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runnning-outof-time · 2 years

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To Be Alone | Tommy Shelby x OC | Chapter 5

(gif by @thomasshelbyltd)

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Pairing: Tommy Shelby x OC

Summary: Tommy decides to invite Celia with him to the park, where she finally learns a bit more about him. She also gets to meet another member of the Shelby family.

Warnings: mentions of death and violence (typical to series)

Word Count: 3992

A/N: I couldn’t wait much longer to share the next part with you! I’ve got a couple more already written so be expecting them in the next few days. Thanks for all of the love you’ve been showing the story!

"Celia?!" That couldn't be. "Celia?!" His voice was getting closer, and it was the only thing bouncing off of the otherwise silent halls. "Celia?"

"Tommy, would you please keep it down? You're gonna scare the bloody patients," she hissed at him as he came to a stop in front of her in the middle of the hallway where she was currently scrubbing the walls down.

"Went to the tailor's but Walter told me today was your off day there, so I figured I'd come check here since I didn't see you out with your boyfriend," he stated, his hands going into his pockets to fish out his pack of cigarettes. He swiped one along his bottom lip before balancing it between them, then digging for his matches.

"He's not my boyfriend, just a man I enjoy spending time with, and what does that even matter to you?" she defended herself, her cheeks no doubt giving her away. But it was true. William hadn't asked her to be his or anything. They just kissed that one time and then forgot it even happened, much to Celia's dismay - because she rather enjoyed the kiss.

By this time he'd lit the cigarette and let it a puff of smoke. "You can't be smoking in here, Mr. Shelby," she hissed, checking the halls and sighing in relief that no one was around before she daringly reached up and took the cigarette from his lips, dropping it down to extinguish it in the pail of water by her feet. Tommy gave her a dumbfounded look but decided to stay mum, clearing his throat and shoving his hands into his pockets instead.

"Listen, I've got to meet someone at the park a little bit from now and I was wondering if you'd like to join me?" he asked then, slightly rocking back onto the heels of his shoes as he spoke.

"You'd want me along to do business with you?" she asked him, her eyebrows raised. This request of his was out of left field.

"It's not business. My sister's in from London. She's brought her son with her too," he explained, clearing his throat before continuing, "I just wanted to thank you for helping me a few weeks ago since I never formally got to."

"Well that's very nice of you, Tommy, but I can't leave right now. I have nearly three and a half hours left here before I'm able to go," she stated, feeling honored that he'd want to invite her along with him but at the same time knowing that she had a commitment here.

"That's fine. I'll wait out in the reception area," he responded, nodding his head before he turned to start walking back in its direction.

"Tommy! Wait!" she called to him but he didn't stop, turning the corner out of sight then.

So she kept on cleaning. Continuing until Sophia was walking down the hall with a stern look on her face. "Could you please tell me why Tommy Shelby has been sitting in my reception area for the last hour and a half?" she asked Celia once she stopped in front of her, her hands on her hips.

"I don't know. Maybe he's got someone to see here," Celia tried playing dumb first, but Sophia wasn't buying it.

"I heard him screaming your name from down the hall earlier, Celia. Why is he sitting in my reception room?" she asked once again, hoping for the truth this time.

"Ok, so he came here asking if I wanted to join him to the park as a way of thanking me for helping him, but I told him that I had to finish my shift here, so I guess he's actually waiting it out," Celia explained the reason behind the gangster sitting in the waiting room.

Sophia looked at her before looking over at the clock that hung on the wall. "I'd say you're about finished for the day," she stated then, making Celia furrow her eyebrows.

"Finished? I've got about two more hours left, Soph."

"Listen, woman...one simply does not keep Tommy Shelby waiting. I'd go now without wasting one more second of time," Sophia held up her side, making Celia shake her head as she pinched the bridge of her nose.

"I told him that I had to stay till the end of my shift. That I had an obligation here. If he's out there waiting, it's because he chose to," she stated matter-of-factly.

"But still you should go," Sophia didn't let up.

"Sophia," Celia now had the 'are you serious?' look adorning her features.

"Go. Now," Sophia remained steadfast, making Celia sigh before she lifted the pail and went to the external door to empty its contents onto the street. "Enjoy!" Sophia chirped when Celia returned to her side, making the brunette woman shoot a glare in the nurse’s direction. It was almost as if she was being forced to spend time with Tommy Shelby against her will.

So she walked down the hall and turned the corner to see Tommy sitting in one of the seats, staring ahead of him at the wall, studying one of the pictures that hung on it. "I see you've stayed," Celia spoke up once she was slightly closer to him.

"I told you I would," he responded, standing up and placing the peaked cap back on top of the neat undercut he was sporting before walking over to her.

"I didn't think you would though," she sheepishly said as he came to a stop in front of her.

"Nonsense," he shook his head, a slight smile on his face before he held his hand out for her in a gesture towards the door. She nodded and started to walk, smiling at him as he held the door open for her. Maybe Tommy Shelby was a gentleman after all.

"So where are we going?" Celia asked as they started walking down the pavement. She turned to the side to watch Tommy as he lit yet another cigarette, but this time she couldn't stop him. He lit his own before offering one to her. She shook her head. Smoking was a habit that she never really got into, even though both of her parents did it. Tommy nodded and put the pack back in his pocket, honoring her answer without any dispute.

"To the park that's across from town. It's got a field that kids go to play in. I suggested we go there to meet because my sister's son would do good with gettin' some energy out," Tommy explained, the cigarette bouncing between his lips as he spoke.

"How old is he?" Celia was the one asking the questions for once.

"A bit over two. So he's at that age where he's ready to run and it drives Ada up the walls sometimes," he answered, his eyes fixed forwards.

"Ada. Is that your sister's name?" Celia asked, making Tommy nod, "'s a pretty name," she stated then, looking out as the people passing them all bowed their heads and avoided their eyes from his gaze. Celia knew it wasn't her that they were bowing at. "Why do they do that?" she was speaking before she had time to think out her words. She really had to get her curiosity in check before it came back to bite her.

"Do what?"

"Everyone's always bowing to you and acting as if they're gonna turn to stone if they make eye contact," she explained her question.

"Guess it has to do with what I'm involved in," he shrugged, his hand brushing against hers as he brought his shoulders back down. It was then she realized how closely together they were walking. "Still feels weird to me sometimes, if I'm bein' honest," he then added, looking down at Celia with a slight smile.

"I don't think I'd get used to it either," Celia shook her head, trying to let him know that he wasn't alone in feeling that. Tommy nodded his head before staring straight ahead again.

He then bumped her shoulder with his and she looked to him once more, "we need to go this way," he nodded to the right before putting slight pressure on her left side with his right, telling her body that they needed to turn. Celia nodded and made the shift, unable to think now because their arms were brushing with each step they took. "Here we are," he said after a few more minutes, the park coming into view. There were benches scattered around the green, and sure enough, dozens of kids were running about. Celia smiled at their youthful energy. Tommy walked them down the path until he slowed when they approached a woman with brown, curled hair sitting alone on a bench with a small child playing a few feet in front of her. "Ada!" Tommy called out, making the woman turn to look at her. She, much like Tommy (and now Polly for that matter) had an unreadable expression on her face, and Celia cursed the Shelby name for having this upper hand on her.

The woman's face broke though when she recognized who was calling for her, the slightest smile appearing. "Hello, Tom," she greeted as the two approached her. Soon they were standing in front of her.

"Ada, this is Celia Farraday. Celia, this is Ada Shelby," Tommy went right into the introductions.

"It's Thorne, you bloody idiot," she scowled at Tommy before reaching her hand out towards Celia, "Ada Thorne," she introduced herself then. Celia shook her hand with a smile, immediately realizing that this woman was someone who could hold her own.

"It's nice to meet you, Ada," Celia said politely, her hands falling to her sides after the handshake was finished.

"Likewise," Ada nodded, looking up to her brother before she spoke again, "a new girlfriend for you then, Tom? Finally gave up on that barmaid that fled to New York?" She asked, no reservation behind her voice. Ah, another thing Celia had discovered was common amongst the Shelby's she's met so far. They spoke what was on their mind, not caring what those around them thought.

Celia stood in silence as she looked between the siblings. She had no idea what Ada was referencing, but she could tell by Tommy's clenched jaw that it was a sensitive topic. "She's not my girlfriend. She was the one to find me in the alley after being beaten by Sabini's men and called the ambulance for me. Saved me life," he explained, nodding to Celia then, the look of gratitude back in his eyes.

"Oh. Ok. Thanks for saving my brother then, Celia. Although sometimes I wished he wasn't present," Ada smiled at the woman once things were cleared up. She then motioned for the two to sit, as they'd been standing in front of the bench since they arrived. Celia accepted the offer, but Tommy stayed standing, choosing to light another cigarette instead. "You know, I got attacked that same night. Sabini's men found me where I was living in London," she disclosed then, making Celia's mouth open slightly in shock. "Even though I insisted I had no more ties to the Shelby's. My son and I moved to London after my husband died of consumption...didn't know the darkness would've been able to follow me there," she said then, looking down at her hands clasped together in her lap.

"You've got your own place now though. Won't have to worry about anyone findin' you,'' Tommy spoke up, making Ada purse her lips then. Celia felt some tension build between them, and she chose not to speak on it.

"Karl! Get that mud out of your mouth please!" she then called to her child, everyone's attention falling on the two year old who was indeed in the process of putting a handful of mud in his mouth. He listened to his mother though, immediately dropping the mud and standing from the ground to toddle over to the bench. "Thank you," Ada smiled at her son as he came closer. Tommy crouched down to be at eye level with the child, who smiled when his eyes fell onto his uncle.

"How're you doing there, Karl? Not giving your mum a hard time I hope," Tommy spoke softly to the child who was only babbling in response. It warmed Celia's heart to see this interaction. It was surprising her to see this man who was supposed to be ruthless and was feared across the city being so soft with the child.

"He's got Shelby in his blood. He's always pushing my buttons," Ada remarked from Celia's other side, the two women laughing slightly. "Tell me about yourself, Celia," she said then, her attention solely focused on the brunette woman sitting next to her.

"Well..." Celia started, unsure of what to say. The statement was so broad and she was trying to decide what was important to put in, what was nonsense, and what was maybe too much. "I'm originally from America..."

"Really? Where?" Ada was questioning with intrigue before Celia had gotten many words out.

"Pennsylvania. Outside of Pittsburgh. We came here because my grandfather was dying and my mother wanted to be by his side. He lived close to here. When he passed, we made the choice to stay and found a house right inside Small Heath," she told her more about herself, deciding to gloss over the reason behind them staying in Britain. She just hoped Tommy hadn't already given that secret away, as he asked the questions that got more answers from her.

"Goodness. I'm sorry to hear about your grandfather. Death in the family is never easy. I hope you're finding being here nice...as nice as Birmingham would let it be," Ada stated, giving Celia her sympathies. "Although I see you've met my brother, so things might not be so nice."

"Oh no, things have been just fine. I met Tommy when he came into the tailor shop that I work at."

"Walter and Edith's?" Ada's eyes lit up slightly. Celia nodded. "Lovely couple they are," Ada smiled at the thought of them.

"They are. They've taken me under their wing and taught me so much," Celia nodded, agreeing with Ada's sentiment about the couple. Before either of the two could speak, Karls cries cut through the silence.

"Alright then, Ada. I think he's lookin' for his mum," Tommy stated as he walked over to where the ladies were sitting. It was then that Celia noticed he'd left their side. She wondered what he'd been doing with the kid while she was talking to the boy’s mother.

"Oh, Karl," Ada sighed as Tommy transferred the fussy child into her arms. "I know. You're hungry," she stated, hugging him close to her chest. "I think it's time for the two of us to leave. Celia, it was nice to meet you. Tommy, stay out of trouble," Ada said as she stood up from the bench. She sent a smile in Celia's direction before giving her brother a knowing look.

Celia waved to little Karl who had finally calmed down in his mother's arms. She watched as they walked off, smiling at the sight of the kids playing around the trees as she felt Tommy sit down next to her. "Want to leave now?" he asked her, but Celia didn't bother looking over at him.

"Not quite yet. It's a beautiful day out, and I'd like some peace before having to go back and deal with my parents," she responded with a shake of her head before she looked over to Tommy.

"Fair enough," Tommy nodded, Celia sending him a smile as a 'thank you' before he focused himself on lighting a cigarette. It wasn't until it was burning in his fingers and he was letting out a stream of smoke that he spoke again, "you're not able to get out much, are you?"

"No, not much," Celia shook her head without much thought. "Unless you count the weekly trip to the grocer as getting out," she clarified. Tommy shook his head.

"Hardly," he stated, making Celia laugh softly.

"Then I don't get out at all. All I know is work."

"Work is good though. Makes it less likely for you to get in trouble if all you're doin' is workin'," he pointed out, making Celia furrow her brows slightly at his statement.

"Who's to say that I'd be getting in trouble if I had the time?" she looked at him incredulously, the smile on her face showing that she was still joking with him.

"Anyone's capable of getting in trouble, Celia," he pointed out, motioning his half-burned cigarette in her direction before he flicked the ash from it, "all you need is the right situation."

"Well suit yourself, Tommy Shelby. I tend to think before I act," she stated, puffing her chest out slightly in a proud manner as she attempted to prove him wrong.

"Ah, you think before you act. Which is why you've agreed to come out with a Birmingham gangster," Tommy was grinning smugly now.

"I've only agreed because you said you wanted to thank me for helping you," she defended her position, although her mind was telling her that she would have agreed regardless. Any time spent trying to learn more and working towards figuring out who Tommy Shelby was was not time wasted.

"Sure. Tell yourself that, love," he was still smug and it annoyed her. Not because he was grinning and calling her out, but because he was right.

"It's true, Tommy!" she protested, but she knew that it'd fall on deaf ears. She knew by now that when his mind was made up, you'd have to go through hell to even try to change it. So when he said nothing, she didn't attempt to speak again. It got quiet then, and Celia desperately tried to think of something more to say. "How did you get into...bookmaking? Was it?" she asked him then, hoping he'd be willing to open up more about himself since the questioning was always so one-sided between them.

"Yeah. It's a...it's something my family's been doing," he paused, clearing his throat then, "for a while now. We've just recently gotten our legal license though, so things are quickly improving for us," he explained to her and she nodded as he spoke. She quickly connected the dots in his words and realized that the fact that they'd just gotten their legal license meant that they had been working illegally since they'd started. "We also have a bar in Birmingham, The Garrison, but it's currently being rebuilt. There was a fire there not too long ago," he continued on.

"I've heard of it. My father's been, and William goes there with his friends he still sees from school at times," Celia commented when she recognized the name. She didn't miss the slight change of expression on Tommy's face when she mentioned William, but didn't dare call him on it because she knew it'd be a dead end.

"Have you ever been?" Tommy asked then, and Celia shook her head.

"I haven't. Women aren't allowed to go into drinking establishments without the accompaniment of a male."

"Nonsense. You're allowed to come. I'll tell Harry who you are and that you're allowed to drink," he told her.

"Thank you," she smiled at his gesture. "So...bookmaking and bar-owning. You have no limit of ambition, do you, Tommy Shelby?" she asked then, turning the floor back to him.

"I guess not," he shook his head, rubbing his nose with his knuckle before he continued, "I'm looking to get into the business of exporting alcohol to America, which is why I've been holding meetings with businessmen in London," he disclosed then.

"Well that's a feat indeed," Celia stated, knowing that America had entered a period of prohibition, which made this business endeavor of Tommy's a rather risky one. "Is there anything you do for fun, or is it all business with you?" she asked then.

Being around you is fun. Tommy thought to himself, but he didn't dare disclose that. "I like horses," he settled on a simple answer.

"That explains your involvement in bookmaking then," Celia pointed out, connecting the dots once again. Tommy nodded.

"I wanted to work with them as my livelihood...before the war," he said then, his voice softer than usual. Celia glanced over at him to see that his eyes were trained on his lap. She sent him a sympathetic look and decided not to pry, knowing full-well from her own experiences that The Great War was something that many people, especially younger men, were trying everything in their power to forget.

Silence fell between the pair, the both of them looking out at the tree-covered field as the sun began to set around them. "Do you want to leave now?" Tommy asked the question that got them into the previous conversation once more. Celia nodded this time.

"Sure. It's starting to get late," she agreed with him, the both of them standing up from the bench in unison.

They were quiet as they walked back into the city, people once again bowing their heads to Tommy as they walked past. Somewhere in the middle of their trek, Tommy took his arm and intertwined it with hers. Celia immediately looked up at him with a shocked expression on her face. "What are you doing, Tommy?" she asked him, looking between their arms and his face as she slowed to a stop.

"It's getting late. I'm keeping you close to me," he stated matter-of-factly, not seeing the problem in what he'd just done.

"I am interested in someone already, Tommy. People will see me on your arm and begin to suspect the wrong thing," she pointed out, her relationship with William coming to mind.

"You're walking with me, Celia. I can assure you that people won't be speaking of what you do with me. They know better; know that word gets around," he told her, his expression leaving her no room to question. "Now can I please continue walking you home before it gets too dark?" he asked then, motioning to the street in front of them. Celia could only nod, but that was all he needed to pull on her arm gently and get her to start walking.

Despite it being only a little after six, there were already people stumbling drunk on the streets, and it was something that made Celia unconsciously move closer to Tommy. Neither could say that they minded it though...Celia felt safe next to him, and Tommy couldn't seem to get her out of his head. It had been that way since they first met weeks back. Soon enough, they were approaching her home, the lights on inside signaled to her that her parents were home and awake, and she hoped that they wouldn't be mad that she'd been avoiding her duties there.

"Thank you for walking me home, Tommy," Celia smiled, unlinking their arms as she moved to stand in front of him.

"Don't mention it. 'S the least I could do. A woman walking alone at night doesn't sit right with me," he waved off her 'thank you'. You walking alone at night doesn't sit right with me, is what he wanted to say. But that wouldn't sit right with her, especially since she's already promised herself to someone. William. Tommy wished that man would disappear.

"Well I appreciate it," Celia smiled once again. "I should be getting inside now. I'm sure you've got business to attend to. I'll be seeing you around, Mr. Shelby.”

"Good night, Celia," he nodded at her, watching as she went to open the door before he then decided to walk off into the night.

[ NEXT CHAPTER ]

Tagged: @mootiemoose @theshelbyclan @alreadybroken-ts @cloudofdisney

#thomas shelby x oc #thomas shelby #tommy shelby x oc #tommy shelby #tommy shelby fanfiction #tommy shelby fanfic #peakyxtommy #peaky blinders #peaky blinders fanfiction #peaky blinders fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic

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moonvyx · 3 years

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Special One Out - Peter Parker (Any)

(Idea from YT and a fanfic)

Warnings: Angst, death and unfair parents .

Y/N's parent's never liked her, there were so many unnecessary reasons why they disliked her. One of the reasons were that she had beautiful h/c hair, while they were brunettes. (If you're a brunette, you can pick a diff hair colour.)

At a very young age of 5, her little sister, Celia was born. (You can use your second name or another name if your name is Celia.)

Y/N craved the attention her parents gave Celia.

She tried to impress them with her daily drawings from school, she tried to impress them by knowing how to spell Czechoslovakia, (I had a hard time spelling this!) but they were unimpressed with everything she did, instead they were impressed with the blabs and whines of Celia.

When Y/N was in her first day of grade 1, her parents didn't say goodbye, not even a good luck kiss on the check.

She felt nervous, no one was there to assure her that it was all gonna be okay.

No one but Peter Parker.

The two met on the playground during lunchtime.

Y/N was sitting on one of the swings, watching all the kids eat and laugh together.

"Hello." A friendly voice greeted, Y/N turned her head to the person who owned the voice.

"Hi," She replied with a smile. "I'm Peter, Peter Parker." The sandy haired boy introduced. "Y/N L/N." The h/c girl replied back.

"May I sit here?" Peter asked, she nodded. "So how's your first day?" He questioned her again.

"Uneventful. Mom and dad didn't even tell me to have a great day." Y/N said sadly. Peter's brows furrowed and his lips turned into a forwn.

"Why?" He asked, "Well they dislike me, for some reason. I never knew why. I didn't ask, I didn't want to be even more disliked." She replied with a frown on her face.

"Oh..Well, that's terrible." Peter stated, looking at the girl. "Yeah, but it's fine. Happens all the time." She said.

"No, you deserve better." Peter said and hugged the girl. "A hug to brighten your day." He breathed. Y/N smiled and laughed, and hugged Peter back.

"I can tell this is a start of a beautiful friendship, Y/N." Peter smiled. "I'm sure it is." She replied with a smile.

Years passed, everything stayed the same.

Y/N's parents still adored Celia, she and Peter still stuck together and formed a beautiful friendship.

But things began to down downhill when a specific blonde began dating Peter.

Gwen Stacy.

Who wouldn't like her? She's pretty, smart, kind, thoughtful, she could he every man's dream girl.

Even Peter's.

And here you are, holding the rails of your balcony as your tears tell down like the Niagara falls.

All because he ditched you just to hang out with Gwen.

"I'm supposed to he used to this, he always ditches me for Gwen." You said, wiping the tears before going back inside your so called home.

"Y/N, I want you to go to the store and get Celia some ice cream, Cookies and Cream. Don't mess it up." Your father commanded strictly. You nodded softly before heading out.

The night was cold, very cold. You mentally thanked yourself for always wearing a hoodie.

As soon as you arrived at the store, you couldn't help but feel like someone has been following you. You just hoped it was some guy who was also going to the store.

But oh how wrong you were.

"That'll be $5," the old lady said. You nodded and hamd dnher your $5 before leaving the store with the plastic bag full of ice cream.

"Thanks miss, have a lovely night." You smiled at her as she also smiled back before leaving.

During your journey on your way home, the same feeling that someone was following you came back.

Scared, you started to walk faster and began to walk in streets where there were a lot of people to scare the man away, if possible.

But sadly the random street walking ended up at an alley with a dead end. You stopped right in your tracks as the man stood behind you, you could feel that he was smirking in success.

"What do you want from me? Leave me alone." You told the creepy man, but all he did was stand there with a creepy look on his face.

He continued to not say anything, but when the one and only Spiderman jumped down from a building, the creepy man immediately grabbed your arm and ran away with you.

Oh but he wasn't alone, 2 other creepy men came out of nowhere and distracted Spiderman as the man who held you run away.

"Get off me!"You yelled at the man. "Let go off me!" He groaned and took out a handkerchief and sprayed it with some weird cologne and covered you mouth and nose with it, making you unconscious.

Before you could fully black-out, the man said "Now you'll shut up."

Y/N woke up with a banging headache. Groaning, she tried to move her arms but realised they were tied to a pole.

"Ah, I see that you're awake. Great timing, your spider boy is here." The same man who covered her mouth earlier said.

"What does this have to do with me?" She asked, attempting to untie the ropes. The man laughed darkly. "Oh you'll see. Just wait." He said before walking away.

A few minutes have passed, it honestly felt like hours for Y/N. She sighed before looking around.

At the corner of her eye, she spotted a familiar Blue and Red Spandex walking around the building.

Relieved, she signaled the hero to come towards her direction. "Psst, Spider-Man!" She exclaimed, but only enough for him to hear.

It seems like his Spider senses heard her voice and alerted him. "Y/N," He said happily and walked to her. "I'm glad you're alright."

She recognised that voice, she paused for a moment before her eyes widened. "Peter?"

Peter's eyes widened, "I-I'm not Peter. Who's Peter?" Y/N laughed, "I know that voice anywhere, Parker. I thought you were a genius." She smiled as he did the same.

"Anyways, let's get you out of here." He said before untying the ropes.

"Not so fast, spider boy." A voice said, the hero turned around in frustration. "Look man, you have no reason to get this innocent fine young lady in trouble." He said.

Spiderman then shot a web towards the criminal, only to be dodged. Laughing, the man called in the rest of his gang and started to attack the hero.

Everyone was so focused on their own thing that they didn't know that one of the gang members placed a bomb.

The other men had already left after leaving Spider-Man tired on the floor, they knew exactly what was gonna happen, and so did Peter.

So with all his strength, he got up and ran to Y/N, who was trying to free herself all this time.

"Peter..Help." She begged, her eyes full of worry. "Shh, it's alright. I'll get you out of here." He said and untied her.

With Y/N free, the two ran for their lives but it was too late, the bomb exploded as soon as they reached the exit.

The blast was strong, it made the two fly away from each other, one of them still near the exit and the other near the edge of the building.

Peter got up and looked around for Y/N, only to see her on the floor, full of bruises.

The ground below her was about to break. Worried, Peter ran as fast as he could to save her.

But it already broke.

She felll.

He didn't hesitate to jump down after her, not forgetting to shoot a web to catch her.

Luckily, his web was able to wrap itself around Y/N's waist, Y/N looked up and saw Peter and gave him a big smile. She mouthed a "thank you" to him as he smiled back.

But the happy moment was ruined when the web snapped, making Y/N fall and scream.

Peter shot another web, hoping that it'd grip on her tighter this time. But it didn't.

He kept trying and trying until one of them didn't fail him.

He smiled again and made sure she was safe as he went next to her.

"Hey," Peter greeted with a dorky smile.

"Hey." Y/N said.

"I'm so glad you're okay." He said, caressing her cheek. "And I to you." The two stared at each other romantically.

The two got down safely, earning many claps from the crowd.

The two never broke their loving stare, that was until Y/N spotted one of the men pointing a gun towards Peter's back.

With no hesitation, she changed their positions and heard a gun shot after. Gasps and screams echoed through the area.

"Y-Y/N?" Peter asked, he looked at her back and saw there was blood leaking from a hole.

"No." He said in realization, he made her face him and begged with tears forming, "Stay with me, Y/N. Please. Stay with me."

But her eyes were already closed.

#avengers x reader #avengers #peter parker #andrew garfield imagine #andrew garfield x reader #Spiderman #tom holland #tom holland x y/n #tobey maguire #avengers angst #peter parker x reader angst

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eponymous-rose · 4 years

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Return of the Revenge of the Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E108-109 (September 15, 2020)

It’s been six months since the last Speech Machine Upper Luminosity (is that right?), so let’s jump right back in like nothing ever happened!

Tonight’s guests are Laura Bailey and Matt Mercer!

Announcements: Talks will now be biweekly, discussing two episodes at a time! Unfortunately, this means fan question submissions aren’t doable yet, since they’ll often be filming Talks for episodes that haven’t aired yet; questions will come from crew, but fanart and cosplay from earlier episodes will still get awards. Dani Carr’s new official title in the company is Lorekeeper!

Episodes 108-109

Brian asks Matt about the tug-of-war with the Moonweaver’s influence: “how much of that did the Traveler and Jester’s interactions influence him not going back to the Feywild?” Matt: “Okay, well, the Moonweaver isn’t necessarily happy about taking on the images and icons and co-opting elements of her worship, but also isn’t a vindictive deity necessarily.” She has a similar fey history to Artagan, “so I knew this encounter, there would be a punishment involved, at the very least to take Artagan down a few pegs.” He wasn’t going to be actually banished; the Moonweaver just wanted to “scare the shit out of him: You think you’re a trickery god? Welcome to the original trickery god, bitch.” There was a possibility of him just vanishing for a while, if there was no sign of humility; but based on their interactions, it was just enough to show the planetar that maybe this isn’t the same “troll of an Archfey” that the Moonweaver had known. “Maybe this is enough of a lesson.”

Laura thought Artagan was going to be “gone-gone, and Jester was going to be left alone”. She thought there was going to be a Feywild rescue, and Jester would have to try to find a new deity.

Laura’s wi-fi conks out. So does mine. Ah, 2020.

Jester would probably have followed the Moonweaver in an attempt to make amends. Laura mentions that every time she sat down to prep something for Traveler-Con, she realized Jester wouldn’t sit still long enough to plan it.

Laura: “If that cult hadn’t been there and she hadn’t seen what a false god could do to people, I don’t think she would have come to the realization that what her and the Traveler were doing was detrimental: oh, we’re fucking over people’s lives, hardcore.” If Artagan hadn’t been on board with picking a different deity, Jester would have stepped down at Traveler Con and she would have exposed the lie.

Matt’s “super happy” because he was purposely making sure he didn’t know what was going to happen at Traveler Con. “Okay, everything around it’s going to be interesting and fleshed out, but as to the actual convention, I have no idea what’s going to happen.” He wanted to balance a complete train wreck with character beats and mini-arcs, and he was satisfied with how that worked out.

Brian asks if Jester ever considered walking away from the Traveler. Laura: “Yeah. It could have progressed to that point. Jester always gave him the benefit of the doubt, and loves him with her entire heart, so if he would have not seen that what they were doing was not acceptable, in his own way, then Jester would have probably walked away. I don’t know if she would have walked away from him, but it would have been a big issue for her. I have no idea what that would have meant for her... my entire character arc.”

How does Jester feel about the Traveler now? “She loves him, but at the same time, she doesn’t adore him without boundaries. She sees a little bit more of who he is, and the worshiping aspect isn’t there anymore. She sees him more like another friend. That’s a complicated relationship for a cleric to have.”

Matt talks about what a fan he is of his players. “I’ve just been enjoying the hell out of this.”

Has Artagan learned his lesson? He’s been living for a long time, and old habits are hard to break. Matt points out that Artagan “is free in a place that he doesn’t have complete domain over, and he’s been humbled a few times. I think he’s definitely learned a series of lessons to some degree. We’ll see how far it sticks and where their relationship goes.”

Brian asks Laura how it’s been to have the spotlight on Jester for a long time. Laura: “It was nerve-wracking. I feel very relieved that it’s on to something else now, but it was so much fun, too. I feel like I kept getting so emotional as her through all this. Having to come to terms with all the things she was going through was crazy. But it felt good.”

Cosplay of the Week: An amazing Yasha by @shiieldmaiden on Twitter, photo by @asheneyed.

Matt: “I took a bath for this.”

Brian notes that Jester found herself caught between her god and the M9. Who would she have chosen if Artagan hadn’t kicked her off? Laura: “Here’s the thing. If Fjord hadn’t jumped on my back, Jester would have gone. But him doing that, I mean, that’s why I froze like I did. I really didn’t know where it was going to go. Thankfully Artie made that choice for me.”

The Vilya reveal’s been waiting since Marisha made Keyleth’s backstory. Brian recalls that the question of what happened to Vilya came up in the campaign 1 recap, and Matt was cagey about it. “When I got the original backstory from Marisha, in my head, I was like, her mother’s probably still alive, just lost to the chaos for reasons that I’ll get to, but I like the idea of an eventual reunion when it made sense.” As they got later in the campaign, Keyleth’s story became about taking on this leadership and stepping into her mother’s footsteps: “I didn’t want to rob her of her journey by bringing her mother into it before it was complete. There wasn’t a beat that felt right for it in the first campaign unless the players actively wanted to go and seek it out.” He knew she was on an island somewhere, and that there was an issue with her memory, but the details were still hazy, and it never came up in the first campaign. “As soon as we got to Rumblecusp as a possible visiting location, I was like, this would probably be the island that Vilya’s at.” He knew the community would pick up on it quickly, but the players would likely be too engrossed in their own story. “Getting to send her home was wonderful, both for an idea of closure, but as a long-waiting gift to Marisha and Keyleth. It’s something that I’ve been looking forward to giving to her.”

On building Vilya’s character: “I wanted to make sure she wasn’t too similar to Keyleth. She couldn’t remember her family, but when she did, it meant everything.”

Brian asks what inspires Jester’s thought process to try and befriend every creature they come across. “Everyone is interesting. Except for Celia, she’s a bitch. If you piss her off, she might just hate you forever, but everybody else she thinks is pretty great. Jester can hold a good grudge.”

Brian asks Matt about the inspiration for Vokodo. “It is a heavily customized version of a Morkoth. I was just intrigued by how they had created this creature that creates this island around it. It has ways of affecting the minds of creatures around it. I didn’t enjoy that the creature was only Medium in size, and I wanted it to be something that was a little bit more changed by its experiences.” He also tied it in with the Astral Sea lore and suggested that it had been changed by its proximity to this volcano, similarly to how Thordak did in the first campaign.

Fan Art of the Week: An amazing Traveler Con Jester and Artagan by @callanthee on Twitter

How about the visions of the living city? Laura: “I don’t know what the fuck is going on with that thing. If it true that there’s a Molly connection, the Eyes of Nine, I don’t know. It’s just too much. We have to look into it.” Matt, blandly: “Weird mysteries.”

Who would the Disintegrate spell have hit if it had ricocheted? “Initially, I would have wanted to choose Caleb, like back at himself, because the immediate threat of that ray towards Vokodo, it would have been just right back at him.” But the runner-up would have been Jester because of the threat of the banishment back to the Astral Sea, the one place he didn’t want to go.

Laura could tell from Liam’s gameplay that he hadn’t realized someone was going to perma-die from that. “I thought it was going to be me, because I had been the one to banish him.”

Dani points out that the group would probably have gone after Artagan if Jester had died right before Traveler Con.

Matt highlights Cad’s Divine Intervention as pretty much the only way they could have learned the important information they used to prepare for the fight with Vokodo. He was torn between frustration at not being able to use this boss to its fullest potential... and pride in his players.

Laura is amused at listening to the characters talking about Jester when she’s not there. “It’s fun to hear but not be able to use that at all in your interactions with them.” Laura points out that even her sister who watches the show doesn’t trust the Traveler. Matt mentions that he’s always being very careful with the relationship between the Traveler and Jester, because it could get into rough territory. “There are unhealthy elements of their relationship, very much so. A lot of her story has been about disillusionment.” Laura: “Yeah. Eyes open.” They’ve set up bumpers to make sure they don’t veer into territory the players find uncomfortable.

“Artagan at the end of campaign one versus Artagan at campaign two are different. He came into this world a purely selfish being of id and impulse. He still has those dark tendencies and can lean down those dark paths. But he went from a purely chaotic, selfish creature to unintentionally beginning to care for people that aren’t him.” Traveler Con definitely left a mark on him. “Aw shit, I let them in.”

Sam starts Facetiming Brian. “How does he know when we’re filming this?! No. I’m not going to do it.”

Matt and Laura are "super excited” for the new landscape of the next part of the journey.

Laura notes that Jester is getting past the point of “needing to put on the mask”, including around her mom. And as that’s happened at Traveler Con, the small breakdowns have been piling up. “That’s what therapy’s like, right?”

On the new goliath shopkeeper (even with the mispronunciations as clues, I got nothing on that spelling), Matt points out that purchasing magical items is tricky because most things were pulled into the war effort. He was trying to figure out how a shopkeeper could build a business in that environment: “with a bunch of really small, shitty enchantments”. As a kid, he loved novelty shops, and took a lot of inspiration from those memories.

So glad everything’s back in business! “As always, don’t forget to love each other. And don’t worry, it’s almost Thursday.”

#critical role #critical role spoilers #talks machina #talks machina spoilers #long text post

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voidsteffy · 3 years

Note

Nancy Drew and Carson Drew for the Character Asks!

Thank you for asking!

For Nancy Drew:

What I love about her: She represents a modern rendition of the beloved character. As much as I hate to say it, the original character was mostly two-dimensional - she could do no wrong and always had things in order. But I love that Kennedy's Nancy is perfectly flawed. Dark and twisted if I may say so.

What I hate about her: Surprisingly, Nancy Drew is the first character in a while that I've found nothing to hate about. Though I dislike how severe (rightfully so) some of her reactions and defense mechanisms were, I don't hate that about her. Her journey that started in second season about needing help and to not be afraid to reach out for it was beautifully. But if that aspect hadn't been introduced, I'm afraid Nancy Drew could turn into a character like Elena Gilbert (tvdu) in time.

Fav moment/quote: (despite the age-gap and the suddenness with which it was introduced, I liked Nowen a bit) (more like I liked Owen lol) so my fav Nancy quote is "It's not always about a guy" It's an underrated one but it kind of sums her character up lol

Needs more focus on: I know they just started the storyline, but I would like there to be more focus on her mental health and actually dealing with her trauma (Kate died, Lucy died, Celia died, Owen died, Carson got arrested bcz of her, the Wraith, the Roadback etc.) with proper therapy. It sets a good example and carves a character around asking for help when they need it.

Needs less focus on: I can't think of anything, because between actually solving mysteries and shacking up, there can be a lot more of Nancy's past dealt with. So nothing for this. I need more, as always lmao

Friendship: Nancy-Bess-George (Nessorge you might say ;P )- the ship has evolved wonderfully in the least screen time given. Bess is almost like an adoptive sister, she even let herself be punched for Bess. George grew from 'I will not hug you' to plopping together on the couch like 'Have you seriously been thinking of flatlining me?' aaah development...

NOTP: Though they're both hot and the actors might have chemistry, I have to say Namura. BECAUSE HE IS QUITE OLDER THAN HER. I absolutely would hate to see another Marrish type situation arise. Tamura is older and it is not romantic, but creepy for a police officer like him get together with a 19 year old young woman. It only seems good on paper (sometimes) but if this happened irl, just.... NO PLS

Headcanon: This is kind of a Nace headcanon but whale here we go: On their drive to New York in Florence, Nancy refuses to sleep in fear that she will never wake up (morbid). But Ace finally convinces her to catch a wink. When he moves his hand to change the gear, his hand brushes against Nancy's, so paying no heed to the driving inconvenience, Ace holds Nancy's hand with his right, driving mostly one handed till New York.

For Carson Drew:

What I love about him: He is the most patient man to ever exist. I mean, he gets arrested because of his daughter AND HE'S STILL OKAY WITH IT AND SMILES WHEN HE'S HOME. He's also so patient with Bess (ugh just adopt her already) and also Ryan. I mean, I now understand why Kate married him cz damn!

What I hate about him: Nothing. The man is literally dad-material. He's sweet, kind, caring, patient, forgiving, space-giving, possessive, defensive about his daughter's care (lol I should put this in the 'love about him' section but...) HE IS PERFECT YOU HEAR ME? If I got into jail for B&E, my dad would disown my ass, unlike Carson who TALKS to her.

Fav moment/quote: For angst purposes, my favorite moment is when Carson admits that the moment Lucy placed Nancy in his and Kate's arms, Nancy was his daughter. (no one cried in that scene nu-uh, no one.) But for humor purposes, my fav moment is when he asks Ryan for a dollar to reengage his services and Ryan's turns on his rich mode. My favorite quote is when McGinnis has to start a ceremony in the house and Nancy explains why. He's like "There are many things we need to discuss"

Needs more focus on: His thoughts about Nancy walking into supernatural danger (and the trailer does show that we will be seeing more of protective dad mode from Mr. D) I also wouldn't be opposed to a thousand more scenes with Ryan as co-dads.

Needs less focus on: Nothing. As I said it earlier, the man is perfect and nothing should be reduced from his scene-length or characterisation.

Friendship: I'm conflicted between Carson-Ace and Carson-Bess. Both the friendships are so precious!

NOTP: I'm obligated to say Karen because she violated my baby Nancy's privacy and ARRESTED CARSON (WTF KAREN).

Headcanon: Right after Nancy caught Nathan Gomber, Carson and Kate wanted to sleep with Nancy in their bed to keep her close. But she refused, saying that she was fine. Still, both Carson and Kate used to take shifts and camp right outside Nancy's room every night for a few weeks so that they would be there if Nancy had any nightmares or night terrors. (ugh my brain works in mysterious ways)

#nancy drew #asks #character opinions #notp #headcanons #ships #friendships #otp #george fan #bess marvin #kennedy's nancy drew #nancy drew cw #finally a place where my overactive analysis comes to use #carson drew #carson drew is the ultimate dad #he is the sweetest guy to ever exist in any fictional universe #ugh i just love the nancy drew crew okay?#can't help it

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julemmaes · 3 years

Note

Zero pressure cuz I know you’re working on other things but are u still planning on writing the sequel to I Love You with Cal?

I’m Sorry

acotar next gen fan fic

part two for this one shot here

A/N: I won’t be giving any summary cause it’s 1am and I’m crying cause I just want to be able to sleep, I just hope this will satisfy you all and maybe makes you cry a little cause it was hard to finish it. Please if there’s any mistakes don’t point that out to me, I’ll check tomorrow. Enjoy!

Masterlist

Word count: 3,857

Cal had returned home shortly after dinner. His family had already finished eating and he just wanted to get some rest after the long day he'd had with Raina.

They'd stayed up all night the day before because her parents hadn't been home, and during the day he'd found it difficult to focus on his classes, so much that he'd skipped one in order to take a nap in the university gardens. All of this, of course, hadn't stopped him from going straight back to Raina's house to spend more time together, and while they were supposed to be studying for the upcoming exam they were both taking, they had decided to spend the entire afternoon doing the nasty.

Now, lying on his bed, he tried not to laugh too loudly at the memes he was looking at, so as not to disturb Ezra who was studying despite the hour. Unlike him, his brother couldn't afford to fail an exam and his mother would surely hit him repeatedly if he tried to mess that up.

He was about to shut everything off and warn Raina that he was going to sleep, when Ezra sighed too loudly to be casual. Thinking it was just for the studying, Cal didn't give it that much thought and opened up the chat with his girlfriend, starting to type his goodnight.

"Fuck it." muttered Ezra, closing the book, "Cal, man?"

"Hmm?" he hummed from his spot on the bed.

"Yesterday after you left, something happened and I think you should know because it's partially your fault too and the rest of us have all apologized already." he said in a tone that was far too serious for the relaxed situation they were in.

Cal's head snapped towards him for a second as he saw Ezra get up and walk towards his bed, before returning his attention to the screen where Raina was telling him she was going to take a shower - and think about him in the process. An idle grin appeared on his lips and he held his breath when she sent him a picture in front of the mirror wearing only a pair of panties.

"Can you please listen to me without looking at your phone?" asked Ezra a little more pressing.

Cal huffed, running a hand through his hair and turning off the screen. He crossed his hands over his chest, smiling sarcastically at his brother, "You have my full attention."

It wasn't true. If he wanted to sleep that night, he too would have had to take a shower to get rid of that uneasy itch between his legs. The picture Raina had just sent him shone brightly etched into his eyelids, but he wasn't going to risk Ezra grabbing his phone out of his hands and seeing pictures of his half-naked girlfriend.

Not again, at least.

"You're not listening to me," Ezra blurted, his voice low.

"God you sound like mom when she gets pissed," he snorted. He pulled himself up on his elbows, jerking his chin, "What?"

"I caught Celia coming out of the tavern yesterday and she was crying," the other said, slipping off his shirt to put on his pajamas, "Mom and dad have already talked to her and me and the girls have apologized more than once, I slept in there with them last night, but-" he cleared his throat, running a hand over his face.

Cal forgot about Raina in a split second.

If Celia had cried and Ezra had felt the need to tell him, it meant it was something important.

"But?" urged Cal to continue, sitting up and setting the phone down on the nightstand.

Ezra looked him straight in the eye as he took off his jeans as well, then looked away, shaking his head, "Before I tell you, it's not your fault specifically, it was a lot of things that built up that made her break down for a moment-"

Cal interrupted him, "Can you get straight to the point, please? You're worrying me."

"It's not even that important, I just think you need to know."

"Jesus Christ, just tell me," he snapped.

"Celia had a complete nervous breakdown last night," Ezra said in one breath, kneeling on his bed without even looking at him. Cal's heart clenched in his chest. "She said we don't love her like we love the rest of us," he sighed, "that mom and dad never have time for her basically."

Then Ezra's icy eyes pierced into Cal's hazel ones, and he knew that whatever he said next would be the heaviest bit to hear. He tucked into his shoulders, breathing through his nose.

"She also said that Nora hates her. That you hate her."

Cal closed his eyes, bringing a hand to his forehead, "Fuck." he muttered, "She mentioned me and Nora specifically?"

Ezra didn't answer and Cal opened his eyes, seeing him nod with a grimace on his face, "Dad told her that's not true, obviously, but I think it would be good for her to hear it directly from you."

"Fuck." muttered Cal again. He put his feet on the ground, leaning forward and taking his head in his hands as he remembered how he'd dismissed Celia not once, but twice in the space of a few minutes when she had needed him.

To go have sex, of all things.

"Why didn't you call me? Texted me?" asked Cal, looking over his shoulder at Ezra, "I would have come home sooner." he sighed again when he suddenly remembered the conversation that had taken place only a couple of hours earlier with Celia.

They had been sitting on the couch in the living room in silence when Cal had asked her what movie she wanted to watch and she hadn't answered him right away. She hadn't even looked at him when she'd said, "You don't have to be pretend like you like to stay home with me." before getting up from the couch and going upstairs, probably to her room. Cal had been surprised by those words, but hadn't dwelled too much on his sister's tone of voice or her hurt expression, continuing to text Raina.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck." he cursed himself again, thinking about how much that indifference of his had done nothing but prove her fears. He didn't dwell on the image of a distraught Celia crying that appeared in his head too.

Ezra clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, "Listen, if you go in there like this you're just going to scare her," he told him softly, "Calm down for a moment and take a couple of minutes to think, because it sounds like you've been given the worst news you can get, so breathe, think and if you can't get it all done before eleven maybe you should wait until tomorrow morning."

Cal wanted to tell him that it was one of the worst things anyone could say to him, but looking into his eyes he realised that he must have felt the same way the night before.

"Did you find her crying or..?"

Ezra lifted a shoulder, tucking himself under the covers and folding his arms behind his head, "I told you, she was downstairs and I didn't understand what she was doing there, then dad saw her and she burst into tears." a short pause before he resumed speaking in a lower voice, "I haven't heard her cry like that in a few years. She has to be holding it all in for so long."

Cal ran a hand over his face, puffing out his cheeks.

His phone screen lit up with a notification from Raina.

He opened the chat without even checking the last picture she had sent him:

'I'll text you later princess, something came up and I'm not really in the mood to send you pictures. Sorry.'

Her reply didn't even take ten seconds to appear, 'No, I'm sorry, I wouldn't have sent anything if I knew something was wrong. You need me to call you?'

Cal smiled slightly at the phone, 'Don't worry, you couldn't have known.'

The message that followed sounded more threatening than anything else, 'Okay, but you didn't answer my question, do you want me to call you? I can be there in five if I have to. Or you can come back here, you know I'm alone.'

As tempting as that invitation was, Cal shook his head, knowing full well that it held no double meaning, just genuine concern. 'It's Celia. She wasn't well last night and no one thought to warn me.'

'Oh, what happened?'

'Can I text you later? I have to take care of this now. It's nothing to worry about, just, I'll tell you later.'

'Alright.' Cal chuckled. It was just like seeing her, biting the inside of her lip, thinking of all the possibilities.

'Love you.'

He didn't wait for her reply and lay back down on the bed, putting himself in the same position as his brother.

"Do you think I was an asshole?" he asked at one point, looking up at the ceiling.

He heard Ezra moving around on the bed and when he turned around, his brother was lying on his side, his head resting on one arm. He looked so much like their mum. "She didn't really elaborate when she said you hate her-"

"Could you stop saying I hate her as if it were true?" interrupted Cal, frowning.

Ezra arched an eyebrow, "Sorry." then looked at him attentively, "I was saying, she didn't say anything in particular, so I wouldn't know. What did you do to sweep her off her feet like that?"

Cal looked at him with a slightly wide mouth, "For someone who says it's not my fault, it sure as hell looks like you don't believe it."

"I'm just fucking with you, though, she said you kicked her out of the room," then grimaced, "Actually, dad and I did that too, so don't worry if it's true."

Cal shook his head, amazed, looking up at the ceiling again, "We're all assholes then."

"What did you tell her?" asked Ezra again.

"I just told her I'd help her with her homework, I guess, and then I left," he replied.

"For?" Cal turned to him with an expression that said it all. Ezra scoffed, "You could have helped her five minutes, before you went off to fuck."

Cal flinched at those words, knowing full well how true they were, "You could have done the same. What were you and dad doing anyway?"

Ezra took a while to answer, "We were supposed to be fixing the bike, but we were actually playing darts."

"Busted." he muttered, "We should scold dad too then." joked Cal, trying to lighten the mood a little.

"I think he's regretted it enough already," the eldest said in a serious tone, "He barely touched his food at dinner yesterday and then went straight to bed."

"Maybe he was just tired," Cal assumed, trying to kill time before the inevitable.

"I don't think so, he pretty much spent all day staring at Celia like she might break at any moment." he ran a hand through his hair, mussing it, "Sometimes I wonder how they manage with five kids. It must be hard."

Cal frowned, looking at his brother, trying to figure out if he was just playing around or not. When he saw Ezra staring at the ceiling with a lost gaze, he realized that no, he was one hundred percent serious.

That he didn't realize the help he gave his parents? It was true, Ezra was only four years older than Cal, but there was no way he shouldn't be considered some sort of third parent. The eldest of the siblings had taken care of all of them from day zero and had never backed down from such duty.

Cal's eyes widened, deciding not to broach that subject that evening.

One thing at a time.

"Do you think you'll talk to her tonight?" asked Ezra, "I only ask because - even if you don't have to tonight - I think you should go say goodnight, tell her you love her before you go to sleep."

"Give me ten more minutes and then I'll go," Cal murmured.

"As long as you need."

***

"The other day when I went out with Iria and we met one of the boys in her class," Nora said with bright eyes, "he asked me to give him my number and I don't think I should tell mom."

Celia giggled, hiding her face against the duvet on her bed, "She'd definitely tell dad and at that point you'd be quicker to jump in front of a train on your own."

Nora burst out laughing, looking up at her from the upside down position she was in, "Iria said the same thing too."

"What's his name?"

Her sister's face lit up, "Zeke. I don't know his last name." then she cackled, "Maybe I should ask him."

"Is he cute?" asked Celia just as the door opened and Cal appeared.

"Who's cute?" asked their brother, just the instant Nora said, "Don't you know how to knock?"

"An actor." replied the younger one, as any sort of excitement vanished inside her.

She didn't want the strange bubble that had been created over the last few hours to burst. She had finally managed to convince Nora to spend some time with her as they hadn't done in months and she hadn't had that much fun in too long.

Cal shifted his gaze from Nora to her, keeping his eyes fixed in hers for a while before turning back to Nora, "You're not telling me the truth."

"Why are you here?" the older one asked, turning on her stomach and looking at her brother standing in the doorway.

Celia felt herself blush for some reason when Cal's eyes settled on her again and said, "Could you come with me for a moment?"

She arched an eyebrow, "Why?"

The boy seemed to hesitate for a few seconds, "I'd like to talk to you."

Nora yawned, not covering her mouth, "The two of us would be talking."

Cal turned to the older of the two of them, "Stop being so bossy."

"I wouldn't have to if you knocked before coming into our room and then claimed to steal Lia from me," Nora replied tensely.

Celia pulled herself up to her seat, rubbing her hands over her face as she tried to suppress a smile.

She knew they weren't really fighting, but they were bickering to win her attention, her time, and she'd be lying if she said it wasn't warming her heart.

"I-" stammered Cal, gesturing to Nora, "What- I'm not trying to steal Cece from you, I just want to talk to her for five minutes."

"What do you want Cal?" she asked trying to figure out what she needed to discuss at this time of the night.

Cal gave her an exasperated look, "Ezra told me what happened last night, I wanted to apologize."

Both she and Nora straightened up, but Celia was the only one who held her breath, blinking a couple of times, hoping to erase any trace of surprise from her expression.

Nora cleared her throat, sitting up, "I think I'll go brush my teeth." she said getting up.

Celia frowned, "You've done that before with-"

"Brush my teeth!" she repeated loudly, closing the bedroom door behind her.

Now only she and Cal stood in the room.

"Cal, you don't-"

He interrupted her before she could say anything else, crossing the room with two wide strides, "I want to apologize."

Celia looked at him, pulling herself up to sit cross-legged as he plopped down on Nora's bed in front of her. She nodded her head to tell him to continue, "You already said that."

"I know," Cal whispered. Then he shifted his gaze outside the window that separated the girls' beds, "I know."

Her eyes fell on his hands and she saw that he was torturing his ring she knew Raina had given him for their first anniversary. A nervous tic that characterised practically every adult in that house. Celia was just waiting for the day when Nora, too, was given a ring and she, too, would start twisting it between the index finger and thumb of her opposite hand.

They were silent for a few seconds and Celia was about to speak, make his task easier by telling him that everything was fine, that it had just been a particularly tiring day, but the words caught in her throat when he looked back at her and in the most serious tone of voice she had ever heard him use, he said, "You know you're my best friend right?"

Celia didn't know how to respond. She wasn't even sure if she was actually breathing. That's why she forced herself to get some air into her lungs. That strained breath must have sounded like a sob or a gasp, because Cal grimaced before resuming.

"I know it's not always like this Cece, but you're my best friend.

"I'm sorry for leaving you like that last night. I was an asshole and I shouldn't have acted like that. I have no excuse for ignoring you and then leaving for Raina's without helping you first, but I want to tell you something." he looked at her with such intensity that she didn't understand how he could speak. She nodded slowly.

"You will always be my sister. You will always be the person I love most in the world. You, Nora, Andra, Ezra." he swallowed noisily, "You are my life and I love you. Understand?"

Celia nodded with slightly wide eyes.

"We're growing up. These years won't be like the ones we had when we were younger, but that doesn't mean I don't love you as much as ever. That I hate you." he shuddered at those words, "Hell, Ce, I could never hate you. Not even if you did me the greatest wrong in the world.

"We'll go back to being close, as close as... as-" he grunted, throwing his hands to the sky, "Like two broad beans in a pod."

Celia chuckled, frowning, "What are you talking about?"

"I don't know, it's not important," he smiled. "What is important is that you understand that no one in this family hates you. No one could ever hate you."

The words were out before she could stop them, "It seems that way sometimes."

Cal contracted his jaw, "I know, I'm sorry," he said in a lower voice, "I can tell you something that will probably make you feel better."

"Alright."

"Ezra and I are essentially five years apart, and," he straightened, running a hand through his hair, "There was a time when I was a senior in middle school, just like you, and when he was a junior in high school at the same time."

"That must have been hard for you," Celia whispered.

Cal nodded, smiling at her reassuringly, "It was one of the worst times of my life, I think. I was sure Ezra wouldn't consider me a friend anymore, just a brother, because he's legally forced to be that, you know." they both chuckled, "But no, Ezra was just growing up and you get to a point where your interests are too different to keep getting involved in everything the other does.

"It definitely happened to Nora with me and it's going to happen to Andra with you," then, seeing the scared look on her face that one day she would make her little sister feel the way her older siblings were making her feel at that moment, he added, "But Cece, that's life. I'm not saying it's easy, but it's not your fault. It happens."

"It still hurts." she pointed out again.

Cal reached out to her, putting both hands on her shoulders, "I know, but I can assure you that the second you get old enough and mom and dad will let you hang out with Nora, you'll completely forget you ever felt that way."

"Was it like that for you and Ezra?"

He nodded, getting up to sit on her bed next to her, "It took me a little longer than it will take you, because of the bigger age gap, but yeah." he nodded, smiling at her, "When Ezra and I started 'playing together' again," he said mimicking the quotes with his fingers, "It was like all the years we were too far apart to actually have fun together faded away. It was like finding an old friend you thought you'd never see again." he put an arm around her shoulders, bringing her against his side, "That's why I'm telling you not to worry."

Celia closed her eyes, muttering, "You were still an asshole, though. And so was Nora. And a little bit Ezra too."

She felt Cal shake while chuckling, "Andra wasn't? At least she's safe."

"Oh, shut up," she said, breaking free from her brother's grasp.

Cal looked down at her, a smile all too similar to their father's on his lips, "I love you, Cece." he said under his breath.

She nodded, feeling her cheeks heat up, "I love you too."

Then Cal laughed, running a hand over his face to stop the giggles and avoid waking their parents.

"What's up?" asked Celia in an amused tone.

"God," Cal breathed, trying not to laugh, "I can't wait until you and Nora are old enough to drink. Ezra and I have to take you to see so many places."

Celia rested her hands on her knees. She still didn't understand all that drinking hype, but she was sure her brothers would give her unforgettable experiences.

Cal let himself fall backwards on the bed, covering his face with an arm, "I'm sorry for acting like that yesterday, I'll try to pay more attention to your needs or whatever you want." he murmured after the laughter was fully subsided.

Celia lay next to him on the mattress, close enough that she could feel the warmth of his body, "It's nothing, I'm fine now."

"It's not nothing," Cal said, firmly, "The fact that you had to reach such a breaking point that you couldn't hold back the crying isn't nothing, don't even think that as a joke."

When she didn't answer, he took it as an invitation to continue.

"And I know dad already told you, but talk to us before you break down like that."

Celia swallowed, trying to chase away the tears, "I will." she finally whispered.

She heard Cal sigh, "Come here," before he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her towards him. Celia closed her eyes, letting her older brother hold her, letting him give her the love they all said they felt for her.

Finally feeling the entirety of that weight being lifted from her shoulders, she fell asleep with Cal's voice promising her incredible adventures and memorable nights in a future Celia never imagined would be so close.

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talesofafangirlwithadvr · 4 years

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**SPOILERS** Featuring Netflix’s Cursed

SPOILER FREE REVIEW:

When I first heard about this show coming to Netflix I was excited. As someone who loves watching King Arthur inspired shows/movies, I was interested to see how the story would change by following Nimue aka the Lady of the Lake. I was surprised at how few Arthurian references were made. Mainly just focusing on characters names (like Arthur) and re-inventing them. This is more inspired by Arthurian legend than a full re-telling (or at least for this first season). From what I’m familiar with, there isn’t a whole lot of similarities with the King Arthur legend. When I first heard about the focus on Nimue, I thought the story would have followed a time long before Uther. Instead it’s more like an alternative story.

There are a lots of characters and plots that can feel info dumpy at times, but you kind of roll with it and see how important they are as you go. Due to having SO many characters, it makes it easier to watch and doesn’t make me want to read the book. I think fans of Game of Thrones will like it because it feels like it’s trying to bank on filling the fantasy void that GOT left. (Especially with all of the characters involved and mini story-lines.) Disclaimer: There is A LOT of blood and gore. Sometimes it feels unnecessary and that they had a blood quota. So watch out for that if you’re squeamish or don’t like gory things. (There were a few parts I had to look away from.)

Despite all of this negativity, once I understood this was a show that’s loosely based in the lore, I actually grew to like it. Of course, there’s things I would be okay without, but overall if/when a season 2 comes out I would watch it.

SPOILER REVIEW:

Two things that I think made this watch even more enjoyable/fun was 1) Watching it with someone 2) Watching it with the captions on. [Mystical Twinkling]--Every time the sword made a noise.

Like I said before, there were A LOT of characters and for some of them I really didn’t care. As the show went on, it made more sense, but still had a lot going on. At times, I wished I could see more of the characters I liked (ie: The Weeping Monk) compared to the Raiders.

I definitely made a lot of Game of Thrones references and surprisingly The 100 too. Also, naming people other names. When the Widow showed up to Merlin we were joking around that it was his Mom. Also, thought Squirrel was Nimue’s brother for the longest time.

Villains:

SISTER IRIS!!! She needs to stop and I hate that she survived at the end of the show. For a small moment it looked like she might have changed her mind about killing the Fey Queen, but after that creepy scene of psyching herself into it, I knew she was a lost cause. Her and the paladins were very creepy and eerie. All the red just felt uncomfortable. So, that made them a chilling villain. I’m just frustrated that won’t be the last time we see Iris as now she’s been truly welcomed into the fold.

“Born in the Dawn to walk in the Twilight”

MERLIN!!! I really enjoyed this incarnation of him and the direction they decided to take. Basically every scene he was in I enjoyed. The idea of him losing his powers to the sword and then the SWORD BEING INSIDE OF HIM!! AND THAT ENDING!! Such an epic scene when he used the sword. (I kept making Thor references with all the lightning.)

1x06 was probably my favorite episode because of his backstory/flashbacks with Lenore. They easily are one of my top ships of the show (very close to Pym and Dof). I GUESSED he was Nimue’s Dad (because it made a lot of sense) and was SO HAPPY when he was revealed as her dad. I really loved their dynamic. Gustaf did a fantastic acting job showing how much Merlin cares for Nimue. His watery eyes in so many scenes! And that the last one when she called him father and he couldn’t hold onto her! No wonder why he decided to use the sword again. I’m very excited to see what happens to him in season 2 (if/when there is one). I’m also interested to see what happens with him and Morgana. In Arthurian legend they are adversaries, but can have a very complicated relationship. Despite all of the changes in the show, I’m sure they’ll keep that in (or something close).

Speaking of Morgana.... I really loved her character from when we first met her. I thought it was an interesting choice that she went under the name Igraine as she was Arthur’s sister and that’s his mother’s name. And then when the reveal happened with her actual name I got excited. When she was talking to Celia (when she was dead) I kept shouting NOOO and wanted to run into the TV. I like that they are going to explore her sorceress side. Now that she became the widow it should be interesting to see how powerful she will be. (We don’t know much about that character.) So happy she stayed loyal to Nimue at the end.

I’m a HUGE fan of Daniel Sharman and after watching Medici earlier this year, I was very excited to see him back on Netflix with another show. Even though he was a villain in the show I kept holding out hope that he could be turned. (Probably because of my love for the actor.) Very early on I felt he was Fey. This was mainly due to the fact he could smell them out. This isn’t a trait that any other man blood had. There was also the fact he didn’t harm kids that sent a red flag to me that something probably happened in his childhood. I was pretty accurate when his backstory (or some of it) was revealed in 1x10. My one major complaint about this season is that we didn’t get more of him/more of his story sooner. Because if there isn’t a second season than we won’t be able to see this transformation happen. That is one of my favorite tropes in TV shows and books.

While the Weeping Monk’s relationship with Squirrel was only a little part of this season, I really enjoyed them together. So I was very excited that they ended up together at the end, which will probably have them together for a good amount of another season. Their dynamics will be interesting to see. Definitely get an Arya and The Hound vibe.

AND THAT NAME REVEAL! I can’t believe I didn’t piece it together!! Squirrel as Perceval makes so much sense! I read the romance of Perceval and the Story of the Holy Grail when I was studying in college and Preceval starts out as this young kid who longs to be a knight and is very hot-tempered and innocent. He will jump into anything without thinking about it first. That’s squirrel! So when Gawain named him before knighting him a knight of the Fey it was just perfect! I am very excited to see how his character develops. I just hope he doesn’t age too much before the next season. AND LANCELOT! I can’t believe I didn’t see that one coming! But it also makes sense as Lancelot is a skilled fighter and so is the Weeping Monk. With a name like Lancelot, he has a lot to live up to. I am very ready to witness this transformation.

While watching the show I was doing my best to avoid all spoilers, yet in my YouTube feed I came across a few videos shipping the Weeping Monk and Nimue. This made me believe the two would have a true scene together, but no. I was very shocked that they did not and that the fandom already loves them so much. I can understand it because there are a lot of similarities between the two characters. From both in a way being cursed and the parallels with them having scars (specifically on their backs). He’s fire and she’s water and we know the connection there. Plus, the whole enemies to lovers trope feels strong. I also know about the lore of Lancelot and the Lady of the Lake which they have to explore. So, I can definitely see myself getting aboard this ship.

For me Arthur’s character started out very wishy washy. I’m not a big fan of love at first sight ships just because I feel they’re not realistic. (I guess that’s the unromantic in me.) And then the fact that he backstabbed Nimue by stealing the sword all to try and restore his honor (which he failed). Now I know this was all within the first few episodes but when he tells her he doesn’t want to be saved yet they still love each other...idk. It felt like it was contradicted the female queen power being showcased. For me their relationship overall just felt rushed. Perhaps if it wasn’t so fast then maybe I could have gotten on board with it. I think time apart will help me like Arthur’s character more.

.....

Definitely watch Cursed on Netflix if you’re a fan of medieval fantasy and don’t mind keeping up with a ton of characters and gore. Then you’ll hope for a second season as much as me!

#netflix cursed #cursed netflix #lady of the lake #spoilers #katherine langford #merlin #gustaf skarsgard #nimue #the weeping monk #Daniel Sharman #lancelot #squirrel #arthur #pym #morgana

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multimetaverse · 4 years

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Doafp 1x10 Review

Two Party System was a nice end to a stellar season though one story line didn’t quite stick the landing. Let’s dig in!

All is well once more with Elena and Sasha and Jessica. Great to see them open up to each other and for Elena to put sisters before misters. We’re really starting to see Elena become a leader and I loved the ending line of ‘’diary we’re just getting started’’. I do hope if there’s a S2 that we start seeing more of a direct line between Elena’s middle school life and her eventually becoming president because as of now the flashforwards to her as president 25+ years later seem gimmicky

Sabi are hetero goals again. It’s been a very nice surprise to see how much they’ve focused on some pretty adult topics with Gabi and Sam. It’s hard for kids shows to pull off and I commend them for it; it reminds me of some of the focus we saw on Bex and Celia’s relationships and their pretty heavy issues in AM S1 and 2a. This was certainly the right time for them to put all of their cards on the table with Gabi realizing that Bobby is starting to see Sam as a father figure. I’m very curious to see where they go with Sabi in future seasons, if they’re renewed

Bobby’s story line took one step forward and two steps back tonight. Bobby reconciling with Liam and coming to grips with his sexuality in front of the mirror was a nice way to end his arc this season; it was also a retreat back into subtext from the more explicit ways they’ve touched on Bobby’s sexuality in eps 8 & 9. And the way Bobby’s conflict with Liam was wrapped up is noticeably different from how Elena’s conflicts with Sasha and Jessica and Gabi’s conflict with Sam.

Bobby and Liam made up by not actually discussing anything which sadly reminds me of what happened with Tyrus on AM after costume day. So many people after that ep aired said that Tyrus couldn’t reconcile and get together unless they talked things out, but of course they never did and they reconciled like nothing had ever happened and then had an underwhelming ending that could have happened without all the poorly written angst and drama. Now I don’t think the Bobby and Liam conflict will end up being all that important in the long run if the show is renewed because I don’t think Liam is Bobby’s love interest and if the show gets renewed then the writers have plenty of time to learn from this mistake but it’s more the fact that they made this mistake. If a show can’t pay off a story line then they shouldn’t do it; the writers had no excuse. They never would have Gabi tell Sam that she was just stressed because of work and then have everything go back to normal after their breakup in ep 8 because that would have been absurd. Having Bobby and Liam get in a brawl is great drama but set up becomes meaningless without payoff. It’s not a great sign that the Doafp writers are already making mistakes that it took the AM writers until almost the end of that show to make

I had flagged Cami explicitly stating the reason why Bobby fought Liam in my ep 9 review as potential set up for them not having Bobby tell Liam about his feelings which isn’t so surprising as we’ve literally never had a boy confess his feelings to another boy on a Disney show before. Since S2 if it happens will open on the start of the next school year it’s very unlikely that they’ll ever touch on the fight again which is for the best if Bobby is going to end up with someone else; just like how on AM it was for the best that Cyrus never told Jonah about his old crush on him. Again I really hope that the writers make a plan for how to give Bobby the best possible plot in the face of Disney censorship. The best case scenario for the show is that they get 3-4 seasons total which would mean they have 20-30 odd eps to explore whatever it is they want to explore with all the characters. They just won’t have the time to drag things out like they did on AM, the 23 ep gap between Cyrus coming out to Andi and coming out to Jonah is likely more eps then Doafp has left for example. On Andi Mack the rule was that there couldn’t be anymore than 2 coming outs per season but their seasons were also 20+ eps so who knows if the Doafp writers can swing that in 10 ep seasons. All coming outs also had to be one on one coming outs but if they let Bobby come out to his family all at once then that would probably make things easier for the writers

Brandon Severs Jr really needs to stop with the Cartero hyping. It’s great that he ships cartero but there’s no evidence that he’s been told to act like Liam likes Bobby back in sharp contrast to how it was clear from the start that TJ liked Cyrus back because Luke had been told that TJ was gay. At least Josh and Luke and Terri and the other cast and crew who hyped up Tyrus to varying degrees were actually hyping up a ship that did end up canoning; what got them in trouble was hyping up the ship too much without knowing until the end whether it was actually going to be allowed to canon and lying about Disney censorship. What’s Brandon going to do when they eventually introduce a love interest for Bobby?

I like the development of the classmates like Claude and Ryan and Belinda and Joey and the Brits. They feel like real people in a way that background class mates rarely do on TV shows. It will serve the show well if they get renewed

The show has had great continuity so far, like with Ryan telling Elena that his mom and Claude’s mom are friends which is something Claude had mentioned earlier in the season. But I didn’t like that they blew up the timeline so that not only is spring break over in ep 9 but ep 10 which ends only a few days later is also the end of the school year. Timeline issues in and of themselves are not necessarily serious but they’re usually a warning sign that things are going wrong in the writers room. The GMW timeline never made much sense but it ended up becoming a total shitshow once that show got really bad and the AM timeline only started to get messy in 2b when the show’s writing started to get bad

Looking Ahead:

Doafp has really turned out to be a delightful surprise and I can only hope that it gets renewed though with the corona virus sweeping the world any announcement and any future production won’t be for a while most likely

With Sasha having a thing for Claude and Joey seemingly interested in Elena I think S2 will likely see a bigger focus on Elena and her friends and boys. It would be nice to see Joey’s bar mitzvah in S2 though I doubt they can top Cyrus’ bash mitzvah

I hope they introduce a love interest for Bobby in High School and that the censorship isn’t too bad but we shall see

If the show is cancelled and this ends up being the final review then thanks for reading and if we get more seasons I’ll see you back here one day

#diary of a future president #doafp #Bobby Cañero-Reed #Elena Cañero-Reed #Gabi Cañero-Reed #Sam Faber #Liam Carter #doafp reviews #cartero

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nala-raines · 4 years

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Chapter 1 Reminiscing

Adrian Raines x Nala August (MC)

Summary: Few months after Rheya’s defeat, Lily’s death, and telling the world the truth, Nala is both proud of Adrian for running for the Senate, and she’s terrified of what their future may hold. So, Adrian takes her on a surprise trip to spend some time alone together. But he has something he want to ask her for a very long time. But no matter what happens, they both want to make one thing clear on this trip, that no matter what happens, no matter what comes their way, they want to go through it. Together.

Author’s note: I know this is very long, but I hope you read and enjoy it. And this is the beginning of what I would want from BloodBound 4.

If my friend Heidi had told me everything that was going to happen to me right before I moved to New York City, I would have thought she was crazy. Looking back back now, I can’t help but laugh at most of it, and wonder how I survived it all. But I made it through with the help of Adrian, Kamilah, Jax, Gaius, and of course… Lily. I miss her every day. But I’m so thankful for everything that she, and everyone else has done. Especially Adrian.

A few days after the press conference I noticed that I was weaker than normal and something felt off. Adrian noticed it too, he thought that feeding would fix the problem, it helped a little, but it wasn’t until I had human food that I felt better. Then one day I had stayed at the Shadow Den and left right when the sun was coming up, but then I got out of the cab ready to run to the front doors at Raines Corp., but the sunlight didn’t hurt. I wasn’t burning at all, Adrian was at the door staring at me trying to get me inside when he noticed that I wasn’t burning as well. He still ran out to get me, but that when he noticed the sunlight didn’t really hurt him either. After running a few tests, we guessed that when I gave up Rheya’s powers, some of my vampiric abilities, like the weakness, left me as well. I’m pretty sure the serum made a few permanent changes to Adrian’s body. They just took awhile for those changes to develop.

After hearing that, I was worried that Adrian, as ridiculous as it sounds, would leave me. Between the grief of losing Lily, the thought of Adrian going through the same pain and grief of losing me a few months earlier, and with Lily gone I can’t help but remember the other people I’ve loved and lost, the bad relationship between me, my sister, and parents, it was just too much. When I told him, he just held. Told me “I love you.” a few dozen times in 3 minutes. He also let me bury my face in his shoulder or chest and cry, until I fell asleep. He’s always been there when I need him, and I know that he always will be.

A month after things began to settle down, he started planning his campaign to become the first vampire senator. I am so proud of him. That would be another thing that I never thought would happen, me dating a senator hopeful, but I don't really care what he does as long as I’m at his side and he’s at mine. Even in the middle of his campaign, he had planned us a trip to Paris. After dinner in a restaurant inside the Eiffel Tower, a trip to the top of the Eiffel tower, we decided to go back to the ‘Love Bridge’ to see if our lock was still there. When we found our lock, he said, “ I have to tell you something.”

“What is it? You know you can tell me anything.”

“ I did get you a Solstice present last year. I just didn’t want to make you feel pressured or lose you because of its purpose.” He told me. Looking at me in the eye, with nothing but love and adoration, but there was a hint of what seems to be… nervousness.

“Purpose?” I said confused, “What ‘purpose’ could the gift have that would make me feel pressured?”

“Nala… You know I love you, don’t you? More than anything in this or any other world? No matter what or how you're feeling, or how worried you are that I would… leave you.” He asked me worriedly, like the idea of me not knowing that he loved me so much, would kill him. “I need you to know that no matter what happens or what you do or what you say, I would never leave you. Never just … never.”

I had only seen him this desperate one other time. On the day I died… but there seems to be something else in his eyes, those beautiful gray eyes. I remember the first time I met him, the first time I looked into his beautiful gray eyes. Somehow I knew back then that he was the one, the one I wanted to be with, forever. Right now those eyes are filled with worry, nervousness, and hope. “Of course I know that you love me. I know that you would do anything for me. You show me everyday, multiple times a day. I know I’ve been a bit distant lately. After Lily… and I started becoming more human… I just felt overwhelmed. I started to feel like you could do better than me. Kamilah and Serafine are just so amazing … so in that cloud … I just began to wonder why you chose me.”

He looked at me sadly, “Nala, you are the bravest, sweetest, selfless, kindest, and craziest woman I have ever met. The way you see the world, help people you don’t even know, every single day, you surprise me with something about you that makes me love you even more.” I’m shocked and feel tears well up in my eyes. He's always been the most amazing man I’ve ever met, but somehow he just keeps getting better everyday. He’s looking at me with such love, such adoration… Oh I’m definitely gonna start crying happy tears now. And as usual he wipes them away. “Why are you crying, Love? Are you hurt?” He asks worriedly.

Ever since I became more human, I started having periods again. But my senses are still heightened so the pain is worse than before. To top it off they're a bit irregular, they started to become regular, but it’ll probably be irregular for a while. Adrian hates it when I’m hurting or sick, he especially hates it then I cry because of pain. Although, today this isn’t the case. “Don’t worry I’m not crying because I’m in pain. I’m crying because of you.” I tell him, while smiling.

“Because of me?! What do you …?” He says worried. I press my lips to his. Giving him a soft kiss. Before I decide to continue.

“I’m crying out of happiness, Adrian.” I tell him smiling widely. “You make me feel so loved and cherished everyday. You hold me, tell me how much I mean to you several times a day, everyday. When I’m filled with doubt, or feel alone, or feel depressed and filled with sadness, you're right there next to me. Like last week, I couldn’t stop thinking about Lily, while you were in the middle of your campaign and trying to teach me how to run your company, you stopped and held me close and tight in your arms, let me cry on your shoulder, even though I was wearing mascara, which ruined your suit when you had a meeting with your managers a few hours later.” We both chuckled at that last bit.

“A suit means nothing to me. The campaign, the company, doesn't mean a thing to me, if you are sad or unhappy.” He says looking me in the eye. A slight smile on his face.

“I know”, I say laughing a bit. “And that means the world to me. You make me so happy. I’m just so glad that you choose to spend your life with me.” I give him the most loving smile and give him the sweetest, most loving kiss I can.

He puts one hand on my cheek, the other on my waist holding me close. “I’m the one who’s luck, Nala.” He says softly. “I’ve put you in so much danger, I’ve done… monstrous things right in front of you.” He says remembering ferals, Vega, ferals again, Langdon, Priya,the crpytoferals, the Order attack the last time we were here and the one at Vlad’s castle and at the Order headquarters, Rheya, feral island, and last but Certainly not least, Rheya again. I cringe slightly remembering everything. But nothing that happened could’ve stopped me from being at his side. He breathes out a sigh, but before he can continue I say.

“I chose to be right here next to you. I have no regrets, and remake every last decision that I made just to here. Right here. Right now.”

“And you have no idea how grateful I am to hear that.” Adrian says smiling a little. But there’s that worry and nervousness again.

“Adrian is everything, okay? You seem nervous and worried.” Then I remember something he said a few minutes ago. What gift could have a purpose that would make Adrian nervous? “Adrian, what did you mean earlier? When you said you were nervous about the gift's purpose.”

Adrian looked down shyly and is definitely nervous now. He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, and begins to speak, “I … I love you. I love you, so much. Everyday, I thank the Lord that you are here next to me. I find it hard to believe that you are next to me, you could’ve had any one in the world and you chose me. A 300 year old vampire.”

“267 years old.” I correct him.

“Heh … Right.” He says before continuing, “I know that you are the bravest, sweetest, most amazing woman I have ever met. Better than Kamilah. Better than Serafine, Celia, ...and Eleanor.” The last one he says looking me directly in the eye.

I’m shocked, stunned speechless. I’m better than his frickin’ wife. The Mother of his first and only baby. His Beautiful baby boy, Charles. I know that they died over 200 years ago, and he grieved them ever since they died. But still … I’m moved, but still, that seems like overkill. “Adrian you don’t need to…” I try to say.

“No Nala. I mean it. The way I feel about you … the way I feel when I’m with you, no one else has been able to trigger. I’ve felt this way since the moment I laid eyes on you, when I walked into your interview… I honestly had no intentions in hiring an assistant, but I felt like if I let you go then, I would have regretted it everyday for the rest of my life.” He looks at me with some much love and adoration, I feel it everywhere in my body. I feel blush rising in my cheeks as he continues to speak.

“I love you Nala August. I always have and I always will. I want to give you everything in this world. You say that you’re lucky that I chose you to be at my side. But the truth is, you could have chosen anyone in the world to be with and yet you chose to be with me.” He paused a moment trying to piece together his next words, as if he wanted everything to be perfect.

“Nala, I love you with all of my heart, all of my strength, all that I am. You possess me body and soul. I would give up everything I have, do anything you ask of me, just to keep you at my side. I brought you here because this is the place where you first said “Our eternity”. The place where I want to tell you that I want that as well. I wanted to ask you to take the biggest leap of my life with me. But only if you want to take that leap with me.”

With that he let go of me, and proceeded to drop down onto one knee, pulling out a small box from his coat pocket. “I love you, I can’t really say that enough. As long as I live and breathe, I will tell you those three words, whether your answer be ‘yes’ or ‘no’. I want to see your face every morning when I wake up. I want your face to be the last face I see before I fall asleep at night. With everything that has been said tonight in mind, I ask you this. Nala August, will please do me the honor of allowing me to become your husband?”

He then flips open the velvet box, revealing a large diamond ring. The diamond in the center was enormous, and surrounded by smaller pink gems, all of which are on a double rose gold band. I’m stunned speechless yet again. He could’ve offered me a ring pop and wouldn’t have changed my answer. But my hands are covering my mouth, for a moment while I take in the scene. Adrian, down on one knee, offering me a giant diamond ring, after he asked me to marry him. I really, really, really hope I’m not dreaming right now. He’s staring at me, his eyes filled with hope and nervousness. The thing he doesn't know, is that I’ve known my answer since the day I met him.

“Y… yes.” I say quietly, just barely a whisper.

He looks at me, his eyes shining, hoping that he had heard me correctly. But before he could ask me again.

“Yes. Yes! Yes, Yes, YES!! Oui, Si. A thousand times Yes!” I say almost screaming. He breathes a sigh of relief, pulling the ring out of the box, sliding it onto my left hand ring-finger. But before he could stand up and kiss me, I tackle him to the ground, kissing him with all of the love and passion I can give him. He returns each kiss happily, with the same love and passion. I can faintly hear people cheering and clapping in the background. We separate long enough for him to pull us up, and he takes us back to the hotel where we are staying.

We both decided to wait a few days and live in our perfect bubble, before telling our friends and family. In those few days, we walked around Paris, toured some sites, and several private celebrations with just the two of us. All the while, we discuss when, where, and what decorations we will have at our wedding.

#adrian raines #bloodbound #adrian x mc

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chaoswillfallrpg · 3 years

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FLORENCE JONES is TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS OLD and the HEAD POTIONEER and MAKE-UP ARTIST at MADAM PIMPERNELLES BEAUTIFYING POTIONS in DIAGON ALLEY. She looks remarkably like ERINN WESTBROOKE and considers herself NEUTRAL. She is currently OPEN.

→ OVERVIEW:

A witch with unshakable confidence, Florence Jones has always known she was entitled to the best that life had to offer her and wasn’t afraid to go out and take it with both hands. The youngest child of Muggle fashion model ELODIE DURAND and famed Auror ADRIAN JONES, Florence and her older sister LUCILLE have been famous since the day they were born and have lived their lives on their cover of magazines. With Lucille’s birth announced in a six page spread in French Vogue, her older sister was a tough act to follow but Florence has never felt on the backfoot, even by the eldest Jones sister. Following her sister in style by accompanying her mother on the cover of WItch Weekly. This would set the tone for the rest of Florence’s life, she was unapologetically herself and wore her individuality on her sleeve. Her family name held weight in the wizarding world as a notable and well loved family of sorcerers who fought to protect Wizarding Britain and had produced a long line of brilliant members of the magical community. Whilst the Jones name seemed to sit heavily on her sister, Florence never felt the need to consider anyone else other than herself and lived her life according to her own happiness.

Growing up in Fulham, Florence and her sister became close to the Dupont family, comprised of a British socialite and a wizard with two daughters. NATASHA DUPONT was several years older than Florence and Lucille, whilst ANASTASIA DUPONT was the same age as Florence. Raised alongside one another, Florence and Anastasia quickly became best friends and forged a cult following at their school. George Heriot’s Private School in London was Florence’s first taste of truly being adored, asserting herself amongst her year group as a voice of authority and giggling with Anastasia as they manipulated others to their every beck and call. Florence was content to stay in the Muggle world if that was what fate decided for her. She enjoyed the power she commanded over her peers and relished in her ability to be able to do it all without needing to flick a wand. But with Jones blood in her veins Florence was born a witch and an argument with another girl in her class about a boy they both had feelings for resulted in Lola Charles croaking and jumping like a frog argument, causing Anastasia to burst out laughing and a scolding from her parents and sister to keep her temper under control.

Being friends with Anastasia since the pair were dressed in tiny designer baby booties, Florence was used to being friends with big personalities. Florence liked to be the most important person in the room and whilst Anastasia did also, they found attention in different ways which kept them from fighting. When Florence met CAMILLE ROWLE, GENEVIVE AVERY and ANDRESSA PARKINSON on the train to Hogwarts she knew this school would be different from her last one. Camille Rowle in particular was very much like Florence,. Always the centre of attention and the loudest person in the room. Camille would become one of her best friends or her worst enemy, but thankfully it was the former rather than the latter. Sorted into Hufflepuff, Florence breathed a sigh of relief. Sorted away from the other girls, she had room to forge her own following and quickly got to work finding a similar group to govern. LAUREL LINWOOD was someone she met earlier on at school and easily one of the most beautiful witches in their year group. A Muggle-Born part-veela, any sort of innate grace she had was backed up with a sharp tongue and a low tolerance for other people’s sharp edges which made her a perfect friend for Florence.

STAR DAVENPORT became her Hufflepuff best friend. A quirky party lover who bathed in glitter and liked getting into trouble, they were the breath of fresh air Florence didn’t know she needed. Star and Laurel suited Florence as best friends because they were different to her other friends, they were fun loving and happy enough to go with the flow and be pulled into whatever scheme Florence cooked for them. Whilst other students at Hogwarts longed to work at the Ministry, Florence had her own dream. She wanted to brew her own line of exclusive cosmetics. Growing up with a model for a mother, Florence was used to Chanel and Dior and while magical cosmetics existed she found the luxury market hadn’t quite been cornered. Alongside Star the two would attend potions club and spend their time making the most amazing products that made your hair dazzle and potions that gave your skin a dewy glow. After learning to brew love potions in their sixth year the two began a business selling love potions to their fellow classmates and figuring out who their perfect match is to use their bew on. Though they had the best intentions at heart, a lot of their schemes often ended badly with Florence, Star and Laurel spending a lot of time in detention.

Florence’s mission has always been to inject love and beauty into the world which is something that has followed her into her adulthood. In love with the idea of love she patiently awaits Valentine's Day each year and where she once decorated the halls of Hogwarts School, she dresses the little shop she works at in Diagon Alley. Both her mother and sister told her that working at Madam Pimpernelles Beautifying Potions was beneath her and although Florence has enough money in the vault to mean she’d never have to work again, it is ESTELLE PIMPERNELLE’s brain she’s after rather than the money. Florence loves her job, though she knows it’s something she wants to do forever. Although Florence has become Madam Pimpernelle’s protégé outside of her work she has been working as a freelance make-up artist, making over the rich and famous for parties and events with her own brand beaty products. Still intent on starting her own line, it seems she is not the only person with that dream. ORLAITH MACMILLAN was once Florence’s protégé and the little sister she never had. The pair remained close though Florence can admit it’s been strange adjusting to Orlaith being all grown up and moving in on her turf rather than being her understudy.

With her life perfectly in place living in a plush townhouse in Kensington with her best friends and her work life going well, Florence has tried to focus on her own happiness. Florence truly believed she’d never fall in love. The Jones family have always tended to sacrifice work over a functioning lovelife unless the exact right person came along. With her career goals, her perfectionist ways and need to be adored Florence truly didn’t think anyone was up to the task. Then she met ELEZAR SMITH and her outlook completely changed. Elezar was everything her sister Lucille had looked for in a man, but to her suprise he had asked Florence to dance at The Yule Ball last year instead of Lucille. The pair have been dating for almost a year now, leaving Florence to fall very much in love with him. But with someone like Elezar her happiness with him was always destined to be fleeting. As an eligible bachelor in the wizarding world, Elezar has caught the eye of many young witches, including a close friend of Florence’s. Unbeknownst to Florence, Elezar and CECELIA ABBOTT have been growing close since the death of Celia’s friend. Florence truly feels like Elezar could be the one but like any member of her family, Florence is not to be trifled with and hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

→ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Blood Status → Half-Blood

Pronouns → She/Her

Identification → Cis Female

Sexuality → Up To Roleplayer

Relationship Status → In a relationship with Elezar Smith

Previous Education → Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Hufflepuff)

Societies → Pura Sorores

Family → Adrian Jones (father), Elodie Jones (mother), Lucille Jones (sister), Balthasar Jones (uncle), Alicia Avery-Jones (aunt), Hestia Jones (cousin), Gwenog Jones (cousin)

Connections → Elezar Smith (boyfriend), Anastasia DuPont (best friend/housemate), Camille Rowle (best friend/housemate), Genevieve Avery (best friend), Andressa Parkinson (best friend), Star Davenport (best friend), Laurel Linwood (close friend), Cecelia Abbot (close friend/unknown adversary), Estelle Pimpernelle (boss/mentor), Gilderoy Lockhart (friend/client), Rita Skeeter (friend/client), Daisy Hookum (friend/client), Glenda Chittock (friend/client)

Future Information → Wife of Elezar Smith, Mother of Zacharias Smith

FLORENCE JONES IS A LEVEL 6 WITCH.

#marauders rpg #harry potter rpg #harry potter roleplay #harry potter rp #erinn westbrook #insatiable #florence jones #witch #magic #alleys #madam pimpernells #neutral #jones #open witch #open neutral #open

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derekklenadaily · 4 years

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Dani’s review/synopsis of the first preview of “Jagged Little Pill” on Broadway!

I had the privilege to go to New York City to see Derek’s first preview “Jagged Little Pill” this past Sunday. While growing up back in the early ‘90s, Alanis Morrisette was definitely one of the most known artists in that era, I do remember hearing her music on the radio all time and even sang along to her tunes with my mother in the car. So, when I saw the news that her music was going to be made into a musical, I was very excited. When I saw this musical last summer in Cambridge, MA during their out-of-town run, and my mind was pretty much blown. Before I go any further, sexual assault is mentioned in this review and very slight spoilers is also present.

Despite the changes for the first preview for the Broadway run, I got to say this musical is more than I ever thought it would be. The opening number just takes the audience by surprise with their exhilarating dancing and them singing fiercely but so passionately. We could feel such a big electric/energy charge in between us audience and the people on stage. It was like being an awesome rock concert, really. Then the music goes softer as we see the family of four comes up to the stage.

Elizabeth Stanley who plays Mary Jane Healy who plays the mother of Nick and Frankie and a wife of Steve Healy. In the show, Mary Jane is an all star-kind of mother who supports her kids at various things such as sports and school. But outside of that world, she currently is struggling with drug addiction due after having a car accident earlier that year. At the same time, she has difficult relationship with her husband Steve who has been away from the family most of the time and hasn’t had a great sexual relationship with him ever since the car accident incident. Elizabeth is absolutely beyond brilliant in this show. She has a great comedic timing especially the scenes with the family. Her acting and singing is definitely out of this world. I think the last scene (“Forgiven”) before intermission still got me shaking in the boots, because it was so incredibly beautiful, tragic and damn powerful at the same time, especially having numerous voices from the cast blending with hers as they stood behind. I’m definitely certain that the judges for any kind of theater awards will look into that scene and mark her as Best Actress in a Musical. She deserves to get it. I got to say her and Sean Allan Krill’s chemistry was absolutely perfect to form this tragic and destructive husband and wife relationship. They would start as tense - not wanting to touch each other and then lying behind each other back’s (her addiction with pills and him with pornography). Suddenly, Elizabeth and Sean went out of the box even more at one point - I thought they would end their characters’ marriage and slam it with divorce right there in the show. It was absolutely incredible.

Sean Allan Krill who plays the father of Nick and Frankie, also a husband of Mary Jane. He’s business man who travels and works in his office most of the time. He doesn’t have a very good relationship with Mary Jane because they hadn’t had any sex over a year. So, to feed that sexual drive - he goes on porn sites and becomes addicted with it. Like what I said in the paragraph before, he and Elizabeth has an amazing chemistry. There’s one scene that Sean does it so amazing when he sings “Mary Jane” in Act Two. It’s absolutely heart-wrenching that we can’t help feeling sorry for him and seeing him trying to mend his relationship with her after all that mess they went through.

There are some hidden secrets and devastating moments that each character cannot escape from, whether it’s sexual assault, drug-addiction, and sex addiction. Especially comes to Derek’s character, Nick - who is the good and golden boy who gets all the accolades and praises for his schoolwork and his sportsmanship. But that bubble suddenly bursts when one of his best friends gets accused of sexual assault by Bella (a classmate that Nick has known since sixth grade). Nick faces such a tremendous difficult decision on what to do and how he get through it without getting a scratch off his record. The songs he sings, “Perfect” was jaw-dropping and absolutely heart-wrenching, really. It shows that he is being pressurized by his parents, after being accepted to Harvard and how he is treated like as a hometown hero. “Wake Up” in Act One was absolutely incredible because it shows the depth of his feelings and being pressurized to speak up about what happened that night. As I watched Derek in the first preview, I found his character a bit more sympathetic than the Cambridge run. I definitely think that he has improved so much with his craft and his work after “Anastasia” and doing countless rehearsals with this show.

Kathyrn Gallagher who plays Bella, she is absolutely amazing in this role. After her countless researching and watching documentaries of sexual assaults and hearing several survivors’ stories, she definitely put her feet in their shoes to tell their stories on stage. It may be a really difficult and enormous thing to do, but she does it with a tremendous job. There is this scene where Kathryn sings “Predator” is absolutely devastating and heartbreaking but at the same time, it’s so beautiful because there is a dancer named Annelise Baker who interprets Bella’s character on that night. As Kathryn sings this number, she watches herself to unfold to a beautiful human being from into a complete shattered person. I got to give major kudos to Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui who is the choreographer (you may know his work in Beyoncé's music video). Every single dancing movement in the show is absolutely thrilling and exciting all at once. Also, we see several scenes that relates and mirrors her and Elizabeth’s character especially “Uninvited”. Near at the end of the show, Kathryn’s brilliant and such a strong number “No” with Derek and Celia along with the ensembles, it spreads various but incredibly important messages to speak up.

Celia Gooding who plays Frankie - Nick’s sister and a daughter of Mary Jane and Steve Healy. Frankie goes through several difficult situations in this play; one - she was adopted by Mary Jane and Steve when she was an infant and is the only black member in the family. So, she feels bit out of place especially dealing with Mary Jane who doesn’t grasp the idea of Frankie’s identity. Two, she tries to explores with her relationship in between Jo and Phoenix throughout the show and sees where and which her status falls in place. Celia is definitely bold and so much fierce as heck! She brings it all down when she sings “All I Really Want” with Elizabeth Stanley, “Hand in My Pocket” with Lauren Patten and then her solo piece “Unprodigal Daughter”. Her chemistry with Lauren is awesome because you can see how much they complement each other, it’s all very fun and playful. Her chemistry with Antonio was very cute and flirtatious. Lastly, her chemistry with Elizabeth Stanley was incredible because it showed that they had a tough mother-daughter relationship like Elizabeth had this wall up, blocking everything out and Celia tries to take it down by doing such ferocious, daring and bold things. Towards at the end of the show, something tragically happens in the family - we see the wall in between them shift and eventually come down for good.

Antonio Cipriano who plays Phoenix, who is Frankie’s classmate and befriends her. Throughout the show, we see how their relationship develops. Antonio who was the finalist for the Jimmy Award. He is extremely talented and absolutely brilliant in this production. He’s great comedic timing and has a wonderful chemistry with Celia Gooding. I absolutely love when they sing “Head Over Feet”. It was really cute! I’d love if he had a solo piece in this show because his singing voice is absolutely terrific. I’m so happy that he made his debut on Broadway which he deserves, along with this incredible cast.

Lauren Patten who plays Jo, who is Frankie’s best friend but also with benefits kind of relationship with Frankie. Like I said in Celia’s paragraph, Lauren has a wonderful chemistry with her. They bounce each other off so incredibly well that they have so much fun onstage and even off stage. And I must say holy crap, Lauren is awesome - I can’t decide which will they give a Tony Award for Best Supporting Actress in A Musical? Celia or Kathryn? Can’t they call it a tie so they can give it to all three of them? In Act Two - she really gave her all and energy which brought the whole house down when singing “You Oughta Know” that we rose on our feet to give her a standing ovation as the song ended. It was so damn powerful. Holy sheeeetz!

Also, I cannot forget everyone in ensemble - they really bring this show alive and go way above the level of energy and perfection. Seriously, this show wouldn’t work without them - their amazing dance and outstanding singing performances, including even them doing the smallest things in the background in several scenes, they did stellar job to bring elevate the show to go where it needs to go.

I want to say “Jagged Little Pill” is one amazing show. Much as I love RENT the Musical but I dare to say that it’s so much better than RENT. It is even more thrilling after watching back in Cambridge last summer. It involves with lot of diversity dealing with gender identity and the important messages that we see in the news almost every day such as sexual harassment and many other things that are happening in today’s world. It definitely needs to be heard. Diablo Cody’s (won Academy Award Winner for Best Screenplay for “Juno”) outstanding writing and Alanis Morrisette’s music just blends it together so beautifully to create this musical and put it onstage in front of us. From the choreography, the sets, the lights and costumes, and everything in this show - including the cast, I highly believe they will have major success on Broadway for sure. It’s a possible chance that they will make it to award season maybe next year. Seriously, this show is not to miss, please do go see it. It will be worth it!

#Derek Klena #Elizabeth Stanley #Sean Allan Krill #Kathryn Gallagher #Celia Gooding #Antonio Cipranio #Lauren Patten #Jagged Little Pill Cast #Jagged Little Pill #Jagged Little Pill review/synopsis #previews #txt #danI**

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theawkwardterrier · 4 years

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things left behind and the things that are ahead, ch. 33

AO3 link here

The first day of her bar exam, Drea knows that she is supposed to wake up and get right out of bed, considering the three alarms she has set. Instead she lies there for a few moments and thinks of the times she would come downstairs when she couldn’t sleep and find her parents sitting up together in the kitchen. How one of them would make tea for her, hot and strong and sweet, in those blue flowered mugs they’d had, before settling in to talk about the test the next day that was making her too nervous for sleep or some issue that she was having with a classmate or teacher. “Just do what you can,” her dad used to tell her. “Because what you can do is pretty amazing.”

She remembers nasty kids on the playground saying her parents couldn’t really love her, that she wasn’t their real kid, remembers thinking of those nights of quiet listening and steady voices and Dad’s hand certain on her shoulder, knowing like the blood running through her veins that it was real and screw anyone who said otherwise. There were plenty of other parts of her that were vulnerable to that sort of bullying, but in this she was secure: her parents, her family, would love her through anything.

Lou bangs on her door, shouting through the wood, interrupting the memory. “Get up, Carter, the alarm you set in my room just went off. Test’s today!” There’s the sound of her footsteps shuffling back to bed, and Drea sighs and smiles just a little and gets out of bed.

Her friend Greg told her to try not to run over case law and testing tips in her head, to leave her flashcards at home and bring a book or her portable cassette player instead. She has a book in her bag, but she doesn’t take it out even when she finds a seat on the T. Instead she gazes through the window, finding the Citgo sign tucked into the skyline across the river. She looks around at the other morning commuters, summer students and tourists beside businesspeople. There is one woman who seems not to let hanging onto a strap distract her from reading a half folded newspaper; she wears a loose, gorgeous royal blue pantsuit with a lace-collared blouse and pearls. It makes Drea look down at the outfit she’d laid out the night before - a belted gray skirt and an orange and white striped T-shirt - with disatisfaction.

Last Thanksgiving, she had been in the kitchen while they waited for Emma and Eric to finish eating with his family. She was in charge of some kind of cranberry relish recipe that Dad had clipped out, Mom had been mashing potatoes, and Rose (off the cooking roster permanently outside of necessity) had been sliding cloth napkins into the just-polished napkin rings. Drea and Rosie had started trading off stories across the table: worst law school professors, times they had been hit on by partners or associates or interns at the law firms that they had each worked at. When Rose was repeatedly asked to serve coffee in meetings, she apparently produced progressively worse pots until they stopped. Drea had started putting up a rotation list in the conference rooms and referring people to that, trying to make them realize the inequity themselves; it still hadn’t entirely worked.

And as frustrating and awful as the stories were, in a strange way she had found herself reveling in the conversation. In the understanding there, but also in talking with her sister.

From the time she was fourteen, Drea had known she wanted to be a lawyer. She’d been open about her plans with teachers and friends, her debate teammates and especially her family. And then, just as she was starting to study for the LSAT, Rose had announced that she had taken the exam months earlier and would soon be starting at Columbia Law.

Drea had spent so long feeling as if she were some sort of runner up Rose: smart, but from studying and working for it rather than Rosie’s natural sharpness, bold enough to get by but not quite as brave as her sister. And so she was glad that even though they lived barely hours away from each other, they only saw each other a couple of times a year. She couldn’t pretend any more often than that to be okay with Rose taking her goal, taking it first, probably doing better than she would. Rose had graduated with a motley collection of majors and minors and simply fallen into working for a domestic violence organization after her volunteering in college, and Knowing what she wanted and putting in the work to get there had been the only thing that made Drea feel that she was best at something. She had been so angry that this thing, her thing, her one thing, was being taken from her. But now, she listened to her sister speak, watched her hands trace around the air, and found not competition between them but comfort, companionship. As if maybe having a sister in the same business wouldn’t be so bad. As if maybe they could both find ways to make their mark beside each other.

Rose finished telling a story about being taken aside by the one female partner at a law firm where she was working over the summer. “Wear a skirt suit,” the woman had advised. “The others don’t like it when you try to put on their pants, you know.” Then she had waited for Rose to laugh and agree.

“I haven’t even let myself look at pantsuits,” Drea admitted. “I know everyone expects skirts. It’s supposed to be the professional thing, I guess,” and their mother had set down the potato masher and sighed. Though she wore a smile, it was sadder and more worn than anything they usually saw, the sort of thing only their father would be familiar with.

“I had hoped we would be beyond this sort of thing by now,” she told them. “I had hoped that the problems, the barriers, I had when I was beginning my career would be obsolete by the time my daughters were beginning theirs. But it seems as if so very many things are precisely the same.”

“I’m sure it’s better, Mom,” Drea offered. “At least a little, it’s better. There are sexual harassment laws now, laws against hiring descrimination, you can’t get fired for being pregnant...I know it seems like all of the problems still exist only underground and having laws on the books can’t fix everything, but things are better than they were, and you were a part of that.”

“And for the next part,” Rose said, trading a glance with her sister. “For the rest of it, we’ll be here, to make things even better for the ones who come after. Just like you taught us.”

She looks around the testing room as everyone is filing in to get settled. She sees familiar faces from her classes or around campus, from internships, panels and events. Carl is sitting at the next table over. Tom and Denise from the exam prep course walk in together. Her friend Celia is too far to speak to, but they smile at each other for courage.

And then it is time to begin.

She knows that she’s meant to be focusing only on the questions in front of her, and she does seem to be at least somewhat - her pencil marks the page nearly as soon as she finishes reading. But she also can’t help but think of the importance of this day, how everything, her whole life, has built and led here. She thinks of listening to her parents talking politics and policy around mouthfuls of morning toast, of study groups and late nights of debate practice, of disappointing grades that just made her grit her teeth and try harder the next time. She thinks of two diplomas with “Veritas” at the top and her name beneath.

Andrea Mastro Carter: one name from each set of parents, and one she gave herself. After the adoptions went through, they had all shared the same last name, but Mom and Dad always told them that they could pick middle names if they wanted - she and Nate hadn’t been given them at birth. So when she was twelve they had gone to court and she had added back her original family name, just to keep it alive somehow. Nate, when he had gone a few years later, had taken the initial M rather than a full name. She knows he did it not from some sort of loyalty to the past he doesn’t really remember but because it would mean something to her, and that touches her more than words.

(When she was little, Emma would say that she was just going to have her middle name be Rose too. Later, she would try to choose between dozens of possibilities, making lists that seemed simply copied from Famous Women of History and Literature. Finally, though, she chose Jane. “I think,” she had said, “that there were probably a lot of women named Jane who lived good, quiet lives - they were so quiet that we don’t remember them. I’ll name myself for them.”)

She thinks of the summer they moved from New Jersey, driving to the Maryland house with all of the car windows rolled down for a breeze. With boxes still in their rooms, Dad woke them up one morning and shuffled them all into the car so they could be in Washington by 8. It wasn’t early enough: the city was already packed with people, and even at seven years old, she felt the tension all around. She doesn’t know that she has ever held her mother’s hand as tightly.

And then they were marching with the crowd, walking surrounded by more people than she had ever seen, toward buildings that she had only seen in pictures. The signs people were carrying said things about jobs and freedom and equality and something called civil rights. Some of it she understood, and Mom and Dad had answered questions when they could, but she knows that she didn’t understand the significance, not then.

It was hot: seventy-five by 10 A.M. and hotter throughout the day. The dress that she had picked out, still excited about getting to wear such things without being questioned, was pretty but heavy, sweaty against her skin. They were gathered for a long time, listening to all different speeches and songs. It was harder and harder to concentrate as the day went on; Drea started playing hand-clapping games with Rose, tic-tac-toe on a piece of scrap paper with Emma.

And then a new man had come up to the podium, and Dad had put Nate onto his shoulders so he could see. Drea had never heard someone talk the way this man did. Even then, when she didn’t quite understand, she leaned forward to listen to him talking about his dream, heard the people shout encouragement and agreement back at him and nearly did it herself. Next to her, Rose had turned to their mother and said, “You’re important too, Mom. You should go up and speak to everyone.” But Mom had shaken her head and said, “No, today isn’t the time for me. This is the time for Dr. King and those who are leading with him.”

She remembers, too, a time she went to lunch with Aunt Layla and Libby one summer when she was in New York. Libby was urging them along, worried they would miss the reservation Aunt Layla had called for at a new restaurant; the others were racing to keep up with her, laughing a bit as they did. (Though Drea was secretly glad someone was trying to get them there in time; Layla was smart and very good at her job, but she had “just five minutes”ed them when they had come to find her in her office, and then did it again when they found her in the lab until they were cutting it quite close.)

“Barnes, party of three,” Aunt Layla said, still a bit breathless from running and laughter, when they arrived just in time.

The host looked up at her, scanning not her lovely cream linen skirt or her bright smile but instead her shade-darker skin, her striking eyes. He said, without pause, “I apologize, someone must have misinformed you. We are quite full up this afternoon.”

“Excuse me?” Aunt Layla didn’t raise her voice, but Drea could see the way her hand spasmed into a fist against her thigh. “I called this morning. I was told our booking was confirmed.”

“As I said.” A tiny shrug; the polite smile hadn’t shifted, but now Drea could see it was more like indifference. “I apologize, Mrs. Barnes.”

Aunt Layla grabbed Libby’s hand. Drea thought about how her parents could find hers without looking just as easily. “That’s Doctor Barnes,” she had said, and walked out with her head high. Drea had admired her so much, even as she felt overcome with the small, protected cruelty of it, the expectation that there was nothing that would be done in retaliation.

(Later, Aunt Layla would tell her that she had barely remembered saying anything. “I just wanted to get you girls out of there. I just wanted to get out of there.” She patted Drea's arm. “It's everywhere and has been for my whole life, and my parents’ too, and it still feels like it comes out of nowhere, Drea love.”)

When they break for lunch, someone at the table with her asks what area of law they’re each looking to go into. Drea doesn’t hesitate. She has spent years thinking about the ways the law protects her and the ways it doesn’t, how her voice could be valuable in standing up for others, how the law can’t change people’s minds but sometimes it is what they have. “Public defender first, probably, but eventually civil rights,” she says when it’s her turn, and when a couple of those sitting with her snort she just smiles.

When they are dismissed for the day, her eyes are gritty, the muscles of her hand exhausted. All her muscles are exhausted, in fact - her back and shoulders, her restless legs - and she’ll have to be back again tomorrow. She’s torn between wanting an hour-long bath and just crawling into bed. But when she reaches the corner she finds herself not walking down the stairs to catch the T, but instead entering the phone booth and dialing a number that she hadn’t realized she knew by heart.

“Rose Carter.” Her sister answers firmly on the first ring. (Rosie had decided not to take a middle name, but instead to remove the one she was given at birth. She said she already had all the name she needed.)

“Hi. It’s me.”

“Hey. Hang on.” There’s a clunking in the background, then Rose faintly telling someone that she’s talking to her sister and she’ll have the documents within the hour.

“Sorry,” Rose says, clear again. “Wasn’t today the first day of the bar? How are you feeling about it?” (They had talked briefly about the exam at Emma’s wedding last month before Drea cut it off, feeling overwhelmed. Rose had understood right away.)

Instead of answering, Drea asks, “Where do you get your pantsuits?”

“Is this a joke? About the kids businesswear section or something?”

“No, I was just—I’ve been thinking a lot today, and I was wondering if I could come to New York. Maybe we could go shopping for something new for work.”

“Sounds like you’re pretty confident about how it went,” says Rose, just a bit of teasing sing-song in her voice.

“We’ll see. This was only day one,” Drea replies, starting to grin a little herself. “But either way, I thought I could maybe come see you.”

“Of course you can,” says Rose, the words softer but even more definitive for it. Drea picks at a sticker on the side of the payphone and swallows against the lump in her throat. “Of course you can, always, whenever you want. I might have to work - no rest for the new hires - but you should come, get a feel for another office. And afterward, we’ll go pick out some kickass clothes for you. I have the feeling you’re going to need them.”

The first day of her new job, Drea dresses in a burgundy pantsuit and a silver and white striped blouse.

“You look great!” Grace tells her as Drea comes into the kitchen. Louise’s girlfriend is leaning against the counter in a big sweatshirt and a pair of socks, spooning up the last of her cereal.

“Thanks,” says Drea. “My sister helped pick it.”

“Well, good luck,” Lou tells her as she joins them, wrapping an arm around Grace’s shoulders. “Knock ‘em dead, Carter.”

“Not a great idea when they’re your new bosses, I’m pretty sure.”

“Go!” The other two laugh, and start to shoo her out the door.

She takes her bag from the hook, double checks that the note her parents sent wishing her luck (Mom’s handwriting on one side, Dad’s and a little illustration of Lady Justice on the other) is tucked into her pocket. Deep breath, in and out.

“Okay,” she says aloud. “I’m ready.”

More chapters here

#things left behind fic #Steggy #Steggy fic #the Carter crew #Steve Rogers #Peggy Carter

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papapiusxiii · 5 years

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50 Great Thrillers by Women, as recommended by 10 of the UK’s female crime writers

Sophie Hannah:

Summertime by Liz Rigbey. Follows a woman who loses her baby and whose father unexpectedly drowns. When her husband and sister close ranks against her, she begins to suspect they are lying to her.

The Spider’s House by Sarah Diamond. Also published as In the Spider’s House. When Anna Howell discovers that a 1960s child murderess was the previous resident of her old cottage, her marriage, sanity and life come under threat.

Hidden by Katy Gardner. When a young mother’s seven-year-old daughter disappears, she finds herself questioning everything in her life. Then a police officer starts asking about the murder of a woman 14 months earlier …

A Shred of Evidence by Jill McGown. DI Judy Hill and DCI Lloyd investigate the murder of a 15-year-old girl on a patch of open parkland in the centre of town.

Searching for Shona by Margaret Jean Anderson

The wealthy Marjorie Malcolm-Scott trades suitcases, destinations and identities with orphan Shona McInnes, as children are evacuated from Edinburgh at the start of the second world war.

Val McDermid:

The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey. A teenage war orphan accuses two women of kidnap and abuse, but something about her story doesn’t add up.

Rubbernecker by Belinda Bauer. The Booker-longlisted author of Snap follows it up with the tale of a medical student with Asperger’s who attempts to solve a murder.

The Field of Blood by Denise Mina. The first in the Paddy Meehan series sees the reporter looking into the disappearance of a child from his Glasgow home, with evidence pointing the police towards two young boys.

A Fatal Inversion by Barbara Vine. Writing under her pen name, Ruth Rendell tells of the discovery of a woman and child in the animal cemetery at Wyvis Hall, 10 years after a group of young people spent the summer there.

When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson. In the third Jackson Brodie book, a man is released from prison 30 years after he butchered the mother and siblings of a six-year-old girl in the Devon countryside.

Ann Cleeves:

Little Deaths by Emma Flint. Inspired by the real case of Alice Crimmins, this tells of a woman whose two children go missing from her apartment in Queens.

The Dry by Jane Harper. During Australia’s worst drought in a century, three members of one family in a small country town are murdered, with the father believed to have killed his wife and son before committing suicide.

Devices and Desires by PD James. Adam Dalgliesh takes on a serial killer terrorising a remote Norfolk community.

The End of the Wasp Season by Denise Mina. Heavily pregnant DS Alex Morrow investigates the violent death of a wealthy woman in Glasgow.

Fire Sale by Sara Paretsky. The inimitable VI Warshawski takes over coaching duties of the girls’ basketball team at her former high school, and investigates the explosion of the flag manufacturing plant where one of the girl’s mothers works.

Sharon Bolton:

Gone by Mo Hayder. In Hayder’s fifth thriller featuring Bristol DI Jack Caffrey, he goes after a car-jacker who is taking vehicles with children in them.

Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris. A murderous revenge is being plotted against the boys’ grammar school in the north of England where eccentric Latin master Roy Straitley is contemplating retirement.

The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes. A time-travelling, murderous war veteran steps through the decades to murder extraordinary women – his “shining girls” – in Chicago, in this high-concept thriller.

The Wicked Girls by Alex Marwood. Two women who were sentenced for murdering a six-year-old when they were children meet again as adults, when one discovers the body of a teenager.

Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty. Married scientist Yvonne, who is drawn into a passionate affair with a stranger, is on trial for murder.

Sarah Ward:

A Place of Execution by Val McDermid. Journalist Catherine Heathcote investigates the disappearance of a 13-year-old girl in the Peak District village of Scarsdale in 1963.

The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths. Forensic archaeologist Dr Ruth Galloway investigates the discovery of a child’s bones near the site of a prehistoric henge on the north Norfolk salt marshes.

The Ice House by Minette Walters. A decade after Phoebe Maybury’s husband inexplicably vanished, a corpse is found and the police become determined to charge her with murder.

The Liar’s Girl by Catherine Ryan Howard. When a body is found in Dublin’s Grand Canal, police turn to the notorious Canal Killer for help. But the imprisoned murderer will only talk to the woman he was dating when he committed his crimes.

This Night’s Foul Work by Fred Vargas (translated by Sian Reynolds). Commissaire Adamsberg investigates whether there is a connection between the escape of a murderous 75-year-old nurse from prison, and the discovery of two men with their throats cut on the outskirts of Paris.

Elly Griffiths:

R in the Month by Nancy Spain. Sadly out of print, this is an atmospheric story set in a down-at-heel hotel in a postwar seaside town. The period detail is perfect and jokes and murders abound. This is the fourth book featuring the fantastic Miriam Birdseye, actress and rather slapdash sleuth.

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. A gripping crime novel in which the detective never gets out of bed and the murder happened over 500 years ago. Griffith says: “I read this book as a child and was hooked – on Tey, crime fiction and Richard the Third.”

The Detective’s Daughter by Lesley Thomson. Cleaner Stella Darnell finds herself tidying up her detective father’s final, unfinished case, after he dies. It is the first in a series featuring Stella and her sidekick Jack, an underground train driver who can sense murder.

A Place of Execution by Val McDermid. Griffiths says: “I could have chosen any of Val’s novels, but this book, about a journalist revisiting a shocking 1960s murder, is probably my favourite because of its wonderful sense of time and place. It’s also pitch perfect about journalism, police investigation and life in a small community.”

He Said, She Said by Erin Kelly. An account of a rape trial at which nothing is quite as it seems. Griffiths says: “The story centres around a lunar eclipse, which also works wonderfully as a metaphor and image.”

Dreda Say Mitchell:

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn. The Gone Girl author’s debut follows journalist Camille’s investigation into the abduction and murder of two girls in her Missouri home town.

Dangerous Lady by Martina Cole. Cole’s first novel sees 17-year-old Maura Ryan taking on the men of London’s gangland.

The Mermaids Singing by Val McDermid. Clinical psychologist Dr Tony Hill is asked to profile a serial killer when four men are found mutilated and tortured.

Indemnity Only by Sara Paretsky. A client tells VI Warshawski he is a prominent banker looking for his son’s missing girlfriend. But VI soon discovers he’s lying, and that the real banker’s son is dead.

The St Cyr series by CS Harris. Mitchell has nominated the whole of this historical mystery series about Sebastian St Cyr, Viscount Devlin – master of disguises, heir to an earldom, and disillusioned army officer. It’s a bit of a cheat but we’ll let her have it.

Erin Kelly:

No Night Is Too Long by Barbara Vine. Tim Cornish thinks he has gotten away with killing his lover in Alaska. But then the letters start to arrive …

Broken Harbour by Tana French. The fourth in French’s sublime Dublin Murder Squad series, this takes place in a ghost estate outside Dublin, where a father and his two children have been found dead, with the mother on her way to intensive care.

Chosen by Lesley Glaister. When Dodie’s mother hangs herself, she has to leave her baby at home and go to bring her brother Jake back from the mysterious Soul Life Centre in New York.

A Savage Hunger by Claire McGowan. Forensic psychologist Paula Maguire investigates the disappearance of a girl, and a holy relic, from a remote religious shrine in the fictional Irish town of Ballyterrin.

The Cry by Helen Fitzgerald. Parents Joanna and Alistair start to turn against each other after their baby goes missing from a remote roadside in Australia.

Sarah Hilary:

The Hours Before Dawn by Celia Fremlin. A sleep-deprived young mother tries to stay sane while her fears grow about the family’s new lodger, in this 1950s lost classic.

Cruel Acts by Jane Casey. Leo Stone, sentenced to life in prison for the murder of two women, is now free and claims he is innocent. DS Maeve Kerrigan and DI Josh Derwen want to put him back in jail, but Maeve begins doubting his guilt – until another woman disappears.

Sex Crimes by Jenefer Shute. A lawyer’s New Year’s Eve pick-up spirals into an erotic obsession which leads to graphic cruelty.

Skin Deep by Liz Nugent. Nugent, whom Ian Rankin has compared to Patricia Highsmith, tells the story of a woman who has been passing herself off as an English socialite on the Riviera for 25 years – until the arrival of someone who knows her from her former life prompts an act of violence.

Cuckoo by Julia Crouch. Rose’s home and family start to fall apart when her best friend Polly comes to stay.

Louise Candlish:

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie. Christie’s classic – with a legendary twist. The best Hercule Poirot?

The Two Faces of January by Patricia Highsmith. A conman on the run with his wife meets a young American who becomes drawn into the crime they commit.

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood. The author of The Handmaid’s Tale imagines the life of the real 19th-century Canadian killer Grace Marks.

Little Face by Sophie Hannah. Hannah’s thriller debut is about a young mother who becomes convinced that, after spending two hours away from her baby, the infant is not hers.

Alys, Always by Harriet Lane. Newspaper subeditor Frances is drawn into the lives of the Kyte family when she hears the last words of the victim of a car crash, Alys Kyte.

#reference

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journeysintowebcomics · 6 years

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Worm Liveblog #74

UPDATE 74: Aisha Does What She Can

Last time Skitter had gone to try to convince Panacea to cooperate and not be a lone wolf trying to run away from the evil. Maybe it’d have gone well if it wasn’t for Mannequin crashing the negotiations and ruining everything. Now Panacea is upset and away, Mannequin is going to attack Skitter’s territory again, and a couple of Heckpuppy’s dogs are dead. As usual, the arc starts with the deck stacked against the main characters. Let’s continue.

...it’s another interlude. There’s plenty of interludes recently. Mr. Wildbow must have received boatloads of donations often, if he had to write interludes every two or so chapters! I wonder how many chapters in the future are interludes.

I skimmed these first few paragraphs and I again can’t find out who this interlude is about. Maybe it’s like the last one, and it’s about a character’s civilian identity. There’s Sam, there’s Celia. Sam is a heavyset man, Celia sounds like a middle-age woman.

Looks like this is a junkie reunion. There’s pissing off the fire escapes, there’s powder to be snorted...I’d think they’re with the Merchants, if it wasn’t because that group is dead and gone. Oh, looks like they really were Merchants. The remaining Merchants stole some of the merchandise when Skidmark died, and kept their stashes. Two of them go to indulge in the drug, the other two don’t.

Aisha had to hop out of the way so she didn’t get sat on.

Oh! It’s Aisha! Is this the place she ran off to after Grue rejected her plan to go spy on the Slaughterhouse Nine?

She watched the dialogue between her mother, her mother’s boyfriend of the week and her mother’s new friend with a dispassionate expression.

...oh. Well...this sure is heavy. The middle-age woman is pregnant, and she’s Aisha’s mother. Aisha isn’t exactly happy about these developments.

The first place her mind went, before joy at the idea of having a brother or sister, before anger at her mom for letting it happen and not using protection, was hope.

...the idea of having a brother or sister? What about Brian? This wording seems to imply she doesn’t have one. Does that mean this is the past? Aisha is his younger sister, isn’t she? Hm. Maybe this interlude is about Aisha. This could be some time before Grue started the process to adopt her.

The thought of her mother having another kid isn’t pleasant, and Aisha hopes that doesn’t happen – because it’d be better for the kid. After all, Aisha herself didn’t exactly have a nice childhood, the kid should be spared from it.

How much of Aisha’s problems were because of her mom’s lack of self-control and how many others were because of this environment? She’d grown up with a mom who’d never mentally or emotionally aged past fourteen or fifteen. A new man in the house every week or two, with his own idea of how things should work, Celia generally content to let him run things however he wanted.

Pretty harsh environment to grow in. Especially since it sounds like the man never stays for long. The lack of stability and constant stream of different men coming around can’t have helped her at all, especially since some of them were abusive. One of them had broken her arm. Yikes, I knew Aisha’s life had been pretty rough, but reading it makes it more...hm...it’s the old show, don’t tell. It’s easier to imagine how it was like when you actually see it.

Being ignored by her teammates and told to go to her room and play along for everyone else’s sake was another.

I was wrong, this is the present. I suppose what I read earlier was just a bit of confusing wording. So this is where she ran to when her teammates rejected her plan.

While they all enjoy their drugs and don’t even say a word to her – not to offer her drugs, not to even be dismissive to her – because of her power. When she loses her concentration, people forget about her. Ah. So she has to actively make an effort to make everyone realize she’s there? I thought it’d be backwards, that she needed to focus in order for people not to see her. Something I like about these interludes is that they sometimes give a chance to see how the powers work, right from the parahuman’s understanding of it.

Not that it was invisibility, really. It was memories. People forgot her as soon as they saw her, to the point that they didn’t register her presence. She could feel it, her power rolling over her skin, jabbing outward, invisible to sight, touch and anything else, making contact with the people around her and pushing those memories away.

See? It’s like some sort of miasma. Like a cloud of vapor that envelops people and make them forget about her. I suppose that’s why she has to focus to stop others from forgetting her. She has to keep her power bottled to some extent, or at least not be as effective as it could be.

The more they try to remember her, the more she slips away, but it’s not like by trying to ignore her they will remember her. In the end it seems she’s the one who has the most control over who can see her and who can’t – even if it’s not complete control, as seen in Skitter sometimes forgetting about her. She can’t even will herself to make it work harder, if she does that, it just doesn’t work.

Aisha thinks about how easy it’d be for her to take all these drugs and walk out, maybe Coil could decide what to sell, and her mother would have no more drugs, and would maybe get her life in order. Rather unlikely, unfortunately. Getting your life in order is much more difficult when there’s someone nearby who indulges in the habits you want to leave. She’d have to change a lot about her life, and that’s not easy at all.

No. If she got rid of the drugs, it was more likely that someone would erupt in anger. Sam or her mom, getting violent, verbally or otherwise. It would do more harm than good.

Well, yeah, that’s a given. No matter how high they are right now, they’ll notice it’s gone, and since they’re the only people around...it wouldn’t end with a friendly ‘well, shucks, guess we gonna leave now’. It doesn’t stop Aisha from leaning forward and stomping away the weed her mother was smoking, and mom reacts with disbelief.

Aisha used her hand to cover the papers and whispered, “No.”

Again, the dazed blinking. Her mother asked, “Sam? Got any more papers?”

She can use her body to hide small objects from sight! And it’s like they’re not there anymore! That’s promising! I think it extends to objects she’s touching, since of course nobody sees floating trinkets she’s carrying. She would be perfect to deliver stuff and steal, as long as there are no cameras or anything like that.

What follows is rather poignant. Aisha tries to convince her mother to stop taking drugs, to have some consideration towards her future kid, and to get her life in order. Of course since she’s not perceived by anyone in this room, she’s talking to the air, this is the stuff she would like to say to her mom but doesn’t dare to.

Was it cowardice that kept her from confronting her mother, or the knowledge backed by years of experience that it wouldn’t make a difference?

The second one, most likely. It’s hard to care and try to convince other people if you know they wouldn’t listen to you. Why to waste breath when you know it’s going to be futile? Besides, they wouldn’t be in a state to listen to the teenage parahuman with the horned mask if she made herself known right now.

Maybe, if everything with the Nine worked out and Coil got control of the city, maybe she could get her mom some help, or report her to the police.

They aren’t exclusive, I think. Reporting her to the police could lead to she getting help, especially if Coil’s the one arranging it. It won’t be pretty, it won’t be pleasant, but maybe it’s for the best?

Aisha didn’t come here just to be away from the Undersiders for a bit, she’s also her to gather some of her stuff. She tried to be like a girl scout, it seems, and it didn’t go as expected. Her troublesome personality, most likely, may have gotten in the way. She picks up a few notebooks to take notes, her binoculars...she’s going to do her plan anyway. Brian better not find out or he’ll blow a gasket, and rightly so, I’d say. Since they killed the Merchants, they may still be over there. She’s following their trail of destruction. Take notes, Theo, this is a way to find them in like two years.

...

...hm. There won’t be time for that, anyway. Jack and the others won’t stay in Brockton Bay for two years, and if he gets out, everything is doomed. It’s a shame, Theo maybe won’t get his time to shine. Oh well.

Investigating that area doesn’t give many clues. There’s a lot of bodies, a lot of blood, and contrary to popular belief, cops won’t babble loudly about everything they find, for the convenience of anyone who turns out to be listening. She has to search whatever she can, and it takes a long while before she finds something that could be considered a trail. Fresher blood in higher amounts. It’ll be the moment of truth, if she really found them, she’ll finally find out if the Slaughterhouse Nine can feel her presence. It’s my opinion that Cherish definitely would, and maybe Mannequin and/or Crawler would because they both seem like they’d have a different way to sense stuff around themselves, compared to everyone else, so...yeah. I hope she’ll be okay. She may have behaved like quite the brat during that meeting, but that doesn’t mean I want something bad to happen to her.

Not all the slaughterhouse Nine members are here. There’s Crawler, there’s Shatterbird, there’s Burnscar, all of them relaxing as if they’re not a bunch of bloodthirsty murderers. Guess she’s not going to find out if Crawler can see her, since he’s asleep. True, some of the eyes all over his body are open, but...ah, I don’t know if that’s enough to keep tabs on everything around himself.

Bonesaw is here too, with some of her mechanical spiders.

Aisha moved quickly aside as a spider moved from the kitchen, past her and to the table. Whatever cameras or artificial intelligence it used, it didn’t seem to notice her.

Maybe they neither have cameras nor artificial intelligence. Maybe Bonesaw controls them with her brain, directing them and making them do what she wants. It’s plausible, isn’t it? So of course they wouldn’t react – she’s not aware Aisha is here, so the spiders don’t react to her.

Aisha had never killed anyone, but here she was, holding a lethal weapon. She could slice Shatterbird’s throat and they wouldn’t even realize she was there.

They would realize something was wrong, of course. Suddenly someone has an ugly wound from side to side of her neck, and nobody would fail to notice that. Besides, there’s also the matter of Bonesaw being here. She could revive Shatterbird later, and it’d be like nothing happened, all it’d do is make them know someone managed to attack them while supposedly being invisible. Also, Aisha thinks for a moment it may be possible Shatterbird will see her in her last throes and use her power to kill her. There’s plenty of broken glass around, after all. Burnscar and Crawler could hit blindly around, and her odds of not dying aren’t high. So...this is high risk, high reward.

Slowly, she walked over to Bonesaw, navigating around the drones. Could she kill the kid?

On the one hand, Bonesaw was the one who kept the other members going. Removing her would take a lot of problems off the board. She could finish off Bonesaw and run for cover in the kitchen, out of Burnscar and Shatterbird’s line of fire. From there, it was only steps to the front door and safety.

On the other hand, it was still murder, and it was a kid. A kid that had a hundred kills under her belt.

A lot of heroes and villains wouldn’t have qualms about this, Aisha. She may be a kid, but she has so much blood in her hands not many would pull any punches when dealing with her. In terms of morality, obviously it’s wrong. It’d be pretty messed up if you didn’t hesitate. It’s a life, you can’t do something like this and not have something wrong with you. In terms of how much people would blame you...well I don’t think anyone would care. The only thing that’s stopping Aisha here is the natural reticence everyone should have. I’m so glad about this.

She was still hesitating when it’s revealed the man Bonesaw was currently wrists-deep working on is still alive. Let it be known she currently has his torso all open because of course she does, what else did you expect, and he’s feeling every second of it. That makes all doubts Aisha had about attacking a kid vanish. There comes the attack!

She plunged the knife into Bonesaw’s bare throat.

Bonesaw screamed, shrill and loud, which caught Aisha off guard. With a knife in her throat, the girl was screaming?

Of course. Of course it can’t be that easy. It’d have been anticlimactic to lose a Slaughterhouse Nine member so early, especially one as threatening as Bonesaw. Of course. I’m pretty sure a few of the members are going to die at some point during Worm – my personal predictions is that the Siberian and Crawler will die, because it’d be satisfying to read about the strongest members being defeated. Jack will die because...you know, that’s the point of the Slaughterhouse Nine arc. And...hm, other than these three it’s hard to know who will die. Maybe Burnscar, as the one with the least focus so far. Maybe Bonesaw, since she’s Jack’s friend.

Anyway, Bonesaw doesn’t die no matter how hard Aisha tries. She slits her throat and buries her knife into Bonesaw’s eye. It doesn’t kill her but it still hurts a lot. Her screams of pain get Shatterbird and Burnscar’s attention, who react immediately, making fire and glass fly around to hit invisible threats. Crawler wakes up too.

“Is it Jack?” Burnscar asked, looking around, then turning to the window, “What the hell?”

Given what happened, it’s not much of a stretch to think it was Jack. It’s a blade injury that seemingly happened out of nowhere. He also wouldn’t have any problems killing someone in the team if he had a reason to do that. Bonesaw argues it isn’t him, because he knows where to strike to kill someone with as many protections as she put on herself and on him. The logic...kind of holds, I guess.

Aisha backed toward the front door. She stopped as Crawler appeared in the doorway that led from the kitchen to the front hall, looking through to see his teammates on the far end. His voice was a mangled mess of sounds that only barely approximated anything like speech. “I don’t smell anyone.”

Lucky Aisha, he can’t detect her smell. That’s kind of valuable information! It’s a pity it won’t be any good for her, since she has no way to hurt Crawler at all, unless somehow he’s very weak to tasers.

Burnscar proposes to torch down the place and run, the idea is rejected because Mannequin may not find them if they move too far from their current hideout. Besides, there are other things to be worried about:

“Quiet,” Shatterbird cut in. “It’s less about you being hurt and more about the fact that someone had the audacity to attack us here.”

That can’t happen too often. Jack is going to be so interested when he hears somebody dared to attack them right while they’re in their hideout. Aisha may want to keep that to herself, though. Brian is going to have a conniption if he finds out Aisha tried to slit a Slaughterhouse Nine member’s throat. He was very upset when Skitter fought Mannequin, since there was only 50% chance of winning, he will be livid Aisha almost got in a confrontation she was likely to lose.

Although...I wonder...Dinah’s power isn’t affected by the likes of Aisha, right? If she’s asked about Aisha anything, will she be able to answer? I wonder...

Thanks to her power, she’s able to sneak back to the lobby of the building, where she finds out there are new victims from the usual activities of the Slaughterhouse Nine. Jack is here, and he’s making Cherish do the grunt job. May as well get something useful out of her before her impending doom, yeah? This is the time for the big test. Does Cherish sense Aisha?

She has options. She can go for Cherish and attack her, she can go for Jack and attack him, and although it isn’t mentioned, she could try running away. Attacking Jack would be useless, that’s clear. Bonesaw did say he has the same protections than her. Cherish is likely not to have such protections, because why to give them to someone who is bound to die and/or break in despair in the future?

Deciding to attack Cherish, she follows her into the room she’s hiding corpses in, and that goes exactly like I expected.

“Put the weapon away,” Cherish said, her voice quiet.

Yup, detected. It’s not perfect, of course, she can’t hear or see Aisha, all she knows is that there’s someone here, and gets ready to scream for Jack’s help unless Aisha cooperates.

“Put your weapon away,” Cherish said, her voice quiet and carefully measured, “We only have a few seconds before Jack gets suspicious. Listen. I want to strike a deal.”

Oh my goodness, she’s desperate! She doesn’t know who is here, right? So later when she finds out she made a deal with the Undersiders, Regent included, she’s not going to like that. If she already knows about Ausha then she’s really, really desperate. This will be interesting.

The interlude ends here, but I’ll go to the next chapter. I want to know how badly things are in Skitter’s territory before she gets there. Mannequin is ready for revenge!

Mannequin not only has the advantage of having left this random alleyway a minute or two before Skitter and the rest, he also has surprising speed, and isn’t trying to mask himself from Skitter’s bugs. He’s just running at full speed towards her territory. A couple paragraphs later, it’s shown they had another problem they had to take care of before parting towards her territory, so Mannequin has even more advantage.

We’d lost a couple of minutes as we helped Bitch retrieve Lucy’s real body. It was eerie to see. When the dogs grew, they really appeared to be adding mass, literally growing and stretching. Somewhere in the transformation, after they weren’t recognizable as the animals they had once been, their real bodies were reformed inside a placenta-like sac. Mannequin’s gunshot had opened a hole in Lucy’s chest and penetrated that membrane to kill the real dog within. We’d used my knife and Grue’s raw strength to help pull the dog free in a grim sort of anti-childbirth.

Ah, so that’s why they can shrug off some bad injuries and appear as good as normal once it’s all over. I see! I like this explanation. It also explains why the dogs just shed all that flesh and bone, it’s not theirs, their real body always was inside the large monstrous dogs. Of course they’d shed that...shell. Also, gross.

Doing this may be what convinced Heckpuppy to cooperate, lending her dogs as vehicles. Not that it’s giving them any chances of catching up to Mannequin before he gets to the territory, he’s outrageously fast.

Everyone except Heckpuppy is...well, not in top shape, but they’re healthy enough to keep going. Heckpuppy has a bad wound on her stomach, it’s still bleeding. She better not overexert herself. That can be fatal. Skitter is worried, but it’s not like they can stop to give Heckpuppy first aid, not when there are a lot of civilians in danger.

He could apparently see my bugs and since our last confrontation he’d gained the ability to see the spider silk I was placing on him or in his vicinity. It was remarkably high-resolution vision for someone who hadn’t been able to notice that I didn’t have a pool of blood spreading out beneath me during our last fight. Or was his inability to see that because he was calibrated to see the small things?

Maybe he just can see them now. If he couldn’t see those before, and now he can, the simple explanation is that he made improvements to his seeing abilities. It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that, I’d say. At least this does confirm it’s unlikely the same tricks than in the first fight will work again.

That doesn’t stop Skitter from trying to trip him with some spiderwebs, at least to know where he’s going. The problem is that, well, he’s moving through ways she didn’t expect, and faster, too. Out of her range.

Heckpuppy’s dogs are the only weapon they have, since Mannequin must have counters for the insects, and Grue’s darkness doesn’t seem to affect him. Well, no, they do have another option: Genesis. She’s still in the territory! And she’s highly versatile, she may have a way to fight Mannequin. The problem is that...well...it would be great to tell her some useful information to fight Mannequin, as otherwise, she’d go in there with whatever knowledge she already has, but there’s no time for that. They’ll have to trust her to fight well. Skitter also calls Sierra to get her to take everybody to a safe place.

Sierra sure took calmly the return of Mannequin. Good for her, staying level-headed despite the awful situation.

Skitter tries to think of a good plan to keep tabs on Mannequin, the one plan she thinks of will take too long.

Mannequin stood in the center of the road, his back to us. Half a dozen of my people were lying on the road, unconscious or dead. I couldn’t see any blood. There were a couple more people in nearby buildings that had fallen as well. How had he reached them? Why hadn’t Genesis and Sierra been able to get everyone out?

...welp. Skitter is going to give herself a psychological flogging for this later. It’s somewhat strange there’s no blood, though. Mannequin’s methods are not clean, they’re not harmless. He has a lot of blades, and a penchant for killing people in awful ways. I find it hard to believe he wouldn’t have taken the chance to gouge Skitter’s heart out by killing some of her new employees. These must be unconscious, not dead...maybe he wants to kill them right in front of Skitter, so she feels powerless.

They arrived just in time to see Genesis’ form dissolving, he had just defeated her. At least she managed to stall him enough for everyone else to arrive, that should count for something.

He turned our way, and his mouth opened like a ventriloquist dummy or a christmas nutcracker. It jiggled up and down, silently, mocking. Laughter without sound.

...comparing a murderous villain to a ventriloquist dummy or a Christmas nutcracker is...kind of a bad choice of words. I’m trying to picture it in my head, and it looks silly every time. At least the heroes took offense to his mocking, Heckpuppy charged forward to attack. It was a trap, though. The bugs right on Mannequin die first, so...whatever he’s doing, it expands from him and outwards. While the dog and its rider manage to avoid the worst, they got close enough to be affected.

The dog collapses, and Heckpuppy has to crawl, gasping for breath. Needless to say, having a fresh wound on her abdomen won’t help that at all. Perhaps pushing Mannequin away will help? It may be some sort of...I don’t know, a gas or an electromagnetic field. Those are the two options I can think of. It’d have to be some sort of long-distance attack, though, something strong enough to push him away.

Gas. Colorless, scentless, swift to spread and it incapacitated in seconds. If my bugs were any indication, it also killed its victims shortly after.

Ah, so that’s what it is. That’s new, Mannequin didn’t have that before. It’s both a protection against Skitter’s bugs – the spiders and all that wouldn’t be able to get close to him – and a way to keep everyone away from him. Not a bad move, and it’s a new challenge to overcome. Any big ideas, Skitter?

Her idea to save her teammate was to hope the wolf pup is well-trained and obeys when she tells him to fetch his owner. There was hesitation, but it worked. Good!

The puppy ran back to us. There was nothing we could do for Bentley.

Heckpuppy is going to be so upset once she finds out another one of her dogs is dead. There’s really no way she’s going to consider for even a moment to join them.

Right, forgot Grue is injured. That’s going to make everything more difficult. In an attempt to gather and try to think of something that could be done against Mannequin, Skitter forces Bastard to come along, and talks to Grue. She suggests using his darkness to displace the gas. Hm...I don’t know if that would work, it doesn’t seem like the darkness displaces anything. If it did such thing, nobody would be able to breathe inside the darkness.

“We need a plan to win this,” he said.

“Priority one is surviving until we think of one,” I replied. “Genesis will be back in action in a few minutes.”

“A few minutes is a long time.”

That’s correct, it’s a long time. I don’t think Mannequin would fool around for a few minutes, if he notices they’re trying to stall for time, he’ll attack and do everything he can to hurt them – or...well, to hurt Grue, because Skitter isn’t going to get the brunt of his revenge, physically.

Their current plan is to split up and look for clues run in different directions. Mannequin pursues Grue, like I thought he would. While it’s a reason to be worried about, this gives her some time to think, while she tries to keep tabs on them with her bugs. Looks like the gas comes from his ventriloquist puppet mouth. Great, just great. Mannequin’s got deadly halitosis.

Why was he here? He wanted to hurt me. He wanted to hit me where it hurt, and he’d done it. He’d killed no less than ten of my followers. Charlotte and Sierra could easily be among them.

Oh, right...now that it was shown he has killer gas, that explains why they weren’t moving. I fear this will get rid of the good will her workers had. People died while working for her. I’m sure they knew it could be dangerous, but they trusted Skitter and hoped she’d keep them safe. The amount of recruits will slow down considerably, I’d dare to say.

Now that he’s going to try to kill Grue, he’s shooting.

Okay. So Mannequin was shooting now, when he hadn’t been before.

Were there other clues? What had changed after he’d closed his mouth?

That you’re not around, perhaps? If he shot, he would risk hitting you? That’s what comes to mind, as unlikely as that could be.

Apparently that wasn’t it. It’s that before there was all that gas around him, and that’s why he couldn’t just shoot them. I had thought Heckpuppy was spared because...well...she hadn’t really failed his test, so he didn’t need to kill her yet, but looks like the reason she’s still alive is because shooting while in middle of his cloud of gas would have been a bad idea.

Maybe he hadn’t wanted to blow himself up.

That...that seems like an extraordinarily huge oversight. There has to be ways for him to create microorganisms to make deadly gas that wouldn’t be flammable. Was he so confident nobody would figure out it’s flammable he didn’t care about that? I guess...maybe that’s it, but still, it’s a really big oversight. It’s a huge weakness, especially because the gas comes from within himself. I don’t doubt he’s resistant enough to endure an explosion – I hope so, because otherwise that’d be really disappointing – so...yeah, maybe he’s gotten reckless. Part of me would even dare to say stupidly reckless, but hey, maybe there’s something I don’t know about the correlation between a gas’ lethality and its flammability. Maybe it’s impossible to make a deadly gas that isn’t flammable. Can’t say I know anything at all about that topic.

Skitter isn’t sure if she’s right or not, but it’s a plan, a last-ditch plan because the force of the explosion can cause a lot of damage. That may be why he’s not worried about flammable gas, because setting fire to it would be dangerous for whoever does it, anyway. Especially if it’s a parahuman that has no power related to fire at all. She starts preparing herself for such option, just in case.

My bugs crossed paths with me, and the items made their way into my hands. A cheap plastic lighter and a packet of matches. I stashed the matches between my belt and my hip and slid the lighter into a small pocket in my utility compartment.

I really hoped I wouldn’t have to use them.

Twenty bucks she’ll have to use them before the chapter ends.

When Skitter arrives to where Mannequin is, she finds he defeated Grue and the dog he was riding, he’s at their mercy. Doesn’t seem like anyone’s dead...yet. They’ll die unless Skitter does something because, you know, crazed madman on the loose. Mannequin is pouring more gas around, maybe trying to keep Skitter away while he kills them with poison. Skitter uses this chance to measure just how much space the gas occupies, it’s a radius of four or five feet. That’s not so much! It’s like a bubble all around Mannequin, it doesn’t sound like it’ll expand much. He’ll have to get really close to his victims for them to die.

Grue had surrounded himself in a thick cloud of darkness, to the point that I couldn’t make out his arms and legs in the midst of it. From what I could gather, he was getting some benefit from it, and was pushing the gas away. How long could he sustain that, though? Was the darkness filtering it out, or was he holding his breath, slowly suffocating?

I remember Grue’s darkness feels like it’s emanating from him. Maybe it emanates with enough strength to have a layer of air around him. It may not keep him alive forever, but it should buy him a few seconds, perhaps?

The confrontation happens. Skitter tells him to back off, Mannequin seems to wonder ‘if not what will you do?’

I raised the matchbook and, after checking again that my bugs were gas-free, lit it. A handful of my bugs carried it into the air.

“Or I light you up,” I said.

Everyone reading this owes me twenty dollars.

Since she had nothing left to lose – well, other than the territory and the lives of everyone in it, but you get the point – she decides all she can do now is try to hurt Mannequin and stop him no matter what, since her chances of impressing Coil are ruined, people died, and her teammates are in peril. Setting him on fire should be a way to do that. The threat is effective enough, Mannequin steps away from Grue, and lets him limp towards Skitter. In the brief moment Skitter kind of lowers her guard to steady Grue, Mannequin acts, aiming with his gun arm. That was quick! So of course Skitter grabs Grue and shoves him onto the ground.

Nothing happens because Mannequin doesn’t shoot just to miss and risk an explosion. He simply aims at Grue again, so Skitter shields him with her body, hoping Mannequin’s intentions of hurting her by killing her teammates meant she would be spared for as long as possible

I stared at his blank, featureless face, praying my instincts were telling me the truth.

Then he shrugged, and my heart fell.

Welp. See you later, Skitter, thanks for being a good main character. Contrary to what some would have expected after such line, the chapter doesn’t end, it still continues. Although she’s shot right on her chest, she’s not dead, and there’s an explosion. Mannequin did blow himself up. He better not have died like a chump.

“Hey, hey,” Grue said, “You’re okay. You’re in one piece.”

Somehow. She does have armor in her costume, that may be what saved her life, since I don’t think the spider silk would have protected that well against bullets with a lot of strength behind them. Everything around them is blazing from the fire of the explosion, and Mannequin is...

I looked for our opponent, and I saw Mannequin virtually unscathed, lying in the shallow water. The blast had knocked him sprawling, but he’d disconnected his parts so only lengths of chain attached each.

Ah, so that’s why such ‘weakness’ was here! He knew exactly what to do to not be affected by the explosion, and if whoever’s fighting him does what Skitter did, they’d put themselves on danger, not Mannequin. He just lets himself be all loose like a ragdoll while his opponents receive the brunt of the explosion. Not bad! I like this now. Not that he seems to like making himself explode, anyway. He did try to avoid exploding.

They all had just recovered from the explosion and about to do their next move when Bastard pounced, Skitter nowhere nearby to keep holding him back. Mannequin doesn’t have time to react and start spreading gas, he’s whipped around for...a few seconds, it seems...before he uses some of his blades to stabilize and stab Bastard on his snout. Heckpuppy is going to carve that carapace of yours into bowls for her dogs once you’re done for, Mannequin.

Yeah, didn’t expect us to be that tough, did you?

Maybe he did not, maybe he did. It’s hard to know what Mannequin’s thinking.

Before Mannequin could kill Bastard, Skitter managed to stop him, something Bastard uses to throw them both onto the ground, where Mannequin again tries to give himself some space by using some of that gas. Thinking fast, Skitter arranges everything so she can light it on fire. Hm! Now that Mannequin is on the floor, against a hard surface and therefore with no place to be thrown at like a ragdoll, he’ll receive the blast of the explosion head-on. Maybe this could damage him!

It happens. Using bandages and dragonflies, she carries some fire to where Mannequin is, and lights the gas on fire while Grue’s darkness protects them from the shockwave and the light that’d ensue. When they see again, they find Bastard is biting onto him, having received a boost from her owner. She’s okay! She’s conscious, and is so furious!

He grew to half-again the size he’d been, roughly as large as a small car, and when he bit down on Mannequin’s arm this time, he broke the material. He adjusted his grip until he had Mannequin’s lower body and legs in a hold, but the material there proved sturdier.

Two arms in two fights, I thought, with a grim satisfaction.

Jack is so going to take this as another loss. You lost twice in two days, Mannequin. That’s humiliating.

The wolf keeps shaking Mannequin, hitting and throwing him around until another dog comes by, who takes over by reminding Bastard what’s the pecking order here. Taking their chance, Grue makes sure Skitter is holding Heckpuppy up, and approaches with a heavy piece of rubble.

“Ignore the head,” I said, quiet. “Nothing important in there. I’m not joking. It’s a decoy. Get him in the chest.”

Grue nodded and hefted the chunk of rubble until it was over his head, point facing forward.

Would it puncture? Hard to say.

I don’t think it will. True, this rubble is pointy, but...I remember last time that guy who helped Skitter hit Mannequin’s head with a big rock a couple times. It was the head, which is a decoy for everything important, and therefore would have less protection than what truly matters. You’d want as much protection as possible in the parts where you keep what keeps you alive. If the head, which is a decoy, didn’t crack, then the chest – more protected and sturdier – won’t crack...I think. Worth a try, though.

Everyone agrees it should be done, especially Heckpuppy, who is angry about the deaths of her dogs. Before Grue can do it, a shockwave of fire blasts them away. Grue shouts to someone they can’t interfere.

No. I fixed my eyes on the scene. Much worse than the Protectorate

This is the last line before I have to scroll down more. Let me guess, is it the Slaughterhouse Nine? Some of them, maybe Jack too?

Burnscar tapped her finger to one side of her nose. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

Oh, it’s only one. Not that it makes it any less bad. How did you get here so fast, Burnscar? Why aren’t you with everyone else?

Burnscar takes her time to go towards Mannequin, helps him stand up – he’s looking really bad, with a lot of cracks and slime leaking from inside his broken arm. Burnscar asks a couple questions,

He raised one hand, and Burnscar slapped it in a lazy high-five.

She turned towards us. “There. He just tagged me in. Forfeited his turn.”

...okay, this is bad. If the change is happening right now, then that means everyone who was going to be tested by Mannequin pretty much won his challenge, even if they do nothing. Well that was...oh well. A bit of a shame, I had hoped to see what everyone would do, but at the same time it’s satisfying Mannequin got so beaten up. It wasn’t an easy fight, and the result was good, at the cost of a lot of pain and the loss of two dogs.

The problem now is that another Slaughterhouse Nine member is taking a bite of the cake now. It’s Burnscar’s turn, and everybody is vulnerable and hurt. Just because of that she has the upper hand right now.

Not a moment of rest for the characters here, eh?

The chapter ends here, so Burnscar’s plans start next time.

Next time: in three updates

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Baptiste Recap: The Missing, the Tumour, the Daughter, the Limp & Everything

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Warning: contains The Missing series 1 & 2 and Baptiste spoilers.

We first met French detective Julien Baptiste in 2006 (for him) and 2014 (for us). A key thing to know about The Missing’s breakout star is that his investigations take place over multiple timelines – not in a complicated sci-fi way, but in a ‘jazzing up a crime drama’ way. If you ever miss a caption telling you what year it is, it’s usually possible to guess based on Baptiste’s hair. As a rule, smoothly combed = the past, charmingly unkempt = now, shaved head = receiving treatment for a brain tumour/uncovering a Gulf War scandal in a disputed region of North Iraq.

We’re getting ahead of ourselves. In 2006, Tchéky Karyo’s French detective was one month away from an idyllic countryside retirement spent beekeeping with his English wife Celia (Anastasia Hille). Crime though, had other ideas. Specifically, one idea: kidnapping children, the finding of whom is Baptiste’s speciality. When five-year-old Oliver Hughes went missing in the French town of Chalons du Bois, Baptiste, a renowned finder of lost things, was brought into aid the investigation.

The Oliver Hughes disappearance

Before the Hughes case was closed, Baptiste was forced into early retirement when he sustained a serious injury. A gendarme on the investigation had been blackmailed by a journalist into leaking information to the press, and attacked Baptiste in an attempt to cover it up. Julien’s leg was slammed repeatedly with a car door, almost causing it to be amputated, explaining why Baptiste now walks with a limp. The leg was eventually saved by surgery, and by the fact that there’s already a charming, wistful, one-legged TV detective on the BBC in the form of Cormoran Strike.

Eight years after Baptiste’s forced retirement, he was dragged back into the case by Oliver’s father Tony Hughes (James Nesbitt), who had refused to give up looking for his son. It didn’t take much dragging; Baptiste lives for his work. Eventually, Julien and Tony tracked down a recovering-alcoholic hotelier who’d accidentally run Oliver down in his car while driving drunk, and his mayor brother who’d hired a Romanian gangster to get rid of the body.

But twist! According to the gangster, Oliver was unconscious but not dead, so he says he killed and disposed of him. Tony, however, doesn’t believe that. He thinks that the gangster instead trafficked Oliver to Russia, where he lives to this day. That was series one’s unresolved cliff-hanger, which was met by the British viewing public with no small consternation.

During series one of The Missing, we learned a few things about Julien. He’s a kind man with a philosophical bent, apt to making meditative statements on the nature of life. He’s also a keen reader with a gentle way about him, but equally willing to rough up a suspect if the case calls for it. He and Celia have a loving and pretty fruity marriage, as well as a beloved daughter named Sara. She was a drug addict hospitalised with a heroin overdose in series one, but had got clean by the time her dad was given his own spin-off in 2019’s Baptiste.

The Sophie Giroux/Alice Webster abductions

Again, we need to rewind. In series two of The Missing, the now-retired Baptiste was drawn back into another old case. Years earlier, he’d investigated the disappearance of 11-year-old French girl Sophie Giroux from a German town. Baptiste didn’t find her, but did wrongly suggest that her father was behind the abduction, which caused Sophie’s mother to kill herself.

In fact, Sophie Giroux had been abducted and kept hostage by a British military officer, along with two other girls – Lena Gerber and Alice Webster. When a now-adult ‘Alice’ reappeared in the German town in need of surgery, Baptiste went along and realised that the young woman was in fact Sophie impersonating Alice. Working with rookie German cop Jorn Lenhart, Julien uncovered the truth, which also involved uncovering a decades-old Gulf War scandal. In the process, the abductor was arrested, but not before he killed Jorn and Alice’s father Sam (David Morrissey). The girls were rescued, including Lucy, the infant daughter Sophie had borne her abductor.

In the closing moments of series two, Julien underwent surgery for a brain tumour. He’d been using the Sophie case to avoid the treatment and distract himself from his looming mortality. Spoiler: he survived.

Line of Duty: Jed Mercurio ‘We Know There Are People Who Don’t Like the Show’

By Louisa Mellor

Baptiste episode 1 review: not the man he used to be

By Louisa Mellor

In The Missing then, Baptiste either has a 50% child-finding success rate, or a 100% rate if you believe the gangster really did kill Oliver Hughes, or a 300% rate if you take the additional discovery of Alice and Lucy into account in the search for Sophie. In series one of his own spin-off Baptiste, those odds are about to get worse, or significantly better depending on who you’re counting. That series was set against a backdrop of child sexual abuse trafficking by Romanian gangsters, and ended with Julien rescuing a whole group of kidnapped girls, though not the specific one he was looking for.

Edward Stratton, Natalie-Rose, the Brigada Serbilu and Niels Horchner

Baptiste series one took place in Amsterdam, where Julien and Celia were visiting their recovering addict daughter Sara, her partner and their baby daughter. When Julien’s old flame Martha Horchner – now the city’s chief of police – dragged him into the case of a missing girl, Celia encouraged the distraction. Baptiste’s wife knew that retirement wasn’t her man’s bag and ever since the brain surgery, he’d needed something to do. His own spin-off provided that alright, plus a surprise new 32-year-old son whom Julien had no idea existed.

In Amsterdam, Julien was tasked with looking for Natalie Rose, a young girl reported missing by her uncle Edward Stratton (played by Tom Hollander). Except, Edward wasn’t Natalie’s uncle, but her client and conspirator in the theft of a million euros in cash from sex trafficking gangsters the Brigada Serbilu.

Like Julien, Edward had had a drug addict daughter – Lucy. After she died of an overdose, Edward split from his wife and took to visiting sex worker Natalie Rose platonically because she reminded him of Lucy. When Natalie Rose’s 15-year-old sister Cristina was kidnapped and sex trafficked, she and Edward hatched the robbery plan to get the money to buy her back. Except that Natalie disappeared with the cash, leaving Edward in debt to some very bad men, one of whom beheaded his father on an English beach.

Natalie had left the money with her tulip-farmer father, who was also looking after her young son, and then drowned while hiding from the gangsters in a canal. When Julien and Edward recovered the cash, Edward re-stole it in an attempt to see through the original plan and save Natalie’s sister Cristina. He failed, and Cristina was never found, but the investigation did lead to the rescue of a shipment of trafficked underage girls. Meanwhile, the gangsters had also killed Edward’s ex-wife and her new partner, but Edward survived.

To solve the case, Julien teamed up with Martha’s son Niels, a police officer recovering from testicular cancer who turned to be Julien’s biological son, the product of a youthful relationship with Martha. Niels also turned out to be a corrupt cop who was working with the Brigada Serbilu and taking bribes to assist with their people trafficking. With the help of Interpol’s Genevieve Taylor (Jessica Raine), Baptiste discovered Niels’ wrongdoing. After going on the run, Niels was tracked down and surrounded in a public square. He took his mother hostage and accidentally shot her in the head, killing her, also shooting his father Baptiste in the arm before he was led away.

British Ambassador Emma Chambers

All of which leaves Baptiste with a crooked cop son in prison, a recovering addict daughter, a baby granddaughter, a great many demons, a pronounced limp, and a very understanding wife. Series two takes him to the Hungarian mountains, in search of the missing family the British Ambassador (played by Killing Eve‘s Fiona Shaw), where no doubt, more personal heartache and philosophical musings await. Vas-y!

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Baptiste series 2 starts on BBC One on Sunday the 18th of July at 9pm.

The post Baptiste Recap: The Missing, the Tumour, the Daughter, the Limp & Everything appeared first on Den of Geek.

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