#she once burnt down an old manor house

[companion-showdown]

Who is your favourite companion?

TOURNAMENT MASTERPOST

propaganda under the cut

Ace McShane

She's brilliant. One of the best written and developed companions of the classic series, such a template for the modern era. So many different fates and stories across the different media. If you don't love her in one you're bound to in another. And then she got her return in the new era to boot. Oh yeah; and beating the crap out of a Dalek with a Gallifreyan enhanced baseball bat. What a legend. she's... ACE! (@seven-times-champion /@elden-12 )

Ace is the natural predecessor to modern female companions. She's a fighter, smart, caring, an explosives "expert", a match for the Doctor despite being so young. She follows her own morality, will smash a dalek with a baseball bat no problem, and has a banging wardrobe! (anonymous)

Donna Noble

you already know who she is bc she's the most iconic companion of all time. imagine teleporting into the tardis on the worst day of the doctor's life (so far) and not clocking any of his angst and SCREAMING at him to take you back to your wedding not only is this THE funniest introduction it's symbolizing how she saw the doctor at their worst, underneath the front that they put up, and due to this she understands them on a level like nothing else and changes their life forever. "you don't just need someone to stop you, you need someone to keep you going". AHHHHHH. she isn't in love with the doctor she calls them out whenever they're being awful and need to be whacked on the back of the head. she is filled with so much compassion for the smallest person she reminds ten of the kindness that was beaten out of him and she is so so loving to everyone except for herself. she loves her trans daughter so much. she changed the narrative of the doctor back from the tragedy it was into something hopeful. healing is real and possible through the power of queerplatonic relationships actually. donna sweep or i blow up the website (@aq2003 )

[cryptomiracle]

Yeah I would love to see some headcannons where reader is there little sister with Lyra and Toby, Cody

OHH SORRY I DIDN'T UNDERSTAND LAST TIME LMAO

I didn't get much sleep last night 💀

Ticci toby, x-virus and lyra, headcanons where you're their younger sister.

Warnings: blood, murder, mentions of death, sh, etc

Lyra

Lyra would 100% be over protective of you.

She would try her best to shield you from any danger.

Her and toby would tag team and beat someone up for you lmfao

She's very motherly towards you, Connie is usually busy teaching toby, or cleaning, so lyra was there when she couldn't be.

She cares for you very much.

She LOVES to do your hair, whether it's braids, ponytails, literally anything, she always makes sure your hair looks nice.

When she got her first job, the first thing she bought with her check, was a birthday cake for you.

Lyra enjoyed writing, so she wrote a few poems for you.

She didn't know at the time how much those poems would mean to you.

Toby

You and toby are only a few years apart, he was about 4-5 when you were born, but when you were first born, he was a bit envious of you, because he didn't want to share his mothers attention, but as you two grew up, he didn't feel that way anymore.

When you two were teenagers, you were practically best friends.

You had a tree house in the forest, you, toby, and lyra built over the summer.

You and toby would go out there and listen to music, draw, and just talk about anything until nightfall.

When you told toby about the voices, the dreams, and the things you saw, he was your only comfort.

Which is why when he found you at the tree house, and asked you to run away with him to somewhere "you two would be accepted"

You said yes.

------

A quick explanation:

After lyra died, you started having dreams about Slenderman, and hearing voices telling you to go into the forest, and do things, like hurt yourself, or others.

At first you thought the voices were just intrusive thoughts, but then they started to get aggressive.

They'd scream at you, and taunt you.

The dreams eventually turned into lucid dreams, where you'd see Slenderman just standing there, watching you.

You'd start to see things out of the corner of your eye, body parts, like eyes, teeth, and ears would show up in your yard.

You'd wake up with blood on your hands, or cuts and scrapes on your knees and arms.

So by the time toby killed your father, and burnt down the neighborhood, you were in a state of shock, and toby was the only one you thought you could run to.

But you didn't know at the time what he was dragging you into.

-------

Cody

By the time you met Cody, you had already been a proxy for some time, the same for toby.

You and Cody instantly hit it off, you and him had an "older brother and younger sister" kind of relationship, even before you found out he was your half brother.

having Cody around was like a breath of fresh air.

He actually listened to you, and enjoyed learning about things you like.

Cody loves to show you stuff he made, like the new bacteria he created, or a fungus he grew, etc.

He tries to protect you from the other creepypastas (Jeff and LJ specifically)

He's a horrible cook, but he tries.

One time you two almost burnt down the entire manor trying to bake a cake.

He named his pet chicken after you LMAOO

You and him stay up late at night going on an old horror movie marathons.

Current relationships

After everything that happened, your relationship with toby was.. complicated.

You didn't hate him, and he didn't hate you.

You two just weren't on speaking terms.

You two had a big fight, and after that you two never really talked unless you were on a mission.

But after Cody came along, you and Toby's relationship started to get better.

You two talked more, and started hanging out again.

You were still grieving over lyra, but you were happy you had toby and cody to help you through it all.

Once again, I'm so so sorry I didn't understand the first time.

I hope this one was better than the last!

Ty for reading - M ⁠♡

[cwarscars]

🖋 - cloud, aerith, or sephiroth? i'm just interested in seeing you try another ff7 character who's not like heid and those are who i thought of.

SEND ME A 🖋 AND A CHARACTER YOU’D LIKE TO SEE ME WRITE, AND I’LL GIVE IT MY BEST SHOT!

of these ? i chose ( cloud ) 

he’d not thought of it till now - not thought about the fact that they’d been trekking toward his hometown. that the home he’d once watched burned was next in their path. his heart still holds heavy from the revelations that had come with nanaki’s village; the feelings bought on by the hound’s father. not that the merc would show it, not that he’d any space in his head for empathy - - not that he could spare a thought when so many already screamed with words he simply doesn’t understand. 

the smell of the town is the first thing that he notices; the scent of fresh flowers almost disguising the musk of a not-so-distant shinra reactor. the town looks ‘new’ - as if he’s not lived its fate in flames. 

‘thought you said this place had burnt down-’ something along those lines is echoed by the ones at his side. a dash of his eyes is offered in return. he had. it did. 

regardless; footsteps have him falling further into the town. nibelheim, welcoming but something so entirely off about it that it has him feeling sick. 

he turns attention toward barret; the AVALANCHE leader sporting a frown and a cocked brow. he almost looks like he doubts him. 

tifa, she doesn’t even look. 

“the place was a wreck.” everybody he knew, dead. others, wounded. he couldn’t have made that up. he hadn’t! ( had he? ) “sephiroth burnt it to the ground. i know what i saw.” steely words come with a stoic refrain but his heart beats like a tin drum - his palms are laden with sweat (not that anybody but his sword would know), his stomach twists into knots that have him, pale. 

once again, he finds his eyes scanning the close distance - the houses, not a brick out of place. the people, smiling. what have they got to smile about? cloud certainly couldn’t. not when eyes fall upon his old home. his mother’s house. she was gone. gone like everybody else. and with that thought comes a pang of sadness; enough to interrupt the constant whisper in his ear of an old friend (or perhaps a familiar enemy). enough to have those icy hues melt for just a moment before distraction pulls attention toward the old shinra manor. 

like a blight, it stands. a reminder of the past - untouched. the only place (aside from the mountains that is) that there could perhaps exist a truth. 

“there-” he gestures “that’s where we’re going.” and with that - no elaboration, only determination - he heads forth. ready to lead the way toward a truth. ready to show them that he tells no lies - and hopefully, to reassure himself that the only fabrication is that of shinra’s weaving. 

not his own.

[james-montgumery]

Title - First - Next

Chapter One | Framed In Oil

In a different world or perhaps another time, she would look out into the ocean with wonder. Those dark blue waters once called out to her. Their gaze; a promise of adventure. Maybe things would’ve been different if she didn’t answer it’s call. Now, she looked out at the sea and only saw it’s depths.

It was just after midday when the carriage reached the manor. The road – made of dust and dirt – had curved around a lone tree, it’s trunk wide as it was tall, white moss hung from the branches. Three stories of brown brick looked down at the road below. Windows edged in white, were black in the light of day. It was like all the other manors Sustin had seen before; large, old... abandoned. Plants around it looked to be taking over. The vines the swallowed the building brought some much needed colour. The carriage rolled to a stop in front of an old wrought iron gate. Sustin’s family name was moulded across the top; The Aenthers.

“Mr Sustin.” He turned to Lady J. “I feel that I must remind you to stay close. I know that the forest look exciting, but I need to be able to find you.” She gazed at him from under the shadow of her straw hat. Sustin felt his cheeks heat up. It was no secret that at the last manor Sustin had run off. It wasn’t on purpose. He meant to tell her, but the light he was following wouldn’t wait. Sustin didn’t think much of it, until he was lead to the remains of a burnt building. Before a rainstorm.

“I’ll stay close, Lady J.” He was sure she didn’t believe him. It was far from the first time he promised that. Lady J squeezed his shoulder, then gave a single nod. She stepped out of the carriage; a light breeze rustled the fake flowers on her riding hat. Lady J held out a hand that Sustin took. He gripped her leather glove as she helped him out of the carriage.

The gate loomed over them, it’s bars cast lines of shade on the pair. Sustin could see where the paint chipped; red-ish brown rust covered the metal in patches. A sigh came from Lady J. She shook her head, before pulling out a black key from her pocket. In the lock at the centre of the gate; there was a scratching sound then a click. The gate swung open with an elongated creek. Sustin stared at the house they would be spending the next few months in. It had columns of marble and a blue terracotta roof. It didn’t belong, the town below didn’t look anything like it. Sustin reminded himself; they rarely do.

A carved slab of wood with bronze details stood as the front door, it towered over them. The porch was covered. The celling started just centimetres from the top of the doorway. Lady J had paused, her eyes firm and set on the dark wood. There was an air of silence that Sustin didn’t dare to break.

“Here we go… again.” Could just be made out from under her breath. Sustin heard her shuffle keys on a ring. The door was near silent when it unlocked. He followed the click of her heels. The hall smelled of dust and old carpet. Faded wallpaper shared the walls with wooden panelling. Sconces of stain-glass. Sustin could tell that the manor used to be a home, but now the light that came from the door did little to rid the room from darkness. Lady J pressed a button on a brass panel. There was a click from the sconces, but they didn’t light. Sustin didn’t need to look at her face, he knew the expression she had. Disappointment.

For a moment neither of them spoke. Lady J sucked in a breath, but stopped when a knock echoed through the hall. “Sustin?” He couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face when he saw her. In a wide straw hat and a pink sun dress, her face was unmistakeable.

“Biddy!” She crashed into Sustin. Her arms wrapped around his middle, in an attempt to squeezed the life out of him. A weight had lifted. Biddy pulled back, her red hair had gotten longer, and the wide smile on her face showed off a missing front tooth. Out of habit Sustin glanced at Lady J; she also ad a smile, but it was tight and didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“I thought you left England.” He asked his friend. Biddy played with the brim of her hat, but didn’t look away from him.

“We’re visiting Grandma.” She put a hand on her hip, “but I’m here because mum saw Lady J in town.” Biddy pulled the brim to cover the side of her face, “and I missed you?” It warmed Sustin’s heart to hear her say that.

“I missed you too.” Her smile widened as the words left his mouth. Biddy hugged him again, and was about to say something when Lady J cleared her throat. She walked up to them’ back straight and composed.

“Miss Biddy, would you mind showing Mr Sustin around town?” He could only stare at her. Sustin couldn’t imagine Lady J letting him out of her sight so soon. Before his brain could think of an answer. Biddy grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the house.

“We’ll be back before dinner!” She threw out at the shrinking hall. Sustin ran to keep her pace. Biddy took him past the gate, the carriage, and down the dirt road. Past trees and signs, and short stones buried in the earth. She didn’t stop until they were at a small cottage with a straw roof. There under the cover of the roof, was an old woman in a rocking chair. She was knitting, but for some reason the needles didn’t look real.

“Grandma!” Biddy yelled, waving her arm about. The woman looked up from her work, her eyes went from Biddy to him. The grandma’s gaze felt familiar, but he was sure he had never met her before. Stranger, Sustin realised he couldn’t see where the yarn was coming from.

“This is Sustin.” Biddy continued, “can you tell mum that we’ll be in town?”

Biddy’s Grandma gave a sweet smile and said, “I’ll tell her. Now, go run off and get in some trouble!” Sustin didn’t get a moment to breathe before Biddy dragged him away. They came to a metal and stone arch with the town’s name across it. Once there Biddy slowed down, walking next to Sustin instead of leading him. It was a small sea-side town, only a few thousand lived there. The houses were made of either a pale stone or painted wood. The roofs were of a black slate that absorbed the sun. The weather on the other hand could be described with one word; wet. They walked to the centre of town, where a brass statue of an anchor overlooked the pier.

“You want to see the library, don’t you?” Biddy knew him too well. She took him to a building that was connected to the town hall. It looked nicer than the rest. White, lime-washed stone made up the exterior. The black roof shined in the sunlight that peaked through the clouds. But the inside; rich wooden panelling, blue carpets, old fashioned rugs. It look like a lot of care went into the place. Sustin went up to the librarian, but she didn’t greet him, just typed at a chunky word-processor. Biddy dragged him away from the desk.

The walls were lined with shelves, most however were empty. The book that were there looked old and unused, dust coated the tops. For such a nice looking building, Sustin had expected more. Biddy stared at his side as he traced the spines. He wondered if a one point in time there had been more books. Sustin had never seen a library so bare. It made him sad, other than yearbooks and town records, Sustin had read all the stories that were here. He sighed, and was about to leave when a soft thump caught his attention. Biddy stopped staring into space and followed him to a book that was on the carpet. ‘The Seaman’s Trade’ Sustin read. Then he looked up; an oil painting of a ship stared down at him. Sustin had seen it before, but the statue wasn’t right. It was the Athena for sure, but instead of the goddess the ship was named after. A dragon clung to the bow.

[rockislandadultreads]

Fiction Set in the Victorian Era: Book Recs

The Mystery of the Sorrowful Maiden by Kate Saunders

In the spring of 1853, private detective Laetitia Rodd receives a delicate request from a retired actor, whose days on the stage were ended by a theater fire ten years before. His great friend, and the man he rescued from the fire, Thomas Transome, has decided to leave his wife, who now needs assistance in securing a worthy settlement. Though Mrs. Rodd is reluctant to get involved with the scandalous world of the theater, she cannot turn away the woman in need. She agrees to take the case.

But what starts out as a simple matter of negotiation becomes complicated when a body is discovered in the burnt husk of the old theater. Soon Mrs. Rodd finds herself embroiled in family politics, rivalries that put the Capulets and Montagues to shame, and betrayals on a Shakespearean scale. Mrs. Rodd will need all her investigatory powers, not to mention her famous discretion, to solve the case before tragedy strikes once more.

For readers of the Grantchester Mysteries, The Mystery of the Sorrowful Maiden is the charming third mystery in Kate Saunder's series about Laetitia Rodd, the indomitable lady detective.

Parting the Veil by Paulette Kennedy

Some houses hold secrets that are meant to be kept forever… When Eliza Sullivan inherits an estate from a recently deceased aunt, she leaves behind a grievous and guilt-ridden past in New Orleans for rural England and a fresh start. Eliza arrives at her new home and finds herself falling for the mysterious lord of Havenwood, Malcolm Winfield. Despite the sinister rumors that surround him, Eliza is drawn to his melancholy charm and his crumbling, once-beautiful mansion. With enough love, she thinks, both man and manor could be repaired. Not long into their marriage, Eliza fears that she should have listened to the locals. There’s something terribly wrong at Havenwood Manor: Forbidden rooms. Ghostly whispers in the shadows. Strangely guarded servants. And Malcolm’s threatening moods, as changeable as night and day. As Eliza delves deeper into Malcolm’s troubling history, the dark secrets she unearths gain a frightening power. Has she married a man or a monster? For Eliza, uncovering the truth will either save her or destroy her.

Down a Dark River by Karen Odden

London, 1878. One April morning, a small boat bearing a young woman’s corpse floats down the murky waters of the Thames. When the victim is identified as Rose Albert, daughter of a prominent judge, the Scotland Yard director gives the case to Michael Corravan, one of the only Senior Inspectors remaining after a corruption scandal the previous autumn left the division in ruins. Reluctantly, Corravan abandons his ongoing case, a search for the missing wife of a shipping magnate, handing it over to his young colleague, Mr. Stiles. An Irish former bare-knuckles boxer and dockworker from London’s seedy East End, Corravan has good street sense and an inspector’s knack for digging up clues. But he’s confounded when, a week later, a second woman is found dead in a rowboat, and then a third. The dead women seem to have no connection whatsoever. Meanwhile, Mr. Stiles makes an alarming discovery: the shipping magnate’s missing wife, Mrs. Beckford, may not have fled her house because she was insane, as her husband claims, and Mr. Beckford may not be the successful man of business that he appears to be. Slowly, it becomes clear that the river murders and the case of Mrs. Beckford may be linked through some terrible act of injustice in the past—for which someone has vowed a brutal vengeance. Now, with the newspapers once again trumpeting the Yard’s failures, Corravan must dredge up the truth—before London devolves into a state of panic and before the killer claims another innocent victim.

Miss Moriarty, I Presume? by Sherry Thomas

A most unexpected client shows up at Charlotte Holmes's doorstep: Moriarty himself. Moriarty fears that tragedy has befallen his daughter and wants Charlotte to find out the truth. Charlotte and Mrs. Watson travel to a remote community of occult practitioners where Moriarty's daughter was last seen, a place full of lies and liars. Meanwhile, Charlotte's sister Livia tries to make sense of a mysterious message from her beau Mr. Marbleton. And Charlotte's longtime friend and ally Lord Ingram at last turns his seductive prowess on Charlotte--or is it the other way around? But the more secrets Charlotte unravels about Miss Moriarty's disappearance, the more she wonders why Moriarty has entrusted this delicate matter to her of all people. Is it merely to test Charlotte's skills as an investigator, or has the man of shadows trapped her in a nest of vipers?

[howlingday]

jaune's from a family of raiders

well not quite he's from a culture that puts a lot of stock in capturing and ransoming off their friends and neighbors from other tribes. think of it like a combat sport only some times you're also stealing cattle and horses.

he's a prince of the high king

well again it's more complicated the kingdoms are like city states they don't exactly legislate or collect taxes all the way out into the wilds. but they do send huntsmen to protect the area and then tax the huntsmen.

jaune's dad just happened to be a huntsman who didn't pay taxes because the area his family had lived in for generations also happened to be outside the control of vale. and lots of people wanna live near the huntsmen who can keep them safe. so he has a position of respect among all the tribes. and jaune is his son

he's also required to have a harem

this one is interesting because it's one of those cultural things that seems weird from the outside but makes more sense when you look at it. men are hard to keep alive without a hospital. even with aura. women are part of a protected group like children and so take less risks in life. leading to there being a ton more women than men. and since technology isn't quite to the level of the kingdoms proper,

well more hands to help maintain a house isn't bad right?

but most of all jaune is a man who only wants to do right by his family, whether that be those from the past, or the woman, or women, that he loves.

and this part needs no further clarification

tldr: au where jaune's part of a tribal community and brings his lover or lovers home to meet the family. how does that go for everyone?

P.S: also sorry for the flowery ask, i felt inspired by something

Ooh, do tell the inspiration!

"Unhand me, you brute!" Jaune sighed as the girl in white screeched and squirmed behind him. "Do you know who I am?! When my family hears of this, they will hang you for this! Do you hear me?"

Jaune kept his focus on the road ahead as he gripped the reigns of Valorie, his mare, glancing left and right occasionally to avoid an ambush. His family might have a hold on the territory, but with his father growing in age, so, too, did that grip loosen. A rival tribe or rogue patrol from the kingdoms would easily snatch up an easy target like the lone swordsman and his latest bride.

"Could you at least tell me where we're going?"

"Home." Jaune answered, not looking back.

"Oh, yes, of course! How could I not know? And where exactly is your home?"

"Just up ahead."

"Uh huh, I see, and what are you going to do once you're home?"

Jaune let out a long sigh as he stretched his shoulders a bit. "Well, drop you off with the others, then have you judged, if there's enough time."

"Judged?" Weiss raised an eyebrow. "Judged for what?"

"Wife material." Weiss blushed and her jaw dropped. "Can you cook; can you clean; are you good with children; can you have children; do you have any family illnesses?" He shrugged. "Routine wedding discussions."

"W-Wedding?!" Ah, and just like that, the shrieking began anew. "You savage! You brute! I refuse to be treated like some stock taken to auction, about to be sold to some pervert noble!"

"You're not being sold to a noble." Jaune smiled and looked back. "Just me." Before she could begin again, Jaune let out a sigh of relief. "Finally, we're home."

It may have only been about a week since Jaune had left, but it felt like forever since his departure from the lands of Arcadia. The valleys and hills were as green and lush as ever, and the summer winds carried the calming scent of flowers across it all. He passed the growing crops, where he saw his sisters, their wives, and some of his own watering and tending to them. They waved to him, and he returned one to them.

"Welcome home, Miss Weiss." The girl marveled at the beauty. She had only heard of such places from her studies in the manor, but to see it in person was something else. Before she could admire it more, however, the mare stopped, jostling her from her focus.

Jaune slid down, then pulled Weiss down as well, carrying her bridal style. He then set her onto her own feet and untied the binds on her wrists and ankles. She lifted her leg, then kicked his shin. He yelped in pain.

"That was for the kidnapping!" She shouted.

"Yeesh! Just a kick?" Weiss turned to see a lilac-eyed blonde woman in fieldwork garments smiling at her. "When he dropped me off, they had to get his old man to get me off of him." She looked past Weiss to Jaune. "You going soft on me, or just your taste in women?"

"And who are you?" Weiss spat. "One of his whores?"

Yang laughed and placed a sweaty, mud-encrusted paw on her delicate shoulder. It felt warm at first, then hot as her grip became tight, and her eyes red. "I dare you to say that again."

"Yang, stop it!" Weiss and Yang looked to the younger girl running from inside the house. She was a brunette with red tips and silver eyes, and she wore a red apron that she had to roll up to her shins. She futilely tugged on the blonde woman's arm. "Jaune told you not to hurt anyone else!"

She let go, making the girl yelp as she was lifted with her arm. "Aw, c'mon, Rubes, we were just playing!" She then looked to Weiss, her eyes lilac once more. "Ain't that right, Ice Queen?"

"Ice Queen?!" Weiss balked.

"Yang, cut it out, please." Jaune sighed.

"Fine, fine!" Yang turned around, lowering her arm. The smaller girl let go as she walked away. "Besides, the crops won't grow themselves. I'll go be a good workhorse." She stopped to look back and winked. "I expect my carrot tonight, though, sweetheart~."

"Play nice and we'll see." Jaune responded with a smile. With that, Yang chuckled and resumed walking, swaying her hips for a few more yards before jogging back to the field. He looked to the younger girl and smiled. "And how have you been, Ruby?"

She sighed. "Do you mean after you left, or after you came back?"

"Both."

"After you left, I missed you. It was your mom's birthday, but I couldn't afford a present, so I took on her chores for the week, but I didn't expect her chores included chimney cleaning, so now I have soot so far up my nose, I'm still sneezing black. Then I had to tend to the chickens, but they're so vicious, and I swear they can smell weakness, because the rooster jumped me at least six times. Then Zwei needed a bath, but he somehow tricked me into the tub, so I smell like wet dog a little bit. And then I had to bake her cake all on my own, but there were eggshells in it and it came out both burnt and raw somehow, and I just- Argh!" Ruby collapsed into Jaune's torso. "I really missed you."

Jaune held her and kissed the crown of her head. "I missed you, too, Ruby." He stepped back and held a hand outward towards Weiss. "Ruby Rose-Arc, this is Weiss Schnee. She's going to be my newest bride." He looked to Weiss. "Weiss Schnee, this is Ruby Rose-Arc, my second wife. She and Yang will help prepare you for judging."

"It's so nice to meet you!" Ruby swooped in, snatching the other woman's hands in hers. Her smile was wide and bright. "It'll be nice to have another short girl in our home!"

"No!" Weiss yanked her hands away. "I refuse! When my father hears of this, he'll-"

"Oh, that reminds me!" Jaune walked to Valorie and reached into her saddlebag. Weiss grumbled as she watched him pull out a small, burlap sack. "Here, Ruby. This was part of the dowry, but I want you to have it."

Ruby opened the sack and squealed in delight. "Dust crystals!" She hugged the new woman tightly. "You are the bestest bestie a bestie could ever have!"

"What the-?! Where did you get those?!" Weiss shrieked.

"From your father." Ruby ran inside with her new sack. "In exchange for marrying you, we'll allow him to trade through our lands."

"My father would never-!" Jaune gave her a curious look. "I mean, not to one of his own-!" Her voice grew softer. "I thought..."

"Listen," Jaune placed a hand on her shoulder, "if you don't want to marry me, I understand. Most of the others didn't want to, either. But if you give it a few days, you might learn to love it here. You won't go hungry, you'll be well protected, and I promise you'll be loved every day."

"I just... I didn't think I would be treated like this. By my own family."

"I know." Jaune removed his hand. "Would it be okay if I hugged you?"

"I-"

"JAUNEY!" The two saw a young woman bull rush towards Jaune, carrying a dead boar high above her head. Jaune extended his arms out and caught her, spinning in place at least a dozen times. Blood sprayed around, including onto Weiss and the other two as they embraced. When they stopped, Jaune set her down, giving her a butterfly kiss with his nose to hers. "You're home!"

Jaune chuckled. "Yup!" He peered around her and looked to Weiss. "And I brought back someone new."

Nora turned around and gasped as she looked at Weiss. "Oh! My! Dust! You are so small!" She looked to Jaune and waggled her brow. "Be careful you don't break her!" She then laughed. "I'd shake your hand, but, uh, I'm a little busy. I'm Nora Valkyrie-Arc, Jaune's fourth wife."

"Weiss Schnee." Blood dripped from her hair. "And I was just about to leave."

"Aw! Already?! We were gonna make pancakes tomorrow!"

"I was going to make pancakes, Nora." Weiss turned to the male voice and saw a slim man in the doorway, wearing both an apron and a blank expression. "Just like I do every morning for you."

"Renny!" Nora cheered before tossing the trophy to him. "This is my first husband, Lie-Valkyrie Ren!"

Despite his slim figure, the man held the heavy beast with seemingly no trouble. "A pleasure to meet you." He nodded, before turning to head inside.

"Is he also your husband?" Weiss asked. Jaune chuckled nervously. This was going to be a long day, but they both already knew that.

[inactiveanimeblog]

shikamaru x reader fic

“change” chapter one

tw : smoking, alcohol

brooo i’m honestly so sorry this took forever but dont worry next chapters won’t take as long at all, i already have them planned out. and just a heads up there will be smut in this story, not this chapter but possibly chapter three.

eh i don’t really like the way this chapter came out but i can promise better in the future ones.

warnings: for now just alcohol, weed, and swearing

shikamaru and you had been best friends for as long as you both could remember. since you both had grown up together, through your parents being close friends, you and him were inseparable. you spent most of your childhood being around each other. but once you guys hit 16 years old things started to be different.

shikamaru started to drink, smoke, get tattoos, and flunk school. it was a miricale that he even graduated high school thanks to you tutoring him and completing his homework assignments. you on the other hand were a straight A student, a teachers pet, a quiet kid who didn’t party or do anything most teenagers around you were doing. you wanted to, but you were anxious and even a little scared that you werent ‘enough’ to be friends with others who were out having good times and enjoying their teen years. you were timid, you couldn’t be outgoing to save your life, so you watched from the sidelines.

once you graduated high school you traveled to another part of japan for eleven months to find yourself, learn to break out of your shell, and to switch up your style leaning more towards looking sexier and attractive. which meant leaving shikamaru behind to say goodbye for the time being. neither of you really talked when you left, in fact, you guys didn’t talk at all. you had missed him more than anything while he was well, being him. shikamaru messed around with girls, making them feel special, having sex with them, but he never put a label on their ‘relationship’. he would end things when he would get bored and find a new pretty girl to fuck, which left all the other girls broken hearted. you envied any girl he was involved with in a sexual way, you wanted him more than anything but you never told him. hell no. you could never tell him. he would never feel the same as you feel. there was no changing the way shikamaru was. he would never love and you knew that.

you came back to konaha a couple of weeks ago, settling into your new place, a nice little apartment, decorated in a modern manor, as well as starting to make friends in town through social media, slowly starting to go to parties and going out to clubs. you changed your look, dying your hair, getting a new piercing, switching up your style to something different, something new. you felt a lot better about yourself and you wondered if shikamaru would be interested in the way you looked. you weren’t confident, but the attention you’ve been getting from others lately hasn’t gone unnoticed.

hey shikamaru, i came back to konoha a few weeks ago finally! sorry i haven’t told you yet i’ve just been busy moving into my new place and stuff. we should hangout or something, it’s been so long since we seen eachother. you sent him a text, hoping that he would text you back wanting to make plans.

yeah we can link. i’m busy tonight but if you’re free tomorrow you can come by my place around 18:30 and we can catch up. you won’t be able to stay for long though.. maybe an hour at most. just lmk when you’re on the way. it took him a little while but he answered.

okay, that’s fine i have plans a little while afterwards so i won’t be able to stay long anyways. i’ll see you tomorrow and i’ll let you know when i’m on the way.

you were so excited to see him, butterflies already forming in the pit your stomach. you planned out a fit, the way you wanted your hair, and makeup. this was the time you and shikamaru would be able to catch up and maybe even become close friends again.

unfortunately shikamaru wasn’t too excited to see you. you guys haven’t talked in a long time and he saw no point or benefit to your friendship. he’s made a lot of new friends, other friends who are interested in the things he is and he’s been busy fucking new girls all the time. he thought it was such a drag that you wanted to hangout, and truth be told he wasn’t even gonna be busy tomorrow. he just didn’t want to waste his night hanging around you.

_______________________________________________

the next day you woke up around 11:30 am, starting off with eating a light breakfast, showering, shaving, and skin care. getting ready and facetiming your friend mikasa (hehe aot name but i love her name) to talk about how excited you were for first off going to see shikamaru for a little bit and second off going to a house party later that you guys were invited to.

“i’m so nervous ‘kasa, like what if he doesn’t like the way i look? or what if he thinks i’m weird now?” you sighed, brushing your fingers through your hair, checking yourself out in the mirror.

“it’ll be fine y/n! just try your best not to show your nervous. act like he isn’t intimidating at all. you look hot, nothing to be scared of.” she responded

“hm, you think so? are you sure i should wear this? i don’t wanna look like a try hard..”

“you don’t look like a try hard just mention to him that you’re hitting a party later he’ll get why you’re in a cute ass outfit. now go to his house, it’s already 18:07, don’t keep him waiting. he said he didn’t have much time anyways.”

“alright i’ll see you later tonight then.. wish me luck, i’ll let you know what happens. bye.”

“good luck and bye bitch! don’t have too much fun!” she answered while wiggling her eyebrows and hanging up the phone.

you texted shikamaru that you were on your way, he responded shortly saying to just knock when you got there.

third person point of view

“yo kiba, i have a girl coming over today.. she’s just an old friend. she’s shy so try not to scare her off. don’t smoke out in the living room while she’s here. i don’t need her getting uncomfortable. it’ll be such a drag listening to her get upset about the smoke.”

“say less, but is she hot? if she’s just an old friend let me make a move on her.” kiba answered hopping on the couch next to shikamaru.

“no. she’s not cute and you wouldn’t want her anywa-“ shikamaru was cut off by a light knock on the apartment door.

“can you go invite her in for me?”

“do you ever get off your lazy ass? whatever fine.” kiba said while getting up off the couch and walking towards the door.

kiba opened the door and didn’t say anything, he just stared down at y/n who looked back up at him confused clearly expecting shikamaru to answer. ‘not cute?’ kiba thought. ‘is shikamaru out of his MIND??’ surely this couldn’t be the girl shikamaru was talking about, shikamaru would have to be an idiot to not find her attractive. she was dressed in a sexy yet subtle outfit. she smelt nice and her hair looked so soft, her skin was like porcelain, delicate and smooth.

“uhh i’m sorry, who are you?” kiba asked

“oh- i umm, i’m y/n nice to meet you. i’m here to see shikamaru.. i’m at the right apartment, right?” shikamaru tried to look over at y/n but he couldn’t see much with kiba standing in front of the door. he looked back down at his phone and rolled his eyes.

“well? are you gonna let her in? i just told you i had company coming over two minutes ago. how burnt out are you?”

“oh right um come in, i’m kiba, shikamaru’s roommate by the way. make yourself at home.. shikamaru’s on the couch.” kiba stuttered out scratching the back of his neck and moving out of the way so y/n could entered.

“wow shikamaru your place looks nice. is it just you and your roommate living here?” y/n said.

shikamaru looked up from his phone to see her staring around the room and his first thought was ??? what the fuck ?

“y/n?” shikamaru said. he stared at her as she sat on the other couch, his eyes focused on her appearance.

“yeah?” y/n answered smiling back at him.

“nothing i just— you just look really different since i last seen you last. what have you been up to?” he asked still eyeing her up and down, blushing slightly. he felt a little weird, he wasn’t expecting his nerdy childhood best friend to look so good.

“i’ve been busy honestly, i finally moved into my new place and i’ve been going out with friends, it feels nice to finally be back home although i do miss traveling.” friends.. she has other friends now?

“what about you? what have you been up to?” she said still smiling, she looked beautiful, like she’s grown up.. grown into a women’s body, she’d grown into her face as well, no longer looking so babyish. her outfit was nice, showing some skin leaving little to the imagination. this was nothing like her.

“nothing really, just be doing the same old things.... you made some friends when you came back to konoha?”

“yeah i did, i made a few. you should meet them one day, we usually hit parties on the weekends or we’ll chill at one of our houses, drink and smoke or whatever. you would like them.” she exclaimed nodding her head slowly.

huh? wait she even drinks and smokes now? what happened to her? and what changed her when she left.. why was she so different now?

“you drink and smoke now? wow you really are different.”

“oh please” y/n giggled a bit. “i’m still the same old y/n, i’m no different only been living my life in other ways. i’ve been enjoying it ever since i left eleven months ago, you know? i’m having fun i guess.”

“well.. i honestly never expected the day where you would find drinking and smoking fun since you always used to scold me for it.” he said, rolling his eyes playfully, a grin forming on his lips.

“and by the way do you want something to drink, like a water or anything?”

“you know i was just inexpirienced back then shikamaru” she said placing her elbow on the couch arm rest, resting her cheek on her palm and she still had a cute small smile on her face.

“and i’m good, i’ll probably be leaving not too long from now anyways.”

“you in a rush?” shikamaru questioned, slightly raising one of his brows

“hm, kind of. i’m gonna go pregame at one of my friends houses tonight and get ready for a party.”

kiba walked in and sat next to her, he gave shikamaru a pointed look before butting in their conversation and replying “a party tonight huh? you gonna give us the invite?”

“well i mean if you guys wanna go it’s gonna be at 227 Clock Street, not far from here maybe a 15 minute drive. if they ask who you know just say you know me.” she said looking back at kiba “you shouldn’t have any problems. but also, i believe shikamaru said he was busy tonight. right shikamaru?”

“yeah.. well, i do have plans later. but i could just cancel them now, not really important anyways. i guess we could go out. do you think it’ll be a problem to bring others?”

“nope it shouldn’t be a problem at all. the more the merrier, and you and your friends will be able to meet mine tonight!” she said excitedly.

shikamaru excused himself to use the bathroom as kiba continued to talk to y/n and ask her about herself. it was so very obvious that kiba wanted to take her to his room and bend her over, but y/n being hella naive couldn’t tell.

shikamaru looked in the mirror while washing his hands. his eyebrows were scowled, and his eyes were dazed. never could he imagine something like this would happen where y/n would come out of her shell. where she would party. she was as sweet as ever still, she would always be a kind person. nothing could change that, but she wasn’t as quiet as she used to be. it was nice seeing her talk more, no longer stuttering out every other word.

‘if i bring my friends tonight and the rest meet her there’s no doubt she’ll be around more often. i already know they’re gonna be all over her, i’m just curious if she’s still innocent sex wise. last time i seen her she was definitely still a virgin. maybe i should ask her myself.’

[fridayfirefly]

Virtual Sleepover

Read Virtual Sleepover on AO3

Masterlist

Written for Maribat March Day 4 - Internet Friends

Quarantine had been rough at Wayne Manor, but for Tim Drake, Marinette Dupain-Cheng was a bright light through it all. Tim was getting ahead of himself, though. The story of Marinette Dupain-Cheng started on March 20th, 2020. Panic over coronavirus was sweeping the nation. Bruce had gathered all of the members of the Wayne family into the dining room to explain the new rules of the house. No one was to go in or out. Groceries would be delivered to the house. There would be no superhero outings for at least two weeks. Tim didn't think his family would be able to survive, trapped in a house together.

So to preserve his sanity, Tim turned to the internet. There were hundreds of cold cases that he had put on the backburner and hundreds of forums and websites dedicated to solving cold cases. Tim turned to the most popular website and started dumping information, hoping for someone to show up and work through it with him. That's how Tim met Marinette. @MarinetteDC showed up on his page with a friend request, a wide range of technical knowledge about textiles and designs, and about seven different theories on a murder case Tim considered all but unsolvable. Her sleep schedule was just as chaotic as Tim's and she also drank a near-inhuman amount of coffee. Marinette Dupain-Cheng enthralled Tim. And when the chaos of his house threatened to make Tim lose his mind, Marinette became his lifeline.

"Can you hear me?"

Tim nodded. "Yep!"

"Nice!" cheered Marinette. Tim relished the opportunity to see her face, even if it was through a zoom call. "So what do we want to do first? I don't have class until Monday, so we have the whole weekend ahead of us."

"I think we should start with the iconic sleepover classic: truth or dare," suggested Tim.

"Alright. Truth or dare, Tim?"

"Dare." Tim was confident in his abilities to pull off any stunt she might come up with. However, his confidence started to fade as he watched a devious look grow on her face.

"I dare you to bake a batch of cookies - any kind of cookies you want - without using a recipe."

Tim blinked, trying to recall the last time he had baked. Besides a few times helping Alfred out in the kitchen, Tim wasn't certain that he had ever used the Wayne Manor kitchen for anything other than brewing coffee and heating frozen pizzas. "Could I have a new dare?"

Marinette shook her head, the grin on her face demonstrating exactly how much fun she was having, watching the panic in Tim's eyes. "I'll give you one hint on how to make them, but only one, so use it wisely."

Tim groaned, unplugging his laptop from its charger so he could move it to the kitchen. "I'm not actually certain I know all of the ingredients in cookies. Or how long you bake them for. I feel like an hour is probably too long, but I feel like half an hour might not be enough time."

On the other side of the screen, Marinette tried to stifle her giggles but was unable to keep them all in. "No offense Tim, but this is going to be a disaster. I can't wait."

Tim let out another groan. "Must you torture me?"

"How about you keep the laptop camera pointed towards the oven, that way I can tell you once something starts to burn?" Marinette joked.

Tim knew that she was teasing, but honestly, he knew he could use all the help he could get. Still, he wanted to preserve at least a little of his dignity. "Very funny," Tim said sarcastically, setting the laptop down on the kitchen counter.

"Start with ingredients," Marinette advised.

"What all goes into a chocolate chip cookie..?" mused Tim. He got out the flour, white and brown sugar, eggs, butter, vanilla extract, and three different types of chocolate chips that Alfred kept stocked.

Marinette raised an eyebrow. "Is that all?"

Tim cast a wary gaze upon his ingredients. It didn't seem like enough, but at the same time he couldn't figure out what he was missing. Tim sighed. "I'm ready to use my hint. Tell me what I forgot."

"You forgot to get out the salt, and more importantly, the baking soda," advised Marinette.

"Can I have a second hint?" asked Tim as he gathered his two missing ingredients.

"That depends on what you're asking," teased Marinette.

"I'm going to start listing measurements, and you tell me if it's too much or not enough."

Marinette pretended to think it over before replying, "I'll do it, but only because I want the cookies to come out edible, not because we're friends or anything like that. There are no friends in the Dupain-Cheng kitchen," said Marinette, her voice filled with faux seriousness.

"Lucky for me, these cookies are being made in the Wayne kitchen, and we're all very nice here, and we don't let Tim burn his cookies."

Marinette giggled. "You have a point there," she acquiesced. "Start listing your measurements."

Tim grabbed the measuring cup and starting approximating. "Two cups flour?"

"That will make about five dozen cookies."

"One cup of each type of sugar?"

Marinette shook her head. "You'll want a 3/4 cup of each."

The rest of the measuring process proceeded smoothly, with Tim guessing measurements of fluctuating accuracy (he correctly guessed that he would need two eggs, but his guess of a half-cup of baking soda led to Marinette questioning whether he had ever been in a kitchen before).  Once Tim got the cookie dough mixed, spooned out onto a tray, and put in the oven, they resumed their game of truth-or-dare.

"Your turn, Marinette. Truth or dare?"

"Truth."

Tim tried to think of a good question to ask. "Since you've now seen how abysmal I am in the kitchen, I want to know one thing that you're terrible at."

Marinette scrunched up her brow. "It's nowhere near as bad as you're inability to crack an egg-"

Tim winced a little, remembering the painstaking process of digging out fragments of eggshell after he completely shattered it in his attempts to crack it.

"-But I have really bad depth perception. I trip over every little crack in the sidewalk. I'm probably the clumsiest person you'll ever meet."

Tim chuckled. "And here I thought you were perfect."

Marinette grinned. "Almost perfect. Truth or dare?"

"I'll pick truth this time, and hopefully avoid being humiliated again."

"I'll go easy on you this round. When was the last time you lied, and what was it about?"

Tim combed back through his memory of the past week, trying to pick out the last time he lied. "I think it was yesterday morning. Dick asked me if the coffee I was drinking was my first coffee of the day. I said yes, but really I hadn't slept that night so I just decided to arbitrarily count my start of the day at the time I would have woken up had I actually gone to sleep."

"So how many coffee's had you had yesterday?"

Tim shrugged. "Since midnight? Probably three or four. I've gotten away with a lot more coffee since I modified the Keurig in my room to stop making so much noise."

"I'm lucky," said Marinette. "My parents sleep so far away from me that they can't hear my Keurig."

"Truth or dare?" asked Tim, continuing the game.

"Truth."

"What's the most embarrassing thing you've ever done because you had a crush on someone?"

Marinette flushed red, and Tim immediately knew that this was going to be a good story. "Once I accidentally sent a text to my crush so I stolehisphoneanddeletedthetext." Marinette rushed the last few words, so fast that Tim couldn't quite make them out.

"What was that?"

"I stole his phone and deleted the text before he could read it. In my defense, I made a lot of questionable decisions at that age."

Tim burst out laughing. "How old were you?"

"I was thirteen," admitted Marinette.

Tim couldn't stop laughing at the absurdity of her claims. "You couldn't have asked him to borrow his phone and deleted it then?"

"I was in panic mode. It was between steal his phone or destroy his phone."

"Those were your two options?!" exclaimed Tim.

Marinette blushed even more furiously. "It's your turn. Don't expect me to go easy on you this round. Truth or dare?"

Tim kept up the trend. "Truth."

"What was the worst thing you did at thirteen?"

Tim thought back to his days as Robin, and the many, many stories he could tell. In the end, he settled on one that Jason still brought up when he needed leverage over Tim. "It's not as bad as phone thievery, but it's still a pretty funny story, looking back on it. You know how I have two older brothers, right?"

"Dick and Jason," Marinette confirmed.

"Well, one night I managed to convince Dick to let me drive Bruce's favorite car. Now, keep in mind, I had never actually driven a car before. Surprisingly, I wasn't that bad at driving. I made it home without incident - that is, until I tried to park the car back in the garage and accidentally crashed into Jason's motorcycle. For years after that, Jason used the threat of telling Bruce about my little car crash to keep me in line."

Marinette snorted. "You think that borrowing a phone to delete a text message is worse than borrowing and crashing a car?"

Tim shrugged. "It's a matter of opinion. Truth or dare?"

With a roll of her eyes, Marinette said, "Truth."

"What's one thing you would never tell me?" It was the sort of question that could only be asked during a game of truth or dare. In Tim's opinion, it was this sort of question that made the game worth playing.

Marinette pouted. "I don't like that question."

"Too bad. The rules of truth or dare state that you have to answer it."

"Fine." Marinette looked up at the ceiling, deep in thought. Just as she turned back to face her laptop, her face lit up. It was evident that she had an answer. "Usually I let people learn from their mistakes in the kitchen. However, I will now tell you - because I have to - that your cookies have been in the oven for too long. They're going to start burning if you don't take them out soon."

Tim jumped up to get his cookies out of the oven. They looked a little burnt, brown rather than the golden-brown that Alfred would make, but they still looked edible. "I'll accept your answer, but only because you saved my cookies."

"Now that your cookies are done, do you want to finish up our game of truth or dare?"

"One last question," decided Tim. "And I'll pick truth, to make it easy for you."

"What's the biggest secret that you've currently keeping from your family?"

After Tim's last question, he had expected Marinette to follow it up with an invasive question. Luckily, her question had a very simple answer.

"Easy question - my friendship with you."

Marinette looked confused. "What do you mean?"

"Most of my friendships begin through the connections they have to my family. Because of that, I've never really had serious friendships that my family wasn't actively involved in."

"It's not because you're ashamed of me, right?" Marinette sounded unsure of herself. Insecurity was a side of her that Tim had never seen before.

"Of course not," Tim assured her. "You're the best friend I could have ever asked for, Marinette."

"Good, because you're not getting rid of me that easy. I still have a lot to teach you about baking. I think we might try cupcakes at our next sleepover."

Tim laughed. "We'll see about that." He had no doubts that there would be sleepovers to come, and shenanigans involving baked goods to go along with them.

@maribatmarch-2k21

[blackestnight]

who is the better cook!!!!!

YELLS BECAUSE I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THIS!!!!!

short answer: aymeric.

long answer, because i'm me so of course there's a long answer:

hanami is just as good at cooking in a technical sense. in its most basic form cooking comes down to ability to follow directions combined with ability to use common sense, both of which hanami is actually very good at (when she wants to be). she can take raw ingredients and cook them appropriately to bring them together into a meal that's nutritious, pretty solid in the taste department, and not egregiously burnt, undercooked, or actively harmful to the person who eats it. like, she can do Competent Adult CookingTM. she didn't get a choice in learning. a bitch has allergies!!! to, y'know, some common dietary staples!!! and when she was a kid her moms were happy to make sure she had food that was safe for her, duh, it was their job to take care of her. but she's also one of five kids, not even counting the small army of cousins and aunts and uncles and other extended relations who tend to flock to the hagane family table, and eventually dinner's ready, eat up turned into dinner's ready, here's your plate, hana-chan turned into kitchen's open for you, hana-chan. because feeding that many people is a chore on its own, and once hanami was old enough to cook for herself she was expected to, both because it was a skill she had to learn anyway and because it made it easier for everyone if she was the one in charge of making sure her dinner didn't kill her on accident.

so she can cook. she's not bad at it—i'd go so far as to say she's good at it. but it's not something she enjoys. she does it because she has to, because her food is her responsibility, and...honestly as she got older the concept of mealtimes became associated with isolation, for her. because she couldn't eat what everyone else did, so she slowly stopped eating when everyone else did, to ensure she wouldn't be crowding the kitchen or contaminating her food, and if she did sit down at mealtimes she had either already eaten or was picking at rice and veggies to tide herself over.

so yeah, she can cook, and she's good at it. she doesn't like it. but holy shit does aymeric like cooking.

aymeric didn't have to learn to cook. he probably wasn't expected to learn to cook—minor house or no he's still a child of nobility, and came from a family of means, the sort of family that has a Manor and Staff and people who address them as My Lord Viscount. granted he'd probably be expected to be somewhat self-sufficient as a member of the temple knights, unless ishgard goes with a really traditional squire-knight model but it doesn't seem like it to me, but still. not a skill expected of him.

but he cooks. he likes cooking! it's his lorebook-assigned hobby! one of the greatest joys in his life is sharing food with the people he cares about and getting them to enjoy it too. he has been trying and failing to get lucia and estinien interested in the culinary arts for years.

so when he meets hanami, who mostly views food as a chore and whose dietary needs come with a laundry list of restrictions that cut out at least one staple ingredient of basically every coerthan dish, you can't tell me this man's response wouldn't be "alright, BET." and rolling up his shirtsleeves.

aymeric is the better cook because he's passionate about it, both generally as a hobby and as a means of expressing specific affection for hanami. what better way to show he cares than setting aside what could be several hours to make sure she has a really nice few minutes?

[bowieandqueen11]

Luke Crain Headcanons

Request: Hi🥺I’m usually not to good about making request but I’m trying to breakout of my shell on that cause you are an amazing writer and I love everything you write!! But can I request a Luke Crain headcanon where you guys grew up together but distanced while he was in rehab but you came back together after what happened with Nellie! Thank you so much you’re an angel🥺💛 

Thank you SO much @cathrinexxxv​ I LOVE LUKE CRAIN! Also I’m so ready to binge watch all of Bly Manor tomorrow!! <3

You and Luke first met when you were very young. As in, really really little. To this day, you’re still constantly teasing him and making him blush smile about his huge magnifying pair of glasses and his obsession with bowler hats.

You and your family used to live in the small village which was a fifteen minute walk away from the looming heights of Hill House, so when a rumour started spreading down the houses that a new family full of children were moving in for the summer, you, naturally, were intrigued.

One night, when you had heard from your mother that the new family had moved in, you sneaked out your back garden on a warm afternoon before dinner, cutting through the dark and dingy forest until you reached the outskirts of the property. Seeing a boy around your own age sitting on his own on the burnt grass, you waved to Luke from behind the branch of a nearby, crooked oak tree. He was startled, to say the least, but as he watched you hide slightly behind the bark, he was surprised to find he wasn’t scared in the slightest.

He felt as if he almost knew you already. As if this was always meant to happen, that you were meant to find each other here.

Nudging his glasses back up the bridge of the nose, he shyly waved back. Once he finally realised that you weren’t going to budge from your hiding place, nervous from the stories your neighbours had told you about this house, he decided to pick up his crayons in one fist and his paper in the other, before he sets off half stumbling, half stomping along the uneven ground towards you.

When he finally reaches the trunk, he stops and looks at you kind of funnily, tilting his head slightly before he decides the right reaction was to smile at you.

‘My name is Luke Crain. Do you want to play with me? All my siblings ignore me and they don’t want to draw with me.’

The two of you spent the rest of the afternoon huddled under the shaking leaves, sitting on the roots of the tree, Luke tracing out a picture and you giggling as you tried to bump his hand out of the way to colour it in.

From then on, the two of you were inseparable. Nellie loved you of course, and saw you as her honorary best friend as well, as did the rest of the siblings (even though Shirley would never admit it, and Theo was too stubborn to), which meant constant sleepovers at Hill House.

Hugh would always chuckle and shake his head when he peeked into Luke and Nellie’s room, seeing Nell asleep on a red bean bag with a half open bag of sweets lying deserted by her feet, and you and Luke sprawled out on the mat by the iron railings of his bed, snoring. 

You were also the only one he allowed up into his treehouse. Although, sometimes he was too embarrassed to let you, or his siblings, in, because he had stuck pictures up on the wall of the drawings he had tried to do of you.

Growing up with Luke also meant having to calm him down after he starts seeing the tall, floating ghost. Sometimes you would try to climb up the ivy outside of his bedroom window, only to topple into the house headfirst when you start to hear Luke’s high pitched screaming coming from under his bed. Although Olivia would come running in, she would always end up comforting sobbing Nellie, as Luke would only grab onto you, the two of you sitting on the edge of his bed as you remind him the rule.

‘Breathe in and out Luke, that’s it. In and out, seven times - that’s what keeps you safe.’

‘Eight’, he would say with a trembling breath. ‘Eight times. You’re my family too.’

The two of you were gutted when Luke had to move away, but your parents could already see how close the two of you were, and so decided that a move away and a new school for you, perhaps, wasn’t the worst idea. Especially, they decided, since you had been there that night as well.

Although the two of you were close for the whole of your childhood, it takes Luke until he’s eighteen years old to realise just how long he’s really been in love with you. It takes some nudging on from Nellie, pointing out how you would run up to his locker during breaks between classes and just fill him in on how your day was going - each break, no matter how long it had been, without fail. Luke was the only person you wanted to talk to, and from the look of pure delight on Luke’s face as he leans against his locker door and gives his full, undivided attention to you, you’re the only person he wants to listen to.

Or how, Nellie would continue, you would come round to their house for dinner, and although Aunt Janet tried to separate the two of you by sitting you opposite each other, you would just spend the whole dinner ignoring whatever Theo was talking about and giving each other funny looks as you kicked each other in the shin.

Or, when the two of you got a bit older, and you would sneak out of your dorm to visit him in the middle of the night, throwing little rocks at his window until his curtains would rustle and the window latch would be thrown open, his grinning face peering down at you. Despite having spent the whole weekend together, reading to each other in the town’s local library, or just lying shoulder to shoulder watching movies, the two of you would sit out in his garden, on the dewy grass, constantly craving each other’s company. You made him blush one night, when you suddenly grabbed his hand and intertwined his growing fingers over your smaller ones, pointing up at the moon, and the glowing stars, not realising the little side eye, euphoric look he would give you. 

That’s when he finally realised how immensely, and terrifyingly in love with you he was.

It scared him, to realise this, but deep down he knew it had always been you.

He has so many nightmares though. So many nights are spent with his head lying heavy in your lap, as you brush through his golden hair, trying to shush him and calm him down, or rocking him as he cries into your shoulder because of the nightmares he has about his mother, or about Abigail.

As the two of you start to escape your teenage years, and the wishful chasing after each other that came with it, your relationship becomes slightly more strained when he starts using. You choose to move in with Nellie for a while, once he finally goes to rehab. When she gets married, and you're forced to find somewhere new to live, you think you'll never hear from the Crains again - you get the odd visit from Nell, or Theo, but they're so busy enjoying the newly wed life, or studying for their degree that it's not enough - nothing fills the hole that comes from missing Luke. 

It hurts that he never comes to see you, but little did you know that he used to sit at his little beige desk every night, underneath the barred window, just staring up at the moon as he bit on the edge of his pen, a feeling of such wistfulness and loneliness and longing weighing down his chest.

He used to write you a letter, every day, just pouring out all the feelings he was too afraid to tell you, but he always crumples them up and throws them away, too scared to send them.

When Steve phones you up to tell you the news about Nellie’s passing, you told him to immediately come and pick you up.

You're terrified when you open the door and walk out into the bone chilling night to hug him, your heart thumping in your chest when he tells you about how Luke has left rehab again and is somewhere out on the streets, probably using. It breaks your heart, but you know you have to be the one to find him, to bring him back.

When you reach him, and see the man you've loved since you were a child wandering, shoeless and shivering along the freezing, cracked pavement, muttering to himself, you can’t help a tear slip out as you unbuckle your seatbelt and hop out of Steve’s rental.

Luke is so terrified, he doesnt recognise you for a second. It’s only a second, though, before his eyes widen and he pounces on you, wrapping you into him so familiarly, his frame looming large above you but yet feels so fragile in your grasp as he buries his head into the side of your neck and starts crying.

‘I’m so, so cold, Y/n, and my arms are s-s-so stiff, and I’m s-so sorry, I’m so sorry-’

You can’t bear to tell him the news, so you just hold the nape of his neck and pull him tight against your chest, hating the way his whole body shakes in your hold.

On the day of Nell’s funeral, he doesn't leave your side once - it’s as if the two of you had never been separated at all. As everyone files in through the main door, ignoring the sour face on Shirley as they wander into the reception area, you and Luke just sit knee to knee on the couch opposite the entryway.

‘I tried to write to you,’ he starts, as he fumbles a cigarette from out of his breast pocket and tucks it away behind his ear, trying to busy himself with anything so he doesn’t have to meet your confused eyes, and so you don’t have to see the guilt ridden in his. ‘I want you to know that. Nellie kept on telling me off, but i just didn't know how to say what i needed to say to you.’

‘Luke, its okay, i understand how difficult it was for you-’

‘No-no, Y/n, no more excuses! You mean so much to me and i- i cant... i can't lose anyone else. Just-’

He's so gentle when he finally reaches over and kisses you, trying to shake off his fear and just show you what he meant instead. His suit rumples against your chest as he smooshes himself against you, cupping your cheeks softly with his large hands as he tilts you to the side to meet him in a needy, a desperate, a long anticipated kiss. 

He doesn’t pull away - he can't - until you finally break for air, and only then does he finally concede and places his forehead against yours with a soft thud, just closing his eyes in both agony and bliss.

‘I’m sorry that took me so long to do.’

‘It was worth the wait. Although, I have to be honest, your timing has always been rubbish.’

He chuckles, his deep voice vibrating against your chest as he rests his head on your shoulder like a lost puppy, gazing up at you with those wide, lost eyes, and for the first time you can finally see the adoration and awe and just pure love that’s always been in them.

For the rest of the reception. before he tells you of his plans to go back and burn Hill House to the ground, is spent with the two of you escaping from his siblings by stepping outside and sitting on Shirley’s porch. Your arms stay linked tightly together, as if afraid to let go again, and his coat is wrapped around both of your shoulders as he rests against you, just content to be surrounded by your presence.

[highqueenofelfhame]

Hi Em! Could you write something with the word mirror?

this isn’t what you asked for because it isn’t fanfiction but it is involving a mirror idk i hope you guys enjoy it a little bit lol

Leaves crunched under her feet; shoes smudged ash on the sidewalk. She moved down the road, the smell of burned hair stinging her nostrils as the wind splayed her hair across her face. The breeze caused the smallest of bumps to erupt over her soot-covered skin, the unusually cool bite barely registering in her mind. She moved slowly, numbly, blindly through the street, unable to form a coherent thought about the events of the day. There seemed to be a towering black wall blocking out of her memory that refused to budge as she attempted to recall her morning. Something had happened, that much she knew, but it was merely a shadow behind her that she couldn’t quite reach.

As dusk approached, the sky was murky with clouds of smoke curling from lumps of debris. The heavy smell of fire filled her lungs and sent sharp chills up and down her spine, almost shooting holes in that wall in her memory, that thing she couldn’t quite grasp. Still it remained out of reach, as difficult to retain as reaching out and catching a handful of wind.

At the end of the road, there was a manor house, gray stone blackened by the tongue of flame. She stopped at the bottom of the staircase, green eyes shifting up to the once-grand building. Everything about it was familiar but unfamiliar. Her body had been moving down the street and toward this building on its own accord as though she were a pawn in a chess game or a magnet meeting it’s other half. If someone had come up and asked what she was doing here, words would have failed her. What was she doing here?

She took the first step, black boot leaving an imprint in the ash that littered the stone steps. A twig snapped in the heavy silence, and she whipped around, hair spinning out and cutting through the air. Nobody was there. It was only her on the abandoned road in the middle of an equally abandoned neighborhood. There didn’t appear to be another soul in the entire universe. Just her and this house with a symphony of howling wind cutting the silence.

By the time she reached the door, she felt like her entire body was vibrating with energy, tension, and anticipation. The large door was already cracked open and a slight push had it swinging in on its hinges. It was dark — it took several moments for her eyes to adjust. The only light source was a dim illumination of an overcast sky coming through dirty windows and tattered curtains. The white marble of the flooring was tarnished and cracked in some places. Every step was punctuated by the crinkling of dead leaves. Vines twined down the walls, twisted up through the broken pieces of the floor to reach up and out. The whole setting reminded her of a fairytale.

A skeptical part of her remained aware that anything or anyone could be hidden in the shadows.

Step by step she edged deeper into the manor, taking in every fragmented detail of the dilapidated place. It was impossible to be sneaky within the walls of the manor with how littered the floors were. If someone dangerous was lurking about, they would have known about her entry the moment she stepped foot inside.

Her eyes shifted around the first room she peered into – a sitting room. The furniture had been burned to heaps of black crumbles on the floor, nothing left but the wirework and metal that made up the skeletons of once luxurious and elaborate settees and chairs. Paint and paper peeled from the walls, curling and laying on the ruined wooden floors. They had once been glossy but now had no evidence of shine. No one had been here to take care of the home in years, maybe even decades. Not since well before the fires, since well before the town was ruined. The paintings that had once been intricate and priceless were destroyed and worthless. It was a shame, she thought. Seeing the fragmented remains of once vibrant color tickled something in the back of her mind. Maybe she liked art. Maybe she was an artist. Her lips turned into a frown when she couldn’t even remember that much about herself.

The next door, the white one in the middle of the hallway, caught her eye. Where the rest of the manor had been in ruins, this room was untouched by flame or time. Instead, the white paint of the door was pure —the color of freshly fallen, sparkling snow. She wasn’t even sure what the original color of the first door had been. Perhaps it, too, had been white, but the damage had it in ruins. It made little sense that this one looked as though painters had just finished the job.

She peered inside, lips parting in surprise at the warm light that illuminated the room. There was no dust on the mantle; the marble floor was polished to the point that she could make out the dirt and ash that marred her pale skin. The furniture, which was regal and made with silky floral designs, looked brand new as though not a soul had ever sat on its cushions. The walls had the lower half painted, the upper half covered in fleur-de-lis wallpaper that glistened in the golden light illuminating the space. The metallic nature of the paper itself reflected at certain angles in such a way it almost hurt her eyes to look at. Above her, golden filigree twisted and curled around and around. Beautifully painted men and cherubs perched on fluffy clouds in the bluest of skies on the ceiling. If the rest of the house hadn’t been in utter ruins she would have been entranced to inspect every inch of the artwork. Instead, her hands curled into fists. Something deep inside her was screaming that this was wrong and unnatural. It sent unease running along her nerves, a tremor working its way from her fingers to her toes. She may as well have been shivering for how profound her anxiety seemed to be.

She turned her head to survey the rest of the room but was stopped by a wall covered in mirrors. The room was reflected perfectly, not a thing out of place. It was her own appearance that stood out in stark contrast. For a moment, she forgot that this room was the red flag. Instead she felt as though she was out of place, like she was the one that didn’t belong. She moved toward the mirrors, almost as though a phantom wind urged her along, guiding her until she stopped before the largest mirror in the center of the wall.

Gone was the soot that had covered her body. All that remained smooth, pale skin. No traces of dirt remained. The burnt ends of her hair had grown back, once again long and flowing to her waist. Somehow it had more luster and shine than her chocolate locks had ever held, from what she was able to remember through the brain fog. Her eyes were bright and alight with wonder, not plagued by whatever tragedy she failed to recall. Even her cheeks had color to them like rose petals had been pressed into them; her lashes were long and thick. This morning the glimpse of her reflection had been dirty and ragged. The filthy denim jeans she wore looked fresh off the rack in the mirror before her and even the white shirt that hung from her frame was spotless and free of a single wrinkle. By some strange magic her clothing seemed to fit better. Everything about her had been gaunt and grim in the shop window down the street when she had pulled herself to her feet. In this mirror, however, she was clean from head to toe. Brand new. Immaculate.

When she looked down at herself, she appeared as she had walked in. Her hair was short and choppy, ends singed from fire. The old clothes she wore and her skin were covered in dirt and ash, scars and blisters. Her nails were black from the mud packed beneath them and broken. Once black boots were more gray than black, old from years and years of shuffling around through town. Soot was caked on so thickly that when she swiped over it, there was a small heap on her fingertip. When she looked back in the mirror, however, everything was perfect. Not a hair out of place.

Her fingers rose, brow furrowed as she touched the mirror gently. More curious than the perfect room in the crumbling mansion, more curious than the reflection that reflected incorrectly, the mirror—which stretched wall to wall, ceiling to floor— rippled like water beneath her touch. Waves distorted the once perfect reflection, the view almost making her nauseous. She staggered back, taken by surprise as her reflection wobbled from the effects. The liquid mirror rolled out to the edges of the ornate golden frame like the ocean. Unable to ease her shock, she reached out again to feel for any discrepancy in how it should feel. What she expected was a cool hard surface that she associated with mirrors and planes of glass. There was no reason for it to feel like any icy lake in the middle of winter, but she swore it had.

When her fingers nearly touched the mirror for a second time, it distorted again. This time, though, to her utter horror, something was reaching back at her.

It happened very quickly. So quickly that she was unable to get away from the mirror, unable to stumble back, unable to get out of the room. From the center, a hand extended, every curve reflecting parts of the room at odd angles – the ceiling, the floor, the paintings and the golden carvings, the candles, and the crystals that hung from the chandeliers. As she tried to step and stumble away her feet seemed cemented to the floor. Her body froze in place as ice-cold fingers wrapped around her wrist—fingers that were frozen and solid, not at all like those of a human— and yanked her through the mirror and into a world that was nothing like her own.

[coeurdastronaute]

The Story, Ch. 1

I am going to tell a story. 

It is not a marvelous story, nor is it very heroic, nor ghastly, nor mysterious, nor epic by any Ovidian means. It’s much more simply just a real story, perhaps a true story in that it could very much happen, but hasn’t, exactly, to the best of my knowledge. 

I’d rather like to use the word true in the sense that it is universal, innate, honest to very idea that all humanity is capable of experiencing it. It’s true and honest and real, and that might not sound like magic, but if we’re being honest, as most storytellers are known to be, the most magic that can be found is in the moments we can’t tell about-- the moments stricken from pages for being mundane, superfluous from the plot, as if it’s possible to decide so easily what matters, and what doesn’t, as if memory and life are easy enough to foresee to know that a single moment won’t resonate indiscriminately through time and space, etching deep ridges and valleys and canyons into a person’s heart. 

I am going to tell a story that is superfluous from the plot, that’s not very heroic nor ghastly nor mysterious nor epic, and yet one that is full of bravery and ghosts and fear and perseverance. 

No one will tell you what I want to tell you, that it is impossible to truly understand that depth of the pain that life will haphazardly, and often lazily, often with abandon, toss upon you. I need you to understand this, because once you do, you can survive it, and if you survive it, you can fill in the spaces, the inbetween, the pauses and inhalations and dark, dark, deep and dangerous moments with perhaps a dash of love. 

I am going to tell a story that is true and honest, I am going to trip over my words because I believe in being exact, and perhaps precision is muddled by searching for perfection. I will not tell you what I hope you take from it, for that would defeat the need to finish it, but rather I shall tell you the how. I hope you read this and forget the words, or at least think you have until one day when you understand them more than you do when you read it. 

This tale has no more ghosts than the normal amount. It has no more pain, no more love, no more jealousy, nor anguish, nor magic than the average truth would. This is the warning. 

I am going to tell a story, now. 

XXXXXXXXXX

In the summer of her twelfth year, the fair came to town. She remembered it especially because it was not the same as the festivals that came with such regularity it was practically ingrained in her DNA, and much like sparrows, the town just went to work of returning to every year. No, the fair that came to town was different. It was not of them, but for them. 

To be honest, she hadn’t thought of it much since it happened, as time wiped away the newness of it, replacing it with the present and the not-too-distant. 

Later, she would come to remember that as the year before the end of it all. With the perfect hindsight she realized had she just listened, she might have heard it, as an adult she could practically hear the knowledge that something was indeed almost over, the knowledge that hummed, faint and lazy below the noises of the house and the town and the summer evening, the sound Jamie heard when she tossed and turned in the stale, sticky heat of her bed when the breeze was no where to be found. 

Gawky and just becoming aware of her body, she remembered the look she gave herself in the fun house mirrors. The one that stretched her legs, all knees and knobby, the whole way up to her chin. The one that made her hips jut out and when she bent over, that made her chin and nose and ears disproportional, or more so than she already knew them to be. But her little brother didn’t mind at all, laughing at how ridiculous he looked, and then at her until she punched him in the arm, earning a wail of pain. 

With change scrounged and stolen from pockets, she bought their first taste of cotton candy. They snuck onto the rides and rode until they threw up behind the animal tent. For hours and hours and hours, for what felt like days, they roamed the fair in a type of delirium, removed from the ordinary, escaping, as it were. 

But that night was forever tinged a different hue than pink cotton candy and a burning sky where the sun refused to set. It wasn’t even stained black like her father’s hands, nor did it reek of gin or shine on her mother’s breath. 

Alone and indignant, she wandered through the tents and shoddy booths after rinsing her mouth with water from a bucket hanging near the horses. Her brothers were done, tapped out of money and eager to hold onto anything left in their stomachs, but Jamie didn’t want to leave. She never wanted to go home again. 

Forgotten was the looks she gave herself, unable to table the mess of frizz on her head, unable to comprehend the knobby knees and perpetual layer of dirt accumulated on her clothes and cheeks. Forgotten was the music of her brother’s laughter, shrieks, and crying accompanied by the splashing of guts against the compacted dirt mixed with the smell of the animals. Lost to time were those moments unless they were dug for, rooted up and yanked back into tangibility with a great deal of effort. 

What remained of that night was the sheer terror of the tent with the black curtains. The tent on the edge of the fair, that Jamie stumbled upon, as young women stumbled out of, afraid and clutching different bundles of herbs or totems. The tent under the smooth-leafed elm near the broken fence, list solely by candles and a fire that never seemed to grow higher than flickering. 

What Jamie remembered was the large velvet chair and the ancient lace that covered the tables. She could smell, from time to time, the old, moldy dried herbs and flowers that were packed and chopped right there. 

And for some inexplicable reason, she slid across her last five pence piece and waited for the woman to take it. And when she presented her palm, dirty, with moon shaped divots where her fingernails had dug into to find some steel against the appraising eyes, she clenched her jaw, almost defiant, and waited. 

Kindly, the woman smiled, prepared to believe in her own magic for a moment for this brave little girl. While she made her money selling potions to unhappy wives and bundles of herbs and totems for pregnancy and wealth, she refused to use her gifts unless called upon. As inexplicable as it was to Jamie, so too did this woman not understand what made her cradle the small palm in her hand for a tenth of her normal fee. 

Occasionally, as if a slowly moving echo, Jamie would hear her words, or rather bursts of them, phrases really, bouncing back to her from that moment. The older she got, the less she listened enough to hear them, though they kept moving forward toward her at a steady pace. 

With kind eyes, she remembered, a softening of features, the woman across the table tenderly traced the lines in her palm, something Jamie would do from time to time in the years to come, as if she, too, could see something important. 

With a heavy heart, the palm-reader shook her head and kissed Jamie’s palm. I am so sorry, my love. It is not fair. 

As much as she wanted to snatch her hand back, Jamie remained still and listened to the entirety of the woman’s words. She allowed her to rub an oil onto them, to write with burnt twigs, tiny symbols on her wrist, to hum a tune and press the coin back into her hand. 

Only much later would Jamie realize it was a kindness, to understand someone’s future and be unable to do anything about it, but to try anyway. 

But the great pain, the great sadness, the great joy, the great everything that the woman promised, Jamie refused to acknowledge ever again. She avoided those echoes and she didn’t stop running. That was how she was going to survive it. 

And as the woman pulled out a knife and sliced a gash in Jamie’s palm, as she muttered the words, as Jamie recoiled in pain, pushing back the chair and frantically looking for the exit, she saw the flames growing higher, she felt the woman corner her as she scuttled across the floor, the dirt and the discarded stems of her herbs searing the cut, leaving a trail of blood there. She fled beneath the tent flap, crawling and tripping over herself until she was home, safely in her room behind a closed door. 

She pressed the gash on her palm to her chest as blood warmed her shirt. 

She never spoke of it again.

For some reason, the fair that came to town the summer she turned twelve came alive in her mind once again, the moment she walked into the kitchen and saw a new face at the table. It was instantaneous, the appearance of that memory. All-encompassing were the noises and smells and terror in her heart. 

In a move that would look, to anyone else, as if she were merely wiping the dirt from her hands, fighting against a stubborn smudge, she ran her thumb along the perfectly straight but raised scar through the middle of her palm. 

But she washed her hands and ignored the momentary echo before sitting down at the table, forgetting it all once again. 

XXXXXXXXX

With a great start, the new au pair’s eyes burst open as she inhaled a shaky breath, as if she’d been holding it for hours and was finally able to defeat whatever had been sitting on her chest, choking her through the night. 

It took a full minute for her sense to come back, for her to understand where she was, to chase away the remnants of the dream that seemed to repeat itself nightly despite her best efforts to escape it. 

Slowly, and with great effort, Dani focused on the sound of the birds just outside her window in the copper beeches that towered alongside the manor. Outside, the waking of the manor and the grounds were becoming regular and soothing, reminding her in their foreignness that she was not home anymore.

It was still early as she climbed out of bed, the thin fabric of her sleeping gown clung to her skin as the heat and her dreams had won against the coolness of the lovely breeze during the night. She stood by the large window with the heavy, ancient glass and peered out onto the lawn as the haze did its best to burn itself away in the rising of the day. 

Three weeks ago, she’d answered the ad that took her out of London and deep into the countryside so that even in an atlas, she was somewhat unsure of how to get back if she were have the need to escape, which was simultaneously terrifying and freeing. 

Even after a full week of waking in a lovely English manor, Dani hadn’t grown too used to the feeling of peace she experienced despite the dreams, as if waking was a better time than sleeping, as if she was living a dream, even, and her dreams were the reality she resigned herself to at night, forever haunted. 

Before the children could wake, Dani washed and dressed, taking a little bit of time every morning to explore the expansive house and grounds. The tragedy of the entire home softened slightly in the beauty it still had, and the hope the children still, despite all else, seemed to cling to against all odds. 

Walking helped clear her head, helped to shed away the old skin, like a snake rubbing against rocks, wiggling out of old skin that it’d outgrown, though she felt it was more forced than that for her, that perhaps the skin she was in wasn’t ready to be shed, and despite her best clawing and scratching and wiggling and rubbing was struggling to pull it off. The past was a sweater that shrunk in the wash and now she couldn’t escape it despite contorting herself into all different positions and yanking. 

So instead, Dani walked in the morning. 

Sometimes she beat Owen, who arrived early with arms full of fresh things to cook for the day. Sometimes she would slip out through the back and he wouldn’t have arrived yet, or she would hear the sound of his tires on the gravel as she turned the corner away from the house. 

A few times, she even beat Hannah, up before the housekeeper had made it to the kitchen, though Dani suspected Hannah rarely slept, and was instead simply elsewhere. 

Only twice had Dani seen the gardener, and with grounds that she was still discovering, she doubted their orbits would often overlap. They’d never formally met, but it seemed only a matter of time with such few options for adult conversation in the manor. 

On her walks, Dani didn’t let her mind wonder too far from the course of action for the day, plotting how to keep two active and unpredictable children busy taking up much of her energy and leaving her exhausted every night in a way that made her hopeful for rest. She thought slowly, taking her time, careful not to let those thoughts drift, steering the ship purposefully. 

More and more, she was allowing herself to relax at the manor, to shirk off some of the guilt and the pain of her previous life that existed just a few months ago. There was a healing that could be found in a departure. There was a kind of reward in giving up. A ghost still followed her, still reminded her. How simple the act of forgetting seemed to be, except when it truly mattered. It baffled her, that she couldn’t remember what Eddie’s particular brand of toothpaste was called, but a random whiff of something close to his cologne strangled her entirely. 

Memory was cruel in that way, stealing away anything good, and leaving the worst of it. Those dark thoughts stained the countertops of her mind, the ring of week-old coffee that refused to be wiped clean and seemed to dismiss all notions of fading. 

The loss was too much to hold, sometimes. He followed her around everywhere despite her departure from the routine 

Maybe if she stayed here, stayed at Bly and got used to it, the familiarity would wipe away the dust and dark. Dani was determined to start new, to begin again. That was the only thing to do after such a thing. 

“Oi, watch where you’re walking!” 

The voice startled the absent au pair as she jumped away from whatever she’d apparently been walking on. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t-- I don’t see where I…”

“You almost went knee-deep into my fertilizer, and my Delphiniums have been quite eager for that. I’d hate to make them cross so early in the summer.” 

The lilt of her tone bordered on teasing, but Dani was almost certain there was some honesty there, as if the gardener really did worry about the moods of her plants and of the garden as a whole.She quite liked the pleasing way the gardener’s mouth moved, cocked up at one corner in an oddly shy grin, and she quite liked the pleasing way the hardness of consonants were mulled over and softened. 

In just that moment, Dani realized she was missing some gentleness, and how shocking it was to find it in the sticky heat of the countryside morning. 

“I’m sorry,” Dani offered weakly, looking around and finally seeing the pile of compost and fertilizer waiting to be dispersed throughout the day. “I hadn’t-- I was a little lost there, I guess.” 

“Try not to get too lost, Poppins. We need someone to wrangle those two heathens, and I have my hands full.” 

“Delphiniums are notoriously ornery.” 

They shared a smile and Dani looked over the gardener, mud already appearing on her bare shoulder while her overalls had pockets full and gloves hung near her hip and a patch sewed on one side of a thigh. The messy mop of curls was somewhat tamed in a bandana, and even without make up, her lips seemed impossibly red, like strawberries. 

“If you think they’re bad, you should hear how my peonies have been acting out. Don’t even get me started on my deutzias, who are normally so well-behaved.” 

As she rambled, Dani thought about how nice it was, to hear someone talk about something that they clearly loved. She couldn’t help but smile, which made the gardener slow down and end her explanation earlier than either would have liked. 

“I should let you get back to your walk. You looked like you were going somewhere important, with purpose.”

“Oh, yeah, I was… not really. Just clearing my head.” 

“That can be tricky,” Jamie nodded. 

“Thank you for saving me.” 

“It’s my pleasure. I kind of prowl about all day waiting to save beautiful damsels. It’s part of my charm.” 

“I’d work on the delivery,” Dani teased, taking a few steps back as she realized it was late enough for the manor to be waking. 

“Never been my strong suit,” Jamie shrugged it off. “How was the follow through?” 

“I’d give it a solid B-.”

“Tough marker, you are. I feel for those little ones already.” 

“Practice makes perfect, Ms. Hawthorne.Can’t disappoint those damsels.” 

“I’d never want to do that.” 

With a rakish grin, Jamie nodded a farewell to the au pair, and Dani returned it with a small wave over her shoulder. 

The realization that the gardener had called the au pair beautiful was met simultaneously by both members of the previous conversation. Dani was nearly rounding the corner as she replayed it all in her head, stopping suddenly at that detail while Jamie was furrowed and pulling on her gloves, meeting at the same point. Both looked up at each other when it happened and from across the lawn, looked away quickly. 

As swift as her legs would carry her, Dani retreated into the routine of the day, refusing to think of gardeners or Delphiniums. 

NEXT

[frasier-crane-style]

Watching Snyder League

-Diana literally vaporizes a guy armed with nothing but an assault rifle.

-Also, these have gotta be like the dumbest terrorists. Their plan:

A. Send multiple armed gunmen to take hostages.

B. Stall for time

C. Set off a suitcase bomb on a one minute countdown (why not just set it off immediately? It's In The Script)

You have a suitcase bomb--just park a car somewhere, set the timer, leave it in the trunk, and walk away. You can kill as many people as you want without losing any of your own guys.

-Superman's scream sends out five separate shockwaves. Which makes me think the guy's milking it, personally.

- I'm amused that both SOP for the Amazons is having, like, fifty people standing around guarding the Mother Box. AND that they don't ramp up security after it wakes up.

- And there's this system of burying the Mother Box.  Which 1. seems like the only way to get there in the first place is to teleport in. What good is this system against a teleporter?

2. It takes six guards to suicide themselves by knocking down pillars, which seems like--in five thousand years, you couldn't come up with something where you just pull a level from twenty feet away?

This is the problem with the Amazons. They're all women, so none of them go into STEM fields.

- It's also real weird that this Bruce Wayne doesn't even try to hide that he's Batman. He just walks right up to Aquaman and goes "hey, Bruce Wayne, I'm also Batman." And remember, he's getting the Justice League together entirely based on a hunch. At least in Josstice League, there were Parademons all up in Gotham.

- And should I even bother to ask why Darkseid's people can't just bring three new Mother Boxes to Earth? Are those the only three? If so, you'd think they'd try to get them back sooner. Like, A LOT sooner.

- Okay, this was supposed to come out one year before Infinity War, but still, it was pretty obvious what Marvel was doing with Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet. They had to know they were inviting comparisons.

-I love the implication, tho, that Darkseid just lost track of the Mother Boxes and just... no one realized they were back on Earth. And they have Parademons that can specifically sniff out the Mother Boxes. 

-And if Superman dying was such a momentous occasion that it woke up a Mother Box, why not the Old Gods dying? Why not Ares dying? Wouldn't that have left Earth just as undefended?

-I have no idea why any of this is happening a couple years after Superman debuted and then died and not in, like, 1446.

-Are the Mother Boxes like finicky computers? Do you need to turn them off and on again? When Superman showed up, did they shut down for real, and then he died, so they came back on for real? Is it like a Windows 95 thing, where you can't JUST turn the computer off, you have to go to the start menu and press Shutdown and then wait for it to close up shop?

-It’s so weird that this is supposed to be a Dark, Mature Adaptation For Adults! And it doesn’t have the same basic logic you’d get from an episode of Power Rangers. 

-So. Much. Daddy issues.

-Please stop letting Ezra Miller improv.

-They cast like the gayest man in America to play the one guy with a love interest.

-Diana: "I lost someone I loved once." Well, twice, but who's counting?

-All those reshoots and they couldn't get Amber Heard to knock off the British accent?

-Why is Desaad, of all people, Darkseid’s dragon? Is it just because they were rifling through all the Fourth World saga to find the few guys with scary names instead of Granny Goodness or Virman Vundabar?

- And they really play up Darkseid appearing to Steppenwolf, but we've not only already seen him in the big flashback, we saw him get his ass kicked by Zeus of all people.

- And the whole thing where Steppenwolf is part of Darkseid's 'family' really isn't helping the Thanos-Nebula-Gamora comparison.

-It's weird to introduce Darkseid as the guy who was already beaten once. Wouldn't it make more sense that Steppenwulf was the guy who lost, and that allowed Darkseid to take over, and now he's trying to redeem himself for his defeat? Or that Darkseid was never defeated at all, but someone stole the Anti-Life Equation from him and hid it on Earth? Something. Instead, it’s literally just randomly burnt into the crust of the Earth, Darkseid discovers it, then forgets all about it for reasons the movie doesn’t get into despite being four damn hours long.

-It’s only the central plot, whatever, forget about it.

- Pretty sure Kal eye-lasered a couple Army guys to death after he was resurrected, not that he ever gives a shit.

-Third big reveal of Darkseid. Come on, you've shown him three times now. We've heard him talk.

-And this does the same thing as Josstice League with Superman being more powerful than the rest of the JLA put together. Here, he even no-sells Steppenwolf's axe. He just lets it hit him and it doesn’t do shit. So Doomsday could kill him, but Steppenwolf can't even scratch him. And yet Wonder Woman seems pretty evenly matched with both, if not outclassed by Steppenwolf.

-Barry Allen spends the whole climax running in a circle. And he fails at it! Dude's really retarded when he doesn't have Team STAR Labs cheering him on.

-He also casually travels back in time to undo his side getting a Game Over, which makes you wonder how any conflict in this universe can ever have any stakes. Say what you will about Endgame, but at least they explain why time travel can’t solve every problem they ever have.

-Hell, the Mother Boxes can bring people back to life. The example used is literally “it can turn smoke back into a house.” Why not bring Joe Morton back to life? He did a good job in T2, c’mon.

-Speaking of, according to TV Tropes, Ray Fisher got to come up with his own backstory for Cyborg (”I don't praise Chris Terrio and Zack Snyder for simply putting me in Justice League. I praise them for EMPOWERING me (a black man with no film credits to his name) with a seat at the creative table and input on the framing of the Stones before there was even a script!”), which makes it kinda hilarious that this movie’s characterization of Cyborg is that he’s a genius sports hero who also loves helping out the underprivileged.

-AND his big conflict with his dad is that Silas Stone was never there for him, as literally represented by there being an empty seat next to his mom at Vic’s big sportsball game. So apparently the black experience is indistinguishable from Austin Powers In Goldmember. Who knew?

-What else? It's weird that the narrative tries to put some importance in Martha Kent, but then in her big scene with Lois, she's really Martian Manhunter (not kidding) and when Superman is resurrected, he hears encouraging words ONLY from Jor-El and Jonathan. All she really contributes to the story is hugging Superman after he comes back.

-Also, Batman spends a lot of time in the climax shooting people with a rifle. They're bug people and it's, like, a Halo rifle, but still. You can tell Snyder's just chomping at the bit to have Batman carry around a Colt Commando.

-They give no shits about secret identities in this, so why do they still bother with putting a shitty distortion effect on Batfleck's voice? He has a pretty good Batman voice outside the suit, but once he puts it on, he starts sounding like he's giving a blowjob to Daft Punk.

-One of the movie’s, like, four cliffhangers is Lex Luthor telling Deathstroke about Batman’s secret identity, because Deathstroke has a private vendetta against Batman and is out to get him. Of all the Bat rogues who are solely motivated by taking out Batman--why choose Deathstroke, the guy that’s just a mercenary for hire, to characterize as simply hating Batman? (They also imply Batman took out Deathstroke’s eye and THAT’S the big feud between him and--guys. C’mon. This was really supposed to be a whole movie of Deathstroke getting revenge for his eye?)

- The movie ends with them making Wayne Manor the JLA headquarters--God, just tell me if secret identities matter or not.

-Did we really need two ‘beyond the impossible’ scenes back to back, one for Cyborg and one for the Flash?

-Oh, it’s not Arkham Asylum, it’s ‘Arkham Home For The Emotionally Troubled.’ Was this supposed to be one of those Arrowverse things where they call it Starling City for a while, only to rebrand it Star City because that’s somehow better than just calling it Star City in the first place?

- "[Snyder] also said that the reason Darkseid lost track of which world the Mother Boxes were left on was because he was gravely injured and their forces sent limping away, and upon returning to Apokolips had to fight a civil war for the throne (possibly the event hinted where Steppenwolf betrayed him), wherein their records were lost." Imagine having a movie four hours long and not explaining the fucking backstory.

[unholyhelbig]

Bechloe Apocalypse AU? I know it's been done before, but damn, do I love a good trope.

[A/N: This prompt has been in my inbox for a long time and I’m just now getting to it. But the main idea is from @auideas] 

Read on AO3 | Request Prompts here 

Beca was always the first to stir in the morning. It wasn’t by the light that streamed through the blinds, but her own biological clock that did it. A seven am on the dot, she would wake and stretch and feel her fingers met with the cold of the house. The blinds were drawn and a little slit of yellow, or sometimes gray depending on the weather, mapped itself on the wooden floor.

They hadn’t done much to the old Victorian manor at the edge of town. It came furnished and the only thing they bothered changing was the sheets on the four-post bed and the towels in the closet. They smelled so thickly of must that Beca made the begrudging trip into town for supplies.

Beca would pad down to the kitchen on the creaky wooden stairs and flicked on the coffee maker. She reveled in the darkness, in the cool relief from the South Carolina air. They kept the central unit on high and thick curtains over nearly every pane of glass in the house.

Chloe would stir an hour after her wife.

Maybe it was the absence of heat or her own lungs filling with dark roast. She followed the scent and grasped at the paper set on the kitchen table. She would skip to the sports section first but would always return to the front page for whatever story they deemed import enough.

“Ah, a firefighter with a cat.” She creased the paper “Charming and quaint.”

Beca grunted as she stood on her toes to grasp two mugs. They also came with the house, covered in dust until she scrubbed them. A cartoonish illustration of teddy bears dawned the front and she couldn’t bring herself to read the cheesy sayings past their first week in the Victorian.

She didn’t’ want to get to know the people in town. It was small enough that she got questioning stares from the gas station clerk whenever they ran out of allergy medication or on the rare occasion, milk. He bit his tongue but studied her face. Doveport South Carolina. Not even on the map.

Chloe figured that this is where people went to disappear. Not when they had fresh blood on their palms and dirt under their nails, but when the dust had settled, and they needed a place to ride out the storm. People lived on boats and deep in the swampy woods. They bought foreclosed homes with cash. They barely went outside, and hell- the air was too stiff.

“Did he pull it from a tree?” Beca asked.

“A storm drain, actually,” Chloe said.

The shorter of the two set down a steaming cup in front of her wife. It was loaded with French vanilla creamer and too much sugar for Beca to stomach. She swallowed two gulps of black coffee and cupped her hands around it to keep in the warmth. The house had to be cold. Though, her nose suffered the most from the stark temperature.

Chloe hummed into the steam rising from her drink “Coleman is supposed to drop of the sample today.”

“Coleman is s douche.”

“A douche with a sample. And besides, he won’t even come into the house. The light is too much for anyone to handle, much less the test slides. He’ll drop it by the greenhouse and be on his way.”

“I don’t even want him in my vicinity, Chlo. His male testosterone permeates the air.”

Chloe didn’t’ dignify Beca’s dramatics with a response. It reminded her of the days when she would run around on playgrounds, crunching over mulch and trying to get away from the boys with cooties. But then she had become a biochemist and even well before that, knew that that’s not how things spread.

Not cooties anyway. Maybe the flu or a common cold, but the only thing men were good for in this century was transporting what they needed. People in Doveport never gave a man a second look. Not when they dawned a hat and had grease on their hands. They wouldn’t question his duffel bag or the scent of gunpowder.

Beca went to take another sip of her coffee but stopped mid gulp when the familiar hum of the central cooling system sputtered to a stop. They had grown so used to the noise and the icy atmosphere. She exchanged a worried look with her wife and lowered the cup. “Well shit.”

“Was it supposed to storm today?”

“No. I checked.” Beca tapped the paper absently before pulling herself from the kitchen table. They didn’t’ have much time before their backup generators would kick on. But those hadn’t either. Not yet. Why hadn’t they? Fuck.

Chloe must have had the same thought. Worry crossed her features before she padded across the kitchen and pulled the door to the basement open. She creaked down the steps and was instantly overwhelmed by the heat that had already begun to fill the sod-coated room.

There weren’t basements in the south. Not usually but they had chosen the old Victorian because it had one in the first place. She walked towards the line of tables that were usually lit by a bluish-purple light. Those had gone off too.

In the stumbling darkness she grasped the samples carefully and placed them in the large freezer under the stairs. The ice that incrusted it wouldn’t’ last long but hopefully this power outage wouldn’t either.  She sealed it. She prayed about it too but wouldn’t’ let Beca know about that.

Science was magic and magic was science and religion fell somewhere in between but it eased her mind to speak to a higher power regardless.

“Chlo! I think you should see this!”

She didn’t waste any time sprinting up the slotted stairs and leaving the musty basement behind. Sweat had formed against her cheeks and made her skin tight when it hit whatever cold air was left in the nearly empty living room. Beca had peeled the blackout curtain back and the light stung her eyes.

“You opened the window?” Chloe asked.

“I was curious.” Beca Said.

Chloe sighed and squeezed close to her partner before she herself pulled back the dark cloth just an inch. Her heart rushes faster and there was a heat leaking through the windows. She hated the south and the lack of silence that it held onto.

It was the same street that she saw once or twice a month when she ventured from the house. There was another house across the way that had been empty since they arrived. There was a cop that lived next door and a nice family adjacent to them. But right now- there was blood.

The patrol car that usually sat in the driveway was turned on its side and a mass of guts and blood and teeth stirred in the front driveway. She saw fingers flick and smelled fire, or gas, or a mix of both. It made her throat burn.

A stranger, a man in fishing waders had half of his face missing and a dead look behind his yellowed eyes. He limped and groaned tepidly, continuing like he was going on a stroll. His jaw swung back and forth as a clock and Chloe grimaced.

“Well damn.” She let the curtain fall, “This is bullshit we were so close.”

“I know, but someone else was closer.”

Beca walked back towards the kitchen and grasped her now chilled cup of coffee. She finished it off and grabbed the newspaper, looking at the smiling face of the firefighter with a burnt-looking cat in his arms. It was filthy and its fur was matted. She frowned and placed it back on the table.

“Damn government funding. If I could have just gotten my hands on the Amscope.” She grimaced “we’re going to buy you a whole house but you can use a magnifying glass to create a zombie virus.”

“The institution is counting on you, Miss Mitchell.” Chloe mocked.

“Doctor Mitchell, I swear, they always forget that part. You know what we can’t forget? The nine years of our life that we spent getting degrees in science and then another three years held up in this place creating a bioweapon that we didn’t even get to release.”

Chloe lifted her eyebrows and leaned against the adjacent kitchen wall. She had to admit, it was a little disappointing. A letdown after all of this time. But she felt a bit of relief well up inside of her. They would send an extraction team for them at some point and then maybe they would be directed to create a cure. Maybe.

“I think we should get a cat,” Chloe said, picking up the paper and wiggling it towards her wife. “Look at his cute little face.”

“Mm, before or after the apocalypse?” Beca asked.

“During, probably,” Chloe said. “I’d consider a dog.”  

[t-o-m-hollands]

Locksley Hall - Part II

Summery: Tom doesn’t know quite how it happens, but one moment he’s working as the gardener at Locksley hall, and the next he’s run of to marry the lords daughter, a girl he hates. Set in England, 1920.

Word count: 5500 (sorry...)

Pairing: Tom x OC

A/N: Again, this is heavily inspired by the first part in Atonement – Ian McEwan, but the plot is different.  

Music wise: For Madeleine’s parts I listened to Old Money – Lana del Rey and for Tom’s part I listened to NFWMB and Work Song - Hozier.

R E A D   P A R T    O N E   H E R E

Gideon’s cottage - 1920.

Tom is awakened by yet another expensive automobile driving up the road and past his cottage. His brain works slowly, still half asleep, one foot in a dreamland where he’s chasing someone in a labyrinth made out of peonies. Slowly he wakes his body by moving his toes, and then his fingers too, before stretching his arms over his head, letting out a tired groan. His body feels warm and his limbs lethargic and slow, as they do after a particularly long nap. For a long while he lays there, eyes half-closed, staring at the dust aimlessly drifting in the sunlight.  

Another car passes by outside.  

Downstairs he can hear Mr. Higgins doing the washing up. If he concentrates, he can hear the guests from the ball chatting and laughing up at the manor. If he concentrates further still, he can hear the blood pumping through his system, steady and slow.  

The whole world feels slow. Like the air in the room stands still, despite the wide-open window. It is mid-July, and the heat feels oppressively persistent, there is no escaping it. Only now, as the clock is nearing eight in the evening, does the world seem to cool. All morning he’d worked in the garden, preparing the grounds for the ball under the watchful eyes of old Dowager Locksley. When she was finally satisfied that there wasn’t a dead leaf, not a single weed, nor an unwatered rose in sight she’d sent him off, ready to attack the kitchen staff instead. He’d walked down to Locksley bay. There he’d rid himself of his sweaty, earth-stained rags and he’d swam until his body felt cool again before returning to the cottage for a long and well-deserved nap.  

He stretches again and groans. He desperately wants a smoke, but his pack of cigarettes along with his lighter is all across the room, thrown on the cluttered desk along with countless of books and an old typewriter that the library had given away. The letter M was irreversibly lost and therefor it had been deemed useless. He’d taken it with great gratitude, glad to have something he’d normally wouldn’t be able to afford. It had amused him, typing long passages without using any word containing the 13th letter of the alphabet. In a strange way it thrilled him, that some words in the dictionary simply became forbidden for him. Suddenly out of reach.Words like magic, monarch, melancholy, magnetic, maddening, maiden,  

Madeleine.  

Finally he gets up, walks across the room and sits down by his desk. He lights a cigarette. Staring out the window he watches as yet another car makes it up the driveway to join the ball.  

The sky outside is lilac, and the first evening breeze makes its way through the grass like a wave in the ocean and he prays it’ll make its way through the window to cool his head. He inhales deeply, but the sinking feeling he’s had in his stomach all day stays where it is.  

And half of his mind is still in his dream. 

Had he been better at drawing he’d drawn her hands, soft and small compared to his calloused ones. Maybe if he’d draw them, he’d be able to get the picture of them out of his mind. Those hands, gracefully holding a cigarette as her eyes, dark and deep and framed with long lashes, observed him with great disapproval as they’d discussed poetry. She always looked disapproving when she was observing him. She’d worn a evening gown in the finest silk, and his ratty jacket over her shoulders, her normally perfectly pinned hair falling down in cascades over her shoulders. It had felt strangely intimate, seeing her like that, so undone and wearing his jacket

Swearing, he puts out the cigarette. He’d been distracted, not noticing how it’d burnt down to the butt, burning his fingers. He doesn’t light a new one, but leans back in his chair, runs his hand through his hair and tries to calm his breathing.  

It hadn’t always been this way.  

Once upon a time, they’d been friends, hard as it was to believe now. They’d defied gravity when they’d climbed the great oak three behind the cottage. He’d taught her how to swim in Locksley bay, held her up in the water and told her to fill her lungs with air in order to float. She’d taught him how to read. His teacher in the village school had called him slow, so she’d sneaked out books from the library, and with patience of a saint she’d taught him how to recognise each symbol until he could make sense of the words.  

She’d been his first kiss.  

It had only been a small peck on his lips, lasting not more than a second, but it counted. He counted it. 

She’d find him in the greenhouse, crying over the trashing he’d gotten from Mr. Higgins for attacking Francis Locksley. Silently she’d sat down beside him, her long dark hair in a braid and dressed in her Sunday best, having just been to church. She’d taken his bruised knuckles in her hands and she’d kissed them, before kissing each tear streaked cheek, and then ever so briefly, she’d pressed her lips against his. He had felt like a knight, being awarded by the queen for his brave service. He hadn’t known what to make of it, but she’d held his hand in hers and he’d leaned his head against her shoulder and for the longest time they’d stayed that way until he’d forgotten all about stinging bruises and tears.

He lights another cigarette and another car drives up the driveway.  

The sky is now a dark blue, the last evening light turning the leaves in the trees golden. Earlier that day Mr. Higgins had put out lights all along the drive way to the manor house and they now lit up the summer evening. 

Against the evening sky he sees a bird shoot up, rising to the sky.

Once when they’d been children they’d found an injured songbird in the woods. He’d watched as Madeleine with the gentlest of fingers picked the bird up. He’d watched as she held the wounded creature in her hands, as she observed its broken wing. She’d looked at him then, her dark eyes sad, and she’d told him they’d have to help it heal.  

So they’d gone to Gideon’s cottage and he’d sneaked her in, while Mr. Higgins worked in the garden. She’d placed the songbird on his bed. While she was kneeling in front of it, as if in prayer, he’d taken out bandages. He’d watched as she’d gently wrapped it around the bird’s wing. She’d looked at him, and told him to sing. She’d said that it would make the bird feel safer, that it was what she used to do to baby Beatrix when she was crying.  So, he’d sung a song to the poor harmed thing, while Madeleine patted its head.  

For seven days the nursed it, making sure the wing healed as it should. It had been their secret. She’d snuck out of classes with her governess and he’d faked being ill until Mr. Higgins let him be home from school and they’d sat in his room, and he’d sing for them. They kept the bird in a box, on the lid of which he’d put air holes in, and she’d placed her cardigan in the bottom of it, making sure it was soft to sleep on. They’d feed t worms Tom had dug up in the garden and Tom would sing to it every night.

In the end the songbird had healed, and they’d released it in the woods again and watched as it flew away, awkwardly at first, nearly toppling towards the ground before it found its strength again, slowly rising until it was only a speck of black in the distance. He’d held her hand, biting down hard on his bottom lip to keep himself from weeping, while she had cried openly, pressing his hand in hers. They’d hid in the labyrinth until late that evening, far away from nanny and Mr. Higgins. He’d sung her songs until she’d stopped weeping.  

Tom stands up, puts out his cigarette and stretches out one last time. Then he walks out, leaving his memories in the smoke-filled room, heading towards the pub. 

*

The Wild Boar, the village pub

“You ever think about headin’ out of here?” he asks his friend.  

They’re in the village pub, The Wild Boar, throwing back beers. A Victorian pub with murky green wallpaper, beer-stained velvet booths and worn mahogany wooden floors. The atmosphere is always good and someone is always singing. Harrison, who most days works in the bar but is enjoying a rare day off, calls it his home.  

“What, go somewhere else to drink, you mean?”

“No, no, I mean like leave Milchwood, go to London or something, head somewhere else you know”.

Harrison gives him a puzzled look and Tom can tell he doesn’t feel the same. They’re both comfortably leaned back on each side of the booth. Around them the other patrons are talking loudly, discussing this and that, enjoying their Saturday night and the unusually warm summer weather.  

“No” Harrison answers in the end “no, I mean, it’s home, yeah?” He drowns the last drops of his pint, waving to the bar for another before looking back at Tom, “you feel like leaving?”

“Dunno, maybe, sometimes” he says. “’is just, some days I want nothing more than to head out to Milchwood station and take literally any train away from here.” He takes a long gulp of his own pint.

“Well, why don’t you?”

It takes some time for Tom to answer. He keeps his eyes on the dirty window in front of him. Far away he can just make out the silhouette of Locksley Hall. They are all up there now, the lords and the ladies, having a ball.

“’s just hard to leave you know.” He takes another gulp of beer as the bartender places another pint in front of Harrison. “Spent most of my time in France wishing I was back here and now” he waves his hand in front of him, as if this would explain the strange sinking feeling he’d been walking around with lately. “Now it feels like it all stands still, like I’m just walking around, waiting for something to happen.”  

Harrison gives him a worried look “but what’s keeping you here then?”  

“Dunno, it’s just, it’s hard to leave”.

He doesn’t have ties to this place the way Harrison does. He has no other family part from Mr. Higgins. Mrs. Higgins had taken him in when he’d been nothing more than a baby, but she’d passed away before his fifth birthday. He hardly remembered her. Mr. Higgins had kept him on, and despite his stern ways he’d been kind to the boy, and taught him all he knew of gardening and thus ensuring that Tom would have a future secured. But Tom knows that Mr. Higgins wouldn’t mind if he took off, that maybe he’d even expect it.  

“Yes, we saw ‘em, didn’t we Billy!” Owain Murphy’s loud voice booms from the booth beside theirs.  

“Yeah” Billy concurs, nodding his head and staring down into his glass.  

“Yeah, we saw ‘em, all ‘em gently folks up at Locksley Hall”.

“Yeah” Billy nods again.

“They say the ‘eir is being married off!” Owain bellows.

Billy is too busy drinking now to agree.

“She looked a vision, didn’t she Billy?”

Something twists uncomfortably in Tom’s stomach. He drowns his beer and nods to his friend. It’s time to leave. The night air is cool and he takes deep breaths of it as he steps outside. They walk and chat for a while, before hitting a fork in the road, saying their goodbyes and promising to meet up for another pint the next day they then part ways, Harrison walking to the house he shares with his parents and little sister, and Tom steers his feet to Gideon’s Cottage and Locksley Hall.  

He can see the lights from the building, hear the piano music even from outside. Across the lawn people are taking some fresh air, surely they’ve been dancing for hours. They’re all dressed in their finest clothes, heavily bejeweled. Tom closes in on Gideon’s cottage, and he can’t wait to throw himself on the bed and sleep for a few hours. Tomorrow is Sunday, the day for resting, and he’s free as a bird.  

A flash of white moves in the corner of his eye and he looks over.  

By the enormous rhododendron bush stands Lady Madeleine Locksley, wearing a silky white gown that somehow plays tricks with his brain; for when he first lays his eyes on her, it looks to him as if she’s wearing nothing more than moonlight, the diamonds from her tiara glistening in the night.

For a moment it feels as if he’s actually gotten the breath knocked out of him. Owain Murphy had been right, she did look a vision.  

A man joins her, his hands clasped behind his back. He’s tall and blond and even from this distance he can tell she’s bored with the conversation, but she politely goes along with it.  

Tom walks into the cottage, closing the door behind him.

*

The cliffs of Locksley bay

The Atlantic Ocean spread out in front of her, wide and far and impossibly blue. She’s standing on the cliffs beside Locksley bay. If she were to turn her head to her left, she would see the docks with the boats lined up one after the other, each more impressive than the last. It is summer, and high season for travellers. Would she instead turn her head to her right she would see the bay, and the people playing in the water, lying in the beach and soaking up sun. Enjoying themselves and cooling themselves off in the unusually warm weather.  

But she keeps her eyes far ahead.  

Out on the water she can see sailing boats slowly drifting over the landscape. It’s not a good day for sailing, not even up here on the cliffs can you feel anything more than a gentle breeze. The heavens are almost violently blue, not a cloud as far as the eye can see. In the sky seagulls fly, screeching as they go and she inhales deep breaths of the ocean air. She feels so far removed from them all, the people on the boats and the ones on the beach. 

Her lungs feels tighter, there’s a scream in them that needs to get out.

She takes a step closer to the edge.  

A pair of arms grabs hold of her and pulls her in against something hard. “What are you doing?!” A familiar voice inquires angrily in her ear.

He pulls them both a few steps back, away from the edge, before turning her around to face him. Anger clear on his face. His chest, still close to hers, is heaving.  

“What are you doing?” She asks, not quite managing to match his level of animosity. His hands are still holding a firm grip around her arms. She pulls herself free and takes a step back, trying to create some distance between them, though she swears she still feels the heat radiating of his body, his scent, which she’d briefly inhaled, surrounding her.

“Were you going to jump?” he asks in a serious tone, his warm brown eyes intensely searching her face for something.  

“No” she says, voice firm, and he relaxes somewhat, though he still looks angry. That frown, seemingly permanent on his face whenever she’s around. “But it wouldn’t have killed me if I had, people jump from here all the time”

“Sure, but not young heiresses”.  He sounds almost sarcastic and she can feel her blood nearly boiling. Her diamond heart beats faster in her chest.

“Have you?”

He observers her for a heartbeat, like he’s searching for something in her face. The long days spent working in the garden has given him a nice tan. His brown hair looks windswept and he’s not wearing his usual uniform of muddy trousers, suspenders and a dirty white shirt. Instead his clothes look washed and clean; he’s wearing his Sunday best, linen suit trousers, clean white shirt and suspenders that don’t look quite as worn. His arms, well developed from all the hard work, fills out his shirt in a way that makes something inside her flutter, and she hastily looks away.  

“Yes” he answers in the end. “Yeah, me and Harrison jumped it last year”.  

“Yet you’re so against me doing it?”

He’s silent for a few seconds, and she can tell he’s weighing each word carefully. “I just, I didn’t take you for a thrill-chaser, is all. It surprised me”.

Now he’s avoiding looking at her.  

“So, how was the ball?” he asks eventually, having to fill the stale, strange silence.

“Long” she answers and sighs. “Awfully long, and dreary”.  

“Poor girl” he teases, but she wonders if there isn’t real malice underneath. “And how is your betrothed?”  

She narrows her eyes at him. “James is not my betrothed” she says, trying to keep her voice calm. He’s got his hands in his pockets, an arrogant look on his face and she wants to scream at him.

“Huh” he says, “I heard you were being married off”.  

“Well, I’m not. Not yet”

“So, what’s he’s like, this not betrothed man of yours”

He sounds so nonchalant, and it’s making her skin itch with irritation. “He’s nice, actually”.

He scoffs, “nice?”

“Yes! He’s very nice, unlike certain people! And he gave me a book of Wordsworth poetry”

Tom snorts “you hate Wordsworth, you always have”  

“How do you know?” She asks, annoyance clear in her tone.  

“You told me” he answers, and he sound so certain of himself.  

“Yes, when we were children, I might have changed my mind since!”  

“You haven’t though”.

“Funny isn’t? All the things you remember?” She tries to sound superior, but she’s not sure she accomplishes anything. He’s still standing there, hands in pockets and a devil-may-care smug smile on his face.  

“You find him dull”.

“How do you know if I find James dull or not! You’ve never even met him! Maybe I find it fascinating to talk about dog breeding and horses!” you scream at him. 

But he just smiles wider. “I was talking about Wordsworth. You find Wordsworth dull. But clearly I hit a nerve”.  

She’s so angry she’s speechless. From the village they hear the church bells ring.  

“We should go” he says and nods to the path back.  

“No”

“Lady Madeleine, -”

“Stop calling me that!”

“Well, it is your title”.

“Oh, like you give a toss about people’s titles! I’m Madeleine and we used to be friends, or don’t you remember that part?”

“Alright Madeleine” he says slowly, like he’s talking to a particularly petulant child, “we better head home now, they’ll want you back for dinner”.

“I don’t want to” she says stubbornly. “You head back. I’m staying here to watch the sunset”.

“They’ll just sent me out to look for you if you´re not there for dinner, let’s go”.

She takes a deep breath and a step backwards, towards the edge. “You know, I’m so tired of everyone telling me what to do all the time, were to be and what to think, and how to feel”. She takes another step backwards and the smugness on his face is soon replaced with worry.  

“I’m so tired of people telling me that I can’t do things when they have no issue doing it themselves”. She takes yet another step back and as he reaches out for her, realising what she’s about to do. She turns around and runs toward the edge.  

“No Maddie, don’t!”  

But she’s already taken the leap.

*

Locksley Hall

The next morning she wakes early, though it feels as though she’s hardly slept at all. Memories plays behind her closed eyelids from the day before. The cliffs, Tom’s arms grabbing hold of her, the argument, the jump, the fall, the splash, the sinking, the searching for the surface. And then, a hand grabbing hold of her, pulling her towards the light.  

He’d jumped in after her, had thrown himself of the cliff in his Sunday best without any hesitation.  

He’d always been the better swimmer, he was the one who had taught her after all, and luckily it hadn’t taken him long to find her beneath the surface.  

They’d swam ashore, dragged themselves up in their heavy, wet clothes watched by the bathers who looked at them, some agog and some in chock. (“Is that not lady Madeleine?”)

He’d been furious, practically steaming with anger. It hadn’t mattered how many times she’d tried to talk to him, tried to apologise, he’d only ignored her and kept steering his feet forward to Locksley Hall. Only when she tried to thank him for having saved her did he respond.

“Don’t” he had uttered, his resentment almost palpable.

They had been walking through a path in the woods, sun shining through the canopy, painting the whole world a bright green colour, and she stumbled after him, keeping her eyes on his wet white shirt, his suspenders holding of his soaked beige trousers.  

She too had grown angry then. Had tried to argue with him. Tried telling him that he was overreacting, that no one had forced him to jump in as well, that it would have been better if he hadn’t, that they both knew he wished he hadn’t and suddenly -

She’d been pressed up against a tree, his face just centimetres from hers, both their chest heaving with conflicting emotions, his arms on either side of her face, in the most beautiful trap.

Madeleine untangles herself from her many sheets and blankets and walks to the window to pull apart the curtains and let in the morning light. The grounds outside are empty, no one is yet awake. It must be very early indeed, for even Gideon’s cottage seem peacefully quiet.

She opens the leaded window and drags in deep breaths of fresh air, but her lungs still feel too tight. She fishes up a package of cigarettes from one of the pockets of her silk robe and with trembling hands she lights one. Everything is set now. She is to marry Sir James Hatfield, and settle down at Hatfield house in all its ugly Tudor glory. It didn’t matter if she smoked in the house anymore, she wouldn’t stay here much longer.  

With picture perfect certainty she imagines married life with Sr Hatfield. Endless conversation of the breeding of horses, hunting and dogs. Her life spent doing things the way they have always been done at Hatfield house, keeping up with the traditions of a family she has no interest in. And then, several blonde little children would come along. All boys, all taking after their father in looks and manners.  

Her life would surround around them. She would be Lady Madeline Locksley no more, but instead, Lady Hatfield. She would have to leave Locksley hall, leave Benie,  

leave Tom.

The thought startles her, and she gets up from the window ledge, starts walking aimlessly round the cluttered room.  

Using her empty tea cup from which she’d drank her evening tea the night before as an ashtray she puts out her cigarette, and with hands trembling more than ever she lights another, before throwing herself back on the bed.  

Tom.  

Who surely hated her now. The achingly long moments when he’d trapped her against the tree plays again in her head. She’d seen so many emotions on his face, his chest heaving from all of it. First there had been anger, then confusion and then, unless she wasn’t entirely mistaken; because god knows her experience was non-existing in the area,  

- lust.  

But he’d torn himself free, and marched off, without looking back. And she’d stood leaned against the three, feeling like a planet spinning out of its axis, struggling to remember how to breath again.

When she walked into the great hall she’d been met with her mother, Benie and granny. Upon seeing her, they’d all gone completely silent, the only sound to be heard the water dripping off of her, landing on the newly swapped floors.  

“Oh Madeleine!” her mother had eventually burst out “what’s happened?”

She had told them she’d been at the cliffs, and that Tom had come along, but then her granny had interrupted her. “Are you telling me” she’d asked in her superior voice “that you were ‘hanging about’ the cliffs with the junior gardener?” The disapproval in her voice was evident.  

“No” Madeleine had answered, trying to keep her voice steady and calm. “I’m saying that I was there, and he was there, he annoyed me, and then I jumped off the cliff”.

Dead silence again.  

“You, you did what?”

“I jumped off a cliff. And then he saved me. And now, I really must change, so would you please excuse me”. The wave of emotion that washed over her had surprised her, but suddenly she’d been holding back tears.

““Madeleine, I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately, but you need to go and get changed, right now. Sir Hatfield is invited for dinner, and you will behave yourself and you will conduct yourself accordingly” her mother had told her in her sternest voice. So, Madeleine had nodded and walked up the stairs, choking back on tears, her wet clothes leaving a trace of water in her wake.  

And she’d changed and Alice had done up her hair and she’d joined the others for dinner. And she’d sat beside James at dinner and listened to him lecturing her on various dog breeds and she’d smiled appropriately. Then, after dinner, he’d taken her aside. Professed in a dry tone his admiration for her and asked for her hand in marriage. He’d told her that he’d already settled things with her father. She had smiled and complied and tried to press down the feeling of nausea in her stomach, tried to ignore to scream growing ever larger in her lungs.  

She stands up again, puts out her cigarette, takes one of the many dresses scattering the floor and slides it on. Then she’s out the door. With silent steps, as to not wake anyone, she makes her way down the corridor, and then down the grand staircase and the foyer and out the door. The pressure in her lungs grow tenser and tenser and her feet move faster and faster, until her naked feet are sprinting over the grounds, the dewy grass cold under her soles. When she finally reaches the greenhouse, she’s sobbing.

This had always been her secret place. Not even Tom had known about how she’d used to come here when things became too much, when things would build and build inside of her until she had to let it out. Like it was a living, moving thing in her chest, begging her to set it free. Knowing that the old greenhouse was the only soundproof place in all of Locksley Hall it became her safe place to let it out, she’d always steer her feet here. When she’d been to boarding school, and then in Canada, she’d been forced to try letting the scream free under water, no other place felt safe enough, but it hadn’t felt the same.  

She slams the door shut behind her and then she lets it out. Nearly bending over from the force of it she shrieks, for as long and as loud as she can. Her eyes pressed shut and trembling hands in fists. When she finally stops it still seems to echo in her ears, and she feels exhausted. She’s breathing as if she’s just run for miles and miles. Slowly she stands up straight again, unclasping her fists. Opening her shut eyes.

Tom.  

Standing in front of her, looking shocked and horrified, hands and shirt muddy. He must have been in here for some early work before the heat gets too intense. 

They stand there, for a long time, just staring at one another, her screams still echoing in her mind. And then, like she’s a wild animal, he slowly walks towards her. Taking her hand in his, an arm around her waist, he gently guides them towards the pond, on the side of which he helps her sit down. Bending down in front of her, so that he’s on his knees, he looks up at her, a strand of brown hair falling down, framing his face.

It’s so tender, the way he looks at her. So unbearably tender. His earth-stained hands clasped around hers, placed in her lap, calloused and warm.  

“What happened?” He asks, voice soft and low.

She doesn’t know when it started, too distracted by his gentleness perhaps, but she realises then that she’s crying, two tears falling from her cheek and landing on their hands.   

“I’m just being silly” she responds, but her voice sounds hoarse and dead even to her own ears.

“I doubt it, what’s wrong?”  

“I, I” she begins, her lungs feeling tight again “I have to marry.”

His kind eyes blink up at her, and for a moment she swears he holds on tighter to her hands.  

“But you don’t want to.” It’s not a question, it’s a statement. “Why do you have to?” His thumbs stroke her trembling hands and it feel and it is the gentlest thing that’s ever happened to her.  

“There’s no male hair. So, if papa dies before I marry, we’ll lose everything”. Her voice is hoarse from screaming and she wonders if he finds her pathetic, but in his eyes she only finds sympathy, and maybe a fair share of pain.

“But you don’t have to marry Hatfield?”

She shakes her head, and more tears fall. “No, but he’s the best option. I can’t afford to wait”.  

Silence for a while as he observes you.

Then,  

“What if I’ll marry you?” his voice is steady, but his eyes are fixed their clasped hands.  

“What?”

“I’ll marry you” he states and looks up at her again. She stares at him in disbelief, for surely, he can’t mean it. He continues. “I know it’s not a good option, but the estate will be safe, and you won’t have to marry Hatfield, you won’t have to leave Locksley Hall.”

When she just keeps staring at him in silent disbelief his cheeks turn pink. “I know I haven’t got anything to offer; you know I don’t. But -”

“Alright”. Her answers comes without her thinking about it and it seems to catch him off guard. “But, are you sure?” she asks, worried that he doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into.  

“Yes, Madeleine, I’m sure” he smiles, his hands continuing to gently stroke her hands.  

“But, but” she starts, feeling almost dizzy. “But why would you want to marry me?”

“What?”

“Why would you help me? It would change your life forever.” She keeps her voice serious, knows that it’s of utmost importance that he understands the importance of this.  

He seems struck silent and for a long while his brown eyes stare up at her in disbelief. “Well I, I mean I would, I” he starts, letting go of her hands and standing up, placing them his pockets instead. It is like he’s trying to look as nonchalant as he usually does.  

Turning slightly away from her, eyes fixed on the koi fish in the pond he then continues. “Well, I’d get to live in Locksley Hall, wouldn’t I? I’d be the lord of the manor. No more hard toil in the garden”.  

“So, mostly self-interest then?” She says, not knowing whether she feels more relieved or disappointed. More than anything she feels light headed.  

“Yeah” he agrees, eyes still fixed on the pond. “It’s self-interest".  

Silence spread between them. This is new territory that neither one knows how to tread.  

In the end she stands up and he turns to look at her again, something like worry in his expression. “We, well we’ll have to discuss this. If it’s to happen it needs to happen soon.”

“It is to happen” he says, firmly, but then his cheeks turn pink again. “As long as you want it to”.  

“Well then” she says, a small but genuine smile on her face. “It can’t happen here; Gretna Green is our only option. We have to come up with some excuse so we can leave for Scotland for a few days”.  

He nods, but he too looks more relaxed now. “I’ll think of something”.  

“So much to be fixed” she says, mostly to herself. “Wedding dress for example, though the wedding will be so small only something simple will do.”

“Could you” he begins, and he avoids her eyes again. “You could wear that dress you had on at the ball” he asks awkwardly, fidgeting slightly where he stands.  

“Oh, yes of course” she says, just as awkward. “If that’s what you want”. She smiles at him, and he smiles back. Its embarrassed, but it’s tender too.  

“Meet me at the fountain tonight?” he asks, and that strange fluttering sensation she’d felt when he’d pressed her against the tree makes another appearance. “To discuss how we’ll do this?”

She nods “yes, I’ll see you then. I better get back now, or Alice will notice I’ve left when she brings in breakfast.”  

She turns to leave, but changing her mind mid stride she turns back to him. When she reaches him she stands on the tips of her naked, now muddy, feet. She presses a soft kiss to his cheek. “Thank you” she whispers.  

***

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[oswincoleman]

2020 Jenna Coleman’s Year in Review, part 2: Acting

Death Be Not Proud (Inside No. 9 series 5 episode 2)

Jenna Coleman secretly filmed this back in early 2019, before she started rehearsing for her theatre production of All My Sons. It took almost a year after that, for the rest of the episodes of the series to be filmed, and released. This remains the only film or TV role of Jenna that was released this year. And although the initial promotion for it appeared to show Jenna in the leading role in the episode, that turned out to just be a ruse to hide the secret of Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith reprising their roles from Psychoville in Inside No. 9, so her total screentime was only about 10 minutes or so. 

It was an interesting episode, though not quite to my tastes, and Jenna played her role brilliantly as always. With the way it ended, it was like a bit of a teaser of what was to come. 

This was her only appearance in film and television this year. Throughout her acting career since 2005, Jenna has always had substantially more screentime every year, than she did this year. The only exceptions being 2010 and 2011. Of course that is mostly not her fault; The Serpent would have been out much earlier without the pandemic. 

The Serpent

After 4 months of intensive filming for The Serpent in the latter half of 2019, Jenna Coleman felt somewhat burnt out, and went on holiday with her parents to the Maldives in January. She described her experience there in a travel article she published later in the year.

Filming for The Serpent finally resumed in February,after a 2 month break, because Tahar Rahim has been working on a film in the meantime. This long break however proved to be quite problematic, as after only 3 weeks of filming, production had to be halted, due to the spread of COVID-19, with just 5 days of filming left to do.

There had already been plans for events to advertise The Serpent, but these were canceled.

Filming for The Serpent finally resumed in August. But unlike what had been planned, of filming the last few scenes in Bangkok and Budapest, they were shot in a manor in the small English town of Tring. A set had been built up there to resemble an apartment in Bangkok. Everyone whk was working on it at the time respected health guidelines, and so managed to safely complete filming in 2 weeks.

So in total, Jenna only spent 5 weeks filming this year, and she wasn’t even required to film on all of those days.

A Separate Peace

But over the course of the year, with the pandemic making filming difficult to impossible, Jenna instead diverted her attention to acting in other ways.

Most notably amongst those was A Separate Peace by Tom Stoppard; a virtual theatre performed by multiple actors over Zoom. It marked a significant improvement over actors merely reading text out loud, was amazing to watch, and was strongly praised as the best alternative to actual theatre currently available.

Jenna played 22 year old nurse Maggie Coates, who tended to, and befriended a patient, played by David Morrissey, who arrived at the hospital without having any medical issue whatsoever.

It was short and poignant, and it was amazing to see Jenna in this role. But info have some criticism about the producers. With minimal promotion for it, the turnout could have been much better. It was announced to be the first in a series of virtual theatre performances like this, and it seemed as though this was sort of a test run, to see whether this was possible at all, to see whether the media liked it, or not. The reaction to it was overwhelmingly positive, with very great reviews praising it’s ability to at least achieve some semblance of theatre despite all the restrictions preventing live theatre performances. It was even praised as among the best of theatre in 2020 (https://www.broadwayworld.com/westend/article/2020-Year-In-Review-Gary-Naylors-Best-of-Theatre-20201207). 

After seeing those reviews, which were shared much more widely than the initial promotion for it, I saw lots of people who either wanted to watch the production, but couldn’t, as it was only shown once, and was not shared by the producers afterwards, or were interested in watching future installments of such virtual theatre performances. But the producers of this virtual theatre performance did not produce any other ones, despite initially announcing that they would. And even though it was understandable at the time, that they were unwilling to share the recording of the performance, as the money from the tickets did go to charity, and they did not want people to know that they could still watch future similar performances without having to pay anything, as they did not make any other similar production, it is perplexing why they never made the recording of this play available. 

Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition

As the pandemic prevented most types of acting for large parts of the year, Jenna instead turned her attention to several audio performances.

Way back in 2011, Jenna voiced Princess Melia in the English dub of the fantasy role-playing game Xenoblade Chronicles. 10 years after the initial release, Nintendo worked on a new release; Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition, with updated graphics, gameplay, and a whole new extra storyline, that prominently features Melia. It was released on the 29th of May 2020. 

Since Jenna rose to fame after she originally voiced Melia, the Xenoblade Chronicles fandom thought it very unlikely that Jenna would return to voice Melia again in the new release. But against all odds, she did return. It is unclear when she recorded the new lines for Melia, but I think it was probably in January or February this year, and Jenna has still never commented publicly about this role, or her reprisal of it. 

Though I haven’t played the game, you can watch all the cutscenes of the game here: https://youtu.be/Tsgy1h5x8VU and the phrases Melia says througout the gameplay here: https://youtu.be/l7oDcI8HmI4

Pressures, Residential

On July 12th, Esquire UK released a recording of Jenna Coleman reading the short story “Pressures, Residential” by Philip Hensher, in support of Unicef UK, as part of the Esquire Summer Fiction Series. It’s a creepy story told brilliantly by Jenna. It’s always lovely to listen to her incredible voice. You can listen to the story here: https://youtu.be/VSpc4H-z40A

The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies

On the 17th of September, the audiobook collection “Beatrix Potter: The Complete Tales” was released, in which Jenna read the story of “The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies”. 

Charlie Waller Virtual Carol Service

On the 7th of December 2020, the Charlie Waller Trust held a virtual Chirstmas carol service, that had been pre-recorded, and was streamed over youtube for those that bought a ticket earlier. As part of the event, Jenna Coleman read an extract of a Christmas carol poem by George Wither. 

Additional Comments

With a lack of projects this year and the last, and with Victoria series 3 not being recieved that well, Jenna unfortunately didn’t win any awards, and wasn’t even nominated for any awards this year. Even though I think she was nominated and won far too few awards for her recent work, she at least had managed to maintain a success of several award nominations, and at least one win every year since 2016. 

2020 has also been the first year of her acting career, since 2005, in which she didn’t officially get announced to have been cast in a new film or TV role, or had the certainty of continuing to play a role that she had already played, in the next year. 

Even though Jenna Coleman was involved in many different projects this year, overall, she did not have any work to do for the vast majority of this year. With the TV and film industry being shut down or at least massively reduced for large parts of the year, there might not have been that many roles for her to audition for. We know that Jenna went on two holidays, and she had shared a bit of what she got up to during lockdown in this article: https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/fashion/fashion-news/g32374333/self-isolate-with-jenna-coleman/ But for the most part, it remains somewhat unclear what she did this year. We know she kept up French lessons for The Serpent, she did some gardening, possibly attended some photography courses, and possibly tried her hand at painting. She revealed all of that in May, and hasn’t talked about what she did with her time since then. 

There is a possibility that she had been working on renovating her new house in the Cotswolds for some time this year. And there is also the possibility of her having already started filming work for her secret new project; after all it remains unclear where she was during her latest Galaxycon Q&A session. 

Overall, this year has not been great for Jenna from an acting perspective. But 2021 will definitely be better! The Serpent airs on January on BBC, and will be released on Netlix sometime later that year. And then there’s also Jenna’s secret new project. Depending on what it is, we might even see that come out towards the end of 2021.