruler of the City) defend it very well – but they have a traitor among their ranks, a man named Ruf Bilan who allies himself with Urfin Jus and lets his army inside. The heroes now captive ask a good friend of them, a crow named Kaggi-Karr, to go to Kansas and ask Ellie to come rescue them.

Ellie thus begins a travel to Magic Land with her dog Totoshka and her uncle Charlie Black, a one-legged sailor (and an equivalent of Baum’s Captain Bill). After all sorts of adventures underground (since they cannot reach Magic Land on the surface, because of the desert and the mountains), the trio reaches Magic Land, free the captured heroes, defeat the wooden army, and send Urfin Jus in exile. Then Ellie is brought back home again, and everything is fine.

Some interesting facts and points in this book:

# Urfin Jus uses his knowledge of making dolls with horrifying face well by creating his soldiers – he creates them with horrifying faces that scare their enemies. However, said wooden soldiers are at first mocked by other people because they are entirely naked, and Urfin Jus has to paint clothes on them.

# Urfin isn’t alone in his plan: in the beginning of the novel, one of the Great Horned Owls (the pets of Gingema) joins Urfin and guides him in his wicked deeds. The Owl’s name is Guamokolatokint, and he dislikes it when Urfin uses “Guam” as a name – ultimately they agree on using Guamoko, though the Owl is unsatisfied with his name being cut short. Guamoko is noted to be a very old Owl, and his wisdom is essential – while Urfin Jus is a determined and inventive man, he lacks the foresight of the Owl. In the end, when Urfin Jus is defeated, Guamoko abandons him and remakes a life for himself as a ruler of the Magic Land birds.

# The courtiers of the Emerald City are shown to actually be vain, lazy people who enjoy a bit too much their wealth, spending their days chatting and having fun, only pretending to take care and be busy with state matters. But despite that, they still stay faithful to Strasheela, refusing to swear allegiance to Urfin Jus and openly expressing their disdain and disgust with those among them that become servants of the invader. There is also a funny moment, after Urfin Jus conquered the Emerald City – in his megalomania, he gives himself an almost never-ending list of titles, which he is forced to cut short when he realizes that his new ministers are unable to repeat them properly.

# There are several hooks and hints for the book that would come next: Ellie and co travel underground to reach Magic Land, in the process spot a marvelous city, and when Urfin Jus is defeated the traitor Ruf Bilan runs away and hides underground.

# About Uncle Charlie Black – he actually just returned to Kansas after years of absence. This great traveler had been captured by a tribe of cannibals, and Ellie’s family (the Smith) assumed he had been devoured. As it turns out, Charlie Black became friend with the cannibals, who were very nice people (at least when he proved them he was more useful living than in a stew). They accepted him into his tribe, and even later helped him go back home.

# Urfin Jus has another companion called Topotun, a bear rug he accidentally animated when he first got hold of the Powder of Life. Topotun is actually a kind and sweet thing, and acts as the “good influence” at Urfin Jus side. Too bad the rest of his counsellors are just as evil: a creepy wicked puppet and the cruel former pet of a wicked witch. In fact, Volkov introduces a nice idea: the Powder of Life gives the creatures it animates a personality depending on their appearance. The creatures that look scary or horrifying will become evil, cruel or wicked, while the creatures that look beautiful, cute, kind or sweet will become good and benevolent.

# The heroes ask Urfin Jus to think about his evil deeds during his exile, in hope that he will realize that all he tried during the novel did not brought him an ounce of happiness: he worked extremely hard to build an entire army, but that was entirely stupid and difficult to control ; his so-called allies disliked him and abandoned him at the mere sight of defeat ; the hard and difficult siege of the Emerald City only resulted in him ruling over a population that hated him and refused to obey him, making him a very paranoid king, and ultimately he was dethroned in a very humiliating way by the rightful rulers… Contrary to the Wicked Witches, who were inhuman beings whose cruelty knew no limit, they hoped that Urfin Jus, being a man, would understand how evil leads to no happiness. SPOILERS: He doesn’t, but after two other wicked plans failing miserably, he will finally understood how being wicked is not for him and abandon all evilness.

# Strasheela is noted to be, just like the Scarecrow of Baum, bored out of its wits when ruling the Emerald City. Note that, contrary to the Scarecrow, he does not abandon his job and continues to rule – he just dislikes ruling when everything is peaceful and joyful because he has nothing to do. In fact, this is why later Stella the Witch of the South offers him a "magic television", the equivalent of Baum's Magic Picture, so he might entertain himself by looking at what happens in the world.

# Some people have noted that Urfin Jus looks a lot like Severus Snape. A grumpy and sour cynic, with an inventive and resourceful mind, preferring to be alone and dressing in dark clothes, with bushy eyebrows and a hooked nose, hugely popular in the fandom and despite being very unpleasant not truly evil…

“The Seven Underground Kings” is the third Magic Land book, released in 1964. Just like how “Urfin Jus and his Wooden Soldiers” was inspired by “The Marvelous Land of Oz”, this one was inspired by “Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz”, Baum’s tale of an underground travel.

In Volkov’s book, we follow what happened to the treacherous Ruf Bilan, who at the end of the last book ran away underground. He arrived in Underground Land, an entire city and land located… well underground. This country has a peculiar government system, where seven kings take the crown in turn. Basically, each king rules for a month, while the six others are put to sleep by the Soporific Waters of the Sacred Spring. However Ruf Bilan wrecks it all by destroyed the Sacred Spring, and depriving Underground Land of its Soporific Waters. Resulting in the seven kings being awake at the same time… and the beginning of a big political fight between them. Hopefully, at the same time Ellie arrives with her cousin, a boy named Alfred. They were exploring a cavern in Iowa and got lost, ending up in Underground Land. The seven kings believe Ellie to be a fairy and ask her to restore the Soporific Waters, but she cannot do it – however she sends Totoshka to Magic Land with a letter. Her good friends immediately send a team of Winkies (led by a Winkie craftsman named Lestar) and they manage to create a pump that takes the Soporific Waters out of the depths of the Earth. However this water is very concentrated – the heroes put all the seven kings to sleep at once, and when they finally wake up, the water ended up erasing all of their memories. The seven kings become commoners, the heroes suggest and encourage the Underground citizen to go back to the surface and resettle, rebuilding a new nation, and finally Ellie, Alfred and Totoshka return home on the back of a dragon named Oyho.

However, before everything ends, Ramine, the Queen of the Field Mice, appears to Ellie – and reveals that she is actually a fairy! Yep, there are fairy mice. And Ramina makes a sad prophecy to Ellie: she will never see her friends from Magic Land again.

Yep, Volkov seemingly wanted this book to be the end of the Magic Land tales.

But, just like Baum, the series would not die…

Other informations of interest about this book:

# Each of the seven kings of the Underground City actually corresponds to one of the seven colors of the rainbow, and their palace is the Rainbow Palace – which was built as a reminder of the rainbow underground-dwellers will now never seen again (yes, because originally they lived above ground).

# There is a recurring joke about the two Underground doctors constantly fighting and arguing with each other. At the beginning of the book, the two doctors, Boril and Robil, are shown fighting as the Underground Land is formed… and in the “present” of the book, centuries later, two doctors named Boril and Robil also fight. This is actually explained by the fact the latter duo are the descendants of the former: the job of doctor is hereditary, and visibly their names are also passed from father to son. The fight of the two doctors is actually based on the effects of the Soporific Waters: do they kill someone or not? Because you see, the sleep of the Waters is so deep the person stops breathing and the heart stops beating, so doctor Boril claims that the persons are dead. But Robil objects that there is no rigor mortis, and the bodies are still warm.

# Ellie’s cousin is named Fred Cunning – and true to his name, he is a clever boy who will grow up to become an engineer.

# The book actually reveals the history and origins of Magic Land. Long ago, before official history was even recorded, a powerful wizard named Hurricap lived in the land that is known today as America. He was the mightiest wizard existing, and was eager to give people what they wished for: he gave them an invulnerability to the claws of the beasts ; a great speed to go faster than stags ; a bow that never missed its targets… But after many years of granting people’s request, Hurricap became tired and went into reclusion to never be bothered again. He wandered the world and found out what would later become Magic Land – and he surrounded it with high mountains and a great desert so that people would never find it. He also declared that it would forever be summer in Magic Land, and that it would be so magical all animals will be able to talk. All that done he prepares to begins his retirement and rest – until a magpie warns that he isn’t exactly alone and that there is already an awful lot of people living here. “Why didn’t I saw them?” the Wizard cries. The magpie simply answers that he is a bit too tall, and them a bit too small: indeed Hurricap isn’t just a wizard, he is a giant wizard whose head reaches the top of the tallest trees, and on top of that his old age weakened a lot his sight (plus, as the narration jokingly precises, eyeglasses did not exist back then). Dissatisfied, Hurricap said he wasn’t going to take back all the magic he gave to the land, because it would be too much work, but he left the land to the people and he built himself a splendid palace in the mountains nearby – forbidding any dweller of the land to ever go near him. The rule was respected for many years, until centuries later the wizard died and his palace crumbled to ruins, but even then the Magic Landers refused to go near the place. And thus, slowly the memory of Hurricap was lost, and people believed that their land has always been magical and cut-off from the rest of the world…

# Afterward, several states and kingdoms formed themselves in Magic Land, and they started fighting against each other. A thousand years before the present, in the West of Magic Land, there was a kingdom ruled by a man named Naranya. He ruled for such a long time his son, Prince Bofaro, grew tired of waiting and plotted to overthrow his father with several thousand supporters – but his conspiracy was discovered. The old king decided to inflict upon his treacherous son and his allies the fate they intended for him (imprisonment for life): he banished them to the Cavern, a gigantic underground cavern filled with strange beasts under their kingdom, and declared that their descendants would never be allowed to return to the surface. All the king allowed to give them were tools for farming and weapons to defend themselves against the Cavern’s beasts. They discovered the Cavern was an entire underground land, with a lake and everything, and where autumn was eternal: trees and bushes crimson, rose and orange ; yellow grass… The only light was created by golden-ish clouds hanging under the roof of the cavern. As for the beasts of the Underground realm, the new dwellers did not worry much: the beasts kept fighting each other. You had the Sixpaws, hideous creatures with six limbs and dirty shaggy fur, and the dragons (described as giant crocodiles with leathery wings) – the dragons kept attacking the Sixpaws because they devour the eggs the dragons bury under the earth, while the Sixpaws keep attacking the dragons because they devour the Sixpaws young whenever they can, resulting them not caring much for the new inhabitants.

# As years passed by, they grew fields using the rare rainfalls that came from the golden clouds. They captured dragons and sixpaws young, that they tamed and trained to become docile working beasts… the people of the Underground became known as the Ore-Diggers, because they spent most of their time digging for gold and precious metals. However, trouble came because of the court created by their ambitious king Bofaro: a bunch of idle courtiers and servants that kept growing larger and larger each day, eating away most of the kingdom’s riches. Eventually they had to come back to the surface – and started trading with the Blue Land of the East, offering copper, bronze, iron, glass and gems in exchange of grain, eggs, vegetables, butter and fruits (note that the Ore-Diggers could only come out at night, given that their eyes were unaccustomed to the bright sun light, resulting in “night markets”).

# Bofaro had seven sons he loved deeply, so much he couldn’t manage to designate one his heir, and after seventeen different wills, he decided to name all seven his heirs, forcing them to rule one month each. But as soon as Bofaro died, the brothers began quarreling, each wanting to rule first: the tall Prince Vagissa wanted succession by height, the fat prince Gramento by weight, the strong Tubago by strength, etc… After a good physical brawl they divided the land, city and palace between themselves, each choosing a different color of the rainbow to identify their belongings. But quickly things went sour: the country had no fixed laws since they changed every month, each king got a squad of dragon-riding guards to protect themselves against eventual attacks of their brothers, each king tried to invent remarkable and new customs to differentiate himself from his brothers, resulting in official greetings of the king changing each month, and each month people had to change their clothes…

I won’t tell you the full history, Volkov spends an awful time detailing the past of the Underground Land, but basically the Ore-Diggers physiology changed a lot throughout the centuries (becoming paler, leaner and getting wider eyes each century), and the excesses of the seven kings grew worse and worse, until they found the Soporific Waters of the Sacred Spring and used it to put to sleep six of the seven courts, resulting in a balanced and sustainable lifestyle. Though the trouble was that after six months of sleep, the wakers had no tiredness at all and did not need to sleep for the entire month of their rule – plus the enchanted sleep magically extended their lifespan, since they did not aged or evolved during their slumbering. And also, the Ore-Diggers became more and more unaccustomed to the real light, and more and more suspicious of the people of the surface, until they ended up cutting all ties with them.

# Now, to return to Magic Land proper, Volkov also reveals to us more about the witches. Three hundred years and four months after the Soporific Water was discovered, four sorceresses lived at the four corners of what is known today as America: two good witches, Villina and Stella, and two wicked witches, Gingema and Bastinda (sisters, but quarreling so much they did not want to see each other). However, as time went by the settlement of humans grew closer and closer to the dwelling of the witches, and they decided to leave America – the four witches (also called “fairies” in the book, because visibly witch/fairy is the same thing) consulted their magic books, found out about Magic Land went there – all at the same time. Resulting in the four of them meeting face to face in Magic Land: Gingema, wizened because of all her wickedness ; the one-eyed Bastinda always with her black umbrella (a magic umbrella that carries her around like a wizard would use a magic carpet) ; Stella who has the secret of ever-lasting youth ; and the white-haired Villina who is the only one of the four Witches able to change her magic book’s size to transport it easily. Gingema and Bastinda refused to share the country, despite Stella’s offer to each have their own part of Magic Land, so Villina offered to have a battle between them – but Gingema and Bastinda realized that Villina’s magic book was much more powerful than theirs, and so that they would be easily defeated. So they decided peacefully to split the country between themselves; Gingema received the Blue Land, Stella the Rose Land, Villina the Yellow Land and Bastinda the Violet Land, and they all decided that the central area would be serve as a “buffer” between them, and that none of them would rule it.

At the time, the Magic Landers had overthrown their tyrants and kings, tired of their constant fighting, and changed the weapons into farming tools to live peacefully. The tribe who traded with the Ore-Diggers in the Blue Land were gone for long, and had been replaced with the small-sized and jaw-moving Munchkins – Gingema appeared to them, declared herself their ruler, and proved them her power by conjuring storms and tornadoes. She said she would leave them live their life peacefully, if only they would pay her a tribute in mice, frogs, leeches and spiders for her to eat. The Munchkins still kept trade with the Ore-Diggers, and there was still a Night Market, for they needed metal, but the Ore-Diggers were so unaccustomed to light and suspicious of people that they now never traded directly with them, and only appeared in the deepest darkness, where the Munchkins could not see.

Bastinda conquered the peaceful and hard-working Winkies: she made them build a castle for her, took a few Winkies as her servants, and hid herself inside the castle, never leaving it for the duration of her rule. The Good Witches also became rulers of their lands, but did not oppress their people, instead helped them in all the ways they could and improved their life.

# We also get to hear a bit more about James Goodwin, the man from Kansas. He was a “loser”, not because he was lazy or stupid but merely because he had such a bad luck everything he tried failed. He finally had success when he bought a hot air balloon and was paid by people to let them travel in it – but one day Goodwin was swept away by a tornado to the center part of Magic Land. There, the people believed him to be a wizard. He had them build him a city (they traded a lot with the Ore-Diggers, who gave them a lot of emeralds), secluded himself in it and spread the rumor has the most powerful wizard in the world. He only made one mistake: he became greedy and tried to invade Bastinda land, only for his army to be attacked by the Winged Monkeys. Goodwin himself nearly got captured by managed to make an escape.

[In fact, in the books I described, James is asked if he wants to return to Oz to help the heroes. And he flats out answers no - that he had enough of magic and would never return to Magic Land for anything in his life.]

# Actually I was wrong here – visibly the Powder of Life was not in Gingema’s cave. This book explains that a storm brought unknown seeds to Urfin’s garden. No matter how much he took the plants away they would grow twice as big and lively, so he ended up pulling them by the roots, cutting them into pieces and drying them out – resulting by accident in the brown powder of life.

- - - - -

You know how Russian novels are know to be extremely long, descriptive and complex? Well you clearly see those books are Russian. Volkov, contrary to Baum, wanted to create one expansive but logical and continuous world, avoiding the erratic world-making of Baum. The trouble however is that it results in entire chapters of backstory, exposition and historical justifications of everything... quite hard to sum it up as a result. But it is also very interesting, because it gives us a glimpse of what Oz could have looked like if Baum had made the effort of actually explaing in details a lot of his unexplained plot points.

#volkov lore #alexander volkov #volkov's magic land #urfin jus #the seven underground kings #wooden soldiers

9 notes · View notes