#which is good even though emma brings her own charm to it

[endorphinmachine]

in terms of acting annaleigh ashford is a lot like emma thompson. less whiny though

[whimsicallyenchantedrose]

Season 3 Rewatch Drabbles: 3x5 Good Form

Summary:  A series of 100-500 word drabbles to accompany my    rewatch of season 3 of Once Upon a Time.  There will be a drabble–either a deleted scene, a “fix it” fic or a character musing for each episode of the season.  Focus will be on Emma, Henry, the Charmings and Killian–with an emphasis on Captain Swan’s epic love story.

Word Count: 745

Other Chapters: (1) (2) (3) (4) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18) (19) (20) (21) (22) (23) (24) (25) (26) (27) (28)

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

Killian touched his lips softly, almost reverently, as he sat alone in the forest. She’d kissed him.  She’d actually kissed him.  Killian reached for his flask, needing the familiar burn of the rum on his tongue to prove to himself that he was awake and was not, in fact, in the throws of a delicious dream.

He’d flirted with her, smiling his teasing smile and playfully touching his lips as he suggested a way she might thank him for his service toward her father, but he’d never expected her to take him up on his suggestion.

Not that he was complaining.  That kiss had been…. He blew out a long sigh.  Even for a man so normally silver tongued as he was, there were no words.

It was more than the kiss itself–that had been steamy, passionate, blissful, of course–but it was more than that. It was….it was what the kiss revealed.

He loved her.  He was in love with her.  She’d snuck under his defenses as stealthily as any pirate could have, and without his knowledge, she’d taken possession of his heart.

It was an uncomfortable feeling, if he were being honest.  He’d never been one to bestow his love lightly, but when he did, there was no going back.  He’d spent two-hundred bloody (often literally) years in Neverland because of love for Milah, for heaven’s sake.  The thought of moving on from her, of bestowing his heart on another and giving her the power to crush it as thoroughly as Milah’s death had done…

He took another long swallow.

Well, there was nothing for it now.  It had happened.  He’d fallen in love again.

As he continued to sit and ruminate on the events of the day, it occurred to him that while the revelation of his love was momentous, it was by no means the only noteworthy thing that had happened that day.

This place, Neverland, had a truly ghastly effect on its inhabitants.  It had a way of bringing one's worst fears, one's greatest insecurities, one's biggest regrets to mind.  This place was depression in physical form.  He’d survived his last stint here with the aid of one thing and one thing only–his revenge.  That goal, that singular purpose had allowed him to keep his wits about him.

This time around….well, the fact that he’d allowed the Crocodile on his ship, formed a tentative truce with him, proved that he had given up on that revenge.  Without that singular focus to ruminate upon, he’d spent the hours on this island this go around reminded of his sins, his faults, the fact that he was a villain whom the heroes tolerated only.

Hadn’t David said it himself this morning? “Let me give you a bit of advice, Hook. She’s never gonna like you.  How could she?  You’re nothing but a pirate.”

Though he’d tried to keep the mocking grin on his face, it had stung, and for the first time, Killian realized how very much he wanted to change his life, become the kind of man Emma’s father–a man who was so much like his own hero, Liam–would approved of.

But at that moment, the gloom of Neverland had descended, and he’d come to realize he’d never be that man; he’d never overcome his past.  He’d never reach a higher status than “the pirate with which we’ve formed a temporary but begrudging alliance”.

And so it had continued throughout the day.  David had taken pains to make his disdain and dislike known and felt, taking small verbal digs at him, even as he attempted to save his life.

So it was that the second most astounding event of the day–second only to the kiss–had happened.  When they’d returned to camp after achieving their ends at the top of Dead Man’s Peak, David had not only given him credit, but had toasted him, had bestowed on him the look of approval and gratitude Killian had never dared hope to receive from him.

It had embarrassed him a bit, having the entire company of heroes and Regina (he still wasn’t sure where upon the hero-villain spectrum she truly belonged) raise a flask to him, but the warmth it engendered had been as potent as his rum.

For the first time, he could see a way forward.  Maybe he didn’t have to be forever defined by his past villainous deeds.  Perhaps….perhaps there was a path to redemption available for him after all.

NEXT CHAPTER->

[oluka]

Invincible Iron Man 11-13: Emma and Tony's relationship develops

Is it Wednesday? No. Is there an Iron Man comic out this week? Also no. But I've skipped a few months and now I have things to say about Iron Man again. Namely, the developing friendship (relationship??) between Emma and Tony.

Look at this combo attack. Isn't it the best????

Iron Man has been a bit slower paced since the wedding, which makes sense, since the time for desperate reaction to Orchis' attack has passed, and Tony's now firmly in the planning stage for the final boss fight against Orchis/Feilong. It does mean that it's more interesting to look at several issues at once, though. And what I want to talk about is Tony and Emma. Their interactions are kind of a subplot to the whole "get mysterium and make an armour out of it", but every word bubble and action says something about their relationship. Remember, in IIM #8, Tony and Emma were screaming at each other about the Sentinels, Emma was devastated about losing her cuckoos but didn't let Tony give her comfort, and Tony had a panic attack that Emma helped him through.

Where are we now? They're married and have basically been living on top of each other for a few weeks now. First the honeymoon, where they flaunt themselves on the beach (and make innuendos at each other) and Tony secretly breaks into Krakoa.

Emma doesn't have time for this bullshit. It's fun. They banter. Also, Tony brings back a book that her cuckoos made for her, and gives it to Dr. Strange for safekeeping. Emma doesn't know about this.

This is the kind of small thoughtful kindnesses that I love to see from Tony.

And Emma isn't indifferent to Tony either. She may be snarky, and (rightfully so) insist that their marriage is fake, but she doesn't seem to mind when Tony calls her his wife. She even hosts a Thanksgiving dinner with him, and they finish each other's sentences????

They're clearly getting along well. It's even more obvious in the latest issue, where they go on a space trip together to retrieve the big mysterium reserves that the mutants stashed on Gameworld.

They get brought there by Starfox, who hilariously fails at charming Emma.

Notice a few things: One: Tony feels the need to apologize to her. He's been nothing but courteous to her since the beginning, and I dig that. Two: Emma is a sapiosexual, which means she finds intelligence attractive. Draw your own conclusions :)

I also really love the combo attack they did, combining Tony's repulsortech (I'm guessing he turned the beams into only light in order to let Emma refract it?) with Emma's diamond form. Really badass.

But the best part about issue 13 is maybe when they get back and see that the skrull impersonators they hired to play them went on a date at the rockefeller center. And when Emma says that she'd always wanted to skate there, what does Tony do?

He kisses her hand while affirming they will win, and then he takes her skating! As a date! Because she said it had been something she wanted to do!

Aren't they cute?

Honestly, I'm pretty ecstatic that they are getting along so well. Their chemistry is great, and I really like how easily they banter back and forth, always in good faith. It feels like they both have reached an equilibrium, where they know what to say and what to do and understand each other. I'm actually not opposed to them staying together even after the Fall of X event ends, but if they part ways, at least they will do so as friends. I hope. Duggan, don't mess this up now.

Anyways, it's been fun to see Tony be more and more overtly affectionate towards Emma, and Emma not minding it one bit.

See you next time for more Iron Man thoughts.

[fictionadventurer]

Reasons to read The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion by Beth Brower

They're written in the style of the great light classic novels. The promo material says people have compared them to Austen, L.M. Montgomery and Jean Webster, and they're right, though the strongest comparisons I see are Oscar Wilde, P.G. Wodehouse, and Georgette Heyer.

They're (as the title indicates) presented as a series of journals by Emma M. Lion, a twenty(?) year old orphan who has recently come to live at Lapis Lazuli House in the quirky London neighborhood of St. Crispian's where she meets all kinds of colorful characters and gets into wild scrapes.

So far, there are six books in the series, with a seventh on the way, and a plan to have lots and lots more. Each book covers two months and kind of reads like episodes of a television show or an ongoing serial.

And that's basically all I knew before starting, and part of the joy of this series is uncovering the surprises along the way, so if you don't want to read any further, that's okay, but I'm still going to talk about more details under the cut.

More Plot Details

Lapis Lazuli House is technically Emma's, because it's been willed to her, along with a living that should allow her to live at a modest but respectable level of comfort. Unfortunately, she hasn't reached her majority yet, and for now, the house comes with a horrid Cousin Archibald who resents Emma after the incident that gave him The Scar, so he forces her to live in a garret bedroom and refuses to provide her allowance. Emma's money troubles have a lot of twists and turns that lead to lots of different adventures that I won't spoil here.

Emma has an ongoing quest to build up her personal library. She had to sell off her father's books to pay for her education, and she can't use libraries because she wants to scribble in her books, so getting books is VERY important. (As all the best people understand). She's constantly engaging with different books, and adding books to her library provides some of the best moments of the series. (Each volume ends with a list of the books Emma now owns).

Those are the biggest (and least spoilery) overarching plot points of the series, but the true draw is Emma's interaction with

The Characters

Emma interacts with a sprawling cast of oddballs, including:

Cousin Archibald, previously mentioned Horrid Person, obsessed with clothes and with assuming Emma is the Personification of All Evil

Arabella, her beautiful, wealthy cousin who is expected to make a good match in The Season

Aunt Eugenia, her wealthy aunt who talks exactly like Wilde's Lady Bracknell, and who recruits Emma to attend high society social events as The Foil to make Arabella look good in comparison

Mary, a School Chum who makes a living as a typist

Jack, the con man Mary has hired to pretend to be her cousin so she can get free time away from her strict "respectable" boarding house

Young Hawkes, the handsome, fashionable, mysterious vicar who spends half his sermons reading poetry

The Redoubtable Ten, a group of Hawkes' rowdy Cambridge buddies (Hawkes is technically the tenth) who heckle him during most of his sermons and admire Emma for getting into scrapes even wilder than their own

The Tenant, also known as Niall Pierce, who rents the garret on the other side of Emma's bedroom wall. They pass notes through a crack in the wall and share a cat. He has a mysterious past, which includes years living in America even though he is Not An American.

The Duke of Islington, St. Crispian's only resident nobleman, who is Very Proper and Disapproves of Emma's wilder scrapes, but who secretly has a very poetic soul

Roland Sutherland, Emma's childhood nemesis who has grown up into a handsome, charming, and wealthy Sun God

Saffronia March, a thirty-something spinster artist who knew Emma's parents and brings Emma in contact with the art world

Mrs. Penury, the wife of Emma's banker, who hasn't spoken for ten years because she decided she had said everything she wanted to say

The other draw of the series is

St. Crispian's

A quirky London neighborhood with many oddball traditions and magical-realism happenings.

There's an ancient Roman ghost that the inhabitants are very fond of.

A yearly tradition of a highly-competitive scavenger hunt to score tickets to the local production of Julius Caesar.

A phenomenon where items go "wandering" from houses, only to be found in random places in the neighborhood (and a local cafe where people can bring found items to be picked up).

Among many others

All these oddities are presented as a normal part of life, no matter how strange outsiders might find them. Though, be warned, St. Crispian's is very fond of its traditions, and its odd rules can cause problems.

Other Thoughts

This series strings you along with book after book of Witty Banter and Silly Misadventures, until suddenly it sucker-punches you with moments of Sadness and Deep Emotions

These characters, even when they're comic archetypes, have deeper layers of complexity and history.

Emma's friendships, especially with the men of her neighborhood, develop into really strong bonds.

There are threads of romance, but they're overshadowed by the platonic relationships.

They take place in what's supposed to be 1883, and take advantage of some actual historical events, but it mostly feels like a light history-flavored fantasy because people don't really act much like historical people. Like, the amount of time that Emma spends alone in the company of unmarried men late at night is scandalous. But it's okay, because you don't expect realism here any more than you expect realism from P.G. Wodehouse.

Aside from some mild cursing from one character (and the stuff in the next bullet point) there's literally no objectionable content in this series.

The series has a really weird relationship with spirituality. Characters are technically Christian, but they take it casually and don't seem to know much about their faith. Hawkes is the Worst Vicar Ever who doesn't give any actual Christian advice (I'm still waiting for a reveal that he's not a real vicar). The magical realism parts are taken more seriously than actual religion. Yet there are some parts that do interact with actual Christian ideas. I'm not crazy about it, which you'd think would be a reason not to recommend it, but I don't think it overrides the good parts of the series, and I need to discuss it with someone, because it's an issue with a lot to explore.

These are some of my favorite books I've read this year, with several of my favorite characters and moments, and I need to have someone to talk to about them.

[gerec]

AU-gust 2023

16. Road Trip

Pairing(s): Cherik Warnings: N/A

Charles received the letter upon his arrival in Calais, which led him to believe that it had been sent before he even left England to begin his travels. Grinning, he thanked the porter for bringing his luggage, and agreed to meet his tutor Mr. Summers for a late dinner, before retiring to his room and unsealing the envelope.

Dearest Charles,

Yes, I did send this letter ahead of your arrival, as I knew you would take your time in Dover before making it across the Channel! Just know that you are missed already, as Tony’s attention span is dismal on a good day, and he is entirely insufferable without your slightly less irritating presence around to keep him in line.

(And no, he has still not forgiven his father for forbidding him to join you on the Grand Tour. I imagine dinners at the Stark household will be very chilly for the foreseeable future.)

In any case, I have made arrangements for a Mr. Erik Lehnsherr to meet you in Calais and interview as your translator and guide. The man is a bit taciturn but well-educated and well-travelled, and most importantly speaks French, German, Italian and Dutch. He comes highly recommended by Christian, who met him and took him on as a guide during his own tour three years ago.

But Emma, you say, will this man be good company on the road? And will he be easy on the eyes? While I cannot attest to the former, Christian assures me that he is quite handsome indeed, enough to meet even your high expectations. Most importantly, he shares the same worldly outlook on relationships as you do – and my dear brother of course – so I am certain you two will get along splendidly.

Do remember to write, as I suffer here in London without your charming presence at all the best parties. I will keep an eye on Raven and Dr. McCoy, and send details of their burgeoning relationship.

Yours,

Emma

----

Mr. Lehnsherr sent word the next day, and Charles was quick to agree to a meeting at the hotel. He invited Mr. Lehnsherr to join him for dinner, but the man declined, citing a previous engagement that sounded more like a contrived excuse. And while everything Emma said in her letter was true – he had travelled all over Europe, and was fluent in all the languages of the countries Charles planned to visit – he was also prickly and almost condescending, as though he didn’t quite approve of the frivolous nature of Charles’ travels. His answers, when asked after his family and where he called home, were distressingly vague and curt, and, as their conversation drew to a close, Charles could not imagine spending months on the road with this man, who proved even more infuriating than his two best friends back home.

Finally, after he’d had enough of Mr. Lehnsherr drinking his brandy and insulting England’s weather, he blurted, “Why do you even want this position? You clearly do not approve of my reasons for coming to the Continent, or even to care for my very person. This trip is a chance for me to open my eyes to the wider world, Mr. Lehnsherr, and I will not waste it at the side of someone who will hinder instead of help me.”

Mr. Lehnsherr smiled, perhaps the first genuine one of the evening and replied, “Would you welcome the truth, I wonder? Well, here it is Mr. Xavier. My work as an artist requires that I travel, and a position like this helps me with my expenses. And while I do not think you will learn anything truly meaningful and worthwhile on a trek of luxurious decadence through Europe, I am a quite capable guide, and will do an exceptional job in showing you exactly what you ask of me. Whether you choose anything beyond the attending fancy parties is entirely up to you, as is the way you choose to flaunt your privileged wealth.”

Charles was stunned, entirely unused to such harsh judgement from someone he’d met mere hours before. He bristled as Lehnsherr watched him with those steely blue eyes, sharp and accessing as though he were measuring Charles’ character and finding him lacking. Part of him wanted to send Lehnsherr away with a sound rebuke, and yet another, bigger part wanted desperately to prove him wrong; to show him that Charles was not merely a spoiled rich boy, and that he intended to use his position as heir to the Dukedom of Norfolk to better the lives of those in his care.

“I assure you that I did not take this journey on for the parties,” he countered, with just enough chill in his voice to make his affronted feelings known. “I welcome a thorough education, not just of the rich but of the poorest in the land, though, would you call it decadence if I wanted also to admire great art and learn about music and history to enrich my soul? Before I must be married off and swallowed whole by a life of duty and tradition?”

If anything, Lehnsherr’s smile only grew wider, and for the first time, he met Charles’ gaze with something like approval. “I would be happy to oblige you, Mr. Xavier, in whatever manner of decadence you wish to indulge.”

His cheeks flushed with heat at Lehnsherr words, and he remembered what Emma had intimated in her letter; that the man might share his proclivities for the same sex. He held his breath when Lehnsherr closed the distance and lightly brushed Charles’ cheek with his fingers, only exhaling when he grinned and then stepped away again.

“Well, Mr. Xavier,” Mr. Lehnsherr said, licking his lips as he took a slow sip from his glass of brandy, “do I have the job?”

Charles blinked, flushing again when he realized he’d been staring at Lehnsherr. He poured himself a refill, before turning to meet the man’s steady gaze.

“Yes. Mr. Lehnsherr. Be ready to leave the day after tomorrow.”

[cloudycaffeinatedcryptid]

Who do you think is most and least like their website and in-game descriptions? I feel like we don’t always see everything they describe on screen (which might be due to those script edits we all love thinking about).

Laura's excited to spend a quiet summer in the woods as a camp counselor alongside her boyfriend Max. It's the perfect way to apply her resourceful, curious nature before she returns to her veterinarian studies in the fall. For Laura, everything's falling into place.

Laura is described in-game as Studious. Independent. Determined.

Ever the class clown, Max has trouble applying himself and seeing things through, unlike his girlfriend Laura. Fortunately, his friendly attitude and unfaltering loyalty make them a great match, provided she doesn't get sick of his lack of ambition—which won't cut it if their plan to go to college together has any hope of success.

Max is described in-game as Mr. Witty. Sarcastic. Helpless. Dependent. Friendly.

Abigail is so deeply buried in her sketchbook that she can't see how well her artistic skills and kind disposition are appreciated by her peers. Socially awkward but sweet and sincere, she's dying to find some romance before the summer is out.

Abigail is described in-game as Shy. Artistic. Indecisive.

Kaitlyn embraces the idea of living out loud; always going toward the fun and never afraid to stir the pot a little. Her amiable nature and ingenuity means she can adapt to any social environment, often allowing her to slip into the de facto role of 'leader,' though she sometimes struggles to express her own needs in stressful situations.

Kaitlyn is described in-game as Quick-Witted. Headstrong. Cunning.

Like many teen heartthrobs, soft-spoken Nick strikes that perfect balance between handsome athleticism and nerdy vulnerability. His fatal flaw is an unwillingness to drop his stoic guard and let people in.

Nick is described in-game as Polite. Awkward. Impressionable.

Emma is something of a documentarian, capturing and commenting on nearly everything through her phone's front-facing camera for her loyal followers. As a talented actress and enterprising influencer, she runs the camp's drama activities, teasing out the best (and worst) in everyone she meets.

Emma is described in-game as Confident, Performative, and Self-assured.

Most won't 'get' whatever's coming through his headphones, but Ryan lives for connection, even if he does lean into the whole brooding, handsome loner thing. Beneath the reclusive persona is the heart of a hero, determined to prove himself to those he cares about.

Ryan is described in-game as inquisitive, stoic and charming.

Campers and counselors alike love Dylan's oddball humor and deep musical knowledge, broadcast daily over the camp's PA system… but beneath the affable, edgy persona of his radio voice, a much different person lies in wait, terrified of rejection.

Dylan is described in-game as Sarcastic. Laid-Back. Sociable.

Jacob is accustomed to being the most popular guy around. Despite some self-centeredness and obnoxious bravado befitting your typical jock, Jacob's got a charming streak and genuinely wants his fellow counselors to have a good time, especially Emma.

Jacob is described in-game as Athletic. Arrogant. Funny.

thank you for bringing this to my attention, i'm eating a dictionary in frustration. i have been yelling about this for twenty minutes & i have a lot of Thoughts

okay i'm going to break this down in stages. for starters, Laura's website description is fine, sounds pretty accurate, but i'm not sure about her in-game description. we don't get a chance to see her be "studious" during the game & it doesn't sit right to me that despite her motivation very clearly being driven by Max's situation, her traits don't reflect that. i would propose something like "Loyal. Determined. Clever."

poor Max, he's reduced to helpless and unable to follow through. that feels unfair - he's too busy being a depressed dog in jail. we don't see enough of my beloved for me to make a judgment call on his ambition (also why does he get so many descriptor tags??) but he has so many good traits so i don't think we should capitalize on his bad ones. he should be "Good-Humored. Dependable. Friendly." none of this helpless shit for my precious boy

Abi's all seem pretty accurate but the "indecisive" trait makes me sad :( we don't get to she her MAKE a lot of decisions barring the one to shoot Nick or not. the scene at the bonfire where she can't pick someone to ask truth or dare feels unfair. i wish we'd gotten to see more of her bc i don't even know what to put in place of it

no real complaints with Kaitlyn's, they got her pretty well. altho i would LOVE for insight on what the fuck the last sentence means. we barely get any backstory on Kaitlyn & i want some

Nick is not fucking stoic, i'm sorry. his fatal flaw is being fucking weird & having no social skills. i don't think his trait tags need changed but if they did i recommend throwing "odd" in there somewhere

i don't have a lot of complaints about Emma's, but if they were going to make her website description so heavily focused on her "documentor" status, i think they should have leaned into it more. have her playtime feature more optional photos, using her camera or something - just more on that concept. also i feel like "confident" & "self-assured" are too similar, so i would replace one of them with maybe "probing" or "argumentative". with love, of course

my man Ryan has a pretty good description but i vote to change "stoic" to "antisocial" or something of the sort bc stoic sounds too mean :(

Dylan, my love :(( why are you so sad :(( they all love you. he's so sad & scared. i don't mind his tags but i would adjust it a little. "Witty. Intuitive. Sociable." maybe. i don't know

and Jacob. first of all, athletic isn't a personality trait i don't think. & funny seems kind of lazy. this idiot deserves a little better maybe. we get to see a lot of different parts of him but they don't seem to go anywhere. i'm thinking "Overactive. Eager. Sarcastic." or something along those lines

[egipci]

what do you think it is exactly that's stopping the daemyra pairing from being more compelling? bc i feel the exact same way and i can't pinpoint it. is it just the show not hitting the right points and letting it kind of blur into the background... is it an acting problem, a chemistry problem? i think rhaenyra by herself is great and matt smith is really bizarrely ugly imo but a very good actor and from the beginning i had faith in him to play daemon (and i'm still enjoying him for the most part). also its not like one or both parties being ugly has stopped me from getting into a pairing before but i just for the life of me cannot bring myself to feel anything about them at all. i am kind of a lowkey viserys/daemon shipper but again that's not something that on paper would have stopped me from also caring about d/r? i feel like that's been the consensus amongst casual viewers too tbh, having read the book(s) i expected more outrage from my normie friends over the incest but more than one of them has complained about being bored with those two. it's gnawing at me. idk would be interested to hear your thoughts

Hello hello <3 I had to take a minute to think more about this beyond "the vibes are just not there anymore” lol, because I actually really did enjoy the ship in S1a, even though I vastly prefer Emma D'Arcy and older Rhaenyra to Milly Alcock (and she was great in her own right) and despite Matt Smith's... unconventional charm. And while I do think the actors still have plenty of chemistry, and I can be persuaded to care more, at this point I just find myself wondering 'what do these characters like about each other? what is this relationship like?’

The thing I have found particularly attractive about incest (and even more inter-generational incest) is that it's inherently a shorthand for deep history and affection and obligation (kinda like childhood best friends to lovers in that way) -- I don't need to see Daemon meet Rhaenyra for the first time as a new-born to like, imagine the feeling of meeting a very little person related to you for the first time and the parental feelings that inspires. And of course an uncle/niece relationship is per se about the nexus character, namely the brother/father, and so far the show has delivered on that front. Viserys is their third because he's the raison d'etre of the relationship, but I can't figure what else is going on there, I don't know what inspires the romantic turn. Daemon is a parental figure to her, but he's not just that, and that's the reason the relationship is permissible in their world in the first place, but what else is there? In ep 2x4 little Rhaenyra articulates what the initial draw was for her, and then again adult Rhaenyra does the same in ep 6, but what is it to Daemon? What does he like about her? Like, I know why I like watching her as a character, but what does he like about her?

Not to make everything about j/d but for the sake of illustration --- j/d is a parent/child relationship obviously, and whenever I write them the central motif is that deep paternal love but that's not enough to explain the sexual turn (whether consummated or un). There has to be some extra something there, which is in the case of J/D the 20+ years of history and partnership between them, which we only see glimpses of. But I factually know that in canon it existed, and I can still see its impacts on Dean all the way to the very last scene of the show. There's a reason I find J/D more plausible than J/S, even though John feels the same profound affection and devotion towards Sam.

I have no sense of that history with D/R. I can fill in the blanks when we first meet them in ep 1, but that can only go so far, because the adapted text leads me to believe there is no such history between them. There is no canon opportunity for that relationship to develop. We have a few scenes with them between s1 ep 1-2, then there's a three year time jump to ep. 4 during which they haven't seen each other, between 5 and 7 there are ten years where these characters do not interact, unlike in the book. Their reconciliation in ep. 7 feels more like a grief-fueled political alliance than a rekindling of a torrid affair, which is of course plenty interesting as a foundation for a relationship, but then we immediately jump six years into the future in ep8. Presumably any given relationship is different at year 20 from what it was at year 0, I just don't know much about how this particular relationship has evolved. I know they have had sex in the interim because I see they have kids, but that's about it. And it's unfortunate, because the show has been able to deliver real-feeling relationships in very limited scenes between Rhaenyra and Laenor, for example, or Aegon with his parents and Otto in S1. And to be sure the D/R relationship doesn't lack nuance, it just doesn't have the emotional resonance to me of a romance between soulmates like the show runners describe it. From a Rhaenyra-centric pov it simply feels like getting with your high school crush after many years in-between and it's just not working out as you would have hoped. From a Daemon-pov, Rhaenyra just feels like a consolation prize. And also both of them used to date the same guy. And ironically, I actually find that intriguing enough, I just feel like I'm being gaslighted by the show runners and its fans about what I'm actually watching.

Like I said before, incest aside, I think this is a very common problem in conveying romance in visual media, or at least a common experience for me as a viewer (which is why I consider myself a pretty non-shipper normie). Obviously there are many many people who ship it and spend a lot of time thinking about it out there, so it's not unpopular by any stretch, and I think fandom and transformative works are completely valid ways to deepen your investment in canon and the characters, but it takes a lot for me to reach that level of interest.

As to your impression of the normie consensus: that seems more or less accurate to me --- none of my normie friends have seen s2 yet, but I do watch a lot of reaction videos (lol) and people seem more invested in the dragons and the overall family drama and politics than in the romantic dimension to D/R. Though to be fair, I don't know that any of the romantic relationships on the show are particularly attractive. Corlys and Rhaenys were wonderful, and I'm intrigued by Cole/Alicent (and Alicent/Aegon in headcanon land), but it's a pretty sexless show on the whole. Like, even Baela and Jace have taken vows of chastity until marriage or something, it's very strange.

Re: Viserys/Daemon: <3 I think it's wonderful actually! I haven't finished F&B and I haven't read any of the other books so I don't know if there is some gay incest down the line, but I don't think there is? Which is bizarre of course because why wouldn't two siblings of the same gender develop a relationship in the fucking your siblings family? I think that conflict would have been tremendously intriguing to explore, and I can so easily see Daemon as a character attached to his vision of Targaryen godhood pushing that permission even further to fuck his brother. As it were it's completely consistent with the show and with Daemon's chemistry with male characters, and holds a lot of explanatory value for him as a character, but I do wish it were made more explicit. And this is coming from someone who generally finds sibling incest pretty meh to squicky. In a different world I would write about them, but all this canon is enough for me!

[magia-region]

Redesigns of the four friends/rivals you meet in school.

Aidan Trant-

Gryffindor student.

You have been friends with Aidan since elementary school and know him pretty well.

He is reckless and likes to be challenged, believing in a philosophy of pushing his boundaries to their limits and beyond.

As a result, he is an athletic boy but very accident prone and he gets hurt a lot. He knows a lot of good healing spells and potion recipes.

He visits the Hospital Wing semi-often.

He encourages others to push their own boundaries, especially his friends. He wants to see all of them do well in their chosen endeavors.

He’s not above teasing them.

He needs others to tell him when to quit for his own health.

He thinks romance is icky (aromantic) but still wants a nice relationship with a girl.

He doesn’t always understand sarcasm or when someone doesn’t want to be friendly with him. He is bad at reading social cues, but is getting better.

He can read well enough, but doesn’t do so for fun. He’d rather practice his flying, go out for a walk or train his pokemon.

His favorite food is carbs, but he knows to incorporate other things because his mother taught him well in that regard.

He carries a Recalorb just in case.

He enjoys physical activities such as sports and has trouble keeping still for more than an hour (unless he’s asleep).

He snores like an Ursaring

His favorite classes are Defense, Magitech, and Charms because those let him move about more.

If the Player is also sorted into Gryffindor, and they are a male or non-binary, then they get to share a room with Brendan.

His older sister is a member of the Home Guard

Emma Howard-

Hufflepuff student.

She is the shy one of the group, almost never speaking up unless she has something she wants to contribute to the conversation. She tries to be polite and aware of others’ boundaries.

She is usually soft-spoken, unless she’s frustrated by something (in which case she might come off as snarky or passive-aggressive) or is talking about her passions.

The way she talks can come off as blunt or rude, when she doesn’t mean to be. She’s just stating the facts as she understands them.

She’s the one that brings everyone back down to earth while also being the one who daydreams the most when she’s bored, for lack of anything else to do.

She is the most imaginative and creative of the friend group, with a talent for sketching and painting and an eye for colors and patterns.

She’s not interested in intimate relationships until after graduation, and gets all flustered at the mere mention of it.

She is also an introvert and needs a few hours at least every day to herself in order to recharge her social battery.

During this time, she can be found drawing in the Hufflepuff Common Room, her dorm room, or working on her homework.

She’s wary of flying and going into creepy places, despite being fascinated with the concept

She’s a diligent student that makes schedules for herself concerning what homework should get done when, preferring to get it done sooner rather than later.

She only procrastinates for the sake of hanging out with her friends and Pokémon.

If the Player is also sorted into Hufflepuff, and they are a female or non-binary, then they get to share a room with Emma. She lives in an organized mess, meaning she knows where everthing is even though her side of the room looks messy.

Michael Smith-

Slytherin student.

His father is a known manufacturer of wizarding tools. That being said, Michael is not actually an expert on the subject but enjoys the Magitech class nonetheless for the hands-on learning.

He is the most flamboyant and outspoken of the friend group, if a bit narcissistic. He has a passion for fashion and sometimes asks Emma to draw up designs for clothing he wants to experiment with.

He notices colors and patterns, as well as architectural styles. He prefers bright colors and light patterns in his designs.

He likes dressing himself, his Pokémon and his friends up no matter the occasion, but understands that they don’t like him rifling through their wardrobes unannounced.

Whenever they hang out, he always makes a beeline for the closest clothing store or tailor shop just to see what they have that he could take inspiration from or buy for himself or others.

He’s thoughtful and practical when it comes to gift giving, often thinking of things that they actually need while keeping what they want in mind.

He wants to be a clothes maker, using the tools his father manufactures.

Despite this ambition, Michael is actually a compassionate and emotionally sensitive person. He doesn’t like being yelled at for any reason and will retaliate in equal force. He is trying to strengthen his nerves in order to face the judgement of the fashion world.

He was raised by nursemaids and the Pokémon they kept as partners, having little interaction with his actual parents who were always too busy in the office or on the runway. His mother was a fashion model and quite the celebrity in Magia and beyond.

He wants to believe that people don’t just make friends with others so they can leech off your parents’s money. You can help him reaffirm that belief and restore his faith in humanity.

Despite all his bravado and desire to put his designs out there, he gets really bad stage fright and doesn’t like being put on the spot. He will trash talk people he doesn’t like behind their backs and start rumors about them.

If the Player is also sorted into Slytherin, and they are a male or non-binary, then they get to share a room with Michael (and be his personal dress up doll).

Maeve Clancy-

Ravenclaw student.

Maeve is stubborn and a bit of a tsundere, acting mean and uncaring when in reality she’s the biggest softie that cares very much for her friends’ wellbeing. More so than her own.

Her roommates have to physically drag her back to her dorm when she stays up into the wee hours of the morning studying, and that’s when her partner Pokémon goes and gets them.

She prefers to do things on her own, with her own personal resources for information, only asking for help when she hits a wall.

She takes a lot of notes during class so she doesn’t forget anything, for which she has several folders and notebook paper.

Each of them are color coded (as chosen by Emma)

She is considered the most intelligent and observant of the group, and she doesn’t like not knowing things that should be obvious.

She tends to be short with people sometimes and doesn’t like repeating herself.

She likes learning and enjoys reading and writing creatively, thinking about writing her own novel one day

She makes time for her friends and training her Pokémon. She doesn’t warm up to people immediately. In fact, if she senses there’s something she doesn’t like about you, she’ll avoid being around you as much as possible.

It might seem mean, but she considers it less of a hassle for herself.

She’s bad at communicating with others outside of when she can see them regularly. It completely slips her mind as it is soon occupied with other things.

She rarely makes first contact with people deliberately, rather relying on others to contact her first. She’ll only do so if she’s bored and wants to talk or has an actual reason to contact you.

She is close with her family, her mother and father being her first friends with whom she could confide in about anything.

Her mother would take her to visit her Grandparents every summer after she turned six years old, but being a half-blood she still felt a little bit ostracized from native Magian communities.

Being friends with you and the others helped her feel more comfortable in the region of her mother’s birth, but she will always feel more at home in her father’s region.

She sometimes has bouts of homesickness where she’ll write to her parents consistently.

The Wizarding Culture and Traditions Class has been a real boon to her.

If the Player is also sorted into Ravenclaw, and they are a female or non-binary, then they get to share a room with Maeve. We learn that her mother is a potions maker and her father is a dark-type gym leader in Johto.

[lilacmoon83]

A Rat in Storybrooke

Also on Fanfiction.net and A03

Chapter 2: A Typical Day in Storybrooke

Emma closed her locker and headed to her next class. It was chemistry with Professor Ratigan and she hated it. Everyone hated Professor Ratigan, because they all knew of his disdain for teaching students at the High School level. He believed they were all beneath him and his talent was wasted. But to her pleasant surprise, there was a substitute when she got to class and she decided that chemistry might not be so bad, after all.

School was already not the easiest time for her and not because she struggled. She got good grades and her mother made sure she was challenged by being very active in communication with her teachers since the Storybrooke curriculum was stagnant and outdated. But it had to remain that way for most of the students since none of the youths except her, her siblings and Alexandra were growing. Anything the other students retained over the course of the year was lost by the start of the next one. Memories were the only thing that had returned, since she had come to Storybrooke early and the curse wouldn't be fully broken until she turned twenty-eight.

The main source of her struggle was having any lasting friends her age. Her parents definitely struggled with it too. The closest town to Storybrooke was Misty Falls and they had debated if it would be feasible to find a way to let her attend the small town high school there since Emma could technically come and go as she pleased without consequence. But in the end, they had opted not and she was okay with that. It was just too dangerous and it would raise too many questions when her parents were unable to attend any parent-teacher meetings. Not to mention all the other risks. She could never bring any friends home and her parents couldn't attend any school functions with her.

She was on friendly terms with most kids in her grade, even though they wouldn't move on with her, but most kept her at arm's length, because of who she was.

She insisted to her worried parents that it was okay. She would much rather have them than be in a group home. In fact, she knew that school would be simply miserable as the kid without parents. She'd be the weird kid without parents that everyone would avoid. At least if they avoided her here, she knew it was because it was probably because of who her parents were. She much preferred her happy life with her family in Storybrooke versus her former miserable life as an orphan. She took her seat in class, glad that she didn't have to suffer Professor Ratigan for one afternoon.

~*~

"Ms. Tremaine…" David said in a low tone that made Thomas smirk from his place at his desk.

"Sheriff…I swear to you. Someone broke our window this morning! It's your job to investigate, is it not?" Drizella complained, as she stood before his desk.

"That's the third broken window this month and the first two times I came out to look at it, we pretty much determined that there was no foul play," David said. Drizella huffed.

"When you came out to the house, you wouldn't even come inside the house to investigate!" she complained.

"If someone is breaking your window by throwing a rock at it, then there would be no reason for me to come inside the house. Unless you're saying it's an inside job, in which case, I would have to charge you with filing a false police report," David said. She let out a shriek of frustration.

"Are you accusing me of breaking my own window, Sheriff?" she asked.

"I don't need to. Now, you can leave or I can arrest you," he replied sternly.

"You're so sexy when you're angry and handcuffs could be fun," she leered.

"Get out," David ordered. She huffed.

"Fine…but this isn't over. One day, you're going to realize that you belong with me, Charming," Drizella insisted, as she stormed out. David sighed and rolled his eyes, as Thomas chuckled.

"That woman is insane," he mentioned.

"I know…but her mother won't allow Archie to treat her and she hasn't done anything drastic enough to warrant committing her," David said.

"Give her time," Thomas replied, as he grabbed his keys.

"It's pretty quiet…I think I'll grab lunch and take some to Snow," he said, as he grabbed his leather jacket and headed out. Thomas smirked.

"I'll hold down the fort," he called.

~*~

"You're not doing enough!" Triton ranted and Snow rolled her eyes.

"So you've told me…but there really is nothing we can do until Emma is twenty-eight," Snow said.

"That is unacceptable! I must return to Atlantica!" he demanded.

"Atlantica, like the rest of the other realms, is still frozen. You'd be going back to a world that is not yet moving again, even if there was a way," she reasoned.

"So says the Dark One! What if he is lying?" Triton asked.

"We have no reason to believe he would lie about something like this," Snow replied.

"Of course he would, you little twit! He has potions that can do anything and keeps them to himself for his own use!" Triton said.

"I will not tolerate your belligerence, Triton. If you believe the Dark One has your answers, then go to the pawn shop and barter a deal with him," Snow replied sternly.

"You are useless!" Triton ranted.

"And you are so close to being arrested for harassment," David said from the doorway of his wife's office.

"Ah…the Sheriff has come to your rescue again," Triton said.

"None of us can cross the town line without consequence, but feel free to try it. I don't really care what you do, but get out of my office," Snow replied.

"As usual, my meetings with you are a waste of time, Madam Mayor," Triton said, as he stormed out, knowing that, if he didn't, David would make good on his threat and toss him in jail.

"He still think we're hiding something?" he asked.

"Yes…he wants to be changed back into a merman so he can go back to his Kingdom, which is still frozen in time," she replied.

"Good thing I brought lunch and dessert then. I think we can both use a long lunch together," he said, as he put the bags from Granny's down on her desk. She smiled.

"Rough morning for you too?" she asked. He shrugged.

"Just Drizella Tremaine throwing another rock through her own window to try and get me to come out to her mother's mansion," she replied.

"Ugh…that woman. She's worse than Triton," Snow complained, as they started to eat.

"Yeah…she's definitely unhinged, but not enough to have her committed. I told her to go home or I'd arrest her for filing a false complaint, but to be honest, the idea of having her in a cell at the station is terrifying," he said.

"Yeah…she'd never leave you alone. Are you sure I can't put an arrow in her?" she asked, in a teasing tone. He smirked.

"Believe me…it's tempting. But I'd rather not arrest my wife," he said.

"Handcuffs might be fun though," she replied, nudging him playfully. He smiled.

"With you…definitely," he said, as they continued to eat and enjoy lunch together.

~*~

"Got ya…" Leo said, as he picked the earthworm out of the dirt and looked at him.

"Sorry…I know this is not really fair, but there's some baby birds that need fed up in that tree," he said. Upon going to recess, he had discovered the poor mama near this tree had been killed, so naturally, he took it upon himself to care for the babies left behind in the nest.

"Leo…you know the teacher is going to be so mad if you get dirty again," Eva admonished.

"But the baby birds will die if I don't feed them. The mama bird died," he said.

"Oh…well okay, I guess that's a good reason," she replied, as she watched her twin climb up in the tree and present the worm to the babies. He smiled, as they ate, until he heard a very unwelcome voice.

"And here we see Dances with Wolves himself in his natural habitat. The dirt," Aiden Slade said snidely. He and his friends were older kids that skipped school all the time and of course, never aged or matured. By the time they did, Leo would be about the same age as Aiden and frankly, he couldn't wait until he was big enough to punch the bully out.

"I thought I smelled something and it's definitely not the worm," Leo retorted.

"Good thing you got a fence between us, pipsqueak," he hissed.

"Just go away, Aiden," Leo said, as he jumped down and went to look for more worms. Then he would bury the mama bird.

"Nice dead bird. That must be the one I got with a rock earlier," Aiden said. Leo froze and turned to glare at him.

"You killed the bird on purpose?" he asked. Aiden smirked.

"Yeah…I knew that would really burn you," he said.

"She has babies! How can you just kill like that?" Leo questioned. He scoffed.

"They're just stupid birds. Relax fur boy," Aiden said, as he and his buddies laughed. Leo growled and climbed the chain link fence, before scaling over it.

"Leo no…" Eva called.

"You really think you can take us on, shrimp?" Aiden asked, as he shoved the little boy. Before Leo could charge him, he heard a whistle being blown.

"Leo Nolan…you get back over this fence, right now, young man and to the Principal's office!" the teacher scolded, making Aiden and his friends laugh.

"Run along, pipsqueak," Aiden goaded. Someday, Aiden wouldn't be laughing though when Leo was old enough to hold his own against the bully. He climbed back over the

fence and the teacher led him inside by the arm.

"We have rules, mister," she scolded.

"I know…but he killed a mama bird on purpose! I was just feeding the babies and yet, I'm the one in trouble?" he asked. The teacher sighed.

"I agree that he is a horrible boy too, but he's not my responsibility. You are," the teacher answered, as she led him inside.

~*~

Once school had let out for the day, Ratigan returned and prepared for the undertaking ahead. He planned to be on sight when Fidget carried out his orders so as to give himself an alibi. He was practically gleeful. No one knew of his firing yet and wouldn't once Frollo was taken care of. It would be happening just about now.

~*~

David got the call during his evening patrol and headed to the High School quickly with sirens blaring. Thomas arrived about the same time and they headed into the school, which was mostly empty, except for the staff and janitors.

"Walter!" he called, using Sleepy's curse name and he led him to the room.

"I was just getting started when I heard the sound of smashing glass. I hurried, but the attacker was already gone when I found him," Walter said, as David and Thomas rushed into the chemistry lab.

"Professor Frollo…" Thomas said, as they heard the ambulance sirens, as they had already been called when David received the call. He was badly beaten, with multiple lacerations, but he was relieved to find a faint pulse.

"He's alive…and breathing," he called, as the paramedics arrived with a gurney.

"He's going into shock. We need to get him to the hospital right away," the paramedic said.

"I'll call Paul…I'm sure he'll be ready," David said, as the victim was loaded onto the gurney and rushed out. Bashful arrived not long after that with his team and they began to comb the crime scene.

"Does Frollo have any enemies in Storybrooke?" Thomas asked curiously.

"Not that we know of, though we don't know very much about his past," David answered.

"Dear me…what happened?" Ratigan asked, feigning shock and ignorance.

"Someone attacked Professor Frollo. Did you hear anything?" David questioned.

"No…I'm afraid I was in my lab, conducting some experiments," Ratigan replied.

"Any idea who might want to attack Frollo?" Thomas asked.

"I'm afraid not. He's a bit stiff and disciplined, something I appreciate. I know there are many cretins in his classes that are not fond of him, though I didn't think anyone would go as far as to kill him," Ratigan replied.

"He's not dead," David said, catching Ratigan off guard.

"Oh…well, that's encouraging," he stammered, while silently cursing Fidget for mucking it up.

"And this seems a bit extreme for a student," David said.

"Don't let these teenagers fool you, Sheriff. Some of them are tired of their repetitious lives," Ratigan replied, as they shared a long stare.

"I'll keep that in mind," David said, as he looked around.

"Call me if you find anything," he told Bashful, as he made his way out.

"Any ideas?" Thomas asked.

"Medusa's…it's where all the scum hangs out. Let's swing by," David replied, as they headed out. Ratigan smirked, as he watched them leave. He went back to his lab and picked up the phone.

"Yes…this is Professor Ratigan. One of my colleagues was just brought into the hospital in grave condition. I'm calling to inquire about his condition," he questioned.

"I'm sorry Professor…that information can only be released to family members," the nurse said.

"Of course…" Ratigan said, as he hung up the phone.

"Damn…I must make sure he doesn't survive," he mumbled to himself, as he decided to go to the hospital in person. If Dr. Sakura had the nerve to save him, then Ratigan would have to finish him off himself…

~*~

Snow arrived at school to pick up the twins, but instead of just getting them at their classroom, she went to the Principal's office to retrieve her son.

"It's about time, Madam Mayor…once again, your son was being a menace and wandered off school grounds," Rodmilla Tremaine scolded. Snow gave her a hard look and then softened when she looked at her son.

"My son didn't mean any harm, I assure you, Principal Tremaine. But we will be having a talk about climbing the fences," she said.

"See that you do…I would hate to have to expel your little urchin," Rodmilla threatened.

"Do that and I'll go straight to the school board to report you. Your hatred of me shouldn't translate to my child and I think they'll agree," Snow warned, as they shared a glare.

"Please take your troublesome child home," she said. Snow took his hand and they walked out.

"Aiden Slade again?" she asked.

"I found a dead mama bird and I was just feeding the baby birds and then he told me he killed the mama on purpose!" Leo cried. Snow knelt down in front of him.

"He's a very mean boy…the exact opposite of you. I love how much you care about all animals and the way you protect them. But he's so much bigger than you and I don't want you to get hurt," she admonished.

"Someday I'll be bigger and then maybe he'll think twice about doing bad things," Leo said. She smiled slightly.

"With you around, he better…so much like your Daddy. Always ready to protect those that are innocent," she said. Leo's chest puffed up a bit at being compared to his father.

"Am I grounded?" he asked. She smiled.

"No…you didn't really do anything wrong. But no more hopping the fences at recess or we will have to talk about punishment," she replied.

"Okay," he agreed.

"Come on…let's get your sister and go home. Daddy has a case so he'll be a bit late," she said.

~*~

David walked into Medusa's with Thomas behind him and immediately, the mood changed. He hated this eyesore of an establishment, but it existed within all the legal bounds of the law, so there was nothing he could do to stop much that went on here.

"Sheriff…can I offer you a drink?" Medusa asked.

"No…we're here on business. Professor Frollo was attacked this afternoon and since all the usual scum hangs out here, I thought we'd start here," he replied. She scoffed.

"I know nothing about any attacks," she answered.

"I'm sure…notice anyone suspicious this afternoon?" he asked.

"No," she answered quickly.

"Then you won't mind if we look around," he said.

"Of course…it's not like you're asking. You're going to do it anyway," she retorted. He smirked and they walked around. He noticed a man at the bar, who side-eyed them. He was twitching and almost shaking.

"That's some serious withdrawal," Thomas commented.

"Yeah…and he's here, so a fix is easy to come by. He seems nervous," David said, as he approached. The twitchy man tried to take off, as the Sheriff closed in, but tripped and face planted. David grabbed him the shirt and helped him up.

"Those are some serious cuts on your hands. You should get these looked at," he said.

"It's…it's fine," the man stammered, as Thomas searched him.

"Jackpot…" he said, as he held up a wallet.

"Professor Frollo's wallet…that's a little incriminating," David replied, as Fidget tried to get away, but was slammed against the bar.

"You're under arrest…" David said, as they hauled him out to the patrol car to take him in.

"I…I didn't do anything!" he claimed. Thomas sighed.

"Guess it's going to be a long night of interrogation," he said, as they put him in the back and then headed back to the station.

~*~

"Aunt Regina!" Leo called, as the door opened and he hugged her. She gave him a genuine smile.

"It's good to see you too," she said, as Snow met her at the door and took the casserole dish from her.

"I had an extra lasagna so I thought the kids might enjoy it," she said. Snow smiled.

Things had slowly thawed between them and they were on their way to something that might one day be friendship. But it was clear that Regina adored the twins and they adored her in return.

"Thanks…David is going to be late. I'll pop this in the oven and we can eat," she said.

"Oh…well, I can stay with them if you want to take him and Thomas some dinner," she offered.

"Yeah…we can play video games!" Leo said excitedly.

"That would be great and they clearly love the idea," Snow replied, as she went to the kitchen.

"Wanna see my new comics?" Leo asked. She smiled.

"Of course I do," she replied, as she followed him to the living room…

[ridleymocki]

So I finally watched Netflix’s Persuasion and yes, I pretty much hated it, but not for the reason you’d expect. My Austen-loving friend and I set aside a whole night for this. We watched three films as follows:

Appetizer: Persuasion (2007) with Sally Hawkins and Rupert Penry-Jones

Main course: Persuasion (2022) on Netflix with Dakota Johnson and Cosmo Jarvis

Palate cleanser: Emma (2020) with Anya Taylor-Joy and Johnny Flynn

Watching things in this order really threw some things into relief. Now, obviously as an adaptation Persuasion 2022 is inaccurate in ways people have already explained. There are significant disparities between the film and the source text (Anne’s a wine lush now?). There are also egregious anachronisms in costuming, hair, and makeup (through pure oversight the side characters end up being the most historically accurate). But, that aside, in my writerly opinion this isn’t even a competent stand alone film. You know the whole rule of “show don’t tell”? This film is fundamentally incapable of following that rule. Everything its told -- verbally, explicitly, almost condescendingly -- to the audience.

There seems to be a fundamental lack of trust in the audience, and our ability to interpret visual cues like facial expressions and tone of voice. There literally is nothing in this film that is conveyed subtly on good faith that people will understand what’s going on.

This is a faith that Austen herself and previous adaptations had in abundance. A key theme in much of Austen’s work is that because of social mores and the rules of propriety, people couldn’t just say what they meant, but had to obfuscate and convey intention through subtlety like double-speak, tone, facial expressions, etcetera. Think Darcy helping Elisabeth into the carriage in Pride & Prejudice (2005). Emma (2020) also does this particularly well; a good example is when Mr Martin runs after Harriet to advise that the road is flooded and she should take another route - meanwhile their facial expressions are full of an aching longing and pain, and while he’s talking about roads he’s really saying I still care for you even though you rejected me. And the Sally Hawkins Persuasion (2007) spares no amount of film in showing longing, yearning looks between characters, while Hawkins does something I would call ‘lung-acting’ where she conveys emotion merely by how she struggles to take a breath.

Netflix’s Persuasion wouldn’t know subtlety if it hit it over the head. The writers, for example, presume that we need not only the image of Anne crying in the bathtub to understand that she is sad and anguished, but that for proper comprehension we also need Anne telling us directly how awfully terribly sad she is (and this is one of the better parts of narration she has).

The choice to have Anne talk directly to camera, in some misguided attempt to replicate the charm of Fleabag, means that Johnson spends much of her dialogue in pure exposition which is neither interesting nor necessary. Plot points that could be made obvious from making the characters actually, you know, interact are substituted with sweeping faux-prophetic explanations of Anne’s relationship to others from her own mouth.

Moreover, other characters make a particular point to express how wonderful Anne is, verbally and very on-the-nose. I can’t direct-quote because I can’t bring myself to watch it again, but Louisa, Mr Harville, Mr Elliot and others all verbally extol Anne’s virtues in a rather heavy-handed attempt to convince the audience that Anne is really, truly, a very good and clever woman. But the thing is, you don’t need that if your character is behaving in a way consistent with those aforementioned virtues. Because then we can just see it. Show, don’t tell. And fundamentally, Johnson’s Anne Elliot does not behave consistent to how others describe her.

In the 2007 adaptation with Sally Hawkins, we as the audience see her exhibit deeply capable and compassionate behaviour, so that when characters later on sparingly praise these characteristics in her, the audience already agrees with it from the evidence of our own eyes. By contrast, the Netflix adaptation alters some fundamental points at which we see these virtues displayed.

When Little Charles falls from the tree, this is how it plays out in the book: “ Anne had every thing to do at once; the apothecary to send for, the father to have pursued and informed, the mother to support and keep from hysterics, the servants to control, the youngest child to banish, and the poor suffering one to attend and soothe; besides sending, as soon as she recollected it, proper notice to the other house, which brought her an accession rather of frightened, enquiring companions, than of very useful assistants.”

Ron Bass and Alice Winslow (the writers of the script for the Netflix adaptation) have Johnson’s Anne peace-keepingly agree to miss the party and watch over the boy purely to diffuse Mary’s complaining. Then, she gets drunk on a windowseat overlooking the party, presumably while the child himself is asleep downstairs. She opens the window and yells out to Wentworth, ducking down below the window when he hears and looks over. She accidentally knocks over a gravy boat in her inebriated stumbling and the gravy drips onto her head where she sits hiding on the floor.

This disparity between book and film is not just a quibble about wanting the source material accurately honoured. It is a problem because through making this change to the plot the narrative loses the characterisation of Anne that it fundamentally needed in order to be coherent. The audience requires scenes of her deftly handling the crisis with little Charles’ fall in order to validate Anne’s characterisation as capable, good in a crisis, level-headed, and strong. We need to see that this is the case, not merely be told it is so.

For another example, the case of Anne and Mrs Smith is treated thusly in the book (skip to tl;dr if you cbf): “ Anne had gone unhappy to school... and Miss Hamilton... had been useful and good to her in a way which had  considerably lessened her misery, and could never be remembered with indifference... ”

And also: “She was a widow and poor.  Her husband had been extravagant; and at his death, about two years before, had left his affairs dreadfully involved.  She had had difficulties of every sort to contend with, and in addition to these distresses had been afflicted with a severe rheumatic fever, which, finally settling in her legs, had made her for the present a cripple.  She had come to Bath on that account, and was now in lodgings near the hot baths, living in a very humble way, unable even to afford herself the comfort of a servant, and of course almost excluded from society. Their mutual friend answered for the satisfaction which a visit from Miss Elliot would give Mrs. Smith, and Anne therefore lost no time in going.  She mentioned nothing of what she had heard, or what she intended, at home.  It would excite no proper interest there.”

and: “ Anne found in Mrs. Smith the good sense and agreeable manners which she had almost ventured to depend on, and a disposition to converse and be cheerful beyond her expectation.  Neither the dissipations of the past--and she had lived very much in the world--nor the restrictions of the present, neither sickness nor sorrow seemed to have closed her heart or ruined her spirits.”

Tl;dr: Mrs Smith is Anne’s old school friend who is widowed and poorly. Despite being of significantly higher social status than Mrs Smith, Anne goes to visit her in Bath on the pretense it will raise Mrs Smith’s spirits and doesn’t tell her family about it. Anne rekindles an affectionate friendship with her, even admiring her for her optimism.

But... Mrs Smith is erased from the Netflix version.

Again, this is not a quibble about accuracy, it’s about whether the text can actually function coherently.

In losing Mrs Smith, we lose everything that this friendship contributes to the text. We lose the understanding that Anne values the qualities of other people’s characters over their social status or wealth (particularly when we contrast her like for Mrs Smith with her dislike for Lady Dalrymple). We lose that insight that she has this mentality contrary to the values of the rest of her family who are insufferably social-climby -- i.e.: unlike them, Anne’s not a snob. To wit, we lose the evidence that Anne’s rejection of Wentworth eight years ago was definitely not for classist reasons, as here she is having a social connection to a poor and disabled widow without a care for their class difference. We also lose the second example (along with Wentworth) of how Anne’s affection for someone can be long-running and endure many years without contact, and thereby, how in this respect her character is constant and loyal despite the logical conclusion from her mistake eight years ago and Wentworth’s suppositions.

We as the audience not only need these things, the other characters need it, too, in order to judge Anne’s character as highly and praisingly as they do. The showing of these qualities in her through her actions legitimises all the conclusions other characters make about her, and helps those characters and the audience both to comprehend how and why the plot plays out as it does, with Anne and Wentworth’s eventual reconciliation.

The absence of this observational evidence from the Netflix adaptation means that the other character’s insistence on Anne’s virtuousness is compensatory. It aims to do what the movie visually and narratively has not provided. I can only presume that the writers realised they were writing-out these character-building moments in favour of snappiness and comedic scenes, and sought to reinstate Anne’s integral characteristics through dialogue.

But, it doesn’t work.

We end up with characters doing one thing and saying another. And I as an audience member felt particularly patronised for having all the authorial intentions spelled out to me.

And so, even if I put some mental blinkers on and pretend the source material doesn’t exist. Even if I pretend the anachronisms in the worldbuilding, dialogue, costuming and plot are deliberate and considered a-la Bridgerton. Even if I try to the see the merits of the film for themselves (I thought Cosmo Jarvis was quite good and wish he was in a better version, and Mia McKenna-Bruce was kind of delightful as Mary in a way Mary never is). Even with all that, the Netflix version is not a functional text. And it’s not bad because of any of those other reasons, it’s bad because of that. It’s badly written. It condescends its audience. And the facts of the events don’t match the testimony of the characters. It just, makes no sense.

[caffedrine]

Rio Ortiz Romantic Epilogue

This is mostly a summary for me - I make no promises on the accuracy of what’s happening. I’m not nearly fluent enough to get half the jokes/innuendo much less accurate plot points.

After completing her duties as Belle, Emma has started a new chapter in her life in Benitoite, the country of sea and trade. She is together with Rio, who regained his memories and returned to his life as the third prince of Benitoite.

She resides in the Benitoite Palace as a guest of Rio and the King of Benitoite. Within a few days after arriving in Benitoite, Emma started to receive invitations to social gatherings hosted by Benitoite nobles. This was an expected development, as she is continuing her guise as a noblewoman with some connections to the Rhodolite Royal family started when she was named Belle.

As Silvio had once warned her, Emma is being judged and valued by the Benitoite aristocracy. In her role as a goodwill ambassador, she must attend social gatherings. Even though the thought makes her nervous, she won’t run away.

Since he has returned to his duties as the Benitoite court, Rio’s schedule has been very busy and packed. Still, he has made time at the end of every day to visit Emma with tea. Emma asks Rio about a particular invitation that has caught her interest.

Rio looks over the invitation and admits that it seems like a good choice for her first social gathering in Benitoite. He warns her that the host, an earl, has a notoriously difficult personality, but several of the guests would be good to cultivate as acquaintances. Emma leans over to look at the invitation list, and Rio uses the opportunity to kiss the crown of her head.

Rio warns her that this party is being held on a ship and asks if Emma has ever been on one before. Emma has been on boats on the lakes and rivers in Rhodolite, but not a ship in the ocean. Rio talks about the waves and the rocking feeling but assures her that she will get used to it. Looking out her ocean view window, Emma wonders what it feels like and admits that the anticipation makes her heart pound.

Rio praises the sparkle in Emma’s eyes and muses that if she shows up with that expression, people would love her. She’s charming enough on her own that if she spends too long talking to one single person, doubtlessly she would charm them. Rio asks if she’s planning on taking her maid with her as a chaperone.

During her stay at the Benitoite palace, Rio had arranged for a maid to attend Emma. She was supposed to consult with Rio to have the maid accompany her when she attended social occasions, however from Rio’s expression things would be different this time.

Rio doesn’t think he can arrange a maid to come with her, so instead, he will send a butler. At Emma’s protest, Rio insists, explaining that there will be a lot of drinking in an enclosed space with a party that is made up of mostly men. Emma thinks that Rio is deflecting from his real concern. The events with Emidio are still fresh, and she still isn’t experienced enough to judge where the next attack will come from. It is obvious to her that Rio wants to send a bodyguard more than a chaperone, so she decided to accept Rio’s offer. Rio is delighted and promises to arrange for the best butler in all of Benitoite to accompany her.

Just before the party

‘Butler’: Hello master! It is I, your one and true butler, here to serve you!

Emma: Rio.

‘Butler’: I have been waiting in anticipation to be exclusively yours for this evening.

Emma: I know.

Butler Rio: You could pretend to be surprised, you know.

Emma explains that Rio had been all too pleased with himself after she agreed to bring a butler, which gave his ruse away. Rio is delighted that Emma knew him well enough to anticipate this turn of events and hugs her. Emma knows that technically this PDA is far beyond what a true butler should show their master, but she can’t bear to stop him.

She can, however, ask if there will be any problems with the third prince attending the party as a butler. Rio assures her that he is still relatively unknown to the aristocracy and that if anyone suspects anything he can pass himself off as a look-alike. Besides, he wouldn’t miss Emma’s first time on a ship for the world. Emma has so many firsts coming up, he can’t bear to miss any of them.

Emma still thinks that there are a lot of problems with this arrangement, but when Rio looks so genuinely happy, she can’t tell him no. Instead, she thanks him and tells him that she is delighted to have him accompany her. Rio kisses her on the cheek charmingly, and again Emma is too happy to bring herself to reprimand him.

 Upon reaching the ship, Emma realizes that her limited experience with the boats of Rhodolite is nothing. This isn’t so much a vehicle as it is an entire building in the sea. Emma is surprised at how large the top deck is, and how many people it could accommodate. And the inside dining room is large enough to be considered a mansion on its own.

From the railing of the deck, the water shines like a polished jewel reflecting the sunlight. It is far more beautiful than any night sky she has seen.

Rio tells her that Benitoite’s shipbuilding technology is the best on the continent. It’s considered a status symbol amongst the aristocracy and other wealthy people to own a ship, so everyone is competing to show off the most advanced and luxurious ships. The host of this soiree is a shipbuilder in his own right, making this one of the highest-class ships in Benitoite. If Emma likes the ship so much, Rio offers to one day give her one.

Knowing that Rio would actually do it, Emma quickly declines. But Emma decides that she really likes the ocean and the ships on it. And the pride in Rio’s voice as he talks about the shipping industry is proof enough to her that it is worth that love.

Suddenly a man approaches them and calls out Emma’s name, bringing her back to reality. The man is wearing a lot of jewelry, though he barely holds a candle to Silvio. Emma surmises that this must be the host of the party, the earl.

Rio quickly whispers to Emma to keep some distance between her and the Earl, and not quite understanding, Emma agrees. She apologizes for the delay in greeting him and thanks the earl for his invitation. The earl is delighted that she has accepted his invitation, he has several ties and relatives in Rhodolite and relishes the opportunity to make more acquaintances. He offers her a drink to celebrate their auspicious meeting, and motions a nearby servant to bring them drinks.

Emma recalls from Rio’s Love Book Letter that drinking alcohol together was customary in Benitoite society. Mentally thanking Rio, Emma accepts the glass gratefully and is nearly blown away by how strong the drink is. She wonders if all Benitoite alcohol is this strong.

As she mentally compared Benitoite and Rhodolite alcohol, the earl closed the distance between them. He can’t speak long with her for now, but he would love to talk more about Rhodolite. Together. Alone. Privately.

Just before the earl can touch her, Rio pulls her back strongly enough to stumble. Rio immediately fusses over her, asking if the drink was too unexpectedly strong. Rio apologizes on Emma’s behalf to the earl and asks if there is a cabin that she can recover in, as Emma has a low alcohol tolerance. Suddenly a caring host again, the earl directs them away. When the earl isn’t looking, Rio gives Emma a quick wink and she is relieved that he was able to save her from that very uncomfortable encounter.

After securing Emma in a cabin and promising to bring her water, Rio makes a beeline for the earl. He recognizes Rio as the butler from earlier, and Rio kindly thanks him for providing room for his master to recover. The earl makes a polite inquiry after Emma’s health, to which Rio assures him that she’ll be fine. More importantly, Rio was entrusted with a message from Prince Valerio to the earl.

The air grows tense as Rio leans forward to whisper into the earl’s ear.

This will not happen again.

The earl looks at Rio, and instead of seeing the polite and cheerful butler, only sees a mad dog poised to bite him.

In the blink of an eye, the butler has the demeanor of a loyal dog once again. With a cheerful smile, Rio explains that his master is waiting for him so he must be off now. As Rio leaves, the earl thinks about his blonde hair and blue eyes. Blonde hair and blue eyes. It couldn’t be, but could it?

As the rumor of Emma having a terrifying guard dog began to bud and spread amongst the aristocracy, the remainder of her time on the ship went off well. It was only when the party had ended and Rio and Emma were back in Rio’s rooms at the Benitoite palace that she remembered that she had not formally said goodbye to the earl, a minor faux pas.

But on the other hand, with Rio’s warning, it sounds like this earl has a reputation for propositioning women, so it probably won’t negatively affect her too much. She thanks Rio for helping her out of that situation, she is horrified to think of what would have happened if she had been there alone.

Rio warns Emma not to let her guard down in front of the aristocracy or any strangers until she is certain of their intentions. Then again, it would be nice if she could use the threat of Rio finding out about their actions to clear up any similar situations. Emma appreciates Rio’s offer, but she doesn’t want to use his name to solve all of her troubles. She has to find her own way in Benitoite’s social circles to support him.

That said, Emma wonders why the earl never tried to approach her later. Considering how much she had to drink while mingling with other guests, she was certain that the earl would try again later. Emma looks at Rio, scrutinizing his face.

Rio jokingly asks if she’s looking at him like this because she wants to kiss him.  Emma thinks about all the fun she’s had since coming to Benitoite. Sure, she’s had minor worries and anxieties, but with Rio, every day was fun and new, like a gentle world. She wants to thank him.

Emma reaches out, grabs Rio by his butler uniform’s collar, and pulls him forward to kiss him. She meant for it to be a light kiss, but the moment her lips meet his, her heart starts screaming that she loves him. When she finally releases Rio, he is dazed and asks what kind of kiss that was. Emma tells him that she just wants to share her happiness and tell Rio that she loves him.

Rio tells Emma to stop being so cute, his self-control can only take so much. Emma tells him that she doesn’t need his self-control right now.

It occurs to Emma that she may have made a mistake just now, but unfortunately it is far too late. Rio’s heat makes her shiver with its ferociousness, and she pulls away from him to beg him to be gentle with her before she’s pulled back to his mouth. As Rio works his tongue in her mouth, Emma clutches at his clothes.

She tries to retaliate by using her tongue and dominating the kiss and feels Rio tremble under her hands. It makes her happy as she desperately tries to maintain control, and parts again to ask if he likes it. Rio does.

Rio takes off everything Emma is wearing, from her dress down to her undergarments, leaving her bare. He picks her up and carries her to his bed, losing his jacket in the process.

As they continue, Emma thinks back to three years ago when she first met Rio. She never expected that she would end up in this kind of relationship with him. Back then, Rio had been so wary of everything and everyone, but he had gradually opened up to her, becoming first her friend and now her lover. In the end, they accepted each other, both the good and the bad, wholeheartedly.

Emma admits that she has recently come to understand why Rio feels so passionately devoted to her, she feels the same way about him. Maybe this is what it means to love, the feeling that she would do anything for Rio. She tells Rio not to hold back tonight.

Rio tells Emma that there is nothing in this place that he cherishes. Surely by now, she has noticed that his room is bare except for the minimal essential furniture, correct? This is because the only thing in the palace, in the world, that he truly cherishes is Emma.

Rio will cherish Emma forever and begs her not to leave him.

Emma feels herself melt into Rio and promises that she won’t ever leave him. Her first love has also become her last love.

[thegrantwater]

christmas in storybrooke

- the town absolutely goes all out for christmas, we're talking lights on main street and multiple celebrations at granny's starting the day after thanksgiving

- snow and charming go absolutely insane in the loft, with two separate christmas trees, tinsel and little santa statues littered everywhere. once baby neal comes around they start leaving out cookies and milk "for santa," and one year they even pretended that santa landed on their roof (it took a lot of convincing to get emma to agree to dress up in the santa suit)

- emma never really cared that much for christmas, so she doesn't do much decorating for her own place. there's one of those fake tabletop trees with a little plastic star in her dining room and that's really it

- emma and snow get into arguments about whether or not diehard is a christmas movie (it definitely is) every year. david and henry have somehow managed to avoid getting roped into the conversation, just nodding their heads aggressively once they're finally with one of the women to get them to stop talking about diehard because for the love of the gods snow can't we just put on miracle on 34th street and no david we can't because our daughter is a treasonous christmas heathen and she needs to be educated on christmas spirit

- despite this consistent argument though they always manage to have a good time during the holidays, and they tend to go a little too hard spoil the everloving fuck out of emma and henry and neal to make up for lost time

- regina goes for a classier christmas celebration, sticking with the black and white theme of the rest of her house for her seasonal decor. she waits until december 1st every year to put everything up, but always goes for a real tree that touches her ceiling because of course she does.

- if you think she didn't make christmas the most magical time of the year for henry when he was a kid you are absolutely wrong. even when he was a baby she would go on walks with him during the first snow of the year, and they only missed 2 years (the year the curse broke and the missing year) but rest assured she made up for it.

- regina keeps a picture in her wallet that graham took of her and henry when he was 6, they were making apple pies in the kitchen listening to one of her old christmas records and henry got flour on her skirt. he was scared she was gonna be upset with him because she'd just had it dry-cleaned, but she just put flour in his hair and went back to baking like nothing happened, which of course ended in a massive flour fight and the picture is her holding henry, their foreheads touching and massive smiles on both of their faces

- once the charming/mills/gold clan finally settled, no more villains left to fight, it was decided that they would all have dinner together on christmas day (they're all almost certain it's just so that henry could see everyone together but they don't mind)

- they tend to have said christmas dinner at regina's home, since it's the biggest of all the possible meeting spots between them and as much of a fuss as regina puts up, she secretly loves cooking and baking and putting on a show for snow to prove that she's got the best-decorated house out of all of them

- emma's always the first one to show up, toting with her wine and whiskey because after the first year of dinner when she showed up with burnt cookies and extremely lumpy mashed potates regina barred her from ever bringing food again (even though she definitely ate all of the cookies emma brought)

- the charming clan shows up next, bringing with them a metric fuck-ton of food that snow's spent the last 3 days preparing, and handing off baby neal to regina because as soon as he's in the house he's toddling around looking for her and shouting "up gina" once he sees her, and who is she to deny this adorable little baby the uppies he wants (plus when they're all together she seems to be the only one that can calm him down, giving him the smile she only gives to henry and occasionally emma when she's had enough to drink because she's got the biggest soft spot for children)

- zelena shows up with baby robin, and despite her differences with the rest of the family in the past she makes tea and sits down with snow, sharing baby stories and laughing as emma, david, and henry fight over who gets to be waluigi in mario kart (regina now has both children in the kitchen with her, sneaking them bites of her apple turnover filling while she finishes up dinner)

- gold and belle are the last to arrive with baby gideon, and for as cold as gold normally is he's always the one to bring gifts for the kids (and even some for the adults) as well as more alcohol, because for a full family event there definitely needs to be alcohol

- so they all sit down at the dining room table, an old christmas record playing and children practically climbing over the table as everyone tries to get a taste of the food that's been laid out before them. snow insists on making a toast before letting any of them eat, raving on about hope and family and emma is the one to stop her, begging them to dig in already, and david agrees, and soon enough everyone is filling their plates and stuffing their mouths

- it goes well for a while, until zelena makes a comment about how gold has "really made his way through the family, eh?" and snow chokes on the food she'd been chewing, and when david gets up to help her he hits the table and knocks regina's wine into her lap, which makes emma laugh, which makes henry laugh, which makes the little trio start laughing, and all the while belle is red-faced with her head in her hands, and gold is struggling to even look at the rest of the table, while zelena is howling with laughter and shouting "merry christmas!"

- (emma's now patting down regina with a napkin, as the mayor is muttering some insult about her father, and emma is stuttering through an apology for laughing, because "oh you're so getting punished for this later, miss swan" and emma. is both excited and terrified)

- and as henry looks around and the mess around him, of adults and children all laughing in each other's company despite the strangeness of their circumstances, and he can't help but smile, because this is his family, and he is home

[martianbugsbunny]

OUAT Thoughts Pt.23--Episodes 4-5

I have watched through S3E5; spoilers DNI. Also, spoiler warning for anyone further behind than I am.

—Rumplestiltskin is such a dramatic king. Brooding on a rooftop, going for the black war paint...delicious.

—Mirage-Belle isn’t a representation of how Belle views Rump. She’s very similar, but that’s not it. That’s the representation of the last part of Rump that believes in himself. That’s the part of himself he’s been trying to listen to for the past couple of episodes; that’s the part of himself that he has to ignore to be the Dark One. Currently he’s hovering on a fine line; he’s not flat-out ignoring that part, but he has pushed it further down.

—I don’t necessarily fault Baelfire for not trusting Rump. He doesn’t really have much reason to. But what would it take for Rump to prove himself? If Bae is never going to trust him, why should he continue trying?

—Which brings me to another point: This is the greatest test Rump has faced to date. Not because he’s trying to be good (he has done that before) but because he has to continue being good even though his son doesn’t trust him to be. I really hope he picks the right option.

—It was a bit cruel of Bae to leave his father incapacitated in the middle of Peter Pan’s territory. That might’ve been going too far.

—Also, Bae is now in a cage, and Henry’s still with the Lost Boys, so…what did he really accomplish?

—Henry starting to turn evil is something I predicted, but it’s still shocking, particularly because he’s a child. I do believe that his moms will be able to snap him out of it, though.

—I think Regina will hate this turn of events the most. Snow and Emma are good, so of course they’ll be disappointed, but Regina’s has plenty of moments of regret because of her own darkness. The theme of wanting better for their children than they had is common among the parental figures in this show, so Regina may get her moment with it soon.

—That star map Baelfire made was super pretty. I love those kind of things (though I don’t think I could ever sleep with one in my room).

—I hate how much I’m starting to like Hook. The new elements of his backstory are much more humanizing and endearing than his relationship with Mila.

—It amuses me to no end how he calls Charming “mate *salty*”. It’s a bit like Rump’s “dearie” but applied much more specifically.

—These idiots are never gonna get off the islands. How could they not have come up with an escape plan sooner?

—Okay, so what’s the beef between Rump and Peter? I wouldn’t be surprised if Peter turned out to actually be Rump’s brother, though I’m not putting any money on that. This show gives me trust issues.

—Lmao, the Pied Piper had PAN PIPES! That’s awesome!

—Also, Peter Pan being the Pied Piper is fun. It low-key makes sense, and even in OUAT I’m not sure the Pied Piper could be stretched into an interesting story of his own accord.

—Speaking of interesting stories, you know that opera about the magic flute? THAT should be in this show. It’s a bit thick in the words of the wrong storyteller, but it’s a gorgeous piece of work if it’s told well.

—Dang, Hook was looking fine in episode 5. Ridiculous hat aside, he’s rather dashing in his navy uniform.

—The Jones brothers come pretty close to capturing the magic of sibling life. They’re definitely a romanticized version of sibling-hood, but they’re still pretty salty at each other. I give their dynamic about an 8.5/10.

—Hook becoming a pirate because thieves have more honor than his king is interesting. I hope I get to see more of him terrorizing the seas.

—So Charming isn’t dead, that’s great—but how is he planning to explain it to Snow and Emma when he can’t go home?

—Who’s in the cage? Rump? Tink? An unknown party to be named later?

—It is true that Rump might find sacrifice difficult now that he has his son to live for (which, by the way, kills me), but maybe he’s reading the prophecy wrong. I really hope he is, because if not his only options are A) dying or B) killing Henry, and I am not comfortable with either of those. Maybe Rump’s “undoing” is describing him losing his dark powers and becoming a normal person again. Maybe Henry’s actually going to save him. These people just need to think outside the box!

—Besides, he can’t trust that Seer. She proved herself to be good at cryptic double-talk already.

—YES! I get to see Ariel in the next episode! I can’t wait!

[cosette141]

Lost and Found (OUAT fanfic) | Chapter 11

Fandom: Once Upon A Time

Pairing: Captain Swan

Author: cosette141

Words: 5k (this chapter) | 60k+ (total, so far)

Summary: (Begin Again sequel) Emma had felt lost nearly her whole life, and Killian had lost everything he’d ever found. That is, until they found each other. With the Crocodile dead and Cora turned good, it seems happy endings have returned. However, new crises arise, threatening the budding family between them and Henry. But this is a family that always finds each other… and they have yet to fail. CS, Anti-Neal

Chapter 11 (under the cut!)

"What's your name, boy?"

"Baelfire."

It felt like only yesterday.

"I loved your mother. We had planned to come back for you, to be a family. You and I can still make good on those plans."

"I can change, Bae. For you."

He had changed.

Only far, far too late.

Killian felt a breath eased from his lungs, though the emotions it held were far from ease.

He didn't know how long he'd held Emma after Bae had grown still.

She'd cried into Killian's chest, so similarly to when she had in New York, except this time, her brokkenness wasn't physical.

Killian had held her, tight and strong, unable to comprehend what Baelfire had done.

He'd taken that arrow for him.

He'd sacrificed his life, for him.

Killian knew the sacrifice was more specifically for Emma, which was something that touched him for her, knowing how deeply Bae had hurt her, had broken her. Knowing that Bae's love for her had been out of exactly what Emma had said it was: convenience.

His death, however, was anything but.

And Killian knew, his arms only tightening around Emma more, his own tear falling into her hair as he'd pulled her even closer to his chest, that Bae's sacrifice would not be in vain.

"Get her off this island, Killian. Take care of them."

The look he had exchanged with Bae had held a thousand words. It had a spark of the good that their relationship had once been. It was understanding, it was regret, and it was forgiveness that Killian didn't think he deserved.

Baelfire had left his own son and the woman he loved to Killian to protect, to care for.

It was something Killian didn't need to be told to do, as it was already a promise he'd made to himself in that apartment in New York.

Killian had looked down at Emma, crying in his arms, head buried in his chest, fingers tangled in his shirt, and regardless had made that promise to himself again.

And again.

And again.

That had been a while ago.

Now, Killian was on his knees at the edge of a lake, Emma's hand still clutched around the sleeve of his coat.

Lying beside him, was Baelfire, whom Killian had carefully wrapped in the heavy leaves of the area, in a way that he was much too experienced at.

Killian's hand settled over the last fold in the leaves, feeling a muscle tick in his jaw.

He lifted his gaze to the lake.

A lake he also knew far, far too well.

It was hidden in the depths of the jungle. It was the only peaceful waters Neverland knew, other than the spring at the top of Dead Man's Peak.

No mermaids, no sirens, no creatures. It was just calm waters, serene as the moonlight reflecting off its still surface.

Which was why it was where Killian had chosen to bring the members of his crew that had passed while he'd been here.

The lake wasn't far from where Baelfire had passed. Killian had brought him here, Emma still fixed to his side, staying even closer to him than she has before.

Killian felt Emma bend down beside him now, her eyes on Baelfire, her other hand clutching something that had fallen from Bae's pocket when Killian had lifted him.

It was something that had made Emma's breath catch, a skip in her heart that Killian had felt through their touch.

It was a necklace, with a charm of a swan.

Emma had picked it up, and had been holding it ever since.

Killian watched now as Emma laid her hand over Bae's chest, her eyes shutting as she spoke something to him within her mind, before opening her eyes, a tear falling down her cheek as she pulled her hand back.

And Killian carefully eased Bae into the waters.

He stood, feeling both of Emma's arms wrap around his waist as they watched Baelfire slowly sink beneath the water's surface.

Rest, my boy.

Killian felt his eyes burn, flashes of Liam and Milah making the muscle in his jaw tick uncomfortably.

"You've done this a lot, haven't you?"

Killian's eyes opened at Emma's soft voice, and he turned to see her looking at him, eyes sad, but this time, for him.

That muscle shifted uncomfortably in his jaw again, like it was trying to prevent the truth of his whispered, "Aye."

"You cared about him," whispered Emma, not as if it was a question, since she already knew. More as a prompt.

"We spent some time together when he was a boy," managed Killian, voice thick. "We could have spent more than that, however." That muscle shifted again, as if it hated the words as much as he did. "I'd chosen my revenge, my own selfishness over him." His eyes shut, and he felt Emma's hand grab his, intertwining with his fingers and holding tight. "There hadn't been a day that went by I didn't regret that choice." He sighed again, releasing more pain like steam. "I thought revenge was the only way to honor Milah," he whispered. "But all these years… I can't help wondering if choosing to take in her son would have meant more to her." A tear slipped down his cheek.

But the small gasp at his side from Emma had him opening his eyes.

She was looking at him with a kind of shock. He looked at her, watching thoughts race through her eyes. Realizations. "Milah…" she breathed. "She was Gold's… and Neal was… Gold's…" As the pain deepened in Killian's eyes, she whispered, "He was Milah's son." She whispered it so quietly, eyes wide. "I never realized…" Her eyes found his, her fingers tightening more around his, understanding the pain in his eyes now.

"It's all right, love," he whispered, eyes finding the lake that had now grown still once again. Tears in his eyes, he said softly, "He's with his mother now." He felt himself release a breath, this time, feeling it hurt a little less, a faint smile touching his lips, as broken as it was.

A tear slipped down Emma's cheek at his words, but she matched his broken smile. She let out a sigh of her own as her own eyes found the water. With a touch of emotion as deep as the ocean, Emma slipped the necklace in her pocket.

They were quiet for a few moments longer, but there was an anticipation in the air, holding the island in a tense grip that Killian could no longer ignore.

He could feel the emotion shift within Emma at the same time it did him, like they both knew that this moment, as much of a refuge as it was, didn't erase the fact that their danger was far from over.

The knowledge that Pan had given up the chase, and instead had taken Emma's parents hostage to wait for her to come to him…

It was an anticipation that felt like the calm before a storm, and Killian was not chancing getting caught in it.

Killian broke their silence first, tightening his fingers around Emma's in preparation for his words, and for her response to them.

"We should find a way off the island, love."

As he expected, Emma tensed, looking at him with confusion. "Off the island?" she echoed. "Leave? But, Killian, Mary Margaret and David—"

"—are in the hands of a demon who wants you dead," he stressed, turning to face her, every bit of his fear in his eyes, in his voice, in his entire bloody body. "If we attempt to save them, Emma, Pan will kill you." His voice shook around the words.

Emma stared at him, his fear reflected in her eyes, but warred with a whole other kind of fear. "But… if we leave, he'll kill them," she whispered.

"Pan may be weak," stressed Killian, holding her even tighter, "but he has leverage against you, Emma. Your parents. If we try to save them, he will kill all of us." Taking a painful breath, Killian said, "We need to heed Baelfire's warning, love. We need to go back to Storybrooke and get you safe."

"But—" breathed Emma, tears shining in her eyes. "I can't lose them—"

"And I can't lose you!" The words exploded out of him, laced with desperation, another tear slipping down his cheek because he cannot stand to lose one more person.

He cannot stand to lose her.

"Emma…" he broke out, watching her own pain at seeing his. "I've lost everyone." he breathed, the words raw and broken. "I cannot lose you too." His hand left her fingers to touch her face, holding her gently, the idea of her walking into in more danger, into her own demise making him feel sick. "Emma, I can't," he whispered.

Emma held his gaze, a tear slipping down her own cheek, reading the depth of the pain in his eyes. "I can't lose you either," she whispered, her hand lifting to settle on his forearm, his hand still holding her like the precious thing she was. But her brows creased, and she whispered, "But, Killian… I can't leave them here. They're… they're more than just my friends, they're… they're…" Her eyes shut, a tear slipping past her lashes. "They're my parents."

Killian felt his heart skip, pain flashing through his chest.

Because this was the first time he's ever heard her refer to them as her parents.

Emma's eyes opened, her cheeks wet. "I know I was mad at them and I know… I know everything's screwed up," she whispered. "But I… I… I miss them," she broke out. A little sob escaped her, and Killian felt his own expression crease, his own heart breaking at her pain.

As much as Killian hurt for her, seeing her so upset, he couldn't see a way to save her parents without Emma giving her life.

And that was not something he could let her do.

It wasn't something he knew her parents could let her do, either.

"Emma, your parents… they don't want you to save them. They love you so much."

Baelfire had said it himself; her parents' last wish was to keep her safe.

"Emma, love," said Killian gently, yet still unable to keep his desperation out of his voice, "Your parents… they wouldn't be able to live with themselves if something happened to you. I know I bloody wouldn't," he breathed, thumb brushing over her cheek even when his fingers shook.

"But," she began.

"Think of Henry, love," whispered Killian, grasping desperately for a way to convince her, watching pain flash in her eyes. "He needs his mother."

"Well so do I!" exclaimed Emma, making Killian freeze at the agony in her eyes. An agony he's seen so, so often in every Lost Boy he's come across. Pain carved from years and years and years of longing, of waiting, of hurting.

Emma sniffed, wiping tears off her cheek with the back of her hand. "I don't want to be an orphan again," she whispered, another tear falling down her cheek.

Killian was frozen, torn, so bloody frozen between pain and agony.

But Emma wiped the tear away, brows narrowing. "I am not letting some damn little punk take my parents from me," she growled, a fire erupting inside her, a fight. "I have spent my whole life wanting my parents, and I am not leaving here without them." Her eyes flashed, such a strong determination shining through them it made Killian lose his breath, as she looked nothing short of fierce. "I have to do this, Killian," she said, that emotion softing only a little, for him, but the determination only seemed to grow. "I have to save them. And I'm going to save them. I'm…" Her eyes shut, voice catching. But her eyes opened, her eyes shining the strength of acceptance through them. "I'm a Savior." A little, shaky smile. But then, she froze, like a thought had struck her. Her eyes snapping to him, she repeated, "I'm a Savior." That smile at her lips grew. "Killian—I have magic," she whispered. "You saw how I saved us from those Lost Boys, how I saved us from Cora—"

"Aye…" said Killian slowly.

"I don't know how to do a lot with it," she admitted, "but I do know how to protect people." Her smile grew. "All I need to do is use a shield on my parents and then it's just us versus Pan. Between your sword-throwing and my magic, we can defeat him."

Killian felt himself hesitate, his brow lifting at the idea.

Emma has used her magic to protect them on command; she seemed to understand it, at least in that respect. If Pan is holding her parents hostage and Emma can protect them from harm…

…there was nothing standing in the way of them defeating the bloody demon, especially with him being as weak as he was.

But even so, even with their chances higher…

The idea of letting Emma walk into anywhere where there was any chance of her getting hurt, or worse…

"Killian," came Emma's voice, cutting into his thoughts, making him look up, finding her eyes on his. There was a doubt in her eyes at his silence. She swallowed hesitantly, saying, "I can do this." Her eyes lingered on his, that little piece of doubt, waiting on his support.

And it stunned him for a moment.

This was Emma.

Someone, Killian knew, had never once believed in herself.

Never believed that she could be loved or wanted.

Never believed she was special.

But here, in lieu of facing, of walking head first into a battle rigged against her, she's chosen to believe in herself.

And yet, almost as rare as her own belief in herself, was someone else's belief in her, which other than himself, had only truly come from Henry. Everyone else's belief in her, including what he's seen of her parents, had been shaky, reluctant, unsure.

And if she wasn't suggesting to go up against the most terrifying foe he's ever bloody faced, he wouldn't even have hesitated to encourage her.

It wasn't a lack of belief in her, more than a blinding fear of testing it.

But it was clear in her eyes—this was something she had to do.

And just as clear, was that she needed him to let her.

So, he lifted his hand back to her face, brushing away the last tear she didn't manage to erase. "Aye," he said, voice as sure as the look in her eyes, watching that doubt wash away as he said, "You can."

The relief, the pure flash of joy in her eyes at his belief in her made the last of his own doubt leave his chest.

He was yet to see her fail at anything.

But despite his trust in her, his belief in her, he found himself pulling her to his chest, shutting his eyes, holding her in his safety as long as he could. Wishing he could keep her in his arms forever.

But Emma Swan was no damsel in distress, he's learned that from the moment he met her.

She was a Savior.

He needed to trust that that meant she could save herself just as much as everyone else.

He pulled back, feeling Emma hesitate a moment before letting go of him, and he realized he wasn't the only one reveling in the last moment of safety before they ventured into the lion's den.

Emma looked at him, that determination setting her shoulders.

A determination he returned.

"And I will be with you every step of the way, love," said Killian firmly, his every devotion to her weighing the words, her eyes softening with that vulnerable surprise. That shock that someone cared so deeply for her, something he desperately wanted her to get used to. "We will defeat him, and save your parents."

Emma smiled, something so bright, and she kissed him, every bit of gratitude in it, so strong his eyes shut. They pulled away, and Killian kissed her once more, this time showing his own gratitude because she, for some reason, was devoted to him.

Her eyes inches from his, she slid her hand to his chest, resting over his heart. "You're a survivor," she said softly, a little smile at her lips, at the fact. And she lifted her gaze to his, whispering, "So am I."

His eyes lingered on hers, smiling as he took her hand. And looking toward where he knew Skull Rock lay ahead, Killian took a breath, and whispered with a grin of his own, "Then let's go do what we do best."

They set off, Killian battling the fear that tried to stop him every step of the way, hoping her parents were just as much survivors as they were.

-.-.-.

Mary Margaret's eyes snapped open.

The bedroom of the foster home, the cold loneliness, and the little girl were suddenly gone as she was shocked awake, but just like last time, the emptiness remained.

"Mary Margaret?!"

She blinked a few times, her mind still disoriented, half of her still in that dream, that foster home.

"Snow!"

Her true name through a familiar voice, plus a shake on her shoulder finally shattered her daze.

She shot upright, her head nearly smacking into David's, who was leaning over her worriedly.

"David?" she gasped.

David let out a breath of relief, though it didn't erase the fear kneading his brows and darkening his eyes. Just the sight of him afraid had Mary Margaret's heart racing even faster than it had been, and she suddenly realized where they were.

They were in what looked like a giant, dim, torch-lit cave. It was cold, but Mary Margaret knew the temperature came from much more than just the feel of the air.

It simply felt cold, in every context of the word.

Not to mention the fact that they were both trapped in what looked like a cage.

"Where…?" breathed Mary Margaret, stumbling to her feet. She grabbed the bars of the cage, which looked like strong bamboo, the slats far too small to squeeze through. She reached behind her for an arrow, only to find her bow and arrows gone.

"They took our weapons." came David's voice from behind her. "My sword is gone, too."

Mary Margaret yanked on the bars, hard.

They didn't budge an inch.

She whirled around, looking at her husband with wide eyes. "Where are we?" she breathed.

"I don't know," said David, moving closer to her, whether consciously or unconsciously, as he canted his head back to inspect the cave. "I woke you up right after I did." He swallowed, and Mary Margaret could practically see his skin crawl. Something haunted in his eyes, he looked at the cage, and whispered, "Feels like that dream, doesn't it?"

Mary Margaret felt herself swallow, hard, because that had been the first thing that ran through her own mind.

"Where the hell are we?" breathed David, jerking at the cage bar, but it held strong.

Mary Margaret felt fear slide icily down her spine, the memories hitting her in an instant.

Pan had captured them, locking them wherever the hell this place was, intending to use them against Emma.

And Neal…

Fear and anger raced through her because hasn't he hurt her enough?

Mary Margaret looked desperately at David. "You don't think Neal will actually…?" she breathed.

David's eyes only darkened. "I don't know. But Emma's smart. And so is Hook. Neal said they were together," he said, like that thought eased his mind a little, something that just days ago had made David want to kill Hook. "I don't think Neal would be able to trick them into anything." said David, voice trying to hold onto confidence that was slipping.

"But… David," whispered Mary Margaret, eyes burning. "You don't think Emma will actually… come for us, do you?"

At that, David's brows kneaded. "I don't know." He ran a hand over his face, only more fear in his eyes. "God, I hope she doesn't. She's suffered for us once already," he said, the words looking like they pained him, the same pain twisting Mary Margaret's heart. "I refuse to let it happen to her again." He yanked on a bar of the cage again, only to curse when it didn't even so much as bend.

Mary Margaret felt a determined resolve settle in her chest, narrowing her eyes. "We need to get out of here and find her," she said firmly, even when it made her voice shake with doubt.

With just as much determination in David's eyes, he nodded.

"Good luck with that."

Mary Margaret felt a gasp escape her at the ominously familiar voice, and she felt David quickly jump in front of her, shielding her.

Because Pan was suddenly standing just outside the cage, grinning at them like a predator would at prey.

Which was far too accurate.

"Let us go," growled David, staying close enough to Mary Margaret she could feel his heart pounding. "And don't you dare hurt Emma!"

"I think I like you right where you are," drawled Pan. He smiled, stepping closer to the cage, but still out of reach if David were to reach through and try to wring his neck. But there was something about him that seemed…

Unhinged.

Wrong.

There was something wrong with him.

More than just his morals.

"Why do you want Emma?!" demanded Mary Margaret suddenly, her voice shaking, knuckles white on the cage bars as she yanked fruitlessly at them.

"I don't want her," said Pan with a roll of his eyes. "I need her." A wicked grin, looking only more haunting with the shadows under his eyes, a gaunt look that was terrifying all on its own.

Mary Margaret and David went still.

"She's a Savior," said Pan, in a duh tone of voice. "And a Savior can save anyone's life. Even someone who has been alive for thousands of years. Someone whose heart is beyond repair."

Mary Margaret froze.

Pan's words from before.

"Taking her by force has been more difficult than I had anticipated."

Someone whose heart is beyond repair.

"You're dying," she whispered, his unsteadiness, his weakness suddenly making sense. "That's why you needed to lure Emma here, and that's why you need us," she said breathlessly, the pieces connecting.

"Emma's stronger than you," growled David, putting the pieces together himself. "Even if she came—" His voice caught on the words, like they were his nightmare. "She'll defeat you."

Mary Margaret felt hope light her chest.

Emma had magic, and Pan's magic was weak.

He'd have gone after Emma himself without the need for leverage if he was stronger than her.

"Out there, yes," said Pan, that wicked smile growing, dousing the flicker of hope in Mary Margaret's chest. "But here? Where the magic of Neverland is at its strongest?" He laughed, and it sent a chill down her spine. He stepped to the side, and Mary Margaret didn't miss the stumble in his movement. But he held onto that unhinged grin, as he gestured to a pillar of rock in the center of the cave. And housed within it, was a small, dying blue flame. The light from that flame dancing off the walls of the cave was the same sort of hue that hung in the air around the whole island.

"See this?" said Pan, grinning at it. "All of Neverland's magic, concentrated into cold fire."

"Cold fire?" echoed David.

"Nothing is warm in Neverland," said Pan in such a chilling way, his smile hollow and frigid, Mary Margaret felt herself shiver. "This is the last of my magic," he said, eyes narrowing, shutting his eyes briefly with what looked like a bout of more weakness. He stumbled again, but held his hand toward the fire, and they watched as the flames licked toward him, restoring some of the color in his skin, some of the balance in his stance until he smiled, rising to his full height, the flame now smaller. He grinned wickedly at them. "Here," he said through a sick grin, "I will be stronger than your precious daughter."

Mary Margaret felt her eyes sting, her hand grabbing David's arm.

"But with you in my possession," he drawled, stepping closer to them, making Mary Margaret's hand on David's arm tighten because he wasn't stumbling even half as much as before. "Well, I doubt I'll even need to use magic." He grinned at their fear. "You act like I'm the villain," he snapped, "and yet, you gave your daughter this fate. You sealed her own demise. Twenty-eight years ago you fated her to save you, and now, you'll watch her die to fulfill it." His smile grew even more wicked. "You made her a Savior."

Mary Margaret felt her eyes sting with tears.

"Do you even know why she's called a Savior?" whispered Pan, and Mary Margaret grabbed David's arm even tighter. With that ugly, eerie smile, Pan said, "Because it takes killing a Savior to be saved."

A gasp escaped Mary Margaret's chest, a tear burning down her cheek.

Color drained from David's face.

Pan flicked his fingers, black magic dancing at his fingertips before disappearing. He grinned. "Once her heart is destroyed, mine will be restored."

Mary Margaret felt herself flinch at destroyed. David pulled her closer to him.

Pan's eyes flashed, and he stepped closer, just out of reach from them. "Perhaps I should have come to you two for advice," he drawled wickedly. "You seem to be experts at destroying Emma's heart."

Another tear burned down Mary Margaret's cheek.

Pan smiled at it.

But there was something in him - something that was past his weakness, past his own ticking clock.

He was looking at them like they were the demons.

Something compelled Mary Margaret to say, "I'm sorry your parents abandoned you."

He froze.

She'd hit the nail right on the head.

The almost irrational fury he had with them was never with them.

"You want every other child to be as miserable as you," whispered Mary Margaret, thinking of the Lost Boys, how none of them looked happy, none of them wanted to be here.

"Pan kidnaps kids in all the realms."

Pan's eyes narrowed, more furious than ever. "They shouldn't have what I didn't." he spat so sharply she and David flinched. "Their parents should have protected them. But now they and their foolish parents will feel every pain I do."

He again turned to leave.

Mary Margaret grabbed the bars. "You could help them," she stressed, eyes burning.

He stilled, eyes narrowed even sharper. "No one ever helped me." His eyes flashed. "So I've decided to help myself."

He turned to leave again, but paused, looking back at them, another flash in his eyes, a final blow. "Oh," he said, in a chilling casual sort of way. "There's something else I should let you know about Neverland. Perhaps it will give you something to think about; I'd hate for you to grow bored waiting for your daughter to walk into her own demise." Another wicked smile, another chill down Mary Margaret's spine. "Neverland," said Pan, "is a land of the lost and the abandoned." Another step closer to them, another flinch from both Mary Margaret and David. "Lost Ones," Pan went on, "are forced to relive their abandonment in sleep." He stepped closer, his eyes narrowing, the look in his eyes cold and dead. "Those who have abandoned, however," he said slowly, "relive their child's abandonment."

Mary Margaret stopped breathing.

Cold trailed through her, numbing everything it touched.

No.

The foster home.

The little girl.

Gods, no.

Pan smiled as the color drained from both her and David's faces, realization setting in them, something that felt like a shot to Mary Margaret's own chest.

And with that, Pan left them.

Mary Margaret felt herself stumble, the realization so painful she couldn't breathe.

"It was her?" she looked at David, who looked white as a ghost. "The l-little girl?" she choked out. "It… that was… that was Emma?"

His voice was barely audible.

Mary Margaret's mind was suddenly racing through the dream that still lingered all too heavily.

The loneliness.

The feeling of never, ever, once having been loved, by anyone.

The confusion.

The lost feeling that felt like agony.

"David," whispered Mary Margaret, voice cracking, another tear falling down her cheek.

But David didn't reply.

He turned sharply, grabbing at the cage with both hands, yanking with all of his might. Kicking, punching, attacking it with everything he had.

"David!" exclaimed Mary Margaret in surprise.

He didn't stop, not even when he grunted from the pain of repeated blows, even when his knuckles bled and the cage still didn't even so much as bend.

"David!" exclaimed Mary Margaret breathlessly, grabbing his arm, pulling him back, even when he fought her. "David—!"

"I need to save my daughter!" exploded David, finally stopping, knuckles bruised and scraped, his chest heaving.

Tears fell down his cheeks.

He stared at the cage, where it looked as if he hadn't done a damn thing.

Slowly, he looked at Mary Margaret, his eyes red and pained. "Snow," he whispered brokenly.

Mary Margaret embraced him, even as tears fell down her own face.

"We can't lose her," David half-gasped, half-sobbed into Mary Margaret's shoulder. "We can't lose her, Snow."

"We won't," she whispered. "We're going to get out of here," she said shakily. "We're going to save our daughter."

She didn't know how.

But she knew they would.

That was a promise she would die to keep.

.-.-.

tag list: @kmomof4 @justanother-unluckysoul @klynn-stormz @stahlop @ilovemesomekillianjones @hookmecaptain @tiganasummertree @jadehowlettthewolf @jonesfandomfanatic @anmylica @pirateprincessofpizza @stahlop @snowbellewells @eddisfargo @motherkatereloyshipper @confessionsofthemword @killian-whump

[wistfulcynic]

The Outlaw Killian Jones (and the legend Emma Swan)

SUMMARY: Emma Swan is a schoolteacher, respectable and respected in the small town of Haven, Wyoming. She does her job and minds her business, but she has a secret. One that brings meaning to her dull life and excitement to her restless soul. One that she knows could end at any moment. 

Killian Jones is a man with a powerful enemy and nothing to lose. He’s prepared to sacrifice every bit of that nothing for the sake of his revenge. 

Or, at least, he was. 

-

I am THRILLED to be here, kicking off the @cshistfic​ Historical Fics event! I’ve always loved reading romances set in the past and Westerns are a long-time favourite. Given how deeply entrenched the Western genre is in American culture, it’s funny to think about how a) most of it was made up for dime novels and, later, radio and television shows and movies, and b) the actual historical period that we call the Old West only lasted roughly thirty years—from the post-Civil War westward expansion under the Homestead Act to around the turn of the 20th century. This fic is set right around the end of that time—late 1890s to early 1900s—in the waning moments of the open range and the “lawless” frontier and the start of the modern era with its trains and barbed wire and cars and world wars. I’ve tried to capture a bit of that sense of transition in the story, mostly with the way it ends. 

Huge thanks to @shireness-says​​ for coming up with and running this event, and to @thisonesatellite​​ for Just Being Her. 

Words: 4.9k Rating: T Tags: Western AU, historical, outlaw Killian, schoolteacher Emma, all the historical detail, I did so much research for this 

on AO3

-

The Outlaw Killian Jones (and the legend Emma Swan): 

The hour was late, afternoon edging into evening in the town of Haven, Wyoming. ‘Town’ as a designation flattered it, this tiny settlement tucked back against craggy and striated formations of rock and nestled amongst ragged brush, being, as it was, scarcely more than a handful of rough-hewn cabins, a church, a general store, a blacksmith and livery stable, a saloon with its attendant whorehouse, and a school. 

The store and the smithy did the town’s most active business; unsurprisingly, seeing as they were the only examples of either within the radius of a good fifty miles. The residents—those who lived within the town’s scant limits—were certainly insufficient in their numbers to support either one, but the owners of those ranches that lay outside the town, they and their ranch hands, their wives, and their daughters, frequented both with pleasing regularity. 

The general store doubled, as such establishments generally did, as a post office, in which capacity it served as the sole tenuous link between this stark western land and the fashionable cities of the east. The Sears and Roebuck catalogue and that of Montgomery Ward, both prominently displayed beside the till, were tattered and well-thumbed, and the monthly mail delivery never came without piles of brown-wrapped parcels containing the latest in fashion and technology from the wider world—hints at the wonders promised by the new century. 

Very little of this prosperity touched the actual residents of Haven. The lives they lived were hard ones, scratched from unforgiving soil, but they were good folk, honest and hard-working. They lived simply and piously and for the most part happily. They tended their gardens and their livestock, read their Bibles, loved their children, and whenever possible sent those children to school. 

The Haven school, a single room with two windows, one on either side, and a disproportionate bell-tower on the roof—both this tower and the bell it contained were gifts from a local rancher, who considered them a better use of his money than blackboards or books—was located well away from the town’s main street. It had no fireplace, only a tiny, smoky, potbellied stove, and in the warmer months no breeze blew through the unglazed windows. The pupils sat on simple benches and copied their lessons onto slates that sold at the general store for rather more than their parents could comfortably afford; lessons their teacher laid out for them on a thickly-whitewashed wall with a piece of charcoal, the dust of which stained her fingers and her clothing, and embedded itself beneath her nails so deeply there were times she felt she’d never be free of it. 

This teacher’s name, the one she used, was Miss Emma Swan. A solitary and self-contained woman of about twenty-six, far too pretty for a schoolteacher most said, and if pressed these same would likely agree that teaching was not what folks might refer to as her calling. Though none could deny that she did her best and was kind to the children—a thing not always guaranteed from schoolmarms—she exuded such a restless air, an impatience with the tedium of her job and the pace of life in Haven which she did not trouble to conceal, that it was a subject of great curiosity amongst the residents why she continued to stay there. 

“I have my reasons,” she would say, whenever anyone dared to broach the subject, “and those reasons are my own.” There it was and there it would remain as far as Emma was concerned, and as the townsfolk knew her to be a courteous woman but one who never minced her words when riled, they declined to press the issue. 

By the time Miss Emma Swan had finished up in the schoolroom on this particular late afternoon, the floor swept and the board cleaned and lessons all prepared for the following day, the sun was already slipping behind the craggy rocks at her back and casting upon the town a peculiar sort of distended twilight—shrouded in shadows beneath a glaring blue sky. As she made her way the short distance between the schoolhouse and her own cabin—or rather, the schoolteacher’s cabin, perhaps the most compelling perk of her job—a brisk breeze ruffled the hem of her skirt and the few flyaway hairs that had escaped her tidy Gibson bun. The night would likely be another chilly one, and Emma wondered absently if she had enough wood left to leave the fire high for an extra hour or two or if she should resign herself now to another cold, dark evening spent alone. 

The cabin where she lived, she and sixty years of schoolteachers before her, was small and rough like most in Haven and comprised only two rooms: a small bedroom to the rear and a larger space at the front used equally for sitting, cooking, and dining. In this front room was both a fireplace and stove, the latter surprisingly modern and another gift from a different rancher, to the previous teacher. Near this stove sat a small wooden table and two matching chairs; a soft and generous armchair had pride of place before the fire. 

The bedroom was by far Emma’s preferred room. The walls in it were painted, in a pale and soothing blue, and on one of them a charming watercolour of forget-me-nots was hung. There was a white wardrobe with a mirrored door, a washstand and a vanity table, and a large bed with a sturdy iron frame. The curtains on the single window were of dotted swiss that Emma had sewn herself, and in the morning when she opened them she was greeted by the colours of the dawn. 

Emma removed her buttoned boots the moment she was through the door; they pinched her toes and she disliked wearing them indoors. She replaced them with a well-worn pair of carpet slippers then headed for the bedroom, there to change out of her school clothes and into the more comfortable, loose wrap dress she preferred at home. When she entered the room she had already undone most of the buttons on her high-collared blouse and so made straight for the wardrobe, without so much as a glance at the bed. 

The mirror on the wardrobe door as it swung open flashed the brief reflection of a face, just as Emma heard the sound of a chair leg scrape against the bare wood floor. She gasped and spun around, eyes wide and one hand pressed against her chest. 

There could be no question that the man currently in occupation of her vanity chair, sprawled in it with an air as casual as it was deceptive, was one who had followed quite a different path of life than that afforded to the residents of Haven. His untidy hair and the thick scruff on his jaw might not be especially remarkable out in this still-wild corner of Wyoming, but the narrow cut of his coat and the embroidery on the waistcoat beneath it, the silver chain of his pocket-watch and the ostentatious knot of his tie marked him as a man who knew his way around a gambling table for both good or ill and could likely acquit himself equally well in both scenarios. A man who dealt with the hardships of life by shooting rather than working his way out of them—as the gleaming six-shooter currently pointed straight at Emma would most certainly attest. 

Emma forced herself to breathe, slow and steady. Her heart was pounding. The man greeted her with a brusque nod, and cocked the hammer on his revolver. 

“Don’t let me interrupt you, love,” he drawled, in an accent that suited this town less even than his clothes or his gun. “By all means, keep going.” 

Emma swallowed hard and with trembling fingers undid the remainder of her buttons. Her blouse hung open to reveal the hooks of the corset underneath. 

The man gave his gun a menacing wave. “All the way now, there’s a good lass.” 

She shrugged off the blouse and let it fall to the floor. 

“And the skirt.” 

She unhooked her grey wool skirt and released it to pool around her ankles. 

His voice rasped. “Take down your hair.” 

Emma shivered.

Three pins and two combs held her hair in place. She removed them, dropped them into the pile of clothing at her feet; the bun tumbled down and over her shoulder. 

“Shake your head.” 

She did, vigorously. The bun unraveled further and strands of silky blonde fell across her face. 

He swallowed audibly. “Now the rest.” 

Emma hesitated, fingers hovering over the hooks on her corset. She wore nothing beneath it but a combination made of thin cotton lawn.

The man raised his gun and growled, “All of it.” 

She tossed her head back, jutted her chin out high in defiance. Her belly churned with a dark thrill of anticipation as she unhooked the corset and flung it away. He chuckled, low and rough. Emma fumbled with the buttons on her combination as he uncocked his gun and set it aside, then undid the belt designed to hold it. His eyes locked with hers as he stood, pale blue and profoundly tired, eyes that had seen far too much. 

She finished with the buttons but left the combination on, parted to reveal a thin strip of pale skin. Her heart thundered as he approached, her breaths short and heaving. He swaggered up and stopped in front of her, close enough that she could smell the dust and sweat on him, so close she had to tilt her head again to see his face. His hand slipped beneath her shift to curl around her waist, fingers rough on her soft skin. 

“I—” Emma gasped as he pulled her closer, flush against him. His voice was a rumbling growl in her ear.

“You what, love?” 

“I was expecting you yesterday!” she snapped, and then she kissed him. 

-

“Gold is dead.” 

Emma’s head shot up from where it had been resting on the bare and hairy chest of Killian Jones. The most notorious outlaw in three states, or so the Wanted posters would have folks believe. Train robber, bank robber, high-stakes gambler—but only the trains and banks and gambling dens controlled by one particular man. A man in whose side Killian Jones had been an exceptionally troublesome thorn for near to six years. A man whose wife Jones stood accused of murdering. A man who was, it seemed, now dead himself. 

Emma stared down at his face, at the sharp definition of his cheekbones and lines of strain around his eyes. Such heavy burdens he’d been carrying for as long as she’d known him, but now, despite the exhaustion writ plain on his face he seemed lighter. Relieved, in some intangible way. 

“He is?” she gasped. 

“Aye.” Killian nodded, grimly satisfied. “Shot him right through the place where his heart should be. That’s why I was late.” 

“Oh, Killian.” It wouldn’t do to feel happy about a murder, even that of a wicked man, but Emma found that she too was grimly satisfied. “You did it.” 

“Aye, it’s done. And now I have a price on my head so high I’d turn myself in if I could, and special team of bounty hunters hired by Gold’s son to bring me to him, dead or alive.” 

“Oh.” Her fingers flexed on his chest and his tightened where they curled around her hip. “What—what will you do?” 

“Leave the country.” He spoke as though the answer were obvious, and Emma supposed it was. “I’ve no choice.” 

“Will you go back to England?” 

“No. There’s nothing left for me there.” He paused and his hand slid up her back to tangle absently in her hair. “I was thinking South America. Argentina.” 

“Argentina?” 

“Aye. Land’s selling down there for cheap and I’ve enough saved to buy myself a ranch. I’ve never tried ranching before so it’ll probably be an utter failure, but the idea’s crawled into my head and made itself a nest there, so I think that’s what I’ll do.” 

Emma slipped from his arms and out of bed. She could feel his eyes on her as she took her house dress from the wardrobe and wrapped it around herself, as she tied it at her waist with jerky movements. 

“You must be hungry,” she said. 

“I could eat.” 

“Stew?” 

“Perfect.” 

In the front room Emma piled wood on the embers in her stove and coaxed a fire to life beneath the pot of stew she’d left on the hob. She swept the ashes from the fireplace, arranged the logs and the kindling, then struck a flint to light it. She could hear Killian in the bedroom washing and dressing in the spare clothes she kept on hand for him, and by the time she sensed his presence behind her the larger logs were catching nicely and the hearty aroma of stew had begun to waft in from the stove. 

“Shouldn’t be too long before it’s ready,” she told him without turning around. “There’s cornbread too. It’s a few days old, but—” 

“Emma.” 

“—it should still be good if you dunk it in the stew.” 

“Emma, love.” Killian’s voice was soft, full of the tenderness he showed only to her. “Talk to me.” 

“About what?” 

It wasn’t as though she hadn’t known this day would come, this one or another very like it. She understood the dangers of the life he lived, out on the edges of society, pursued by an influential man with a terrible grudge, and she’d done all she could to make her peace with it. Killian could have died any number of times in the three years of their acquaintance; she had always been aware that every time she bid him farewell might be the last. 

And now she knew for certain that it would be. Nothing had changed. 

She heard him pull out one of the dining chairs and sit down in it, and though she kept her back to him she he knew he would be leaning his elbow on the table and running a hand over his face. She could picture the gesture in her mind’s eye with perfect clarity, so often had she seen him do it before, and her heart hurt because she knew he only did this when he was deeply troubled. 

“Emma, you know—you know why I spent so long trying to kill Gold,” he said roughly. 

“For Milah.” Her voice hardly broke on the name. “To avenge her.” 

“Yes. That bastard hunted her like an animal, shot her right in front of me then framed me for the crime, and all because she couldn’t bear to spend another moment as his wife. He took her life rather than allow her to live it free from him, because he couldn’t countenance her finding happiness with another man. And I swore to her as she lay dying that I would make him pay for that.” 

“Because you love her.” 

“I did.” In the silence of the cabin, she could hear the rasp of his scruff against his palm. “I did.” 

Emma had been watching the fire, now dancing merrily in the hearth, and it took a beat or two for his words to register. When they did her heart gave a shuddering thump and she spun round to gape at him. “Did?” she repeated. 

Killian’s lip quirked and humour flared briefly in his eyes before they became solemn again, and heartrendingly soft. “It’s a funny thing, revenge,” he remarked. “It begins as a simple quest for justice but so easily descends into obsession—almost before a man knows what’s come over him, it’s all he’s got left to live for. That’s how it was for me, for years. Until…” 

He trailed off and Emma found she was holding her breath. “Until?” she prompted.

He looked up at her. “Until I met you.” 

She inhaled sharply as their eyes met, his own warm and such a brilliant blue, full of an emotion to which she didn’t dare give a name. “I kept after Gold because of my vow to Milah, yes, but also because I had to, because it was him or me. His life or mine. When that bullet pierced his chest and I saw him fall, I realised that it wasn’t about Milah for me anymore and it hadn’t been, not for a long time. I was fighting for my life, my right to have it and to live it in peace. That’s all I want, just peace and a simple life. And you.” 

“Me?” gasped Emma, blankly and ungrammatically, as she attempted to grasp what he was saying. 

Amusement coloured the tenderness on his face, alongside a hint of exasperation. “Don’t you know, Emma?” he asked with a shake of his head. “Why do you think I kept coming back here?”

She offered a weak smile and an abashed shrug. “My cornbread?” she ventured, and he laughed. 

“I don’t know how to tell you this, darling, but your cornbread is dry. Try again.” 

Emma elected to ignore this ungentlemanly slur on her culinary skills. “Well… I suppose the town is quite secluded, good for hiding out,” she observed.  

“It is that. But that isn’t the reason, love.” 

“Isn’t it?”

“You know it isn’t.” Killian stood and moved towards her, slowly as if she were a baby faun he was apt to startle, or possibly a sleeping mountain lion. “It’s you, Emma Swan,” he said softly. “You are what I will always come back for. You are the reason my soul is hale and unconsumed by hatred. Because it wasn’t revenge I was after, in the end. It was the future I wanted with you.” 

Tears clogged Emma’s throat and pressed insistently behind her eyes. “Killian,” she choked, “I—”

“Shh.” He closed what small distance remained between them and folded her in an embrace to which she clung tightly, face pressed against his shoulder so the soft flannel of his shirt might absorb her tears. “Emma, I know I have next to nothing to offer you.” Killian stroked her hair soothingly as he spoke. “A tenuous existence in an unfamiliar country, backbreaking work that likely won’t pay off, a struggle for everything we have. I shouldn’t ask this of you. I should have the decency to walk away and let you find happiness with a better man than me.” She could hear tears in his voice now, and when she looked up she saw them glistening in his eyes. “But I won’t,” he continued gruffly. “I can’t, because I am a selfish bastard and I love you. I love you so much, Emma.” His voice broke. “So much. And if you could see your way clear to coming to Argentina with me, I would spend every day I have left on this earth working to make you happy.” 

A rush of joy filled Emma Swan then, joy such as she had never known before. Her tears fell freely and unheeded as she tightened her hold on the man she loved and pressed her forehead to his own. In that stance they remained for some considerable time, until Emma became aware that the silence had drawn out far too long and she must speak. There were words he needed to hear from her, crucial words, and yet Miss Emma Swan, despite being quite a competent schoolteacher in all respects including her vocabulary, had always found words failed her when in the grip of strong emotion. 

“Did I ever tell you I grew up on a ranch?” she blurted, then shook her head. That wasn’t what she’d wished to say.

Killian’s brow wrinkled. “You’ve mentioned it.” 

“My daddy’s place out near Casper,” Emma pressed on. “A thousand acres of cattle, mostly, and some horses.” 

“It sounds nice.” 

“It was.” She snuffled and shifted until her head was resting on his shoulder and she felt cradled in his arms. This wasn’t the speech she’d planned but now she found herself determined to give it. “I was his only child, his only family after my mama died, and he reared me all my life to take over from him,” she continued. “But then when I was nineteen he got married again, and had a son. And suddenly ranching was ‘no job for a woman,’ or so he said, and I should look into teaching instead. Or better still get married and become some man’s pretty possession. Preferably the son of a neighbouring rancher, ‘for the future of our family’s land and legacy’.” She paused, remembering, and rubbed her cheek against his shirt. “I told him to go fuck himself.” 

Killian’s laugh rumbled through the both of them. “That’s my tough lass,” he said, with a pride in his voice that warmed her, and made her desperate. 

“But you do know what I’m saying, don’t you Killian?” she persisted. “You hear what I’m telling you?” 

“What I hear is that in addition to being beautiful and brilliant and tough as old boots, you also know how to run a ranch. Which would be bloody useful I must admit, as I haven’t got the first faint clue where to start. Is that what you wanted me to understand?” 

She nodded in relief. “That’s it.”

He brushed the hair back from her face with fingers gentle as the wing of a butterfly. “And is that... all you have to say?”

She felt caught in his eyes, and like to drown in them. “There may be one more thing.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. It’s that I—I—” Emma drew a steadying breath. “I love you too, Killian, and of course I’ll go to Argentina with you.” A smile broke across his face, that rare and brilliant smile of his that set her heart to soaring and broke the dam that held her words in check. “I’d go anywhere with you,” she declared, laughing as he squeezed her tight. “To the moon. To hell itself, and then back out again.” 

“Let’s hope that won’t be necessary.” 

He leaned down to her and she swayed up to him and their lips met in a kiss that sang of love and of hope and of a most solemn promise, if something of a dramatic one. He dipped her back and kissed her until she was dizzy and overcome with laughter, and then swung her up again and into a dance. 

Emma put her head on his shoulder and leaned into him as they danced to music they alone could hear, all around the cabin with the aroma of stew in the air and hope for the future in their hearts. 

-

The disappearance of Miss Emma Swan, schoolteacher and respected resident, shook the town of Haven, Wyoming as nothing had before. Even the escape and subsequent stampede down Main Street of Mr Murchison’s pigs had caused less consternation, since, as the residents all agreed, for that at least there was an explanation. A rusty gate hinge, investigation later revealed, had been the culprit behind the Spectacular Pig Hullabaloo of 1893, whereas Miss Swan had simply vanished, with no explanation given or obvious method of egress. She owned no horse and had not boarded the stage; no one matching her description had been observed at the train station in Casper or anywhere else that a woman alone on foot might reasonably have been expected to turn up. She had taken nothing with her save some clothes and a few books and left nothing behind but a brief letter hastily scrawled on a scrap of paper—her resignation from her position as schoolteacher effective immediately, and a recommendation for her replacement. 

Haven residents were thoroughly baffled, and for many months afterwards the Fantastical Vanishing of Miss Emma Swan was the number one topic of conversation amongst them. Theories were dismantled nearly as quickly as they had been constructed, replaced by newer and ever more fanciful speculations, and each resident had his or her own pet notion as to how and why the trick was done. Rarely had they felt so stimulated or enjoyed themselves so thoroughly, however time, as it inevitably does, soon began quite noticeably to pass, and the town’s attention moved on to other happenings. For although new events in such a quiet place may never again be as deliciously sensational as the mystery of the vanished schoolmarm, they do possess the not insignificant advantage of being new.  

And thus Emma Swan passed into Haven legend. 

Some years later, on the eve of her wedding, Miss Mary Margaret Blanchard—soon to be Mrs David Nolan—sat at the very table where Miss Swan’s letter had been left and composed a letter of her own, to an old friend she’d first met at the State Normal School of Colorado. In her letter Miss Blanchard informed her friend of the imminent blessed day and thanked her for the recommendation that had not only brought Miss Blanchard many years of enjoyable work as schoolteacher to Haven’s children but also led, in that roundabout way life sometimes takes, to her current state of blissful happiness. 

This letter travelled by mail coach from the Haven general store—where Miss Blanchard posted it to the care of a P.O. Box in San Francisco—to the main post office in Casper. From there it went via train to Cheyenne, where it was loaded onto the mail car of the Union Pacific Railway and thence made its journey to the west coast. In San Francisco its fortunes underwent a curious change, for it was redirected by a clerk there, in accordance with instructions, and placed back on the Union Pacific, headed this time for Denver. From Denver it voyaged onwards to Kansas City, then Chicago, and finally to New York, where it abandoned train travel forever in favour of a steam ship bound for Buenos Aires. 

Upon arrival at port it was placed in the charge of a courier who carried it along with a scant handful of others over the rough roads of the Argentinian coast to Puerto Santa Cruz and then inland, where it finally, many months after its departure, came to rest at a tiny, dusty outpost in southern Patagonia. And it was from this inauspicious locale that the letter was collected, at long last, by its intended recipient—a woman none of the residents of Haven nor indeed the erstwhile Miss Blanchard herself would be likely to recognise as Emma Swan. 

The clothes she wore were utilitarian in design and plain in colour, liberally coated in fine brown dust. Her pale hair hung loose and wavy down her back, and her face beneath her wide-brimmed hat was tanned and marked around the eyes with the fine lines characteristic of those who spend a good deal of time squinting into bright sunlight. But these were superficial changes. The woman who collected the well-travelled letter and rode with it back to her ranch, who sat at the table in her kitchen and read it with a wide smile and sincere pleasure at the news from her friend—this woman was happy, as Emma Swan had surely never been. It was a happiness born of deep contentment and the satisfaction of a life lived on one’s own terms. And it was the happiness of a woman who is loved. 

Emma was reading the letter a fourth time when the sound of boots on the porch alerted her to Killian’s arrival; she looked up just as he came through the door with a smile on her lips the like of which neither Mrs Nolan nor any other in Haven could ever imagine her smiling. 

Killian hung his hat on a hook and met its brilliance with a smile of his own. “What are you thinking about, love, that has you so radiant?” he inquired. 

“A letter from Mary Margaret.” Emma indicated the sheet of paper in her hand. “She’s getting married. Is married now, I suppose.” 

“To a fellow worthy of her, I hope?” 

“A rancher, but not one of the arrogant ones,” Emma replied. “I think he is. Worthy of her, I mean. I think they’ll be happy.” 

“That’s good news indeed.” 

“It is.” She set the letter aside and went over to him, tucked her head beneath his chin as he enfolded her in his arms. “But that’s not why I’m radiant, as you say.” 

“I say it only because it’s true, darling.” 

“It’s because I’m happy,” said Emma softly. She nuzzled her nose against his neck; he smelled of sweat and dust and horses. “For Mary Margaret, of course, but also for me. It struck me just now, reading her letter, how happy I am. I’m so happy, Killian.” 

His arms around her tightened and she felt him stroke her hair, and when he spoke his voice was gruff. “No regrets then, about abandoning everything you’ve ever known to live out your days on the lam with me?” 

“Nope.” Emma pulled back just enough to look up at him, to caress his cheek with her fingertips and press her forehead to his. “No regrets at all.” 

-

Historical Note: Emma in this fic is based loosely on a woman named Etta Place. Very little is known about her, but she is thought to have been romantically involved with Harry Longabaugh, a.k.a. the Sundance Kid, and to have accompanied him and Butch Cassidy to South America. However, verifiable details about her are scarce—even her real name is uncertain—and only one photograph of her remains. Some believe she may have been a prostitute but in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid the writer chose to make her a teacher instead, and honestly I have always found that such a compelling tale. A “proper” schoolteacher having a secret affair with an outlaw, then running away with him to another continent? The romance, am I right? 

And thus the inspiration for this story. 

-

@ohmightydevviepuu​ @thisonesatellite​ @katie-dub​ @kmomof4​ @killianjones-twopointoh​ @mariakov81​ @stahlop​ @optomisticgirl​ @spartanguard​ @shireness-says​ @snowbellewells​ 

[sirowsky]

The First One

Part of the Driving Mr. Tovar Universe

Description: This is based on an ask by my dear @deadhumourist concerning how the Tovar's would react the first time one of the kids brought home a significant other. Thank you so much, Ani, this was so much fun!!

Rating: Mature 18+ONLY Warnings: Cursing, kissing, protective!Pero, adoptive concerns, a hint of angst but more like.. the good kind? Word count: 4220 (1457 words added) Masterlist of the original story

   ”Hey mom, can I talk to you?” Alice quietly asked during a slower segment of the Hitchcock movie she was watching with you.

   “Of course you can, sweetie. What’s up?”

   She squirmed a little in her spot, curled up next to you on the sofa. The two of you had a rare evening to yourselves this Friday, since Pero, Emma and Johnny were out camping in the woods, just for fun.    But Alice was fifteen now, and at that age where certain things didn’t feel grown-up enough for her to wanna do anymore, and she’d begged to get to stay home instead, so you’d let her.

   You weren’t about to let her have the house to herself for a whole day yet, though, so you’d stayed home with her for some girl-time, which she’d surprisingly enough not objected to in the slightest.    When there was no one around to look cool in front of, she seemed to like just spending time with you, and you’d had a lot of fun together all day.

   You’d played boardgames and talked about silly and serious stuff alike, while eating take-out, which almost never happened, because if Doris found out… Ugh, you shivered at the mere memory of her rage from the time she’d caught you carrying home a bag from The Angry Dragon.

   It was getting late, and The Birds was the second film of the evening, sparking a random and fun discussion concerning old versus new filming techniques, and what made some old movies charming while others were just bad.    But you were both getting pleasantly tired even though you were only halfway through this one, and the conversation had been winding down for a while already, so whatever it was she was bringing up now, you felt certain it had nothing to do with the film.

   “Well… I’ve kinda been hanging out with this boy in school,” she started, and she was clearly nervous saying it, but it seemed like she also really needed to air this out, like she’d been holding it in for some time. “He’s not in my class but he’s the same age, and his name’s Danny.”

   “Okay. Is it a friendly sort of hanging out, or more than that?” you asked, inferring from her tone and the fact that she’d waited to bring it up until it was just the two of you, that this was probably more than a simple introduction to a new buddy.

   But you made sure to keep your tone light and your expression inviting, so she’d know that either way, you weren’t gonna throw a fit.

   “Um… We’ve kissed. Twice,” she carefully admitted, not blushing but very deliberately keeping her eyes away from meeting yours.

   “Was it good?” you wondered, letting her hear a slight smile in your voice, just to make her more comfortable, and it seemed to work.

   She met your gaze for a moment, grinning a little before dipping her head back down and needlessly fiddling with her blanket.

   “Um, the first one was kinda… weird. Like, awkward and… just fumbling. But the second one was better.”

   “Good,” you encouraged, liking everything you heard, which apparently surprised her. “Always be suspicious of a boy that age who’s already a good kisser.”

   “He told me that it was his first time too.”

   “That’s a really good sign. Boys often feel pressured to make it seem like they’re experienced, so if he’s owning up to that, then he’s probably an honest kid.”

   “I think he is. He’s kind of a loner, like, no one really talks to him, but he’s really smart and he likes games and puzzles. Not like ordinary jigsaw ones, but like Rubik’s cubes and stuff,” she explained, getting more excited the more she realized that you were only happy for her.

   “He sounds interesting. You really like him, huh?”

   “Yeah. I really do. And I was kinda hoping…”

   “It’s okay, you can tell me.”

   “Well, it’s just… We were talking at lunch yesterday, and I’ve been telling him about you guys, and he really wants to come here and meet everyone, so I promised I’d ask, but-…”

   “Honey, of course he can come, we’d love to meet him,” you cheerfully interrupted her rambling, eager to let her know just how fine this all was.

   Alice, however, turned nervous and uncertain again, squirming in her seat and dropping her head a fraction, even biting her lip, which she almost never did.

   “But, what about… dad?” she pondered, and suddenly your own enthusiasm deflated.

   “Oh. Right,” you contemplated, biting your own lip while you mulled it over.

   He might be on the short-list for Father-of-the-year Award, again, but he was fiercely protective of his children, and this was something new to him.    Pero wasn’t good with new, or unknown. Or most people.    You’d talked about it a few times, loosely. And he’d always said that he dreaded it, but since it was inevitable, so long as the person any one of the kids chose was a good person, he’d find a way to be okay with it.

   But unfortunately, thoughts and reality were two very different things, and you already knew that this would be far too much reality, way too soon, according to his reasoning.

   “Good point,” you chewed, while your mind worked a mile a minute.

   “Danny’s a good guy, I don’t want dad to scare him away. I’ve tried to explain that he can be kinda unnerving, but I don’t know how to describe it so Danny will be prepared, but not too scared to visit, and I don’t know if I should talk to dad first or if that might just make it worse.”

   This was clearly the real reason why she’d brought this up at all, and especially why she’d chosen this time and circumstance to do it. Because this mattered to her, and she was seriously scared that it wasn’t gonna work out.    Well, screw that.

   “No. No, neither of us are gonna talk to dad first,” you declared firmly, having made up your mind on what would be the best course of action here. “You invite Danny to dinner tomorrow, and don’t worry about anything. I’ll take care of it.”

   “Mom… this sounds like a terrible idea.”

   “Why? Because your dad doesn’t like surprises?”

   “You can’t possibly have forgotten what happened the last time you tried to surprise him?” she cautioned with raised brows, but you just waved it off.

   “Let’s not dwell on past mistakes, okay.”

   “Aren’t you the one always telling us that that’s how you learn?”

   “Look, if Pero knows this boy is coming, all he’s gonna do all day is build up tension, which will inevitably fall on poor Danny at some point.    I know it seems counter-intuitive, but I really think it’s best if he doesn’t know,” you reasoned, and she seemed to surrender then.

   “Okay, you know him best. But if this ends terribly, just know I’m blaming you.”

   “Fair enough.”

-=¤=-=¤=-=¤=-=¤=-=¤=-=¤=-

   “I still don’t see why we could not have gone up to the hotel for dinner, or at least brought food back here. It’s Doris’ meatloaf today…” Pero grumbled for the third time after learning that you’d decided to cook this Saturday dinner.

   Not because there was anything wrong with your cooking, he just didn’t understand why you’d go through all that trouble when you knew that there would be delicious food on offer without you needing to sweat by the stove for two hours.

   “Because today is a special occasion, and the least we can do is cook properly,” you chirped, and he felt a very uncomfortable chill travel down his spine.

   “What special occasion?” he nervously blurted out before it occurred to him that if it was something he should’ve known about, he’d just revealed the fact that he didn’t.

   But you didn’t respond, you just started humming a little while beginning to set the table, so his brain immediately went into search-mode, looking for some significance to the date. Was there a birthday or anniversary he’d missed? Or was something coming up, maybe?    He couldn’t think of a damned thing.    It wasn’t until he clocked you setting an extra plate on the table, he started thinking that he possibly hadn’t missed anything at all. But before he’d had a chance to ask you about it, the doorbell rang.

   “Belleza… What’s going on?”

   You came to stand in front of him, putting your hands on his upper arms, as if preparing to hold him back, which of course only added to his sense of trepidation, just as Alice bounced past the kitchen to go answer the door.    Bounced.    Alice Williams Tovar did not bounce. Ever.

   “Honey, listen to me. You are not gonna freak out on me right now, do you hear?” you ordered, trying to force him to focus on you, but his eyes and ears were locked on the closest visible part of the front hall, where he could hear someone walk in.

   Not even registering what you’d just said, he tried to step past you, but you actually shoved him back. Gently, although leaving no room for any misinterpretation of your intentions, which were clearly to keep him away from whoever had just entered his house.

   “Our oldest daughter is introducing us to her first boyfriend,” you whispered then. “And I’m gonna need you to be okay with it, love.”

   Well, he certainly heard that. Too fucking clearly.

   “Boyfr-…?”

   Oh, god.

   Oh, no.

   No, no, no… not yet! He wasn’t nearly ready for this, she was only fifteen, it shouldn’t happen for another twelve years or something, right?    Fuck! He suddenly felt as though ants were crawling under his skin, and he was about ready to start pacing when your hands shifted to hold his cheeks, caging him in, just before you kissed him.

   And it wasn’t some little peck either. It was a real kiss, so full of passion and love it fully intoxicated him in no time at all. He knew you were distracting him, using the fact that your touch and affection always soothed him, as a means of keeping him calm. But it made no difference whatsoever. He was entirely powerless to resist the effect you had on him.    His hands seemed to move almost on their own, finding your waist to pull you closer, having completely forgotten that there were other people around.

   “Eeeeew! Go to your room if you’re gonna do that, there are kids present. Gosh!” Emma dramatically exclaimed, the same second she walked in on the scene.

   She could always be relied upon to unfailingly give her honest opinion, and not ever hold back. Which was refreshing most of the time, but this time, also fortunate.    Because just as you and your husband pulled away from each other, Alice came into view in the doorway to the kitchen, holding the hand of a scrawny, dark-skinned boy, smiling nervously at everyone.

   And for a moment, the adoptive father forgot that he was supposed to be suspicious of the kid, when he realized how much he resembled what a young Sam might’ve looked like.    Pero had never seen any pictures of his best friend as a child, but he was so familiar with his features that he’d recognize them anywhere, and this kid was similar enough to make his heart ache with sorrow and longing.

   It left him standing there, dumbly staring at the boy without a word of greeting or welcome to offer him, because his throat had suddenly decided to close up shop.    You didn’t miss a beat, though, turning towards the young pair and doing what you were supposed to do as a mother, and it never failed to amaze him how you just knew how to do that, even with something completely new and unknown.

   “Hi, you must be Danny,” you smiled warmly, extending a hand to the boy, which he took without hesitation.

   “Uh, yes, ma’am.”

   “It’s a pleasure to meet you, and you’re very welcome to our home. You can call me Peg, and this is my husband, Pero,” you continued, before bringing him over to meet your lesser half.

   He had always considered himself lesser than you, but on this occasion, it felt even more appropriate than usual. He had to literally bite his own tongue to bring him back to reality and remember that this was actually happening.    You had your arm draped over the boy’s shoulders in that maternally protective way you always did when you introduced your own children to strangers, which was only one of many things which made your husband realize how worried you really were right then.

   Despite his obvious nervousness, the kid extended his hand in greeting, and before the older man took it, still so befuddled with the whole situation that he couldn’t tell whether he wanted to crush it or not, Pero looked at Alice.    And she was scared. Genuinely frightened that her father was going to do something to make this boy too uncomfortable to wanna be with her anymore, and it broke his heart.

   When he turned his gaze back to Danny, he realized that his own expression must be terribly harsh and unfriendly, because the kid was visibly trembling where he patiently waited.    So, Pero took a breath, met Danny’s eyes, and smiled at him. Genuinely, kindly, warmly. Because as much as this boy was unknown to him, he was the one his daughter had chosen, and she was a good kid. She wouldn’t have allowed him this close if she wasn’t certain he was good too.

   “Welcome, Danny. It’s nice to meet you,” he finally said, taking the kid’s hand in a firm but not hard grip, and instantly saw both Alice and her boyfriend relax.

   He was pretty sure that in his periphery, he saw you breathe a sigh of relief before proceeding to introduce Danny to Emma and Johnny.

   Still, he remained on guard throughout the dinner, listening closely to the boy for any signs of dishonesty or deception, happily finding none. He really did seem to be a good kid, which made Pero more and more relaxed the longer he watched him, although he refrained from speaking too much, just in case his inexperience in these matters, not to mention his overprotective tendencies, might make him say something inappropriate.

   Once the meal was over, Johnny wanted to play a game, and since the evening was still young, you all moved over to the living room and played Pictionary together.    The game made everyone loosen up more, and Danny revealed himself to be that kind of kid that even though he wasn’t great at something, he just went with it and had fun, and for some reason, Pero got the distinct impression that this kid didn’t have a lot of fun in his life.    He seemed hungry for it. Starved, even.

   When the evening was over, and everyone had said goodbye to Danny, Pero offered to walk him up to the gate, earning him a suspicious look from you, and a downright terrified look from Alice.

   “N-no, dad…” she tried to protest, nearly panicking in her belief that he was about to have some kind of stern talk with her boyfriend.

   “Don’t worry, sunshine,” he softly assured her. “I know he’s important to you.”

   He squeezed her shoulder affectionately, although it didn’t really help to ease her worry, and then left the house with the boy, who suddenly looked worried again.    Pero set a slow, leisurely pace which the kid mirrored, but he kept a six-foot distance to the older man, as if he was expecting to get a smack over the head, or something.    It didn’t take long before the silence became too pressing for him, though.

   “Is everything okay, Mr. Tovar?”

   “Actually, that’s exactly what I wanted to ask you, Danny,” he replied, earning a surprised reaction at first, before the boy’s expression quickly shifted into something like shame, or maybe just avoidance.

   “Me? Yeah, I’m fine.”

   “What’s your family like?” Pero gently prodded, already suspecting he knew the answer.

   “Um… they’re okay. You know, normal, I guess.”

   Right. So, as he suspected, then. Most people who lived in happy and healthy families, were usually quick to highlight the positives, whereas those who didn’t, would more likely give vague or elusive answers.

   “Hm. The reason I ask is because you seem like you have not had fun in a long time. And in case you didn’t know, that’s not normal for someone your age.”

   The boy looked away then, shoving his hands in his pockets for a few steps, probably deliberating with himself and trying to buy a few extra seconds to decide how to answer. But then he suddenly stopped and turned to face Pero, who stopped to listen, curious to hear what the kid might be willing to share.

   “Your family…” he started, and then paused as if he wasn’t sure about how to phrase what he wanted to say. “Alice told me about you guys. And about her parents and how she and her siblings came to live here and all. And I wanted to meet you, because honestly… I didn’t really believe that it could be as good as she described it.”

   Oh. Yeah, that made sense.

   “Danny… are you adopted as well?” he asked, inferring as much from the boy’s incredulity at this specific type of family dynamic.

   He just nodded, looking away again, as though it was somehow shameful to admit.

   “And your adoptive family, do they treat you well?” Pero continued, trying to work out why this child was apparently so unhappy.

   “They’re not terrible. I know kids who have it a lot worse than me,” he tries to deflect, but the older man simply cocks his head to the side and waits, because he knows there’s more. “They drink a lot, you know? But they’re not violent or anything. Just… kinda indifferent, I guess.    Not like you. I mean, you and your wife, you both care so much, about everything. Like… real parents.”

   “Because we are. That’s what we agreed to when we took them in. To be their parents, not their keepers,” Pero declares, and sees tears begin to build in Danny’s eyes.

   “I didn’t think it could be like that. But Alice wasn’t exaggerating, your family is even better than she made it out be. And now I just…” he trailed off, ducking his head to try and hide that the tears were about to fall.

   “Now… you have to go home, knowing exactly how much you’re missing,” the man finished the sentence for him, and that made the kid fall apart.

   He started crying, slumping his shoulders and shaking from head to toe, so Pero stepped closer, pulled him into a tight hug and just held him, wondering if anyone in his life was ever available to give him that comfort, if and when he needed it.

-=¤=-=¤=-=¤=-=¤=-=¤=-=¤=-

   When you snuck out after your husband and Danny, it was just to make sure that nothing bad happened.    You didn’t expect it to, because Pero had seemed fine all evening, but Alice was beside herself with worry, so you’d gone anyway, just to make her feel better with the knowledge that Danny wouldn’t be completely alone with her father.    He was a trained killer, after all.

   But while you were absolutely certain he’d never hurt the kid, possibly just give him a stern word or two, nothing would’ve prepared you for the scene which played out in front of you, mere minutes later.    If someone had told you, four years earlier, that Pero Tovar would one day voluntarily pull a complete stranger in for a hug, and then hold them while they cried, you would’ve put money on them being dead wrong.    But here he was. Holding Danny like he held you, or the kids, when you were sad.

   Fighting tears yourself, just from how moving it was to see your husband like this, so caring and kind, when he could’ve easily just told the boy to be careful with his daughter and then promptly walked him out, you moved closer, but stayed hidden.    And when they eventually pulled apart, tears started to spill down your face as you were now close enough to hear the exchange between them.

   “Danny, listen to me. You are welcome here any time. To see Alice, or just to feel safe. If at any time you feel like your home is not safe, or just not a good place to be, you come here, okay?”

   The kid looked at your man with the most fragile hope you’d ever seen in a human being.

   “You… you really mean that?” he asked, with a voice which trembled so badly you could barely hear him.

   “Yes, I really do. I may not know what your life is right now, but from what I’ve seen of your behaviour tonight, I know that you’re not happy, except when you’re with Alice.    She doesn’t know about your situation, does she?”

   “No. I don’t like to talk about it.”

   “I understand. And she will too, whenever you decide to tell her,” Pero assured him, but Danny was still stuck on the kindness he was being offered, apparently unable to process that anyone could treat a stranger so nicely.

   “You really mean it? I’m welcome here any time?”

   “Any time,” your husband reaffirmed, and you felt certain he was expecting what the boy said next, but allowed him to get there himself, giving him an opportunity to grow by letting him take this step all by himself.

   The boy shifted nervously, looking towards the gates, but clearly not eager to move closer to them. And Pero simply waited until it finally came.

   “Then… could I, uh… stay? Tonight, I mean.”

   From your vantage point, and in the dark, you couldn’t see your man’s face, but you still knew that he was smiling when he answered.

   “Come on, I’ll introduce you to Laura, our housekeeper. She will take you to one of the guest rooms.”

   He put his arm around Danny’s shoulders and led him towards the hotel, and you smiled where you stood, despite the tears.    You didn’t follow them, but you stayed there, waiting until Pero came back the same way, heading down to your house, intending to simply fall in beside him as he passed you. But he beat you to the punch, calling you out the moment he rounded the corner of the hotel.

   “You can come out now, Angel.”

   You knew that he would’ve noticed you following him, and it made you kinda proud of him, to see that the lack of active hunting and tracking or being around evil people, had in no way dulled his sharp senses, or made him lapse in his readiness to use them.    Perhaps, being around the soccer moms and hockey dads and all other variants of parents so much, he’d still had plenty of use for those senses.

   “You, my darling husband, are a wonderous creature,” you praised while you moved out of the shadows and stepped into his open embrace as he reached your hiding spot, stealing a kiss while you wrapped your arms around his waist, and felt his close over your back.

   “He’s a good kid. Just a little hurt.”

   “How did you know? Because I’m pretty good at reading people too, and I didn’t see it,” you asked, genuinely wondering just how defunct your own senses might be getting.

   “You weren’t looking as closely as you usually do, for Alice’s sake. And it was subtle. I did not guess that he was adopted, only that his family was perhaps not a very good one.”

   “Well, regardless, I’m impressed. I really thought you’d be harder on the first significant other to enter this house.”

   “Had he been a lesser man, I would have been,” he mused, but then he turned solemn and serious for a moment. “Did you notice his resemblance to Sam?”

   That threw you for a second, as you recalled the boy’s face and made the connection.

   “No, I didn’t notice that, but you’re right.    Is that why you froze up when he first walked in?”

   “Of all the faces I might have expected to see in our house again… I was not prepared for that one,” he admitted with a sigh, but it wasn’t altogether sad.

   As with all things involving his brother, Pero always saw and felt everything. Good and bad, happy and sad.

   “You might have your hands full when Emma starts dating, though,” you cautioned, taking the opportunity to try and help him prepare for the next challenge, even if it probably wouldn’t happen for a while yet.

   He tensed in your arms, frowning at you.

   “What do you mean?”

   “I’m pretty sure she’s into girls, and girls that age can be really tricky.”

   “Oh. Well, my mean face works on pretty much everyone, so whomever any one of them brings home, if they are not nice, I’ll show them exactly how hard I can be.”

   You just laughed at that, because after tonight, you were pretty sure that there wasn’t anything family-related which your husband couldn’t handle.

THE END

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