#I tried to write a young heist!mark in a way that I think? would make sense for him

[amee-racle-ofmyown]

the heist!mark brainrot is consuming me…, just imagine mark n the viewer meeting for the first time as little kids to shoplift candy or smth together ╥﹏╥

the (brain)rot consumes!! I can relate

my dear anon... LISTEN. I am a big advocate for childhood friends captaineer, it's one of my favourite headcanons, but a childhood friends AU for the heist partners? that's something I hadn't considered until now. and it's adorable. I had to write something for it asap because I was INSPIRED. I hope you enjoy💖 thanks for sparking the idea!

Heist!Mark x reader (not explicitly romantic at all it's more about the friendship in this one) | Words: 1,317

You are in the kitchen of your shared home base, unloading the groceries your heist partner has just bought, when you pick up a bag of sour candies, smiling quietly to yourself. He's always been a fan of them.

Turning the packet in your hands, an old memory drifts to the surface of your mind:

You don't remember exactly how long ago it was, but you couldn't have been much older than maybe ten.

Your father was busy working, and had reluctantly sent you to the store with a small list after you insisted you could handle it on your own.

You slipped the folded piece of paper out of your school bag and scanned the list of items. At the bottom was a note that read, ‘Remember to stay hydrated, kiddo! :)’

You walked around the supermarket collecting the few things on your list and placed them in your trolley. On your way to the checkout, you passed through the candy aisle and slowed to eye the products on display.

‘Aren't you going to get anything?’

Your head perked up, shocked at the sudden voice addressing you.

There was a boy next to you with dark hair, looking at you inquisitively. He seemed to be about your age. He might have even been slightly shorter than you.

You must have been standing here for longer than you realised if it had prompted him to ask you about it.

You shook your head.

‘Why not?’

‘Oh, um. My dad only gave me enough money for what we need,’ you said timidly, showing him the list.

‘Ohh, that's too bad.’ Then, a small yet undeniably mischievous smile appeared on his face. He glanced discreetly up and down the aisle. ‘You know you can just — ’ and he took one of the small packets of candy off the shelf and slipped it swiftly into his pocket.

Your eyes went wide, stunned. Both from the fact that he was suggesting you steal, and at the speed and subtly with which he'd enacted the crime, as if he'd done it dozens of times before, if not more.

‘What are you doing?’ you spoke in a harsh whisper.

‘It's no big deal,’ he said in a lower voice than before, but one that still felt entirely too loud. He slipped another bag into his pocket.

You did not want to associate with this boy any longer.

You pushed your trolley away and towards the checkout, handing your items to the cashier.

You were unhappy to find the boy waiting for you when you exited the store, shopping bag in your hand.

‘What do you want?’ you asked, a little standoffishly, frowning at him.

‘There's no need to be rude,’ he said with a small pout. ‘Y'know, I think I might have seen you at school a few times.’

To your dismay, he followed along as you started walking home. When you pressed him, he simply said, ‘Hey, I'm not following you! I live down this way too, I promise!’

As the two of you walked, he chatted annoyingly by your side. What was more annoying was that you found you didn't mind his presence. You were a quiet kid and you didn't have many friends. Having someone to walk home with you was kind of a nice change of pace.

Just as you thought this, though, you immediately chided yourself mentally. You and him were not friends. You weren't going to be friends. This boy was a criminal and he wasn't even sorry about it.

You frowned in thought.

Oh no, what if he got caught? What if you went to juvenile jail for being an accomplice to theft? What would Dad say? What would Mom say? What if—’

‘Hey, are you listening to me? You haven't responded to anything I'm saying.’

You simply sighed as he pulled you out of your thoughts.

‘Are you still mad about the candy? I told you it's not a big deal.’

You stopped as you realised you were approaching your front door. The journey seemed to have gone a little faster than usual.

‘Really?’ you finally replied in an exasperated tone. ‘That was no big deal for you? That was stealing. Stealing is wrong.’ You couldn't believe you had to spell it out to him.

‘They won't notice a couple tiny bags of candy are gone. My mom says big companies that own supermarkets are greedy. They make loads of money anyway and don't pay enough taxes.’

‘Does your mom know you're a thief?’

‘W- well, no, but-’

‘That’s what I thought.’

He looked a little disheartened.

‘Please don't tell anyone. I'm sorry if I upset you,’ he said quietly, looking down.

You hadn't really expected an apology from someone like him. You sighed again.

‘I won't tell, but don't expect me to just go along with it. And don't act like we're best buds all of a sudden. We don't know each other. You don't even know my name!’

‘Well, what's your name?’

You gave him a slightly surprised look before telling him your name, albeit hesitantly.

‘Look, I have to get going now…’

You fumbled with the shopping bag as you reached into your coat pocket, feeling for the house key, when you suddenly felt something that wasn't there before. It made a crinkling sound beneath your touch.

‘You didn't.’ You pulled the candy out of your pocket. ‘When did you—?’

The boy grinned at you.

‘I thought you could have one of mine.’

‘I don't want your stolen candy!’

‘Judging by how you looked at it earlier, I think you do. And besides, stolen treats taste better!’ he called out, already walking away.

‘Wh- SHH!’ You hoped none of your neighbours had heard.

‘I'm Mark by the way! See ya, buddy!’

You stood outside the front door, dumbfounded.

Finally you let yourself in. Your dad wouldn't be home yet for a while.

You put the shopping away and sat down at your kitchen table, staring at the stolen goods in front of you.

You could try to put it back but… that would be more suspicious.

You figured, the deed had been done. There was nothing you could do now, so you may as well make the most of it.

You tore the edge of the packet and popped one of the candies in your mouth, savouring the sweet and sour combination on your tongue.

Maybe Mark was right. It did taste extra good. But maybe it was just because you'd been craving it.

What a weird kid.

‘Stealing is wrong, huh…?’ you mumble under your breath. You look down at the candy in your hands. It's not the same brand as the one from back then, but you imagine it tastes more or less the same, from what you remember.

Present day Mark is the one to pull you out of your musings.

‘Hey, what's with that face you're making? I know that look, buddy. Are you contemplating your life choices??’

You chuckle softly.

‘Just… got reminded of something. I suppose I got lost in nostalgia for a moment.’

‘Oh yeah? Penny for your thoughts?’

You turn and smile at him.

‘This just made me think of an annoying little boy stealing candy from a supermarket. And his reluctant acquaintance who ended up getting dragged into his antics for the foreseeable future.’

It takes a second for it to click.

‘Ohhhhh.’ You watch as realisation turns to him smiling fondly at the memories, which turns to him snapping his attention to you with a fake-offended look.

You laugh at his expression.

‘Wait, hey! Annoying?!’

‘Mhm.’

‘Excuse you, I was a wonderful, sweet and positively charming child.’

Your laughter rings out in the kitchen, full of mirth, and he shakes his head at you with a familiar lopsided grin, and you are so grateful for the cheeky little boy who approached you that day.

#feels kinda weird calling it candy instead of sweets. but I did it bc they presumably live in america #I'm working on at least two other fics rn but I had to stop everything to write this #I finally submitted a uni thing I've been doing for a while so I felt like I deserved a break #and I sat down and wrote majority of this in one sitting lmao #lmao it ended up being my longest fic to date??? WHAT THE HECK?! #BTW AGAIN. NOT ENCOURAGING STEALING THAT'S BAD DON'T DO IT #also yes y/n's dad is the one the only stan the water man #I hc stan to have been the captain's actual dad so I just went 'wth why not in this universe too?' #I really enjoyed this one #thank you again anon #also. I looked up pictures of young markiplier out of curiosity and to get into the headspace Ig/get a mental image for this #and guys. I highly encourage you to do the same. #HE WAS SUCH A LITTLE GUY🥺 #and he looked as cheeky and mischievous as he often does now lolol #that also inspired parts of this haha #I tried to write a young heist!mark in a way that I think? would make sense for him #bit of a kleptomaniac maybe lol #and possibly more seemingly extroverted than I wanted but I had to kick off the interaction somehow #amee writes #a heist with markiplier #ahwm #partners in crime #heist mark x y/n #heist mark x reader #heist mark #heist!mark #markiplier egos #markiplier cu #asks #anonymous

[depressedhatakekakashi]

Birthday Celebration Master List

In My Way- Kakashi has a job to do, but there’s a familiar face in the crowd that tells him it won’t be as easy as he originally thought. Rated: T

The Little Things- Kakashi has noticed Iruka struggling with a few things now that they’re older. He decides to try and help his husband out in any way he can, without being noticed. Rated: G

Sleep Overs And Ghost Stories- Naruto informs Kakashi that he has invited his friends over for a sleepover at their ranch that night. Knowing he can’t do everything himself to get ready to host a bunch of kids, Kakashi calls in some help. Rated: T

Hello, Princess: Parties have never been Kakashi’s favourite scene, but they’re a necessary part of his job protecting the prince. Thankfully, this time, he finds someone to keep him entertained. Rated: G

Worst Flirt Ever- Sakura’s one of Kakashi’s best workers. Always alert and helping the customers. So when he notices her distracted by a customer during rush hour, he decides it’s time to intervene. Rated: G

Stunning Choice- In the middle of a heist, Kakashi notices that Tenzo’s nowhere to be seen. Rated: T

This Is Not Relaxing: A day off was something special. Time for shinobi to relax and enjoy themselves. Apparently, Tsunade-sama has different plans for Kakashi’s day off. Rated: G

Why Protect Them?- Revenge is something Kakashi has been seeking since he left Konoha. For the pain he felt, the life he lives, the hatred he faced. Yet, when he thinks he has finally gotten that revenge he still feels empty. As if there’s something else for him to do. A masked Shinobi shows up to tell him just what it is he’s missing. Rated: T

Let Me Prove Myself: Kakashi finds himself arguing for a change in the roster for his mission, and receives support from an unexpected source. Rated: G

Jokes On You-After a long morning of training, Sakura feels like taking a nap. Possibly the biggest mistake she has ever made. Rated: G

High School Crushes- Sakura and Kakashi are setting up for the LGBTQ+ club when an unexpected guest shows up, and Kakashi’s forced to watch awkward high school flirting. Rated: G

Yesterdays Sadness- Kakashi tries to escape the village for a while, desperate to get away from all of the ghosts that litter the streets. Unfortunately, the spot he chose to hideaway has a surprise for him. Rated: T

What's So Great About You?- No matter what he does, Kabuto can’t seem to get his business to surpass that arrogant jerk Hatake’s, and to make matters worse Hatake has made a habit out of visiting his small bakery to ‘check-in on them’. Rated: G

Mistaken Identities- Kakashi and Gai pay a visit to the Pewter city for a nice relaxing night, only to have the Pokemon Center nurse mistake them for far more embarrassing people. Rated: G

Give Us Some Scenes- It’s a routine at this point. To check their scripts, hoping for a hint of a scene with the other man. Even the smallest one. Yet, no matter how many times they look they can never seem to find one. So they decide to take matters into their own hands. Rated: G

Hello, Terrifying- Zabuza usually finds these kinds of parties to be dull, but he can’t help but stare at the unexpected visitor that seems to have everyone’s attention. Rated: M

Coffee Date- Kakashi had agreed to a coffee date dedicated to marking the last few essays he has left for last, but when he gets there he can’t help but want to do anything else. Rated: G

Stunning- The wedding is finally here, and Kakashi can’t help but feel nervous. Especially when his husband-to-be is late. Rated: G

Memories- In the middle of recovering from the Kazekage Rescue mission, Kakashi finds himself being visited by his two best friends, and reliving some memories that he’d much rather forget. Rated: G

Animal Parade- While making his way through the village, Houki can’t help but notice something odd passing him by. Especially when he realizes that his Hero, Lord Sixth, is involved. Rated: G

Time To Move On- Tsunade decides to leave the village after suffering enough lose to break even the strongest shinobi, but this time she chooses not to go alone. Rated: T

Meet My Eternal Rival- Kakashi always knew that there would come a day where his new Genin team would end up meeting Gai. He was just hoping for a little extra time, and some support from his favourite summon. Rated: G

Let's Save The Day- It's the middle of a world-ending war, everything is going wrong, and Obito can't help but think that things might work a bit better in their favour if an old friend showed up Rated: T

Hello, Sensei- Kakashi's in Konoha to have a chat with the Acadamy Sensei about a student exchange that he and the Hokage have disguised, but he's not expecting the man he's there to meet to be so... Handsome. Rated: G

The Next Generation- While Inoichi attempts to train Kakashi, Shikaku and Choza play a game of Shogi and watch. Rated: G

Game Time Flirting- The goal? Win the challenge and prove that he's the ultimate breath of the wild player. The strategy? Distract Tenzo with the worst pickup lines he can think of. Rated: T

Get To Work- All Shikamaru wants is for his boss to figure out the pay and write up his cheque before the end of his shift. It's not a lot to ask, but here he is. Watching as Kakashi wastes time flirting instead of making sure his staff get paid. Rated: G

To The Future- Now that the Fourth Great Shinobi War is over, and everything has started to settle down, Kakashi and Gai decide what to do next with their lives. Rated: G

Answer Me This: Ever since he was young, Tenzo wandered about the mark on his chest. Now that he’s a bit older, with a lot less going on in his life to distract him, he decides to seek some answers from a trusted source. Rated: G

Goodbyes Are Never Easy- Even after the Fourth Great Shinobi War, there are still those healing from the losses they suffered. Rated: G

I Love Him More: While visiting Konoha with his friend, Tenzo finds himself in an awkward situation with one Maito Gai. Aka the man of Kakashi's dreams, and the most annoying person Tenzo could ever meet.Rated: G

Take Over For Me- In the middle of training with the Sand Siblings, Baki shows up to inform Kakashi of a change of plans. Rated: T

Secret Hideaway- During a day off together, Iruka decided to show Kakashi an interesting place he found on his last adventure in Viridian forest. Rated: G

Change Of Plans- The job was to get into Onoki's party and make sure that Anko was safe while she was wooing her way into the target's bed. The problem? She's not the target's type. Rated: T

How About, No- Doing paperwork has never been Kakashi's favourite part of the job. Doing Tsunade-sama's paperwork is somehow even worse, but apparently, that's not bad enough. Kakashi's best friend has to go and make his life more ridiculous over a stupid crush. Rated: G

Out There Somewhere- After a terrible nightmare, Kakashi make's a discovery that could change everything. Rated: T

Faded Colour- On his way to complete a mission in the land of Earth, Kakashi notices a shift in his vision that could only mean one thing. His soulmate is nearby, and for some reason, he really wants to see the man. Rated: G

#Long Post #Taryn's Birthday Celebration 2021 #Taryn's Birthday Fics

[refinedbuffoonery]

Flawless (7)

Con Artist AU. masterlist. 

Content Warning: swearing, PTSD, violence, sex

Before we get started here, you all need to know that Flawless will be going on a mini-hiatus. This chapter is the end of my original outline, and I need to spend some time planning out the next plot arc before I write the next chapter. 

(Also, shoutout to the lovely humans who translated the line in French. Y’all are the real MVPs.)

Anyway, this is it. The chapter you’ve all been waiting for. The heist. It feels so surreal to finally write it. As always, thank you for coming on this wild ride with me. ❤

*****

In the shadow of its brightly illuminated landmarks, Paris hummed to the tune of debauchery. 

Paparazzi gathered around the Louvre’s glass pyramid, waiting to capture a clear picture of a celebrity guest entering the afterparty. Riley shielded her face with her clutch as she walked in, careful to remain unidentifiable in the barrage of photos. The gold buttons on her emerald jacket-dress caught the warm light emanating from the pyramid and the bright camera flashes. She was well dressed, but not enough to stand out. Tonight, Riley needed to blend in. 

She ran a hand through her hair, making sure the loose curls covered her earpiece. For the sake of stealth, the team’s comms were skin color, but they were Nikki and Cage’s skin color, not Riley’s. 

Riley was half-tempted to throw her comms into one of the fountains out of spite. 

She was the last of the Five Eyes to arrive. They staggered their arrivals to avoid being associated with one another, as a precaution. Pulse thrumming in anticipation, Riley bounced on her toes slightly as she waited in line to check in. The Louvre security team meticulously checked each guest’s ID against the guest list; there would be no party crashers tonight. 

It had been all too easy for Riley to add the Five Eyes’ cover identities to the guest list a week ago. Now, she handed the stone-faced security guard a drivers’ license bearing her face and the name “Danika Jackson.” Returning her ID with a nod, the security guard stepped aside, allowing Riley to enter the party. 

Everyone is responsible for their own entrance and exit. That was her new rule. She got everyone’s names added to the guest list, but her assistance ended there. If someone ran into trouble, it was on them to bail themselves out. 

Riley had learned that rule from her mentor when she first dipped her toes into the world of two-faced schemes and nimble-fingered cons, but she never truly understood it—or saw the need to enforce it—until she felt the bite of handcuffs digging into her wrists. 

It was a mistake she’d never make again. 

Riley strolled through the hallway bearing massive Italian paintings, slowly making her way to the room containing the most overrated painting of all time—and the rendezvous point. 

The Mona Lisa room was empty aside from a blonde woman in a beaded, blood-red cocktail dress standing much too close to the glass-encased painting. Riley stood to the woman’s right and studied the painting as well. It was underwhelming. 

“You’d think the most beautiful woman in art would be wearing a prettier dress,” Nikki remarked.

Riley snorted, crossing her arms. “Says the woman who just bought a four-thousand-dollar cheetah print pantsuit.”

Nikki feigned offence. “You’re just jealous because you couldn’t pull it off. Anyway, quiz time. What year did da Vinci paint the Mona Lisa?” 

“1503,” Riley answered easily. “And the woman’s name is Lisa del Giocondo.” Nikki’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “What’s that look for?” 

“I didn’t think you actually listen when I talk about art.” 

Riley offered her friend a small smile. “I’m always listening to you.” The sound of heels clicking down the hall made them pause. When the coast was clear, Riley murmured, “Is everyone in position?”

“Yeah. Desi and Sam should be inside already, and Jill checked in a few guests in front of me.”

“How did that go?”

“Easy peasy.” Nikki glanced at Riley and softened her tone. “Are we sure Jill is ready for this?”

“We’ll find out, won’t we? Don’t forget, it was your idea to recruit her.”

Nikki turned back to the Mona Lisa. “You know, you really do suck at pep talks.” 

“Oh shut up.” Riley rolled her eyes. “Are you sure you want control room duty?” 

Nikki spared her a sideways glance. “I’ll do it. You did it last time.” Her second sentence hung heavy in the air, a reminder of the job gone horribly wrong. And a reminder of all the things they still hadn’t talked about. 

Riley brushed it aside. They could talk after they were each forty million dollars richer. 

Pulling a flash drive hidden inside an old lipstick tube out of her clutch, Riley instructed, “Plug this in, and it’ll do half the work for you.” 

“Thanks.” Nikki put the tube in her own purse. “See you on the other side.” 

“Don’t get caught.” 

“Don’t get caught,” Nikki parroted, and Riley strode down the hall toward the party.

She followed the pulsing music and the stream of guests to a room in the far corner of the museum, passing the employee door Nikki would sneak into along the way. Crossing the threshold, she couldn’t conceal her gasp. Riley had seen plenty of opulent rooms over the years, but the Galerie d’Apollon was something else entirely. Gold moulding framed the dozens of paintings covering the walls and the arched ceiling. Display cases containing the French Crown Jewels formed a line down the middle of the rectangular room. Despite the party’s couture dress code, the bedazzled guests looked entirely underdressed compared to the grandeur of the gallery.

She only let herself be awestruck for a few seconds before getting to work, marking the exits and security cameras. Riley didn’t like how deep the gallery was in the museum—and how far she would have to walk to make a clean escape with the jewels. 

She would be the one walking out with them. No one else. Riley had made that crystal clear during the team planning meeting a few days ago. 

Draped in black fabric, the case containing the designer jewelry sat in the middle of the gallery. A security guard stood by it, no doubt to ward off nosey guests wanting a sneak peek. 

A wave of nausea passed through her, reminding Riley that the closest thing to a substantial meal she’d eaten all day was the two pastries she ate a few hours ago. She slipped through the crowd with practiced ease, heading for the snack table. Jill was already there, gorging herself on bread and cheese. Eyes wide, the blonde froze as Riley sidled next to her, evidently thinking she was in trouble. 

But Riley simply reached for a piece of bread and asked, “Which cheese is the best?” 

Exhaling audibly, Jill pointed a manicured, light blue nail. “That one.” Riley tried it. Jill was right; it was delicious. 

“You ready, Blondie?” Riley asked, lowering her voice. “There’s no job unless you get this right.” 

Jill rolled her shoulders back, snarking, “No pressure or anything.” There was a bite to her words, one Riley noticed only came out when someone, namely her, pushed the blonde a little too far. 

“Sorry,” Riley said, and she meant it. “You can do this. Don’t second-guess yourself. Commit.” 

Jill merely nodded, swallowing another piece of cheese. 

Riley wandered off, not wanting to stay with Jill too long. With her back to a wall, she scanned the room in search of Desi and Cage. When she didn’t see them on her first sweep, Riley furrowed her brow. Where the hell were they? 

A bright laugh carried across the room—Cage. There you are, Riley thought. She spied her teammate enjoying the spotlight in the center of a group of models all cooing over Cage’s pale pink dress. It suited Cage, with its billowy sleeves and flowy skirt that hit just below her knees. Cage giggled again, putting her hand on a woman’s shoulder a little too boldly for the gesture to be casual. 

Predictably, Desi wasn’t far away, staring daggers at her shameless flirt of a girlfriend. 

Riley unmuted her comms. “Easy there, Des. It’s just an act.” 

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” she snapped. Even from a distance, Riley could see Desi’s tight grip on her champagne flute. 

Riley cooed, “So jealous.” 

The woman wrapped a proprietary arm around Cage, clearly welcome to the blonde’s advances, and Cage beamed at her. 

It was enough to push Desi over the edge. “Don’t forget whose bed you’re sleeping in tonight, Samantha,” she snarled. “And I don’t remember agreeing to share.” 

Cage excused herself from the group. “My love, did it ever occur to you that I’m making you jealous on purpose? Because we both know—”

Nikki cut her off, rescuing the team from whatever filthy thing was about to come out of Cage’s mouth. “Don’t be gross, you two.” Riley stifled a laugh. She and Nikki had been subjected to many things they didn’t want to hear over the years. This would hardly faze her now.

Focus. They needed to focus. 

Riley finally spotted the sharp-eyed assistant she noticed at the runway show. Always two steps behind the designer, the young woman obediently trailed him as he floated from group to group. The assistant finished her drink, setting it on the tray of a passing waiter, and strode toward the main hallway in this wing of the museum. 

“I think she’s going to the bathroom,” Jill said. “Do I follow her?” 

Snagging a drink of her own, Riley answered, “No. Bump into her when she comes back.” She watched Jill make her way toward the far side of the gallery, ready to intercept the assistant and steal her keys. 

Everything was going to plan. Jill just had to steal the keys, and then all they had to do was hurry up and wait for the big reveal. Eight o’clock, Riley was told upon arrival. The designer would commence his speech at eight, then reveal his masterpiece to the world. 

Riley checked her watch. Thirty more minutes. 

She knew she’d been standing in this spot for too long already, but Riley was loath to give up the relative safety of having a wall at her back. The twinge of fear she’d felt earlier at the runway show came raging to the surface, rooting her stiletto-clad feet in place. Leaving the wall meant having people in her blind spot. No one’s going to hurt me, Riley promised herself. This is a party, not a prison. 

Her legs felt like lead weights, but Riley forced herself to re-enter the crowd, one agonizing stride at a time. She made it as far as the nearest display case before she had to stop, and her eyes landed on a tiara resting in the center of the display. Countless tiny diamonds formed flowery swoops and swirls, with a handful of emeralds scattered between them, filling what would otherwise be empty spaces. In the center, the diamonds framed a large, round emerald, mimicking the shape of a flower. 

It was exactly what Riley would have stolen had the Five Eyes agreed to rob the Louvre itself, rather than this party. Maybe she’d come back for it, one day. 

Using the case as a pseudo-wall, Riley took a deep breath and re-scanned the room in search of Jill. Unsurprisingly, Jill was exactly where Riley had last seen her.

She kept an eye on the recruit, knowing Desi and Cage were doing the same. Riley was impressed; Jill had quickly figured out how to linger without being obvious she was waiting for something. Jill mindlessly pushed up her glasses—the only visible sign of her nerves—and the movement drew Riley’s attention. 

But not to Jill. 

To another blond head, far behind her. One Riley desperately hoped to never see again. 

“We have a problem,” Desi said. 

“I saw.” 

Nikki’s ex-boyfriend stalked into the gallery, a taller, older man at his heels like a shadow—the same men who chased Riley, Nikki, and Jill through the taco shop a few weeks ago. 

Fuck.

Ducking her head to avoid being spotted, Riley hissed, “Nik, get your ass to the control room and lock the door behind you. We’ve got company.” 

“Already here. Accessing system controls as we speak. Whoever designed the security system in this place should be fired, because this is ridiculously simple. I should’ve left it in French just to keep it interesting.” A pause. "Who's here? Wait. No. Let me guess. Interpol? The mob? That bitchy designer I once robbed point-blank?" 

"Your ex." 

"Oh."

"You didn't tell him about our dream job, did you?" The words came out a little too accusatory, but Riley didn't care. She needed to know. 

"No! Of course I didn't. He— Look, I don't know why he's here, and we can figure that out later. Right now, you need to keep him busy. He's smart, Riles. Maybe even smarter than you. Be careful." 

Riley scoffed. "Smarter than me? We'll see about that." 

"I'm serious, Riley." 

But Riley ignored her, instead giving instructions of her own. "Cage, you watch Jill. Des—" 

"I've got the big one." Classic Desi, never letting her finish a sentence and yet always knowing what she was going to say. The habit was obnoxious at first, but over time Riley learned to appreciate it. "See the bulge on his left side? He keeps touching it." Desi said. "He's armed." 

“He’s what?” Jill exclaimed. 

Chuckling, Desi said, “Now look at my left side. We match.” A small, terrified squeak was the only response. “Well, what did you think I meant when I told you I’m the team’s exfil specialist?” 

“Not that!” 

“And Nik’s ex?” Riley asked, redirecting the conversation. 

“Seems clean.” 

“He is,” Nikki confirmed. “Mac hates guns.” 

“You know,” Riley said, studying the larger of the two men, “The other one kind of looks like a guy who dated my mom once.” 

“Really?” Desi asked. “Think he’s the same guy?” 

Riley took a closer look. He was tall, with broad, muscled shoulders and a buzzed haircut, and considering how often he fidgeted with his tie, he didn’t get dressed up often. He smiled at a passing waitress. He had an open, friendly smile, which totally contrasted with the systematic way he scanned the room. “Nah.”

Jill squawked, “Wait! Are we really still going through with this? Didn’t it just get a whole lot harder?” 

“You say harder, I say more fun,” Cage said. “Just stick to the plan. You’ll be fine.” 

Jill, it seemed, wasn’t so easily reassured. “Am I the only one who sees this is a trap?” 

“It’s only a trap when you don’t know about it. When you do, it’s a challenge,” Riley said. 

“But what if the plan goes wrong? Then what?” 

At the same time, all four women answered, “Improvise.” 

Riley muted her comms as she approached Nikki’s ex; Jill didn’t need the added distraction. Help her, Riley pleaded with the universe. You owe me. 

Pushing her concerns about Jill to the back of her mind, Riley studied her target. There was a champagne flute in the spy’s hand, but he didn’t drink it—not even a sip—and his methodical gaze swept the room, no doubt making note of each guest and who they interacted with. 

He was cute, she had to admit. Definitely Nikki’s type. 

Purposefully not watching where she was going, Riley collided with him, narrowly avoiding sloshing his drink onto her shoes. She pretended to stumble, and his free hand caught her waist, ensuring Riley stayed upright. “Oh! I’m so sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going. Pardon me.” 

His hand left her side. Frowning, he asked, “Do I know you?” 

Don’t lie. Evade. Her former mentor taught her that. 

Riley smirked. “I bet you use that line on every beautiful woman you stumble into.” 

“Only when I’m too blown away to say something original.” He winked. 

Maybe this would be easier than Riley anticipated. “Care to wander the museum with me while you practice your next line?” 

“Normally I would, but I just got out of a relationship, and I’m not looking to start anything new.” 

So much for that plan. 

His honesty, however, was surprising. 

“Not even a little fun?” she goaded, but Nikki’s ex declined once more before excusing himself and vanishing into the crowd. 

At least Desi had better luck keeping the other spy occupied. She had him cornered, her body carefully angled to prevent him from seeing the slight bulge from the gun hidden in her dress. The plunging neckline had two purposes—easy access to the gun holstered at her side while providing a distracting view of her chest and intricate tattoos. It was just enough to snag wandering eyes and keep them focused on the front of her body, rather than the side. To the spy’s credit, his eyes remained pointedly fixed on Desi’s face. 

“Got the keys,” Jill announced. Perfect timing. 

Riley breathed a sigh of relief. “Good work, Blondie.” 

Now, all they had to do was wait.

*****

While the designer yammered some pretentious bullshit about fine jewelry as the centerpiece of fashion and art, Riley slowly pushed her way to the front of the crowd gathering for the reveal. A few feet away, Cage did the same. Across from them—closest to the still-covered jewelry display case—Desi and Jill took their places. None of them were particularly interested by the designer’s speech, but Nikki would be hanging on every word if she were here. 

The designer rambled on, explaining how particular pieces among the French Crown Jewels influenced the designs of his own work. It was awfully arrogant, Riley thought, comparing his own work to such timeless pieces. The longer he spoke, the more Riley disliked him and didn’t feel even an ounce of guilt for robbing him. 

Lingering on the edge of the crowd, Nikki’s ex and his partner seemed content to remain out of the way. For all Riley cared, they could stay there all night. 

The gallery lights flickered once. A few guests glanced up nervously, but the majority remained transfixed on the designer. 

Nikki’s voice crackled through the comms. “Everyone ready? Nod once if you are.” Riley nodded. One by one, so did everyone else. “Alrighty then. Lights out in five…”

Riley counted the number of paces between her and Cage—six. 

“Four…”

Paces from Cage to the jewelry case—eight. 

“Three…”

Paces from the case back to her original position—ten. 

Two…

Closing her eyes, Riley waited. 

“One.” 

Several women shrieked when the lights went out. 

Riley opened her eyes, and before they’d even adjusted to the dark, she strode toward Cage. Six steps. She collided with Cage, dropping her purse on the ground and taking Cage’s identical one, containing replicas of the necklace and earrings. 

Cage shouted that someone stole her purse, causing a scene. She’d chatted and flirted with enough people throughout the night for her voice to be easily recognized, and a murmur broke out among the agitated crowd, creating just enough background noise to cover the sound of Riley’s heels clicking on the floor. 

Eight steps to the back side of the jewelry display. Riley could just make out Jill and Desi unlocking the case with the assistant’s keys. She braced for an alarm to sound, but there was nothing. Atta girl, Nikki. 

Riley opened the purse. Carefully, Desi replaced the real jewels with the fakes, depositing the real ones inside Cage’s purse. 

Jill locked the case and replaced the cover, and Riley returned to her original position among the crowd. The designer and his assistant remained oblivious to what transpired behind them, even as Jill slipped the keys back into the assistant’s dress pocket.

“Lights on in three,” Nikki warned. 

Emergency lights flickered on, casting a harsh white light over the murmuring crowd. A man angrily questioned what happened, followed by a chorus of “Yeah, what he said!”s in a variety of languages. The assistant urged the crowd to remain calm, promising everything would be sorted out shortly. 

Riley looked over her shoulder, searching for Nikki’s ex. He was nowhere to be found. She narrowed her eyes, but with two hundred million dollars worth of jewelry in her hand, Riley decided she didn’t particularly care. 

The woman Cage flirted with the longest stepped forward, picking up the purse Riley had tossed near Cage’s feet. “Isn’t this your purse?” she asked Cage. 

Riley’s teammate feigned embarrassment, gracefully reclaiming the purse. “Yes, that’s it. Thank you.” 

Just as an outraged Cage exclaimed the purse was empty, Riley melted into the dispersing crowd, slowly making her way toward the museum’s exit. That was the plan. She’d leave first, and once she escaped with the jewels, everyone else would exit as well. 

Riley retraced her steps, heels clicking on the hardwood flooring of the museum’s endless long hallways. She didn’t look at any of the art as she passed, not even a single glance. Art had always been more Nikki’s thing than hers. 

Weaving her way back to the exit, Riley prayed Nikki hadn’t missed any of the cameras. She was supposed to loop them all, allowing Riley to leave the museum unseen. But with each additional camera—some obvious, some not—Riley’s anxiety rose. 

Nikki knows what she’s doing, Riley reminded herself. She won’t let anything happen to me. 

Two years ago, that reassurance would’ve been enough. 

Now, her distrusting brain shot back, Are you sure? 

Riley didn’t dignify it with a response. 

Passing the museum’s security checkpoint, Riley smiled at a bored-looking security guard. “Vous partez déjà?” he asked. 

Riley hoped the security guard asked why she was leaving so soon. She never did get around to brushing up on her French. “Oui, I have a flight to catch.” Not a lie, although the flight wouldn’t take off until early tomorrow morning. 

The crisp night breeze prickled Riley’s bare skin. She took a deep breath, letting the cold air fill her lungs. For the first time that night, Riley finally felt her body start to relax. The vast, empty plaza felt so much safer than the packed gallery. Still not safe enough to let her guard down, but safer. Riley slipped her hand into the purse, fingers closing around an earring. It was surprisingly heavy in her palm. 

Another flawless job. The Five Eyes were back in business. 

She was halfway across the plaza when Nikki started cursing, but Riley didn’t slow. Everyone is responsible for their own exit. The job was done. No turning back now. 

There was a distinct male voice in the background, but Riley couldn’t make out what he said. 

“What do you mean, ‘I had a feeling you’d be here’?” Nikki demanded. “We haven’t spoken in months, Mac, and I know you didn’t track me here on your own.” 

Her ex’s voice was nothing more than a low, indiscernible rumble. 

“What?” Nikki whispered, her voice breaking mid-word. 

As much as Riley wanted to know what he said, she kept walking. But that didn’t stop the others from hissing Nikki’s name, demanding to know what was going on. 

Nikki yelped, and then the male voice purred, loud and clear, “I know you’re listening, Riley. Why don’t we go on that little walk now?” 

With a cold laugh, Riley said, “In your fucking dreams.” How did he know her name? As far as she knew, Nikki never mentioned her. 

Still, she kept walking. Everyone is responsible for their own exit. No matter what. 

Riley muted her comms, and Nikki’s piercing shriek filled her ear. A muffled grunt followed.

Then nothing. 

Please be okay. Please be okay. Please be okay. 

“Riley, you need to come back,” Jill pleaded. “Nikki needs help.” 

She didn’t answer, clenching her jaw with the effort to keep silent. An airplane flew overhead, and Riley tracked its path across the sky. Every step brought Riley closer to her own flight home—and the freedom that entailed. Turning around now would only put that in jeopardy. 

But every step also took her away from her best friend. The woman she once believed she’d do anything for. 

Jill was overreacting, Riley reasoned. Nikki was more than capable of getting herself out of a bind. Riley lost track of the number of impossible situations she and Nikki had found themselves in over the years, and they always found a way to escape. 

“Sam is getting Jill out,” Desi said, slightly out of breath. “Riles, I don’t think I can get Nikki out on my own. Jill is right. You need to come back.” 

Riley faltered. If Desi thought there was a problem, then something must’ve gone really, really wrong. 

Maybe Jill wasn’t overreacting after all. 

“Des—” Cage started. “They opened the case.” 

“So?” 

“They know the jewels are fake. If Riley comes back, it won’t just be Nikki going to prison.” 

Prison. 

Riley didn’t think she was breathing. Heart thudding wildly, her stomach tied itself into knots, and her clothes became damp with sweat. The sense of safety she’d felt earlier was gone, and Riley fought the urge to run. Every little noise—traffic, pedestrian chatter, a siren in the distance—was coming for her, ready to drag her into some dark hole she’d never emerge from. 

Nothing was logical anymore, like the part of her brain capable of rational thought had gone to sleep. She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head, trying to wake up, but it was no use. 

Run, while you still have the chance, her body screamed. 

Everyone is responsible for their own exit, her brain repeated. 

She needed to turn around. Nikki couldn’t go to prison. 

Two years ago, Riley had gone to prison in Nikki’s stead. She let herself be arrested to protect her friends. Her family. 

If Nikki went to prison now, then Riley’s sacrifice would be in vain. 

But Riley’s body refused to turn around. Her worst memories from prison flashed before her eyes—ones Riley desperately wanted to forget—like a cougar crouching in the shadows, waiting for the exact moment she was at her weakest to pounce. 

She couldn’t go back there. She couldn’t go through that again. 

She wouldn’t survive it twice. 

“Riles,” Nikki pleaded, her voice barely above a whisper. “Where are you?” 

Run, that voice in her head said. Don’t look back. 

Her steps were slower now, less sure. But Riley didn’t stop. She couldn’t. 

“I need you.” 

Save yourself, girl. 

“I’m sorry,” Riley whispered, but her comms were still muted. With a shaking hand, Riley unmuted them one last time. 

It’s better this way, the voice promised. You’ll see. 

It was all too easy to slip into the brutal, emotionless persona she’d built while in prison, the process having become instinct. It was necessary then, to keep her safe and alive. Now, it did the same, preventing Riley from making a mistake every cell in her body knew she wouldn’t come back from. 

In a cold, unflinching voice, Riley said, “Everyone is responsible for their own exit.” 

She threw her earpiece into a nearby fountain, and the click of her stilettos echoed in the night. 

~ Tag List ~ Want to be added? Send me an ask.

@macrileyedits / @hellishrose / @losingitovermacriley​ / @mylifequotesshowallofthem / @thecarrieonokay / @holbytlanna​ /

#beth writes #flawless au #macgyver #macgyver fanfiction #riley davis #nikki carpenter #desiree nguyen #samantha cage #jill morgan #angus macgyver #jack dalton #<- look who's back

[hains-mae]

Flowers

(Damian x Reader) Soulmate AU

Rating: T

Ages: Damian and you are 16, everyone’s ages follow after.

Summary: Soulmate AU where the wounds on your soulmate turns into a flower tattoo on your skin, if it heals with no scars the tattoo goes away, if it heals with a scar then the tattoo stays. You are just an ordinary girl, with an ordinary life, so one might think it only makes sense that your soulmate is just as ordinary as you. But that isn’t the case. Especially not when your body is constantly littered with flowers. Some of them fade over time, some stay, but one thing is for certain – your soulmate seems to get hurt. A lot.

Notes: Hey there you guys. Recently I’ve been caught up in a Batman fever, and I can’t do anything about it. I ended up creating a challenge for my friend @mrevaunit42​ which was an “Character x Reader” Soulmate AU. Seriously, it was all in the name of fun.

And then I got caught up in it, perhaps a little too much – and created this. I’ve never written a soulmate au before, though I really wanted to. (Now I have! Yay~) So please forgive my writing since I’m a little rusty, and I hope you enjoy.

Stay safe everyone.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC. If I did, I wouldn’t make it as confusing as it is now.

I woke up to a burning sensation on my lower ribs in the middle of night. Hissing in pain I slowly pushed my feet out of the warm covers and turned on the lamp beside my bed. Pulling up my shirt I assessed the damage.

It was purple lilacs this time, stretched across the middle of my torso going horizontally to my side. I winced as the tattoo completed itself and just as the heat came, a cold chill ran through it and down my spine. Somehow it soothed the burn.

God, another one? I frowned at the beautiful flower and sighed. It worried me that my soulmate was prone to getting hurt. Sometimes the injuries made sense, like when I found them on my knees, I could easily chalk it up to falling and scraping – but injuries like these were more difficult to decipher.

How does someone normal get hurt this way?

They don’t.

“Unless they’re a criminal.” One of my friends stated dryly days ago.

“Or a hero!” Another said quickly.

Needless to say, I wasn’t in a rush to find out. Whoever this person was, I knew from the start that they were trouble.

The next time I woke, it was to the early morning rays that escaped my curtains and played a fiery dance on my eye lids. I groaned and pulled the covers up wishing I could sleep in for a couple more minutes, but I knew I couldn’t.

A few weeks ago my school, Gotham Academy, announced that they were holding their annual science fair at a convention centre as opposed to the regular school gymnasium, because surprisingly enough, Wayne Enterprise offered to fund the event.

It was no secret that Gotham’s economy was hitting below the desired margin. Many people don’t have jobs which resulted in an influx of crime in the past years. And so Wayne Enterprise collaborated with Gotham’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to raise awareness and encourage young minds to strive for a better, innovative future. They shouldered the expenses needed and created an international affair, to top it off; Wayne Ent. also offered scholarships to future college goers and internships in all their branches.

Which was why I couldn’t sleep in today. I had project to work on. In line with our team of sponsors, I decided to invent a weapon that could help the GPD when catching criminals. A gun that projects thin plastic case marbles filled with a chemical concoction that erupts into a quick hardening foam upon impact. The foam itself is not toxic, but it works with catching and detaining. It turns as hard as stone but there was another type of compound that I was in the process of creating to counter act it as a measure of safety.

I got up and started my day.

“Good morning sweetheart.” My mom greeted as I entered the kitchen. She smiled warmly at me as she placed a plate of eggs and bacon on the table.

I couldn’t help but return the gesture, walking up to her and placing a kiss on her cheek. “Morning Mom, are you working tonight?”

“I have to, but don’t worry I’ll be leaving something in the fridge for dinner.”

I thanked her and took my plate into the living room. Turning on the T.V., I easily found the news channel and watched the latest reports on Gotham’s activities.

Mom sometimes had to work on weekends just to make ends meet, which was one reason why I was so hard to get that scholarship and hopefully the internship as well. The other reason was…

A family picture caught my eye in the middle of the news and I bit back a sigh. My dad, my mom, and me. We all were smiling at the camera.

Dad was part of the Police force and died during a heist. Reports stated he was running after the criminals and got shot before he could capture them. That was another reason I chose this as my project. Dad always wanted to fight for justice, hopefully this invention could help.

I finished up my breakfast and helped my mom with chores before I slipped into science mode and continued tinkering with the project. The projectiles were complete and I was able to make 3 in total, which I stored in a small box encased with extra padding.

It was around evening after my mom left that I got another burn. I dropped the screwdriver I was holding and bit my lip. Gasping for breath I pulled my sleeve and watched another flower blossom on my forearm.

The pain was gone in an instant and the cold tickled the skin that was branded. I sighed and slowly straightened my poster. This person, after all these injuries, they better not die before I meet them. I grumbled to myself when I realised I was short on supplies. Poor planning on my part.

I grabbed my bag and locked the front door before I headed out to the nearest hardware store, careful to keep my marks hidden from view. I’ve lived in Gotham my whole life, and I knew that standing out, even in the smallest way, would lead into trouble.

The walk to the store was short and uneventful, thankfully. There were only a few customers. I manoeuvred my way between the isles and picked up what I needed. After paying at the counter I hauled my goods and ducked back into the streets. I almost wished I didn’t stop when I heard that woman cry out for help. I was unarmed, unprepared, and every cell in my body screamed at me to walk – no – run away from the scene that was unfolding before my eyes.

But she was helpless. Clad in a trench coat and rain boots, she didn’t look like much but her bag was definitely designer. The thieves in question had a knife pointed at her face. There were 6 of them. All were towering and bulky next to her petite frame. Their menacing stares struck a cold shiver in me and my hand involuntarily clutched the projectiles I was working on in my pocket. I had a feeling it would be safer with me than it would be at home, however this was not how I imagined I’d first be using them.

The woman screamed again and I clenched my palm.

I sucked in some air and got ready to shout at the perpetrators – until I felt the wind rush past my ear.

In a flash someone had swooped into the scene and kicked the man holding the knife to the ground. The sound of blades being drawn stole my attention. It was Robin. He took a stance between the woman and the men.

“Run. Now.” He told the lady.

She whimpered and scrambled up to her feet dashing towards me, towards the entrance of the alley. She zipped past and didn’t stop running till she turned the corner. I should be running too. But my eyes were fixed on the fight that was about to happen.

Robin seemed no older than me. In reality there was no way he could win against 6 huge men. But then again, this was Robin. No normal teenager.

“6 against 1.” He mused, the grip on his katana tightened. “That hardly seems fair.”

The one who held the knife, possibly the leader of the gang, growled thickly. “Get‘im boys.”

They all rushed towards him at the same time, hands in the air and weapons ready. Robin whipped his blade and easily knocked two knives down, the remaining used their strength and threw punches that looked like it would strike anyone straight to next week. The masked boy effortlessly dodged all their hits. Crouching, jumping, twisting, exactly when needed and not a second too late. His movements were precise; a quick jab below the rib striking the kidney with the handle of the sword, a sharp slam of his elbow to the chin, and to close the deal with a blunt blow force to the side of the neck. The goon fell like a tree that’s been cut down.

I gaped in awe.

The others rushed to avenge their fallen comrade, but Robin was quicker and used his blade to disable them. He kicked one of them into the brick wall, a sickening crunch echoed as the goons’ head smashed into it, then a howl of pain when Robin sliced his back. I cringed at the sight of the blood. It was a superficial wound, at least from my vantage point. The cut was deep enough to hurt and draw red, but not enough to kill.

The next lunged himself and grabbed Robin’s wrist, the boy growled and kicked him the face, forcing to free himself. He couldn’t see the other one running towards them from behind, the weapon aiming straight for Robin’s back.

“Robin!” I found my voice and screamed. “Behind you!”

He did a roundhouse kick and slammed the head of the one holding his wrist, then using the momentum back flipped and kicked the one who was behind.

I sighed in relief.

“What are you doing just standing there?!” He shouted at me as he readied himself again. “I said run!”

That got all the men’s attention. The ones that fell got back up and huffed angrily.

“Get the girl!” The leader shouted. “We can use her.” His leer sent bile rushing up my throat.

I squeaked as 3 of them started to chase me. Finally my legs listened and I dashed across the street onto the other pavement.

They were too fast though, their thundering footsteps grew closer towards me. My lungs burned as I tried to inhale some much needed oxygen, physical sports like running really weren’t my thing. I nearly tripped on an uneven tile as a scream rippled out of my throat. I braced myself for impact but it never came. Instead I felt a rush of wind across my face and a lightness below me. The ground was getting further and further away.

I realised I was being carried. Looking up, I was face to face with Red Robin.

“God thing I saw you when I did or you’d be dead meat.” He said dryly as we landed on a roof.

“Th-thank you.” I breathed, trying to gulp in as much needed air as I could. “Robin – he –“ But I didn’t know how to articulate. The adrenaline rush was messing with my head, and I could barely think straight.

Yet Red Robin nodded, understanding. He jumped off the roof and shot his grappling hook. I peered down and saw the fight started to move, from the alley to the side walk. The goons cornered Robin into a store front and were relentless as they threw punch after punch. The other 3 that were chasing me were already fighting Red just below the building that he deposited me on.

I watched in horror as the glass shattered everywhere around them. They weren’t just normal gangs I discerned, they knew how to fight. And unlike the birds and bat, they didn’t mind taking a life.

Clutching the projectiles again in my pocket, I brought them up with trembling hands.

“I hope this works.” I whispered to myself and pulled out my elastic hair tie.

Hooking one of the orbs onto the elastic, I aimed for the goons attacking Robin, and pulled as far as the band could go. Willing my hand to stop shaking, I said a silent prayer and released my hold.

Time seemed to go into slow motion as it flew across the air. I held my breath.

It hit the ground between two goons and burst into a big foamy cloud of vibrant cobalt, instantly seizing the men and solidified their prison as the concoction cooled.

Both fights stopped for a split second, as they watched the chemical reaction, which now looking back was a mistake on all parties.

I gasped and thanked whoever was listening.

The leader roared and pulled a pistol. I felt my throat tighten as the gun set a bullet free.

Robin and I cried out in pain as the bullet dug into him. Tears threatened to roll down my cheek as I clutched my burning shoulder.

A birdarang zipped towards the leader, catching his wrist and making him let go of the weapon. With a grunt, Robin kicked him hard across the chest stealing the perpetrators breath and with a quick turn, smashed his foot onto the mans jaw, cracking it before letting him fall with a loud thud.

The fight continued and Robin easily subdued his last opponent. Then he ran across the street to finish up with Red. Both of them moved in fluid motions like well trained dancers as they fought while protecting each others weak spots. They took down the last 3 goons and tied them up just as the police sirens blared within the distance.

I jumped up from my spot and turned to run but stopped when I saw the two Robins in my path.

“You.” The younger one started. “You were the one who shot the…”

I nodded wordlessly, still feeling the adrenaline coursing through my body. A nasty red splotch caught my attention and I believe they both noticed as I glanced at it. My own hand went up and clutched my shoulder unconsciously, a cold sensation rippled through where the bullet was.

“Oh my god.”

---

to be continued...

Part 2, 3, 4, 5 (end)

#Damian Wayne x Reader #Damian x Reader #Soulmate AU #fanfiction #my fanfiction #challenge #DC #Batman #Robin #Red Robin #my fan fiction

[this-is-quite-homoerotic]

please tell us more about criminal ianto 👀 did he ever get caught when he was young? who is the most shocked of the torchwood gang when they find out about his skills?

funny you should ask! i actually have a vague idea of what i’d want to write if i ever wrote this fic, so here, have some thoughts:

okay, first order of business: i can see Ianto’s skills being centered around either a) grifting, or b) stealing things. we see in canon that he was arrested once for shoplifting in his teens, and it’s mentioned in one of the novels that he went to jail for two weeks for mouthing off to the judge (my son :’)), so we know he was caught once by the law.

my headcanon is that he was just getting started then and wasn’t as good, but a bit later he was caught again, not by the law but by a professional. i’m talking he tried to lift someone’s wallet but his target was a world-class thief type of situation. instead of being mad, this professional was charmed and thought he had talent, so they trained him, honing his skills and making him very, very good, and maybe also introduced him to some other thiefs.

(if you’ve watched Leverage, i’m picturing this professional to be Sophie and she trained him to be an excellent conman much like Archie trained Parker, but it could be a world-class thief training him on how to get past top-notch security and into safes instead. maybe a bit of both. ideally, a mix of both.)

after his training, he never got caught, though i’m sure it was a close thing many times, especially if he was taking risks.

now, something would have had to happen to steer him away from a life of crime, and i think what happened was an alien encounter. (disclaimer: i haven’t listened to the Torchwood One audios, so i don’t know exactly how Ianto joins T1.) he survives his alien encounter, of course, but it was a shock, and a paradigm shift in that it changed his perspective. more precisely, it widened it. suddenly, the world was so much bigger than he ever knew, and the rush of the alien encounter was at least as good as any rush he got from stealing/conning. someone from Torchwood One saw him when they were sent to deal with the alien and he’s recruited, without T1 ever finding out exactly who Ianto Jones is or what his skills are. he downplays them so as not to raise any alarms.

life unfolds as a Torchwood employee, he meets Lisa, falls in love, the fall of Canary Wharf happens, then he goes to Cardiff and joins T3, everything happens as in canon up to halfway through season 2, when some old associates show up at his flat looking for him. Jack is suspicious as hell - not of Ianto who he trusts and loves, but of these shady looking characters who are speaking in riddles and beating around the bush about whatever it is they’re trying to rope Ianto into that they don’t want to outright say in front of him (because they don’t know who Jack is or if he’s trustworthy, despite Ianto introducing him as his boyfriend. that didn’t mean shit. Jack could be a mark that Ianto’s working on, for all they knew.)

so they’re super shifty, and Jack’s protective instincts are activated. Ianto had said they were old friends and that’s the only reason why Jack didn’t flat-out try to kick them out. Ianto ends up telling them to come back later so that he and Jack can talk in private.

(for extra motivation, instead of a once-in-a-lifetime heist (or on top of it), Ianto’s mentor can be in peril if they don’t pull it off or do whatever it is they’re planning. Ianto wouldn’t say no to that.)

anyway, Ianto loves Jack very much and doesn’t want secrets between them. he hadn’t thought about his criminal days in a long time, but now that they’ve come knocking at the door, he thinks he might have to come clean. he tells Jack everything. Jack has no self-preservation skills, so he’s mostly turned on and very eager to find out exactly what Ianto’s skill set is. possibly, he offers to help Ianto pull off the scheme his ‘old friends’ want him for (if it’s for a good cause? like saving Ianto’s mentor, not so much if it’s something like ‘let’s steal this bank we’ll be so rich’ lmao). Jack confesses he used to be a conman and Ianto has never been more in love. they talk cons with stars in their eyes and it’s like a match made in crime heaven or something, former criminals with a heart of gold who met through an organisation that tries to keep their city and world safe.

i don’t know about the rest of the team, maybe Ianto tells them (he might need their help or maybe he and Jack need a few days off to pull off whatever the heist or con is, in that case they’d need to explain why they’re going away and leaving the others to deal with the rift). maybe Jack tells them (and Ianto is very embarrassed, that’s in his past now, has been for years, but he’s also weirdly proud of how into it Jack seems to be). maybe Ianto’s old friends show up at the tourist office or follow Ianto when he’s going to deal with Torchwood stuff and they let it slip in front of the team what Ianto is and Ianto’s forced to give explanations.

however they find out, Tosh is very impressed, doesn’t give a shit Ianto is technically a criminal, asks him to tell her some funny anecdotes over a bottle of wine once they have the time. Gwen feels conflicted because crime :/ but also Ianto targeted rich assholes and it’s not like anyone was hurt so she comes around quickly. she asks him to teach her some tricks. Owen is so affronted, what do you mean this repressed nerd is some world-class thief or grifter or something? he refuses to believe it. how dare he? he stays in the denial stage until Ianto demonstrates some of said skills during a mission (no point in letting all his training go to waste since he’s not pretending all of that never happened anymore, so suddenly he’s climbing walls and sneaking undetected into places, bypassing state-of-the-art security systems like it’s nothing, or getting the right people to do whatever he wants them to by smiling and saying the right words in the right accent, or something.) 

i don’t know how the story ends, except i want Ianto and Jack working on a con together and finding out they’re very in sync and a devastating pair when they work together. they also both get off on seeing the other work a mark because i say so. they probably end up using these skills and their newfound partnership in missions from then on. then Ianto is turned immortal and he and Jack travel the universe occasionally conning their way into wherever or whatever they need and using their skills to help people and also aliens because that’s fundamentally who they are, and they deserve this damn it.

(also Ianto totally teaches the others some tricks. Tosh surprises them all by being the best at it, she can swipe anything off anyone by the time he’s done teaching her, and she keeps taking Owen’s wallet and leaving it lying around for him to find. Ianto’s so proud.)

#Torchwood #not!fic #wherein i write #Ianto Jones #AU #Janto #Captain Jack Harkness #the Leverage crossover i'd like to write someday #will i ever shut up about Ianto's juvenile delinquent past? unlikely #asks #plot ideas

[busterkeatonfanfic]

Chapter 23

Contrary to what he’d said while tired and sex-drunk, Buster did care about being seen with Nelly. After he’d driven her back to her apartment Monday morning and she’d hurried in to drop off her bags, then hurried back to the car, he dropped her off a few blocks from the United Artists lot. He hazarded a quick kiss on the lips, but that was it. He knew as well as anyone that to keep a mistress you had to be quiet about it, at least if your wife was as concerned about preserving the illusion of a happy marriage as Natalie was. It was a price he was willing to pay.

Now alone, he drove the half-hour to Culver City, reflecting on the weekend. It felt nice to be wild for a girl again, made him forget his troubles until the M-G-M sign loomed up ahead. His gut sank. Before he signed the contract, he’d asked for his team to be put on the payroll. The studio had granted his wish, but what he hadn’t bargained on was becoming the proud new recipient of every Tom, Dick, and Harry who wanted to make their mark in moving pictures gumming up his simple story with the goddamndest stuff: jewel heists, damsels in distress, a full military band. The days of Steamboat Bill seemed far, far away, and he longed for his old scenario department. Lately the mornings had consisted of sitting around a table with a baker’s dozen of men, including Thalberg, passing around a script that grew heavier and heavier with harebrained ideas with each passing day, like a ship sinking under the weight of too much cargo.

The image of that ship put him in mind of a gag. By the time he was inside and put in his standing order of coffee and donuts with a secretary, the gag had taken shape.

Bruckman was in the room with the big table. Buster could see that he was trying to pretend that things were as normal as they’d ever been, but he looked like he felt just as much like a fish out of water as Buster did. Some of the paid writers helloed Buster and asked him if he’d had a nice weekend. 

“Sure. Did some quail-hunting in the Valley.” He smiled to himself, remembering a naked Nelly clinging to his neck in the lake. 

Two young pretty girls came into the room with the coffee and donuts. Munching a donut, Buster wasted no time in introducing his idea to Bruckman.

“Suppose I start filming with my old camera to impress my girl, but I do it all wrong. Get into the craziest scrapes. I could be near a ship as it’s getting ready to be launched, thinking I’m about to get the shot of a lifetime, only the ship launches me with it,” he said. 

“And you darn near topple off of it and lose your camera,” said Bruckman. 

“Exactly,” Buster said. 

“I’ve just written a part where your character bumps into a dame whose son has just been kidnapped,” one of the writers, a medium-height fellow with a brown mustache, chimed in. “She’s willing to give you all the tea in China if you just help her find her Billy. You’re willing to do it. It’s your chance for a ticker-tape parade if you find him. You know, to impress your girl.”

“Kidnapped?” Buster said, not sure he’d heard right. 

“Sure. It fits perfectly.”

By now, Thalberg had entered the room and seated himself at the table. He took a donut and smiled in a benevolent way that spelled trouble. 

“No, no. It’s the mob Buster comes up against. They think he’s a spy and take him for a hostage, but he’s more useful as a stooge, see?”

Buster found himself wishing he’d poured a little whiskey into his coffee when no one was looking. It was bad enough to have to put everything down on a script for the first time in his career in pictures and even worse to entertain this kind of dreck. He looked over to Bruckman, but he just gave him a helpless look. At this rate, they’d never get around to filming. 

Filming. His mind crowded with everything he was obliged to do in the next six weeks, premieres (including Steamboat’s), parties, benefits, and not least of all traveling to New York City to begin filming. He thought sinkingly of Nelly. 

The worries continued on the drive back home late that afternoon. He worried his nails with his teeth as he thought about juggling it all.  At the Villa, he parked in the drive and bustled his way through the magnificent mahogany doors with his suitcases. Before departing from the studio, he’d checked the car for any trace of Nelly, a stray stocking, a dropped bracket, but there was nothing to give him away. As he stepped into the foyer, he was struck with an unfamiliarity that sometimes came over him. This big, clean, airy house, so cold and charmless—was it really his? He’d obsessed over it endlessly when it was being constructed, sparing no detail, never sure of what possessed him beyond the thrill that he could and a desire to impress. Impress his fellow stars? He thought, setting his suitcases down and running a hand across the back of his neck. No. 

To impress Natalie. 

He called for her. “Hello?” There was no answer and he tried again. “Hello?”

“Hello?” But it was only Eleanor, coming around the corner looking worried. “Mr. K—Buster, how are you? Shall I take your suitcases?” It had taken a while, but he’d finally gotten her to stop calling him Mr. Keaton. 

“No, I’ll take care of that. Have you seen Natalie? Is she around?”

“She’s out I’m afraid,” Eleanor said, with an apologetic smile. 

He could hear the kids outside somewhere, giggling and screaming. “Alright. If you see her, just tell her I’m home.”

He took his suitcases up to his room. It was cool and dark, and managed to smell both stale and clean at the same time. The bed was made, all the corners of the sheets tightly tucked. He drew his curtains and opened the balcony doors. 

“Hey, you hooligans!” he cried down to Bobby and Jimmy, who were running around on the lawn under Connie’s watchful eye. 

“Daddy!” they said, racing to the balcony. 

He went down to them and allowed them to wrestle him to the ground where they swarmed on top of him, then demanded to be swung around by the arms in the dangerous way that Nate disapproved of. A little voice in the back of his head lectured him about his failures as a father and husband, but he let the feeling of his sons’ hands in his smother it. Nelly was distracted for her entire shift Monday, remembering moments from the weekend. The assistant prop manager had to remind her to get her head out of the clouds when she fetched the wrong dinner service twice in a row. She could scarcely wait to get home, where the phone would surely ring and Buster would be on the other line asking her how her day had been. He had promised to be in touch when he’d dropped her off a block before the studio. That night, however, she went to bed disappointed. A worming doubt began to spoil her recollections of their time at the cabin. 

The phone did ring after work the next day, but it wasn’t Buster. 

“Nelly, is that you?” her mother said on the other end. Barely waiting for an assurance, she cried, “Ruthie had the baby! It’s a girl and they haven’t named her yet, but they think Violet or Virginia, which do you like better? Virginia? I like Virginia myself. She’s seven pounds even. We think she might have brown hair instead of blonde; it’s rather dark if you ask me, but of course there’s not much of it.”

“Well that’s wonderful,” said Nelly, wondering why her heart wasn’t in the congratulations. “How’s she doing? How’s Ruthie?” She’d never been able to fathom the birth process, the pushing and tearing and bleeding and all the rest. With what mothers had to go through, it was a miracle anyone ever had a second child, let alone a third like Ruthie.

“Oh, she’s tired but she’s an old hand by now. It wasn’t an hour later she wanted some chicken broth and now she’s bullied Gerald into letting her have some ice cream. Lord knows where he found it this time of year but nothing’s too good for her where he’s concerned.”

“And June and Eddie?”

“Eddie wanted a brother and declares he won’t see the poor soul, but you can imagine June is over the moon. She’s brought up her dollies’ clothes for her. Thank goodness they’re too small or we’d be in for quite a fight.”

As Nelly stood in the hall with the receiver to her ear, her mother chattered on about what time Ruthie’s labor started, how it had progressed, and what the doctor had done when he’d gotten there. She plotted with some guilt about how to cut the conversation short; she was worried she’d miss Buster if he called. 

“And you, how are you, dear?” her mother said, as if sensing Nelly’s intentions.

“Oh, I’m okay,” she said, a bit hastily. 

“How are you getting on with the moving pictures?”

Nelly explained briefly about her role in Tempest, which she’d mentioned in her last letter home. 

“What about that Keaton film? When will that come out? Your father says he intends to take the whole family to see it.”

“Buster—Mr. Keaton’s cutting it right now. April, I suspect.”

Not noticing her daughter’s slip, her mother pressed on. “When can we expect you back home?”

“I’m awful busy. Autumn?”

That was not good enough for Lena. “What’s wrong with summer? Or late spring? We miss you terribly and you know Harold Jenkins is wondering how you’ve been. I’ve given him your address so he can write. Have you gotten any letters yet?”

Nelly gritted her teeth unconsciously at the mention of Halitosis Harold. “Not yet. But Mother, I really have to be going.” She racked her brain for an excuse. “I’m having dinner tonight with a fellow I work with.” It was the wrong thing to say, because Lena became gleeful and effusive. “Oh Nelly, you didn’t mention you were seeing someone. What’s his name? Is he handsome?”

Nelly flushed. “It’s Joseph,” she said, thinking of Buster’s given name. “He’s very handsome, but he’ll be here any minute. I really must go.”

“I’ll call tomorrow, perhaps. I want you to tell me all about your new beau and I presume the baby will have a name by then.”

“That’s fine, Mother. I love you. I’ve got to go.” With a few more I-love-yous and talk-to-you-soons, Nelly was able to hang up the phone. The conversation had left her feeling unsettled and wrung-out. She supposed she should pick up a congratulations card for Ruthie on her lunch break tomorrow. Waiting for Buster to call, she was too nervous to eat anything more than an apple. She tried to read another chapter of Mistress Nell Gwyn, but couldn’t concentrate. Her mind was lying under the stars with Buster as he strummed his ukulele. 

It was a severe blow when another night passed with no word from him. The doubts were full-blown now. Her biggest worry wasn’t that he was preoccupied with his wife or even another girl, but that their time together hadn’t meant what she thought it had and that she had handed him her heart when she should have kept it more carefully guarded, only giving it to him when they had been going together longer and he had proven his worth. 

She went to work on Wednesday morning feeling blue despite the shining sun. The sensible part of her tried to push her out of her gloominess, reminding her that it had only been forty-eight hours and Buster was liable to be busy with his work, but nevertheless she moped around the prop department, not even caring to put on the radio for a diversion. On her lunch break she walked to a corner shop, having no appetite anyway, and chose a simple card to congratulate her sister. It had a Kewpie on the front clutching a telephone and read: I heard your home is honored / By a tiny little guest / I am rejoicing with you / That you are so greatly blest. As she walked back to the studio, she tried to get her head around the fact that she was an aunt three times over now. 

She returned to the prop warehouse around half past noon. Immediately she noticed a large vase sitting on the desk where she did the books. It was heaped with a snowy mountain of gardenias, jasmine, and myrtle. She could smell the flowers from a yard away. Propped against the vase was a record in a paper sleeve, which she examined. There was a cartoon of Paul Whiteman’s fat, mustachioed face on the front of the record and on each side a different song, “ ‘Taint So, Honey, ‘Taint So” and “That’s My Weakness Now.” A small card with her name on it was tucked into the flowers. She looked around the room for a sign of who might have delivered it, but no one was in sight. Her heart beating faster, she opened the card.

She’s got eyes of blue, I never cared for eyes of blue but she’s got eyes of blue and that’s my weakness now. 

BK 

P.S. See you tomorrow around 6?

“Got a beau now, huh?” said Gracie, one of the other girls who helped out in the department, walking into the room. Bold as brass, she leaned over Nelly’s shoulder to read the card. “Who’s BK?”

“Buddy King,” Nelly said, without a moment’s hesitation, blushing. “Did you see who delivered it?”

“I did,” said Gracie, rolling her eyes. “Florist dropped it off up front and I was the lucky gal told to bring it on back. Thought it was for me at first. ‘Course that would have been a shock. Bennie don’t do flowers or nothing like that. You’re lucky.”

“I am,” said Nelly, burying her face in the flowers. A waft of spring filled her sense and along with it a feeling that was very close to intoxication.

She was the center of attention during her walk to the tram and then her tram ride home, holding as she was such a huge arrangement of flowers. The commonest remark from strangers was, “Someone must care for you very much.”

And her face reddening, she would respond, “I guess he does.”

Note: Remember, Buster Keaton really did have a maid named Eleanor at the Villa. Confusing, but she wasn’t his Eleanor.

Also, after listening to this song since November, I finally have an excuse to share it with you! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAfVQpzQB3g

#Buster Keaton #fan fiction #RPF #Actor RPF #silent film #Golden Age Hollywood

[duskodair]

further Noel lore, by popular demand (with the old bc why not)

The one constant in her life has always been him. One of them was born first, but they're not sure which. Names don't stick to them. Dozens of monikers have come and passed them by. They barely use names for one another, so it doesn't matter. They know vaguely which order the children they might have once been were born and named, but neither of them actually know to which of them each name belongs.

They come to the orphanage as a pair of red headed infants, identical and inseparable. Among the other children, they are easily lost in the muddle. They grow up holding hands and answer to both names. They come to answer to others as well, as staff members forget and rename them from the pool of other children.

The orphanage is a loveless place. They learn of the distant love of a God who has forsaken them from nuns who have no time for them. They learn to walk holding hands and make their own language to whisper the secrets they learn from watching places that the convent do not want them to see.

The nuns can't keep the right names pinned to the right child and by the time they leave the orphanage, their papers are muddled and merged, inseparable in their scarcity. At fourteen, they do honest work for a few months, pulling in a pitiful wage between them. They answer to the names that the nuns told them they were given as decide that it's not for them.

Knowing their letters, at least, gets them into interesting places. Gossip slips by them. They come home with stories and whispers of crimes committed in distant towns. There's nothing truly behind it, but it intrigues them.

They leave the town they were raised in with the collection money for the convent's charity children. They never saw any of it whilst they were there, so they reckon it's theirs to take.

They do it sensible, though, no grand heist and sudden exit. One day two nobodies walk the streets and the next they are gone, notice properly given and a forwarding address passed along to those it may concern. Perhaps they go where they say they are going, perhaps they do not. The convent only realises the theft far later than it could be solved. And by that point, they are dust on the plains.

'New town, new names' is their policy. It gives them something to do on their journeys. Their childhood gives them a wealth of options as they work their way through the Good Book. She chars for a family as Leah, subtly learning to mimic the habits of those born into money as she beats dust out of the curtains. As Mary she is a gentle lady, down on her luck, willing to watch the children.

She never does a con without him. It starts with petty theft, enough to tide them over. But they grow confident as the years pass, and still the sheriffs fail to put out a bounty for names they've left behind.

Both of them claim to do the most work in their enterprise. She scoffs and says he's far too distracted by pretty stable boys and saloon lasses for his case to be true. He argues that she's too busy staring at her own reflection in things to possibly be doing the most work.

She kicks him, out of principle, before grinning. They're nearly done with this town. Regretfully, they're about to have a family emergency and the gentle seamstress' assistant and the errand boy will have to leave. It will be a while before anybody notices that old Mr McCoy hasn't been seen in a while. Well, perhaps the young ladies he used to shout at might notice, but the twins don't think they'll miss him.

Noel swings out her legs one last time before depositing them in Jonah's lap. She leans back as she considers the best way for Miss Miranda DuVal to break her incoming family crisis to her employer to potentially receive offerings of sympathy. In the last town she'd received a lovely pair of hand me down boots. She's hoping to do much better here, and well, there's some lovely stuff in the Atkinsons' unpaid tab.

The breeze picks up a little. Nothing like a peaceful walk and a casual picnic to enjoy their last day in this town. She looks away from the disappointing straggle of houses that make up the town, towards her brother. He's lying down in the prairie grass, staring up at the passing clouds. She thinks he's probably thinking about a barmaid again. He's got that look on his face.

She rips up a bit of grass and tosses it at him, 'keep your raunchy thoughts off your face. I don't want to know'

He tosses the grass back at her, 'I can do what I please. It's my own bleedin face'

With that, he rises, pushing her legs from his lap.

'Now come along, sister dearest, I'm sure we are missed. I must see if Old Man Thomas needs any more of those crates lifting, and I'm sure you have embroidery to do'

She lets him read her disdain before rising and schooling her features into the amiable Miss DuVal. 'Of course, brother, shall we go, then?'

She takes his arm and they head back to finish the performance before the appointed hour of departure. They make their arrangements and say their goodbyes. Jonah receives his kisses and Noel her tea gown.

On the road they pick new names, write a new story. When she stumbles in a gopher hole, he christens her Grace. She makes a hand gesture that the nuns certainly would not have approved of and accepts the name.

Town after town they pass through, weaving their way West, across the country. Their cons become bigger and grander and their budget grows.

For all their griping, they make an excellent team, she thinks, as he combs out her hair for her next performance. Their plan is to land a quiet jackpot in the town of Danser. It's been in their sights for a while, a little passing place, irrelevant. Perfect.

They have a few weeks to go before they arrive, appearances to make along the road. They call themselves Underwood for the branch that Jonah stumbles into as he stumbles around their camp after dark. They turn the branch into a lumber business and laud their wealth to one another.

Noel laughs into the fire as she weaves stories of their loving Papa, whose only desire in life is to see his daughter married off to a reputable man. Jonah grins as he fleshes out the tragedy of their gentle mother, taken too soon.

At least, Noel thinks, she won't have to wear the fashion of a widow too long, as Jonah will, of course, have to return her to the loving safety of her father, if there is nobody left in Danser to provide. She checks the Derringer strapped to her thigh and consigns her new life story to memory. Yes, she thinks, Noel will work as a name for a while.

______

Danser is quiet the day the Underwoods ride into town. On the surface, they bring little change, just a business deal and a wife for the wealthy Mr Tobias Lloyd. Noel rides into town as a bartering token for her family's lumber business, a symbol of an alliance sealed.

Jonah Underwood brings her into town, red hair tousled in the wind as the twins drive, laughing, down the dust scattered road. He's going to stay in Danser as she gets settled.

He'll probably stay longer than expected, loath to leave her. They've never been more than a week apart throughout their short lives. Where she goes, he follows, but this time, he cannot.

Noel is prepared, she thinks, for a husband. Her trunk is packed with all her worldly possessions and the wood of the carriage is steady under her hands.

The town spreads before her, barely a stopping point out from the city. Home, it seems, now. She's a long way from Tennessee. She's a long way from their smaller cons. Jonah meets her eyes. They're ready.

Her fingers dust over the derringer that she carries strapped to her thigh. She smiles. The plan is simple. She can do it. Jonah guides the horses forward into town, nodding to the old man on his stoop outside the general store, before heading to the Emerald Hotel.

She holds her head high as Jonah makes arrangements. The role is easy, she smiles and nods and watches. Noel is quiet and demure, but ever watchful, cataloguing her new neighbours. She plays naive, batting doe eyes at passers by, luring people in to speak with them.

They spend a day getting settled, researching, making appearances. They go to church, make nice. They start tabs and pay them off, respectable like, with the money of dead men. They find out about Mr Lloyd. He's wealthy and removed, just their type. His employees dislike him, after a few drinks, and when Jonah reports back, so does she.

She is all smiles, however, when Jonah presents her with promises of lumber money. She twirls the loose curls that soften her cheeks around a finger, and in that motion, she has him. Soon the hair around her finger becomes a ring and she becomes a wife.

Tobias Lloyd is, fundamentally, a disappointing husband. Everything he tries to teach her, she already knows, and quite frankly, he's barely competent. He tries to run her in circles but his fall short of the ones she's running around him.

Jonah rides between Danser and the city, keeping the financial side of the con running as Noel pushes her hands into the running of the household. She takes control, bringing home arsenic for cleaning and for rats.

She makes appearances with her husband in the Emerald Hotel, a doting wife out for coffee. She wears fine gowns and resists gossip, staying upstanding, but never cold. She likes to think that she's making her mark in the town, becoming known. If she is, she's doing her job properly, settling her character witnesses.

Everything is going perfectly until it isn't. Jonah slips. Noel doesn't even discover how until it is too late and the gunfight is lost and Jonah is bleeding out in her arms, his tab with God unsettled and their victory bleeding away.

She buries him in the churchyard, demure and sweet, watching the stone with the wrong name mark her brother's place. Later, she rides out and screams, hands still stained red with his blood. She remembers his unsettled tab and sets out to match it, so that one day she can join him once more.

She returns to town and puts on her gloves. Tobias loves her, she is the perfect wife, so attentive to his bouts of illness and so concerned.

Noel forms the perfect cover, she plays her part perfectly. With a little sacrifice, she covers for Jonah's slip. She helps collect funds for the new church floor, embroidering kerchiefs with dainty patterns for the pastor to sell. The new pastor admires her faith, he smiles and says one day she'll see heaven. She does her best to ensure that won't be so.

Tobias grows sicker and sicker and Noel worries more and more. At least, in public. Old Man German at the store grows tired of her asking after medicine. There is never any coming in.

Calling for the Doc is a risk, but a necessary one. Fortunately, it pays off, he patiently assures her that he's not a doctor and he cannot cure her husband. He's the best Danser has, however, and all her husband will see. She grows fond of him on his visits, another respectable alibi and connection for when she is alone.

She forges ties and prepares for widowhood. She ties her hair up neat and slips into the saloon instead of the hotel on a Friday afternoon, seeking the Doc, looking to keep herself in his mind. She's going to need a new husband soon, anyway, and it's always a good idea to plan ahead.

#chill to reblog #a town called danser #noel #jonah

[viahoshi]

only those who are forgotten die  // k.sy

pairing — kwon soonyoung x female protagonist genre — heavy angst, enemies to lovers (?) warnings — swearing, death, blood, murder, major character death and any kinds of criminal stuff words — 2.8k summary — the one where kwon soonyoung needs a new partner in crime note — this is highly inspired from the series, vis a vis as I can’t seem to move on from the character death, I created another one myself. The italic writings are flashbacks, the dialogue ones are the current time. Enjoy♡

“How did you meet him?”

“Do you know that one quote from Dostoyevsky that says: We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who interest us at first sight. Somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken.”

“Do you like Dostoyevsky?”

“No.” She firmly answered, “He did, though.” 

“So, you two were strangers at first who suddenly grew closer?”

“You can say that. Even though he worked with my brother, I had never greeted him before. Their latest heist went wrong, so wrong. My brother died, and he got into jail. I wanted to greet him personally after he was out to get revenge, you know? Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.”

“You were planning to murder him.”

“Mmm- yes.”

“When did the latest bus pass?” Soonyoung asks while wearing his black leather jacked in the middle of the heat of July, rubs his hands together, takes slow steps to the bus stop before turning back again.

“5 minutes ago.”

“And the next one will come in-?”

“40 minutes.”

Soonyoung signs before placing his sunglasses on his nose bridge, and takes another step towards the bus stop before turning around again just to stare at the place he spent most of his youth into. The world seems too large for the young man as he keeps groaning.

Soonyoung was a restless man. He almost appreciates the person who stopped their car for him. Almost. He sharply groans when he recognizes the woman stepping out of the car. The familiar appearance of the girl looks nothing like the one he saw years ago. The way her expression has no marks of distress and uneasiness makes him feel nauseous.

“What are you doing here?”

Soonyoung knows that he was miserably dishonoring his uncaring aura as he shifts from left to right at where he was standing. His hands became sweaty and unsteady in his pockets, failing himself. His features told a different story, and his hands showed another. 

“Every single night when I close my eyes, I see nothing but the two police officers arriving at our house to state that my brother was dead. I acknowledged that everything would go downhill, but I wasn’t foreseeing it to happen this fast. Their son was dead, and their daughter was conceivably a psychopath. All the people I loved and trusted turned their backs to me after that, just like it was my responsibility. You do not understand how it makes your head to be free, but not having anybody.”

He pouted in surprise while nodding, almost as if he was waiting for her to finish and leave, “Nope, I have no fucking idea.”

“I heard you’ve been a very good boy.” Her voice expresses nothing but sarcasm, lips form a smirk, hand raises to remove the hood of her sweatshirt which was closed the whole time, then moves before her eyes to block the steady sunbeams coming to her eyes.

“Yeah, I helped the police in two cases.”

“We’re all falling in line in the end, aren’t we?”

Soonyoung looks at her, tries to read her expression, studies the way her lips curl up on the ends when she smiles, and how her face creases when she fails to block the sunbeams.

“Really, what are you doing here?” Soonyoung asks again, wonder takes over as he glares behind the faint print of his sunglasses.

The girl takes her time glancing at the left and right side of the road, “The bus isn’t coming,” she glimpses back at him, “do you want a ride?”

Soonyoung takes his sunglasses off, and the girl studies the unique frame of his eyes, “To the cemetery.”

“He wanted to visit my brother’s grave. He tried to look undisturbed, but I knew he was. I left him there and returned to work.”

“Then what happened?”

“It didn’t take him a long time for him to locate the place I worked. When he came in, I thought I was seeing things, I used to daydream about him a lot at work, and I’m not talking about pleasing daydreams.”

“So you want us to become a duo? Like Bonnie and Clyde, Thelma and Louise?”

“No, that wouldn’t work out. You and me, as a limited liability company. [y/n] & Soonyoung LLC.”

His words make the girl throw her head back and giggle in doubt, “You’re trying to sacrifice me to protect your own ass as you did to my brother?”

“You’re talking as if you weren’t plotting to kill me for years.”

“You see, I hate you and you hate me. Why are you so sure that I won’t stab you in your sleep?”

“Hate is the greatest motivator.” The girl could picture his half smirk even though she has her back turned against him. He continues while standing up and making her way towards her, “We have another option, we don’t see each other again until we meet on a tour bus for seniors, heading to the beach.”

Edges of the girl’s mouth lifts, it’s crystal clear that his words satisfied her, the thought of replacing her brother giving her stomach slight tingles as she imagines the bad things she always wanted to do in her life but never could, “Okay, let’s do it.”

“And this is how our shared life began as a mismatched twosome who everyone thinks: They’re going to kill each other. With the money we made, we bought our first house, a baby blue caravan. We instantly learned the secret to a good marriage, trusting each other. We weren’t friends, we shared nothing. But as much as we didn’t like it, together we were the best. The perfect couple, precisely because we didn’t love each other. We found the perfect amount of space to not kill each other, neither too close nor too far.”

“You lived like a domestic couple, how come you could undoubtedly trust each other in such a little time.”

“Not a domestic couple, but more like a husband and wife in their eighties who have over 20 grandchildren, but no one visits if that makes sense.”

“Tell me about the things you did respectively, how did you spend your time?”

“We had nothing noteworthy to do, so he bought two chairs and we just sat on the roof of the caravan, on the opposing sides. That was the agreement.”

“And the robberies? How did you follow through with that?”

“We started with big targets, casinos. We would quarrel during the heist and people would just look at us like we’re lunatics.”

“No one move!” Soonyoung raises his voice, puts his hand behind his head, and holds onto his gun smoothly, “Put your hands behind your head like how I’m doing it. I won’t say it again, okay?”

The young boy doesn’t hesitate to wander towards the money source and doesn’t even consider it necessary to turn towards the girl before commanding pointedly, “The cash. I’ll deal with the cashier, you take care of the hags.”

“Excuse me?” The girl’s attitude catches him off guard as he stares at her in uncertainty. He chuckles softly before running his hand through his pitch black hair. “We’re not having this discussion here. Not now.”

“Why? Why do you need to be in charge of the money?” She cocks her head to the side, not bothered by the weirded looks of the people surrounding her. Soonyoung takes a step towards her, eyes and mouth wide open, “Any problems?”

“The problem is you fucking always put yourself above me,” Soonyoung takes another step towards her to hear her better, “shit, are we really going to start our first job together like this?”

Soonyoung gets much closer to her than he was moments ago, uneasy as he keeps peeking towards the woman who’s filling the bag with money, “We’re already splitting it 50/50.”

“It’s not a matter of money, it’s a matter of attitude.” Her look changes as her voice rises, “Either stop looking down on me or this is over.”

Soonyoung tries to change his expression, softens his voice, whisper screaming, “Is this the right place to talk about this?”

The girl walks over to him completely, face inches away from each other, feeling each other’s breaths on their faces. She whispers, “Are we equals? Yes or no.”

“We have to go.”

“I don’t care. Not before we clarify this. Equals or nothing, you decide.”

Soonyoung lowers his gun, steps away from her, spits while gritting his teeth, “Very well, equals. In sickness and in health, till death do us apart, amen.”

She nods, visibly satisfied. Giggles when she catches Soonyoung grumbling about how more effortless it is to work with a man rather than a woman.

“And that’s how we carried out together. It wasn’t the Bonnie and Clyde story you would predict, but days like this made me neglect the murder plots going on in my head. And that baby blue caravan was the closest thing I had that resembled ‘home’ to me, if that makes sense.”

“How would you define ‘home’?”

“Home? I don’t know.”

She gets a decent amount of shampoo in her hands before pressing them to Soonyoung’s airy locks, sudden contact of her hands sends shivers down his spine as he tries to get comfortable in his chair, relaxes his muscles while the girl runs her hands through his dark hair. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

“Did you knew that hair doesn’t stop growing after you’re dead?”

“And you want your hair to look sleek in the morgue?”

“No, I just want to talk without looking at your face.”

She eases her hand movements as if she waits for him to continue, he goes on, speaking softer than he did before, “I was 12 years old when my mother married to that pig. He brought nothing but misery and discomfort to the only place I knew as ‘home’. My mother neglected me, trying to be a suitable partner for that bastard,” he chuckles hysterically before continuing, “I was 15 years old when they send me to an orphanage, too old for adoption, too rebel for that environment. I fled from there at 18, and that’s when I met your brother, been doing this shit ever since.”

Soonyoung would pity himself sometimes, only life could be a little kinder to him, only if the world would have a little mercy for him, everything could’ve gone differently.

“Soonyoung”

“Mmm.”

“What is it?”

“There’s no need to run if you have a home, and the time we spent in the caravan, in the camper is the closest thing I’ve ever had to a home. I wanted you to know that.”

She lets the teardrop she keeps in her flow on her cheek, her lips curl up, forms a faint smile, “It was special for me too.”

She sniffs, grabs the water from the small bowl and rinses his hair. “Even though, to tell the truth, you’re a shitty roommate.” She grabs the towel and throws it to him, making him giggle like a little kid.

“And you droll in your sleep.” He turns towards her.

“So you watch me while I sleep?”

“No, I don’t watch you, you’re just making weird noises and it draws my attention.”

“Fuck you.” Her face lights up before grabbing the pot full of water and wetting his whole torso, his light colored jeans making the situation already more apparent than it already is. He laughs aloud before grabbing the fountain and pointing it towards her, their laughs brighter than the sun, for the first time after a long time.

"No.”

“No what?”

“I already know what you’re going to ask. Everyone wonders whether Thelma and Louise fucked or not. We did not. We did not fuck.”

“Okay.”

“And also, just clearing it for the record, we weren’t in a relationship either. We didn’t talk about any shit except the heists, that’s it.”

“Okay, good to know.”

The fairy lights inside of the caravan are shining in the colors of the rainbow as the girl sways to the beat of the song playing in the background. The drink in her hand matches the color of her colored sunglasses, giving her a vintage vibe. Soonyoung lies on his back, watching the way her body moves. She notices how his expression seems so cloddish, approaches him so that their noses touch, “Is this your first time?”

“What?” He tries to brush her off, not breaking the eye contact.

“Yes it is,” she laughs breathily, “this is your first time doing ecstasy.”

Soonyoung pushes her away and stands up to sit comfortably, “This isn’t getting me high at all.”

His tone of voice makes the girl giggle, “Right, you’re not high at all.” Her voice carries no expression but lust and sarcasm at the same time.

“At all.” Soonyoung keeps arguing while giggling and shaking his head.

“You don’t feel… Euphoria, empathy? This- sort of- uh- love? For anyone? I thought those were your favorite emotions.” She smiles sheepishly.

“When does this shit end?” He asks, not betraying his uncaring aura even when high.

Her sarcasm slowly drops and she feels alone with nothing but lust in her heart. She looks at him with an innocent expression, reminding him of those kids who want to buy candy in a convenience store, “Do you know what I want to do right now?”

“What?”

She gets closer to his face again, looks directly at his eyes, looks directly at his soul, “I want to touch your face.”

“Jesus, fuck no.” He stands up to go to the table which is decorated with various of liquor and grabs the entire bottle of the alcohol, drinks an enormous amount of it until the girl makes her way towards him again.

She moves her hand towards his face; he flinches when her hand contacts his skin. Her fingertips travel on his nose bridge, his cheekbones, his lips, his jawline. She leaves her fingerprints all over his face gently. Soonyoung chuckles but doesn’t move away, he doesn’t look away either. He enjoys the feeling that comes up to his spine as he keeps touching his face.

The air inside the caravan is thick, but it feels lighted than air for Soonyoung as he feels the butterflies in his stomach gently waking as she travels her fingertips along his sharp features. He pants, he doesn’t know if it’s because of the drug, or her.

“We’re not going to fuck, that’s what we agreed for.” He whispers while looking at her with a blank expression.

“You think I want to fuck with you?” She smiles again, and he nods.

“That makes little sense, does it?” She argues again, still looking at him with the same smile on her face and the same tone of her voice, seductive, “Oh well, let’s go to bed then.” And the first thing Soonyoung does when she turns her back at him to walk towards the bed is to grab her by her hair and pull her back towards his body. She laughs in surprise, her heartbeat rises as he pushes her front towards the wall.

And the rest is just a blur.

The next morning, she wakes up to Soonyoung practicing gunshots. She makes him and herself a cup of tea before making her way towards him. “About last night, that was stupid.”

“Yeah. By the way, I made the plan for the next heist.” He grabs the handle of the cup and responds in a sassy way.

“Well, you can tell me later.”

Soonyoung chuckles.

“Do you have any regrets?”

“Only if I looked back before leaving.”

“No.”

Soonyoung stretches out the beautifully packed gift, catching the attention of the girl who was sitting outside despite the cold air. She looks at him in doubt, “Kwon Soonyoung gives presents? Is that a bomb? Or an internal organ of one of your relatives? Perhaps it’s a scorpion-”

“Fuck, just take it.”

She hesitantly takes the gift and opens it just to find a polaroid camera inside, laughs while opening the box, taking the camera out. “Do you want to take a picture?”

“Yes. So you can remember we were young, we were hot, and we were free, and we felt a little, just a little less lonely together.”

She looks at the camera, and back at him before standing up, “Cool, let’s do it.”

The bright flash of the camera makes Soonyoung’s eyes hurt a little. He turns to her as the film gets released from the machine. He bounces slowly, reminding the girl of a little kid while smiling softly, waiting for the polaroid to darken. She gives the polaroid film to him after looking at it.

“Merry Christmas, asshole.”

“You too, princess.”

“Do you think things have worked out differently?”

“Things should have gone differently. I must have been in Italy or France, not here talking to you.”

“What about him?”

“What about him? Death didn’t intimidate me, nor him. There will still be winters and summers. It’s not like people will stop celebrating Christmas, or a child won’t get a birthday present. The gone is gone, and the world goes on, it’s nothing I can ease. However, he’s not dead.”

“How come?”

“Only those who are forgotten die, I’d like to consider he’ll be living for a long time.”

#kwon sooyoung #hoshi #seventeen #hoshi scenarios #seventeen scenarios #seventeen imagines #hoshi imagines #seventeen angst

[nightcoremoon]

so for the first time I saw batman: the killing joke.

...

it was okay I guess. but massively overrated. I expected some fucking masterpiece of cinema but instead it was just two unrelated short films that were more style and flash than substance.

so first off, barbara's storyline was mediocre. franz wasn't a compelling villain; just a creep, and a trust fund brat. oh wow he's a mafia kid who stole his family's fortune by hacking. if it was the falcone family I'd have cared more but it wasn't so it's just some faceless deathfodder rando. who gives a shit. the whole situation was just a vehicle to shove batman's dick into babs. which kinda fucks over bruce's character here and judging by the timeline kinda makes him a bit of a groomer, yikes. bruce and gordon have known each other since bruce was a young boy and we know that bruce is way older than babs so yeah bruce totally knew her from birth until present day, he literally utilized an active power dynamic to police her crimefighting activities, and he should have fucking known better and stopped her when she kissed him because it would (and did) compromise their professional dynamic, but hey, batdick. and at least barbara recognized that she was behaving emotionally rather than logically when it came to bruce and paris and took the high road out. that would be a serviceable standalone episode to write her on a bus in a serialization but THIS IS A MOVIE. so for a waste of an already short runtime it's like having an appetizer before your meal but instead of something like a crab cake before stuffed flounder, you get greasy onion petals that are more fried batter than onion before getting a well done cheeseburger that's just a glorified hockey puck on a sponge with a kraft single on top. the animation and vocal delivery were excellent of course, not gonna disparage that aspect, so it was well made, but the writing was just not very good. a polished turd. quantic dream must have developed it then because it feels like I watched a david cage production.

so in a 78 minute movie, five of which were the credits, we had a half hour Disney/Pixar short except those bring joy and this brought boring. also there were a lot of shots of her ass tits and underwear that were obnoxiously male-gazey and there was a token gay for the sole purpose of dangling a carrot on a stick for the queers. look kids, warner brothers and dc comics cares about the lgbts! give us money! a waste of time before the real reason why anyone came to see the movie that literally only exists to pad out the runtime to make it a feature length (even though paying a full ticket would've been a total ripoff because, again, IT WAS ONLY 78. even 9 was 81 minutes long and that had an amazing storyline so I forgave it, but 78 minutes? ugh.

also, GOTHAM RAGE??? CRINGE. SO CRINGE.

alright now for the joker segment.

*ahem*

what the fuck? that sucked! *throws tomato*

mark hamill and the joker's lines and the art and the cinematography and the choreography was all good and the plot was cohesive. I get it.

but holy shit was the writing weak as fuck.

okay so some rando breaks the J-ster out of Arkham (already unlikely but ugh whatever), he didn't turn a trick or recruit or anything, he just went to purchase a carnival. or, steal one. but wait, he DID recruit, but he went to get all of the stereotypical Circus Freak™ stereotypes. little people, fat lady, bearded lady, wolf man, strongman, diaper man (wait, what?), and the two headed woman. I guess if you don't really think about why all of them were super readily available in the outskirts between arkham and gotham [i just realized they both end with -am] then it makes enough sense. and then literally right after that HE RECRUITS SOME GUYS TO HELP HIM KIDNAP GORDON. and then strips and photographs barbara. um. ew. you can tell the writer and director were men. Alan Moore is constantly molesting women in his comics and this one trick pony should be put down already. but whatever. the plot is weak and it only gets saved by the flashback sequences.

oh.

oh no.

they're not that great.

he's a failed unfunny comedian who just wants some money to move his wife to a better house so he turns to thievery with the mob. OR YOU COULD JUST STOP GOING TO THE BAR AND BLOWING IT ALL ON BOOZE. I mean the cops knew where to find him after all so clearly he's a repeat customer (or moore is a bad plot writer who relies on convenience and shut the fuck up and don't critically analyze it). alright so he gets wrapped up in the mob to perform a heist on a playing card factory. GET IT, BECAUSE HE'S THE JOKER??? and he uses the moniker of the red hood to retain his anonymity. I expected the mobsters to be working for francisco but no the paris storyline was only cooked up screenplay for passing the runtime so why would they do something clever and interesting and make the film cohesive? that'd be really stupid to make the movie feel more like one movie and not two short films. at least when grindhouse & planet terror did it they advertised themselves as an anthology film. whatever. he falls in the vat of acid which melts the red hood to his face and I gotta say that's actually a pretty good idea to get his face white and his hair green and his lips red. I like that part. oh wait I forgot about the most important part! his wife gets shoved in the refrigerator. OH WOW THAT'S JUST SO COMPELLING AND ORIGINAL, TOTALLY NOT SOMETHING THAT ALREADY HAPPENED TO GREEN LANTERN. TWICE. although she wasn't literally shoved into a literal refrigerator like alex was. rip in frozen pieces you absolute legend of a trope namer. alright, so... so the joker is sad because his wife died. you know, the wife we saw for two minutes and knew the moment we saw her drenched in sepia she was gonna die. and she died offscreen. kyle's gf died and he was fine. gordon's wife died and he was fine. batman's parents both died and he was fine. oh boo hoo someone I love died! fuck off. I am so goddamn sick of people trying to justify their evil with "I was sad once". it's a stupid trope and it's not compelling. the only valid version is doctor doofenshmirtz' evil(er) version in the PF movie because it's hilarious that it's because of a toy train because that's the emotional depth that fridgewomen is treated with in all of these storylines. but at least batman said so. oh yeah, I almost totally forgot, batman's in this movie.

batman punches people and nonlethally takes them out. by suffocating them and letting them get stabbed and throwing them into pits of spikes and HEY WAIT A GODDAMN SECOND! okay let's just ignore that bit and hope that the little people squeezed between the gaps in the spikes and the strongman could breathe in the face mask and the two headed women had KO gas and the fat lady was fat enough that the knives only stabbed her cellulite. it wouldn't be the biggest reach one would have to make in watching this fucking disaster of a plot mess.

now I did like that it was actually batman, and by that I mean he gave a shit about the insane because he recognizes that mental illness is not a cause of dangerous or criminal behavior, just a potential exacerbating factor if it wasn't treated. yeah he brutalized mobsters and crime lords but they were mostly in self defense while gathering intel. he politely asked sal maroni and the sex workers for information and they gave it to him without violence- he manhandled maroni but only after he reached into his pocket for a cigar which could've been a gun. also batman says sex work should be decriminalized if only by not ratting them out to the cops. he was a genuinely good person in the second half of the movie. too bad it was ruined by the shitty first half that made him a borderline groomer.

joker's song was... bad. mark hamill performed his ass off but the song wasn't that good. it just tried to be willy wonka if he was a voyeuristic monster. oh yeah have the only girl character be paralyzed stripped and photographed only to give her father ManPain™. again... the fuck? joker and batman were both gross but, again. male writers. if it was a one-off I could drop a thermian argument because, alright one and done makes sense, especially 1988 standards. but it saturated and soured the entire goddamn movie because of abhorrent pacing decisions. so you're goddamn right I'm gonna bring it up twice! joker was a creep, his plan was dumb, nolan and burton and lord/miller and even ayer had better motivations. YES I AM SAYING THAT JARED LETO'S JOKER HAD BETTER WRITING THAN MARK HAMILL'S JOKER. not nearly to the level of ledger nicholson or galifanakis but hamill didn't have a lot to work with here and I maintain that his performance was amazing; honestly I like his the best out of all of them but just... not here. but I think I can cut some slack to firelord ozai and luke skywalker even if he just phoned it in here which he didn't. writing was just weak. and that's all there is to it. don't anon me and threaten to remove my bones ok?

alright so batman and joker fought and joker got the upper hand and was gonna kill him but it was a prop gun. haha. they had a heart to heart and batman tells joker that he wants to help him get better, even after joker killed robin and molested barbara and traumatized gordon and did countless other travesties, he still said he would help. but joker said no, and told a joke that was good enough to make batman laugh. and then the credits rolled.

...

what a completely pointless and empty ending. oh it's deep and meaningful and poignant? ok sure, I guess, movie, but you didn't earn that. shyamalan did the same thing a dozen times. that doesn't make him any less of a shit writer.

I can understand the concept of batman laughing at joker's joke, humanizing him.

I get it. I see what they tried to do. I respect it.

but this movie was massively overhyped and overrated and I expected it to be so much better than it was. but overall to me it was just another batman cartoon to throw on top of the pile. maybe it was influential to graphic novels. maybe it shaped batman into what he is today. it published right as tim burton's movie and I can respect its place in the pantheon of comic history. but sometimes things that are classic...

aren't that great.

citizen kane, casablanca, the maltese falcon, the treasure of the sierra madre, gone with the wind, singing in the rain, all of them are classic and legendary pieces of art. but they're just not that good, interesting, appealing, watchable, or FUN. they were good at the time- I mean come on we all know them today- but on going back you'd have to really appreciate the finer details to still love the movies today. and this belongs there, in the vault, to be appreciated from afar. influential if dated.

but god am I still disappointed nonetheless.

TL;DR

it was just okay. had some good ideas, had some really bad ideas, had some ugly stuff. overall mediocre. first half 5/10, second half 7/10, overall 6/10.

[mono-chrono]

The Heist

oh, bug it, I haven’t shown any of my writing here. Might as well, since I’m working on part 3 of it. I feel I should warn you this is 5 pages long so. I might move this over to an actual fanfiction site like Ao3 later

------

A casino, how open of them. Owynne couldn’t help but chuckle when she found out. This wasn’t the first night she had followed them, but this might be her most successful. At what? Well, she wasn’t sure. She was torn on letting them be or stopping them, though she hoped this would be useful for figuring out how they operate.

Her real problem was figuring out how she was going to get in. Sure, she looked old enough to go gambling based on her stature alone, but she was wearing a brown prep school uniform. Even though it was great on the streets for looking innocent, that didn’t really jive well with a casino, she’d probably be kicked out if she tried. So that left one option.

She would have to sneak in the way The Legion did.

------

The inside was dull in color palette, a stark contrast to the slightly classy emerald green and cerulean blue tinted neon lights outside. It looked almost like a theatre, or a fancy mall. It was done up in browns and golds, though a distant smoke smell indicated that it wasn’t all that. Owynne knew most casinos allowed smoking in certain rooms. She could only hope the route the thieves would take was going to avoid it.

They moved quick and quiet, despite being a large group. It was hard to tell, but she was always a bit shocked when the glossy or metallic sheen of their masks or helmets never seemed to pick up when they were running past. She could easily pick up a few problems in their strategy, though, because she was doing what they weren’t.

She was staying up high. 

People rarely looked up, and since they weren’t about to use that to their advantage, she would. Her rifle sat heavy in her arms, the little clinks it would normally make silenced by her even running. The safety wasn’t on, she had instinctively turned it off once it was in her hands instead of on her back. She stopped questioning her instincts long ago. They were usually right.

It was stop and go for a while. Overall, Fenrir had been impressed by the band of renegades. She thought their decision to go in all at once a mistake, something she stood by firmly, but they were doing their best to not get in conflict. They were a group of five, it seemed. In her research, very few codenames came up, and if had been a few months ago she would have said it to be preposterous that they wouldn’t all be Mistralean, but it seemed she was wrong. A few of their outfits seemed far better suited for work outside, one in particular reminding Owynne of the red, light polluted nights of Vacuo city.

The Red Devil was here. The Night Rider too. It seemed like a few of the vigilante copycats she was so concerned about might not have been copycats after all. This was bigger than she realized.

The Rider’s helmet was unmistakable. In the few moments Owynne has been abler to see her clearly, the bulky black helm was obvious, the cat ears making the figure more distinct. That was all anyone ever remembered about the rider, other than that her motorcycle was almost silent when she rode past the residents of Mantle. 

The Devil, on the other hand, was hard to mistake. Often times witness reports saw a brief glimpse of red coattails, or tenants would find arrow markings on their buildings. They were hard to place a helpful description of, even if they were so memorable. A high collar and mask blocked their head and hair, and their layers made it hard to discern a body shape. 

She wouldn’t call either of them masters, their way of doing things were questionable. The Devil’s red costume wasn’t quite the right red to blend in perfectly, The Rider made herself too known, both of them were oddly the opposite. Yet here they both were. Working on a heist with a very Mistralean group of vigilantes.

She could only recall one of that group by name. The Phantom. They were probably the most ridiculous of all. Their mask was tiny, and though their overall outfit was the correct colors for the night sky of today, whenever a splash of light hit them, the red gloves and white mask was all too obvious. The Phantom was cocky. They thought they wouldn’t get caught. That was probably what bugged her the most.

This room was taking a while. She snapped out of her thoughts, peaking over the edge to see what the hold up was. The team had grouped up near the back end of the room, where they had entered from, and one look at the other end made the reason obvious.

Guards blocked the end of the hallway. This was probably leading up to the top floors, where limited guests were allowed. There were presumably no other entrances feasible to take. Had they not planned for this? There were six guards, two at the base of the stairs, two at the first columns patrolling, and two at the top. There were only five of them. It would be easy for the top two to run off and alert more.

Before she could begin to work out how this would work, one of the unnamed ones went forward. It was too quick, too obvious, very not thought through. The others scrambled into action, the Devil staying back to notch an arrow, the Rider and the Phantom aiming pistols at the middle guards, while the other two took on the front ones.

There was no time. The Devil took out the right high guard, but at that point the other was already on the move. Fenrir peered through her rifle’s scope, tracking his movement easier than one would assume, and fired. The electricity dust went straight through his aura, and was enough to put him out. She moved without hesitation, abandoning her post before they noticed her presence. 

She refused to be found.

------

The guards were taken out too quickly, Kalahi thought. As the others came over to compliment her aiming, she stared pointedly at the guard she hadn’t hit. She hadn’t even gotten out another arrow, and yet amidst the gunfire, he had fallen. The Devil moved past the group, heading up the stairs. They followed, unsure as to what she was doing.

She knelt to check out the body, picking the used bullet from the floor. This wasn’t one of the pistol round Rosewood or Haruki had. This was a rifle round.

Slowly she stood up, turning to face the group. She was dreading this. It was something she was sure none of them would have wanted to admit.

“We’re being followed.”

------

Fuck. That was probably the stupidest move she could have made, and yet she did it anyway. She ended up staying in relatively the same spot, watching to see if any of the men woke up in order to swiftly deal with them. She still hadn’t made up her mind on what she would do with the information she had, but she wasn’t going to leave until her curiosity was satiated.

Another stupid move, though she wasn’t a robot. Humans take risks like this, they were irrational, and even she wasn’t safe from this fact.

Owynne scratched at her tattoo while she waited, wishing that it would just disappear. She wasn’t wearing the glove, it never helped anyway. Hiding it only meant that she could forget it for a short while, but it would always be there, taunting her when she went to sleep. It was frustrating, the one thing forcing her to think about her old life. Without it, she would be content with forgetting. 

Footsteps runs out softly, she almost missed the noise. Fenrir ducked down low, losing visuals on the room. The group was quiet, not a word spoken. The swish of coattails made it obvious, though. The Legion had succeeded. Owynne felt nothing at that fact, like she was totally detached from the situation. They were criminals, and she was a bystander. Though, she WAS complicit now, and that fact sat low in her stomach. Perhaps the law just never mattered to her as much as it would for, say, people who lived in Atlas. Vacuo never really took a liking to legality.

Huntsmen, though, did. What she was doing would definitely get her into a load of shit if anyone found out, which meant she just couldn’t get caught. That was a simple task, or, it would be if she hadn’t already outed herself. Speaking of…

Why were they still in here? It had been a minute at the most, but they should have already left. There was no subtle creaking of a door, no rustling or clicking of weapons, just silence. Owynne strained to hear anything, but nothing happened.

“We know you’re in here.”

A voice rang out, cutting through the silence sharply. Male. Young adult. Owynne’s brain quickly categorized it, latching onto to the facts and not letting go. It was familiar, but there was a deeper tone to it. He was manipulating his voice.

“Now, we can do this the easy way,” his bootstraps rang out as he talked, “and you can come out, or we can force you to.” Confidence. It was The Phantom, surely. He was the only one making any noise, and yet she knew he wasn’t the only one left in the room. Fenrir stayed still and silent as a stone, almost missing the creaking sound coming from her right.

She was surrounded.

It was less than a second for her to be in the air, an arrow wizzing past to the spot she had just left. Fenrir shot from her rifle three times as the ground approached, not putting a ton of effort into aiming. The gun was on her back before she hit the ground rolling, flicking her knife out in a fluid motion. 

“Lovely. I always did prefer the difficult ones.” The masked man grinned. It would be wiser for her not to waste her energy, to run out and hide in the crowds on the lower floors until she could leave, but one of the unnamed blocked the exit. The other one stood at the top of the stairs, guarding the other one. That left the other two to be left above. His glare told her one word, unspoken yet deafening.

”Checkmate”

------

Five on one was hardly a fair fight, but lord knows now wasn’t the time for them to be fair. They were playing to win, but unfortunately for them, so was Owynne, and she had enough fighting prowess to still be in the game. She attacked first, pulling out her glock and aiming three shots at the Phantom. While he was distracted with that, she was backpedaling to the door. Gunfire rang from above, barely missing her head. Shit.

Fenrir sprinted into the blind spot beneath the snipers, understanding full well that she’d have to deal with the problems in front of her before even thinking about making a break for it. A blade slashed across her chest before she could react. She placed a counterattack, dragging her own blade up towards his neck. The Phantom was fast, pulling back before she could complete it. He was at a complete advantage, for he had an entire room to maneuver. If that was the case, she’d have to drive him back.

She threw the knife, taking deadly aim against him. It nicked his shoulder before embedding itself in the floor on the other side of the room. She used his lapse in focus to fling out her electric charged rifle, firing three more dust bullets. Two hit him before the shock toppled him to the floor.

Fenrir moved in a sprint again, this time towards the wall. Her feet were quick, but powerful as she gained enough steps off it to grab the ledge again and pull herself over. The Night Rider fumbled her weapon in disbelief, sinking two bullets into Owynne before she reached her. The helmet showed no emotion as the vigilante threw a punch. Owynne ducked under, springing back up with a knife swipe. The girl dodged as well, but it threw her off balance enough that it only took a shove from her to make her topple off the ledge. 

She heard a voice coming from below, a Yelp maybe, but didn’t pay attention to it. It didn’t matter. Instead, she pivoted away from the edge, gunning it for the other sniper. The Red Devil was quick to draw arrows and shoot, but it didn’t take long until Owynne was upon them. They abandoned their bow, pulling out a blade while she was still far enough away from it.

The glint of the curved gold blade stopped her in her tracks. She took a step back, her mind racing. That was… no, it couldn’t be. She took another look at the Devil. Accounting for the heels, the height was right. And the face shape and skin tone and-

“Kalahi?”

If the Devil was stunned, they did a very good job of hiding it, but something will always find a way through the tiniest of cracks. A glint of recognition. A twitch of the lip. The piercing eyes of the Devil studied her, unmoving. Her eyes. Kalahi’s. The pair stood frozen, staring at each other with a million questions hanging in the air that ultimately, would never see the light of day.

A sharp pain hit her chest. She didn’t know what to make of it at first, simply thinking it was her pesky emotions, but that theory was quickly ruled out when it spread to her limbs. Her legs gave out beneath her, moth tasting like metal. The world bended and swayed around her, bubbling and burning at the edges like an old photograph. She was blacking out. All the compressed fear and anger burst through the cracks, eating at her facade until it was no more. She forced to keep her eyes open to no avail. Not again. Please.

“Owynne?”

#rwby #rwby ocs #owynne sloane #kalahi leblanc #haruki watanabe #rosewood glacia #auriel shicksal #kamen noire #the legion #rwby student ocs #story time #this is my first time posting anything like this here #and for ocs no less #the only ones that are mine are owynne and rosewood #just want to clarify that #rwby fanfiction #rwby oc fanfiction #long post

[materialwoman]

❦  　*　  ❝　 𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐌𝐘   𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐑   +   𝐀   𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄 ,   FROM  EARLY  LIFE  TO  MODERN  TIMES .

▌     𝐀  𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐄  𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄  𝐄𝐗𝐏𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆    key - points  of  tammy’s  life,  ranging  from  her  family  ties  and  professional  aspirations  to  her  involvement  with  crime.   it’s  a  rather  long  and  rambly  collection  of  thoughts,  so  sadly  i’ll  have  to  keep  most  of  it  under  a  read  more.   this  covers  all  of  the  main  arcs  i  write  on  this  blog  :

[    ♡    ]      arc  i   ,     youth   /   teen   /   young  adult  years

[    ♡    ]      arc  ii   ,     adult   /   pre  -  canon

[    ♡    ]      arc  iii   ,     adult   /   canon

[    ♡    ]      arc  iv   ,     adult   /   post  -  canon

▌    1974     -     birth  ,    

 december  16,  1974.  circa  7am.  tamasin  sinclair,  the  second  daughter  of  the  ferguson-sinclair  family,  is  born.  she’s  a  giggly  baby  girl,  but  often  cries  when  far  from  her  mother,  veronique.  her  favorite  people  to  be  around  are  her  big  sister,  olivia,  and  katherine,  her  grandmother.

▌    1980     -     age   six  ,    

 a  six  years  old  tammy  travels  overseas  for  the  first  time,  having  europe  as  a  destination.  she’s  taken  to  london,  for  a  fun  week  under  the  cares  of  her  favorite  grandmother,  while  her  father  attends  a  law  conference  in  the  city.  for  the  first  time,  she  sees  the  world  beyond  her  mother’s  eyes,  following  katherine  around  events,  fun  sleepover  nights  and  even  her  day-to-day  life  at  the  dance  academy’s  office    -    with  an  outrageous  amount  of  a  new  discovered  common  obsession:  british  vogue.

▌    1983     -     age  nine  ,    

 she’s  nine  years  old  when  her  younger  sister  is  born.  louisa  is  bubbly;  a  funny  little  child  that  amused  tammy  in  every  way.  olivia  and  herself  would  spend  hours  around  the  crib,  even  more  than  their  own  mother,  who  would  often  be  off  working  or  dealing  with  her  own  set  of  concerns.  the  sisters  would  take  care  of  lulu,  as  they  called  her,  whenever  they  could;  she  was  their  new  favorite  little  person.

▌    1990     -     age  sixteen  ,    

tammy  reaches  the  age  of  sixteen,  and  as  a  gift  from  her  other  grandmother,  virginie,  is  invited  to  spend  a  couple  of  weeks  with  her  in  paris.  the  woman,  a  strict  and  straightforward  art  curator,  has  no  doubts  a  young  lady  such  as  tamasin  could  use  a  little  time  with  her  to  learn  new  things  about  modern  womanhood.  the  visit  went  well,  although  tammy  did  spend  more  time  trying  to  convince  virginie  to  take  her  to  one  of  her  fancy  events  or  a  fashion  week  than  listening  to  her  grandma’s  teachings.  virginie  was  not  very  pleased.

 tammy’s  aunt,  uma  sinclair,  has  her  own  idea  of  a  gift  for  the  soon  to  be  young  woman  in  the  family    --    one  the  girl  would  enjoy  much  more,  as  well.  the  blond  ambition  world  tour  reaches  new  jersey,  the  closest  to  tammy’s  home.  she  hears  as  madonna  sings  about  love,  friendship,  fashion,  and  some  much  better  takes  on  modern  womanhood.  she  would  never  be  the  same.

▌    1992     -     age  eighteen  ,    

at  age  eighteen,  tamasin  graduates  from  high  school.  her  biggest  interests  during  the  previous  years  were  fashion,  creative  writing  and  the  influence  of  women  in  culture  and  society.  her  main  graduation  choices  were  psychology  and  journalism,  where  she  hoped  to  discuss  some  of  her  passions  through  the  gift  of  writing.    [  ...  ]   against  all  of  her  efforts,  tammy  has  no  support  from  her  parents  to  follow  any  of  her  careers  of  choice.  she’s  advised  (  although  practically  induced  )  to  follow  the  path  of  those  before  her,  and  very  much  like  her  parents  and  her  older  sister,  ends  up  enrolling  into  pre-law  school.  it  was  the  one  moment  when  tammy  got  the  closest  to  being  the  daughter  veronique  ever  dreamed  of  having.  

▌    1993     -     age  nineteen  ,    

 despite  veronique  and  laurent’s  attempts  to  keep  their  daughter  under  their  watch,  tamasin  decides  to  move  out  of  the  family  house  and  start  over,  this  time  making  things  her  way.  she  moves  into  an  apartment  in  the  big  city,  alongside  with  olivia,  and  no  longer  having  financial  support  from  her  parents,  starts  working  at  a  diner  in  new  york  city.  she  drops  out  of  pre-law  school  after  one  semester.

 as  louisa,  her  little  sister,  reaches  the  age  of  ten,  olivia  and  tamasin  notice  there’s  something  wrong.  the  little  girl  that  once  was  a  wild  spirit  started  to  seem  less  and  less  bright,  and  their  mother  seemed  to  be  the  reason  of  such  change.  they’ve  been  there  before:  they  knew  what  she  does.  tammy  goes  to  their  grandmother,  which  intervenes  and  asks  veronique  to  let  the  sisters  take  care  of  lulu  for  some  time.  she’d  be  constantly  helping  when  needed,  as  well,  while  veronique  took  some  time  to  take  care  of  herself.  although  not  content,  the  mother  agrees.  the  older  sisters  take  lulu  to  their  apartment  in  nyc,  and  keep  raising  a  strong,  bright  little  girl  for  the  next  many  years.  

 1993     -     1997  .     tamasin,  olivia  and  louisa  carry  a  light,  fun  day-to-day  life  in  their  apartment  in  nyc.  the  three  of  them  have  their  own  studies  and  personal  matters,  as  the  eldest  finishes  law  and  looks  forward  to  building  a  family  already,  tammy  studied  and  explored  her  ambition,  while  both  raised  a  much  more  hopeful  little  lulu.

▌    1994     -     age  twenty  ,    

 noticing  tammy’s  resilience  and  quick  wits,  tammy’s  coworker  invites  her  to  take  a  small  part  on  a  con  one  night.  her  sense  of  adventure,  ambition  and  the  undeniable  need  for  extra  cash  in  order  to  get  into  college  again  are  decision  makers:  call  her  the  newest  fence  in  the  business.  well,  figuratively.  she  didn’t  truly  know  what  that  meant:  only  that  she  was  good  at  it.    [  ...  ]   one  day,  working  at  the  diner,  tammy  catches  a  young  woman  trying  to  pickpocket  one  of  the  clients  from  behind  the  counter.  enter  debbie  ocean  -  and  tamasin  doesn’t  stop  her,  much  on  the  contrary.  she’s  proud  to  quietly  announce  she’s  done  things  of  that  sort,  too.  it’s  a  match  made  in  heaven:  if  not  even  deborah  had  the  eye  to  catch  her  as  the  type  to  con,  who  could  ever  suspect?

▌    1995     -     age  twenty - one  ,    

 tammy  is  introduced  to  lou  miller,  an  australian  con  artist  that  soon  became  her  other  partner  in  crime.  together,  the  three  ladies  take  part  on  small  cons,  such  as  movie  theater  tickets,  amusement  parks,  retail  and  similar.  with  them,  tammy  makes  the  extra  money  needed  to  start  studying  again.  this  time,  she  goes  with  journalism.   [  ...  ]   tammy  gets  her  first  ever  tattoo,   a  delicate  little  rose  now  marked  onto  the  side  of  her  ribcage.  she  tells  everyone  it  was  her  choice  because  it  was  cute,  but  secretly  likes  to  think  of  the  strength  of  her  delicacy  represented  in  it.

▌    1996     -     age  twenty - two  ,    

 as  a  birthday  gift,  louisa  and  olivia  give  tammy  a  pet  bunny.  she  calls  him  cherry.  

 tammy  is  introduced  to  danny  ocean  and  his  partner  in  crime,  rusty  ryan.  it’s  when  debbie,  lou  and  herself  get  the  perspective  of  expanding  the  cons  they’ve  been  working  on.  small  casinos  and  events  become  their  new  target.

▌    1997     -     age  twenty - three  ,    

 as  olivia  graduates  law  and  starts  working  at  the  family  office,  along  come  the  news  of  the  newest  baby  in  the  family.  she  gets  married  shortly  after,  moving  out  of  the  sisters’  apartment  and  into  her  own  household.    [  ...  ]   tamasin  graduates  from  college,  finally  having  her  journalism  degree.  

▌    1999     -     age  twenty - five  ,    

as  grandmother  virginie  brings  an  art  exhibit  to  new  york,  a  twenty  five  years  old  tamasin  is  invited  to  attend  the  event.  debbie,  lou  and  tammy  take  advantage  of  her  position  and  steal  a  piece  from  an  adjacent  exposition  during  the  party.  they  go  unnoticed,  making  thousands  of  dollars  each.   [  ...  ]   having  her  degree,  tammy  tries  to  get  a  job  position  at  vogue  magazine,  as  well  as  paper  and  vanity  fair.  she  doesn’t  get  a  call  back  after  her  interviews.  

▌    2000     -     age  twenty - six  ,    

 tammy  gets  a  new  day  job,  at  a  flower  shop.  she  works  there  for  a  few  years,  deeply  resenting  not  being  able  to  work  on  her  dream  field  after  finally  being  able  to,  and  takes  it  out  writing  independent  articles  for  her  portfolio  and  shopping  for  designer  clothes  rather  inconsequently  at  times.

▌    2002     -     age  twenty - eight  ,    

 tamasin  gets  a  job  at  paper  magazine,  writing  a  monthly  column  about  the  representation  of  fashion  in  the  media  and  exploring  its  influence  in  storytelling.  finally,  she’s  able  to  work  with  her  passions  combined.

▌    2003     -     age  twenty - nine  ,    

 at  age  twenty,  louisa  moves  out  of  the  apartment,  having  recently  graduated  from  the  juilliard  dance  intensive  program.

 tammy  continues  to  live  in  the  apartment  in  nyc,  where  herself  and  the  girls  can  meet  up  to  plan  future  heists.  even  at  this  point,  crime  represents  her  main  source  of  income,  as  her  day  job  doesn’t  pay  quite  as  well  as  stolen  goods  and  jewels.  however,  it’s  not  only  for  the  money;  tammy  finds  being  a  fence  allows  her  to  explore  her  ambition  and  sense  of  adventure,  things  long  repressed  after  years  being  controlled  by  her  parents’  will.  surprisingly  enough,  she’s  happier  than  ever.

▌    2005     -     age  thirty - one  ,    

 cherry,  tammy’s  pet  bunny,  passes  away  after  nine  years.     [  ...  ]   after  three  years,  tamasin  leaves  her  job  at  paper  magazine  as  she’s  offered  a  position  at  W  magazine,  where  she’s  handed  a  column  on  the  beauty  section.    [  ...  ]    following  her  acceptance  into  the  royal  ballet  company,  louisa  makes  the  decision  of  moving  to  the  united  kingdom.

▌    2007     -     age  thirty - three  ,    

 tamasin  is  invited  to  the  inauguration  dinner  party  of  olivia’s  very  own  law  office.  at  the  event,  she’s  introduced  to  nicholas  mcallister,  a  colleague  lawyer  to  liv.

 1998     -     2008  .     tammy’s  golden  age  of  crime;  acting  as  a  fence,  constantly  developing  her  skills  as  a  con  artist.  after  years  acting  on  unrelated  events,  casinos  and  parties,  she  develops  a  system  of  hijacking  equipments  trucks  crossing  the  border  from  canada  and  reselling  the  goods  on  the  black  market.  it  lasts  for  years  and  grants  her  certain  status  on  the  underworld  of  crime  as  an  experient,  trustworthy  fence  in  the  business.

▌    2008     -     age  thirty - four  ,    

one  night,  tammy  receives  the  new  that  her  younger  sister,  louisa,  had  been  involved  in  a  car  accident  and  seriously  injured  her  knee,  compromising  her  debut  on  the  royal  company  as  a  lead  and,  in  a  long  term  matter,  her  dancing  career.  tamasin  travels  to  london  immediately,  offering  her  baby  sister  support  and  inevitably  reconnecting  with  her  parents.   [  ...  ]   her  sister’s  injury  was  an  undeniable  step  back  on  tammy’s  life,  and  reconnecting  with  her  mother  due  to  the  intense  family  trauma  was  a  decisive  point  on  the  decisions  she’d  make  from  then  on;  being  heavily  criticized  for  not  yet  having  a  family  in  her  mid  30s,  unlike  her  older  sister,  who  had  perfectly  built  a  family  of  her  own  while  finishing  law  school,  tammy  finds  herself  deeply  torn  between  the  duality  of  her  desires  --  to  stay  in  the  city,  investing  on  her  career  as  a  journalist  and  continue  to  explore  how  happy  crime  made  her,  or  to  finally  settle  down  and  think  of  building  a  family,  bringing  the  life-long  dream  of  motherhood  to  reality.  finally,  she  decides  it  is  time  to  take  a  step  back,  and  chooses  to  retire  from  her  career  as  a  fence.

▌    2009     -     age  thirty - five  ,    

 as  a  consequence  of  laying  low  and  removing  herself  from  the  crime  scene,  tammy  grows  lonelier  every  day.  despite  believing  she  could  remain  friends  with  debbie,  lou,  and  all  of  her  former  con  acquaintances,  tammy  came  to  realize  it’d  be  harder  than  she  thought  to  stay  in  touch  while  keeping  a  distance  from  crime.  she  agrees  to  go  on  a  date  with  olivia’s  fellow  lawyer,  nicholas,  and  a  few  weeks  later,  starts  dating  him.

▌    2010     -     age  thirty - six  ,    

 as  of  august  2010,  during  dinner,  tamasin  and  nicholas  get  engaged.  tammy  grabs  onto  the  planning  of  her  wedding  almost  fiercely,  and  with  the  help  of  olivia,  uma  and  katherine,  builds  a  dream-like  event  to  celebrate  her  union  with  nick.

▌    2011     -     age  thirty - seven  ,    

 save  the  date:  tammy  and  nick’s  wedding  happens  during  spring,  on  a  beautiful  vineyard,  and  she’s  as  happy  as  one  can  be.  the  couple  signs  a  prenup,  and  despite  tammy’s  absolute  devotion  to  her  relationship,  she  does  not  change  her  last  name.  she  tells  nick  there’s  no  way  she’d  ever  stop  being  a  sinclair  woman;  that  was  something  she  hardly  considered  back  then.  the  couple  moves  to  a  house  in  the  suburbs  outside  of  new  york,  where  they  plan  to  build  a  family  together.  she  does  not  get  rid  of  the  sisters’  apartment.

▌    2012     -     age  thirty - eight  ,    

 tammy  and  nick  have  many  attempts,  but  still  find  themselves  unable  to  conceive  a  child.    [  ...  ]   to  better  use  her  time,  tamasin  decides  to  enroll  into  univertity  once  again.  she  goes  for  marketing  courses,  knowing  it  can  be  of  good  use  when  working  on  her  dream  field,  with  critical  and  commercial  writing.

▌    2013     -     age  thirty - nine  ,    

 on  the  first  days  of  the  year  and  after  many  attempts,  tamasin  discovers  she’s  pregnant.  it’s  a  very  calm  pregnancy,  and  tammy  has  no  trouble  working  from  home  for  the  same  w  magazine  column  on  beauty.  during  her  pregnancy  as  well,  tammy  graduates  from  marketing  school,  studying  from  home.  through  a  c-section,  she  gives  birth  to  twins,  and  calls  them  beatrice  and  benjamin.

▌    2015     -     age  fourty  -  one  ,    

 having  the  twins,  tammy  knows  she  wants  more  babies.  nicholas  and  her  decide  there  will  be  no  other  time  to  give  that  a  try,  and  attempt  to  get  pregnant  once  again.  differently  from  the  first  time,  this  pregnancy  happens  easily,  but  definitely  takes  its  toll  on  tamasin’s  health  and  body.  she  decides  to  let  go  of  her  position  at  W  magazine,  dedicating  her  time  to  taking  care  of  the  twins  as  well  as  herself.  during  the  months  following  august’s  birth,  tammy  experiences  postpartum  depression.

▌    2016     -     age  fourty  -  two  ,    

 after  years  distanced  from  crime,  and  having  plenty  of  time  in  her  hands  as  an  unemployed  housewife,  tammy  falls  into  temptation

 and  reconnects  with  a  former  provider.  she  starts  gathering  goods  stolen  directly  from  fabric  on  her  garage,  and  reselling  such  items  to  the  black  market.  if  you  ask  her  about  crime,  she’ll  say  she’s  retired.     [  ...  ]   tammy  gets  her  second  tattoo,  this  time,  even  more  discreet  --   three  little  dots  on  the  back  of  her  neck,  one  for  each  of  her  children.

▌    2018     -     age  fourty  -  four  ,    

 despite  making  it  clear  that  she’s  out  of  the  crime  business,  tammy  gets  a  surprise  visit  from  an  old  friend.  debbie  ocean  makes  a  rather  undeniable  proposal:  to  join  her  and  lou  in  a  millionaire  heist.  she  leaves  for  the  big  city  in  a  matter  of  days,  asking  her  sisters  to  keep  an  extra  eye  on  the  kids  as  she’s  gone.  she  acts  as  a  fence  in  the  met  gala  heist  of  2018  and  goes  unnoticed  as  the  seven  other  members  of  her  crew.  once  the  heist  is  done,  and  after  having  another  taste  of  just  how  exciting  her  life  can  be  when  she  explores  her  greedy  side,  tammy  realizes  she  does  not  want  to  go  back  to  her  life  in  the  suburbs.  it  only  adds  up  to  the  fact  that  she  was  no  longer  happy  in  her  married  life.  as  of  the  end  of  the  year,  tammy  and  nick  file  a  divorce.

▌    2019     -     age  fourty  -  five  ,    

after  working  for  the  met  staff  in  2018,  tammy  interviewed  for  a  position  at  the  vogue  office.  this  time,  she  gets  a  call  back,  and  is  made  a  collaborator  of  vogue  online,  writing  articles  for  the  vogue.com  website  and  supervising  content  creation  for  vogue  america’s  social  media.

at  the  end  of  the  year,  she’s  made  one  of  the  editors  of  vogue  online,  coordinating  the  creation  of  editorials  and  videos  for  vogue’s  youtube  channel.

for  the  first  time,  she  covers  new  york  fashion  week  and  writes  two  articles  analyzing  chanel  and  ellie  saab’s  show.  her  work  is  vastly  recognized  by  the  industry  and  well  received  by  the  public.

▌    2020     -     age  fourty  -  six  ,    

 proving  to  be  a  skilled  writer  and  creative  director,  tammy  takes  a  long  shot  and  asks  for  a  chance  to  act  as  a  collaborator  to  vogue  magazine,  the  print.  such  position  is  ultimately  granted,  and  tamasin  continues  to  coordinate  vogue  online’s  content  as  well  as  occasionally  collaborate  to  print  articles  for  the  magazine.

▌    2021     -     age  fourty  -  seven  ,    

 after  being  granted  her  first  chance  at  completely  handling  her  previous  position  at  the  fashion  print,  tammy  is  named  editor  of  vogue  magazine.  she  mainly  coordinates  and  keeps  contacts  for  photoshoots,  interviews,  articles  and  columns.  she  occasionally  acts  as  a  collaborator  as  well,  and  is  released  from  her  position  at  vogue  online.

 2018     -    future  .     tammy  lives  in  a  house  in  new  york  city  with  her  three  kids,  benjamin,  beatrice  and  august,  and  has  finally  been  hired  at  the  job  of  her  dreams:  vogue  magazine.  she  continues  to  work  on  cons  with  her  crew  heist,  and  her  career  as  a  journalist  only  seems  to  be  growing.  keep  an  eye  on  that  one:  who  knows  when  vogue  might  announce  a  new  editor  in  chief?

#* ii. ╰ ♡ catch a wave & take in the sweetness › headcanon. #hello and welcome to my personal heaven... i have finally... finally finished this!!! yayyyy!!!!! #special thanks for gin and cora for hearing me ramble about this #and also reign for the wild help re: lulu's timeline in this #now a kiss for you miss tammy sinclair... and ur beautiful life

[midnight-marimba]

Mar’s DQXI Fic OCs

It’s Dragon Quest OC And NPC Week, and I’m going to approach it from the other direction than what’s described in the event proposal, because I rarely end up inventing a detailed character without context, but I often find a specific need for a character in a piece of fanfiction and build them up out of that prompt into something better than a footnote. So I’m going to take the opportunity to talk about some of my fics and the original characters and NPCs who wandered into them and made themselves interesting enough that I’m eager to share a little extra detail or commentary about them.  (Under the cut)

Hair Tie That Binds

A comedic story about Hendrik recruiting Erik for a heist to help fix his own mistake. (9k words)

I needed a minor villain, so I invented Lady Druzy (named off of an obscure corner of a gem list, so as to suit a minor Heliodoran noble).  She is petty, spiteful, vengeful, and apparently my favorite archetype of OC to write.  She is awful and I loved writing her.

After Rain, The Sun Will Shine

A Sylv/Hendrik one-shot involving Hendrik’s memories of Sylv’s mother. (8k words)

When I wrote this, I had not yet heard the detail from the voice drama (please somebody translate the whole thing?? <3) that Sylv's mom's given name was Gerbera and her stage name was Sylvia (that is, exactly the same stage name Sylv took in the Japanese version of the game).  I had only heard a broader rumor about the drama and Sylv choosing a stage name in honor of their mother.

So when I went to write a story about her, I looked at a list of Dutch names (to match Arnout and Hendrik — Zwaardsrust is Dutch) and hunted for one a name with a "Syl" sound.  I landed on Silke, which is also satisfying from a word association perspective (since it looks like "silk" which sounds highly appropriate for a "famous Zwaardsrustian beauty" — one of the few canon details we get for her).

I tried to make her stubborn and determined, inspiring and willfully optimistic for the sake of the people she had under her leadership.  Sylv-like, but with a slightly more intense philosophical flavor than canon Sylv, as she’s walking out of an arguably even greater tragedy (or at least more personal at a larger scale?)

Silk and Swagger

Faris/Reader, from the point of view of a Heliodor guard. (1.7k words)

The guard is nameless and the fic is relatively short, but my goodness it was fun inventing someone who is instantly smitten with Faris and believes the best of him at all times.

When Home Isn't Marked on the Map

A Sylv/Erik longfic set a couple years after the end of the game, in which Erik is coming out of a period of self-imposed isolation after a disastrous attempt at confessing his one-sided romantic feelings for the Luminary, and he begins by going looking for Sylv, the one old companion he dares hope won’t yell at him for his absence.  (74k words)

Since the ultimate seed of the idea behind this fic was "Erik would be protective towards orphans and Sylv would like that about him" I needed some kids to put in the story.  There are two sets of four that I named and included. 

First is the group from the rural area near Puerto Valor, and thus they have Spanish names: Isabella, Serafito, Paz, Ana.  I'm pretty sure I named the younger ones with shorter names to help myself keep them straight.  In my head, they have a darker complexion than the rest of the kids in the story, since I always wish the DQ world was a little more diverse on that front, but I fear that I forgot to actually write that detail in.  (Room for improvement...)

The second group is an expansion of the four child NPCs you can find playing hide-and-seek in downtown Heliodor.  I could only find a canon name for Cammo (the King of Hide-and-Seek) so I gave the rest of them stone related names, figuring the pattern from Cobblestone might extend around Heliodor into the poorer and less formal areas of the kingdom (Ruby the innkeeper notwithstanding). So they are Flint, Crystal, and Mica.

There are so many of them that it was tough to give all of them a lot of characterization, but I tried to distinguish each of them at least a little.  Isabella, the leader of her group, blunt in a way that reminds Erik of Mia and Veronica.  Serafito, a little bit of a self-sacrificing caretaker. Paz, young but outgoing, and Ana, even younger and a little shy.  Flint, the canny, cautious, and slightly manipulative leader of the Heliodor gang.  Cammo, sneaky and adventurous and clever.  Crystal, strong and brave and protective.  Mica unfortunately ended up being most notable for the ordeals he goes through.

My favorite among them ended up being Crystal, from the instant she decided she was after Hendrik's job.

Diamond

A Sylv/Serena and Sylv/Dave fic, from Serena’s point of view.  Set after Act 3 as Serena chooses a mission to research and perform healing around the world, travels alongside Sylv’s new circus troupe, and they both get to pursue some missing character development.  (118k words, technically 1 chapter short of an intended ending but may not be continued.)

Mind the tags and content advisory if you go into the fic itself, because (1) for reasons of 2020, a story about a doctor-hero was simply not an ideal story to begin in the year 2019, and (2) it is NOT a utopian style world — many characters have prejudices, others are closeted in some major ways, and not all of that is gone by the end of the story.  I 100% understand many folks not wanting to go roll around in that kind of fiction, and while there’s a discussion about Representation I could shoehorn in here, I’m going to set it aside for the sake of on-topic rambling about fun OC development.

For this fic, I wanted Sylv and Serena to be traveling the world together.  Serena was to be motivated in part by the allure of getting to meet more new people, and also, I think it’s useful for her personal growth to spend a little time away from her blood family and most of the people from whom she would naturally take direction.  I also wanted to explore Sylv as a leader in a way that’s not so easy within the canon party, and in general, I imagine Sylv both being friendly to every stranger and also having old friends pop up everywhere he goes.

Between the two of them, I ended up needing to plop in OC's left and right, both for Sylv’s new Act 3 circus troupe, and in every town they visited.  Because I’m a nerd, I expanded lore for some of the regions too, and I will mention some of those details here with the characters.

Sylv’s troupe:

Chill, a contortionist from Sniflheim, where people get kind of uncomfy about magic, especially when it looks too close to evil witchery.  Like, say, Zing.

Samir, a short, round bard from Gallopolis who can do amazing things with a variety of instruments, and his partner Grey, once a guard from Heliodor until he decided that job was even more bland than his name, and he ran off to Gallopolis to join the circus.

Maria and Mateo, a couple of quiet, short and slender dancers from Puerto Valor (in my head, Mateo is about 5 feet and Maria’s a couple inches shorter, though I keep gravitating away from talking in Modern Earth units of measurement when writing for this fandom).  Their kids, teenaged Leo and toddler Lena, aren’t (yet) performers, but are present because I thought it was interesting to plug some kids into a story about a traveling circus troupe, and because I wanted to give Sylv an excuse to interact with kids.

Francine. A classically beautiful acrobat from Octagonia, where the only work she could find was being a bunny girl handing out flyers.  She’s had a crush on Sylv, which didn’t work out, and in the aftermath she’s a little bitter and is predisposed to dislike anyone else getting too close to Sylv.  She is rude and spiteful when she does not like someone (though she may do so in an overly-sweet tone), and she awkwardly overcompensates when she wants to prove she’s moved on from something, and she ended up being my favorite OC here.

Some other notable OCs in the world:

In Sniflheim: Healer Heather, the doctor who would really rather not have any magic in her house, so she doesn’t get a mob coming after her next time the tide of public opinion turns against witches.

In Lonalulu: Nohea, the charming and handsome hula dancer who isn’t quite as nice as he seems, and Pika, the shy, plain, and clumsy but kind-hearted net weaver.  Both are there as potential love interests for Serena (and for contrast against Sylv, of course).

In the Inner Sea: Coral the mermaid, a singer.  She's here for advancing Serena's character development, but it was fun to have other OCs react to a mermaid, and trying to write plot-advancing mermaid dialogue raised my respect for the localization team 1000%.

In Gallopolis: Doctor Zel, who is very scientific and good at her job, never makes eye contact, and lacks a comforting bedside presence.  (Happily they have Faris to help with public relations during a health crisis…?)

This is only about half of the OCs and NPCs named in the story, but they’re most of the ones with the most screen time, and most of the ones that stand out in my mind.  But the outgoing and friendly Sylv and Serena I was trying to write, both of whom wanted to engage with the people of the world at large, just spawned new characters around them as they went.  You know those stories about mythical people where flowers bloom after them everywhere they go?  This pair was like that, only with OC’s instead of flowers.

#dqxi oc npc week #dqxi #dqxi fanfiction #dq11 fanfiction #my writing #these stories are old but if you comment I will still love you forever

[splat-dragon]

Only Time Can Heal A Broken Heart

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21048623#main @whumptober2019

Something was up with Arthur.

Dutch knew the boy like the back of his hand. He’d raised him, after all. Molded him, turned him from a frightened, angry street-rat into a bold, brave, young man.

So he knew that something was wrong.

The boy had taken to leaving camp early in the morning, and returning late at night. Smelled like alcohol more often than not, hackled up when he or Hosea, Susan or Bessie or even Annabelle tried to approach him. He was out more often than he was when they lived near Eliza and little Isaac.

Oh, Eliza and Isaac.

It was hard to believe that his boy was a father—that he was a grandfather. He remembered when he was still a scrawny little thing, all long limbs and knobby knees, too big feet and too broad shoulders. Scared of everything, afraid of he and Hosea, flinching at the first sign of a raised voice, tucking tail and hiding when the alcohol came out.

And that was before Susan, and Bessie, and Annabelle and young John, wasn’t it? So much had changed since they’d taken him in. He’d gotten together with Susan, and broken up with her. Hosea had met Bessie, and married her—legally, in a church, even!—and he had met Annabelle, brought into their fold. And they’d saved John’s life, brought the scrappy kid back to camp.

And Arthur had met Eliza. One night later, and they’d had Isaac. Time flew, and his boy was a father.

Arthur had been happier than he could remember him ever being. He’d been terrified at first, scared to death that he’d be a horrible father. Still was, sometimes, he knew.

But Arthur adored that little boy. Isaac was the light of his life, the apple of his eye. Every time he went to visit, he brought Eliza flowers, bought toys for the boy. Took all the gifts that their family gave him to give to their grandson, their nephew, books from Dutch, carved toys from Hosea, clothes and stuffed animals from the women.

His boy was kinder.

Softer, almost.

More patient with John, more willing to take time out of his day to teach the boy how to do things. Had taken to fishing more with he and Hosea, trying to become better at it so, as he said, he could teach his son, and then his boy could fish with his pa like Arthur had. Had even tried to learn to crochet under Susan, before writing it off as a lost cause.

So long as Arthur kept up his duties to the gang, though, hunted and helped with heists and brought in money, then Dutch didn’t mind. His boy was happy, so he was happy.

But now his boy wasn’t happy, and Dutch worried. Hosea was concerned, too, had tried to approach Arthur but had been sent away in short order, and knew better than to push him, that it would only make him more surly, more withdrawn. Susan and Bessie had brought up their concerns, and Annabelle had tried to talk to him, too; she was all-but his mother, so they were sure she’d be able to get through to him.

But, impossibly, he’d chased her away, too.

And they worried, and knew that something had to be done.

Dutch waited, and watched. Arthur had left camp early that morning, and Dutch knew he wouldn’t be back until late. So he sat in his tent, thumbed through one of the books Hosea had brought him from his recent trip into town—a philosophy book he was surprised to discover he rather enjoyed.

Hosea was off with Bessie, and Susan and Annabelle had gone into town for the night, taking John with them. They knew he was going to try and talk to Arthur tonight, had wished him luck and wanted to give them their privacy.

He listened to the sound of thumping footsteps, slightly unsteady—was the boy drunk again?—and read a few pages more once he heard Arthur go into his tent, letting him have time to unravel and, hopefully, sober up a bit.

Dutch marked his page with his bookmark, finding a good stopping point, and set it aside. This Evelyn Miller, he was discovering, had some good points. It wasn’t often that he dreaded talking to Arthur, but with how temperamental the boy had become lately, he found himself increasingly reluctant the closer he came to his tent.

He hesitated outside of the canvas tent, taking a deep breath—there was a strangled breath, and he paused.

‘Is he hurt?’

Dutch didn’t hesitate to shove aside the tent flap, to step inside and announce, “Arthur?”

His boy froze, shoulders stiff.

Dutch took in the inside of his tent—his satchel, dumped carelessly on the ground, gun belt dropped next to it. And Arthur himself, sitting, slumped on the bed, one of Isaac’s toys—the stag Hosea had carved for him out of antler, that Hosea had given him himself—clutched in his hands. His thumb ran slowly, methodically, over its face, stopping abruptly as he jolted upright to face Dutch.

“What?” he croaked, sounding too tired to be startled, and far, far too tired for someone so young.

He looked from the toy, to Arthur’s tear-streaked face, eyes red and watery, then back to the toy again, a nasty, foreboding feeling settling deep in his gut. “Are you alright, son?”

Arthur blinked at him slowly, and shrugged. Dutch fought the urge to sigh, knowing he’d have to treat carefully-

“They’re dead.”

His thoughts came to a crashing halt. “What?”

His boy nodded slowly, dropping his gaze back to Isaac’s toy stag, rubbing his thumb along the face. “Yeah. Went to visit and,” he cleared his throat, reaching up to wipe at his eyes with the back of his sleeve, “and,” slowly, Dutch sat next to him on the cot, resting his hand on his back.

From there, he could see how much darker the antler was than normal, and his heart broke for his boy, wondering just how long he had sat holding it to his chest.

“And there was just graves.”

Dutch’s heart broke for his boy, unable to stand the way his voice cracked, the way it gave out and how defeated he sounded. “Oh, son,” he stroked his thumb along the knobs of his boy’s spine.

“They was robbed, Dutch.” his shoulders stiffened, “ten damn dollars. Ten.” he clenched his fist around the stag, before loosening it, stroking his thumb along the grain of the carving as though in apology. “One of the neighbors saw me standin’ there. Told me what happened.”

“I’m so sorry, Arthur.” and he was. He’d lost people, had lost his father when he was younger, but never anyone he truly cared for. Had never lost a child, or a partner. But just the thought of losing Annabelle, or Susan, of losing Arthur or John, it was… well, it was unthinkable. He’d lose his mind, would blame himself, blame himself for bringing them into this life.

And, knowing Arthur, that was exactly what was going through his head.

“Dutch,” Arthur croaked, “I’ve killed men for less. Taken wedding rings off of men I’ve killed. Those people I’ve killed… they were people’s sons, people’s husbands, people’s fathers. I’m as bad as they are.”

Dutch sighed, shaking his head. His poor, poor boy. He wasn’t thinking straight, he knew, but it was a thought they all had at some point. Killing in their line of work was an inevitability, no matter how hard you tried to avoid it. And it was impossible not to think about those lives you’d stolen away, late at night when you couldn’t sleep. Had they been married? Did they have kids? Were you leaving another child an orphan? Another woman to raise a child alone?

“Arthur, son. I know you. You’ve only ever killed when you had to. Those men you’ve killed… they were trying to kill you. If you hadn’t killed them, they would have killed you. And they wouldn’t have hesitated, they wouldn’t have cared that they were leaving Hosea and I without our son.”

His boy shook his head, opened his mouth to respond, made a low croaking sound and dropped his gaze back to the stag. “I should have been there, Dutch. I promised I’d protect them and… and I didn’t.”

“Arthur,” Dutch pressed, “you couldn’t have known.” he brought his hand up, ran his fingers through Arthur’s hair—he’d loved that when he was younger, although he had never admitted it. “You were the best father you ever could have been, son. You loved that boy, and that boy loved you. He loved you more than anything. You gave him a good life, better than a lot of kids get.” He softened his voice. “There was nothing you could have done.”

Arthur clenched his jaw, stroked the toy stag, and shook his head. Dutch sighed, and wrapped his arm around him. The man stiffened, but slowly leaned in, burying his face in the crook of his neck, shoulders trembling as he clutched the stag to his chest.

#whumptober2019 #no.14 #no. 14 #no. 14 tearstained #tear-stained #tearstained #tear stained #Red Dead Redemption #red dead redemption 2 #Red Dead Redemption Spoilers #red dead spoilers #red dead redeption 2 spoilers #fan fic #fanfic #fanfiction #arthur #young arthur #arthur morgan #dutch #dutch van der linde #young dutch van der linde #eliza #isaac #Susan Grimshaw (mentioned) #Bessie Matthews (mentioned) #Annabelle (mentioned) #hurt/comfort #angst #family

[sweet-sugar-cowboy]

Miss. Orléans | Red Dead Redemption 2 | Part 3

Elizabeth Orléans comes from a background of unimaginable wealth from her father. Raised in the life of luxury, she adored her parents and was always a respectable little girl. However, when tragic hits and she’s wearing all black at her mother’s funeral, her life is turned upside down as her father became a drunken mess.

During one of her fathers business meetings, Elizabeth wanders in town and gets herself caught up in something dangerous. Then the infamous Dutch Van der Linde saved her and took her in. There she fell in love and only to have her heart broken.

When events and situations change, Elizabeth leaves the gang and her life as an Outlaw. Leaving only a note and a pile of cash.

John Marston x OC (implied)

Arthur Morgan x OC

Word count: 2343

The whiskey scorched her throat in the most pleasant of ways as her body was filled with warmth. Gently placing the glass down on her wooden desk, she let out a shaky sigh as her gaze went back to the window and at Saint Denis, "you can stay if you want. However, bring the slightest trouble to this household and I will turn all of you in to the Pinkertons."

"We need to talk Eliza," Arthur spoke as he refused the whiskey that Timothy offered him.

"There really ain't nothing to talk about," Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders, ignoring the intense glare of Arthur as she pulled out another cigar and lit it. Somewhere she knew she was being selfish for denying Arthur this, but then again she managed to raise them for nearly 7 years now, and she likes to think she raised her kids right. Elizabeth knew Arthur since he was in his teens, knew that his heart belonged with the gang and wouldn't leave it, even if it were for his children's sake. The most she would have gotten out of him would have been a few visits here and there, but that wasn't enough for her. It was either the four of them a family or only three.

However, guilt still edged on her consciousness as she knew about Arthur's son Isaac. She was there to comfort him when he returned to the gang the same day, distraught and angry at the world. With open arms she allowed Arthur to grieve the lost of his family, with no judgement or any comforting words. Just silence and company that the man needed. Elizabeth couldn't even imagine loosing either of her kids, just thinking about it tore her apart in the inside. That was the reason why she left the gang, to get away from the trouble that comes with riding with them. To raise her kids right, so they can do right.

"Do they even know about me?" Arthur asked, desperate for answers as he stared at Elizabeth who refused to meet his gaze.

"They know their father is alive, just don't know who it is and I intend to keep it that way," life wasn't fair and Elizabeth wasn't being fair. However, if it was to keep her children safe she would become the most selfish person in the world.

"So what, I'm just gonna act like I'm not their father?"

Sighing exasperated, Elizabeth whirled around to finally meet her gaze and her mind wandered as she silently admitted to herself that Arthur Morgan was still as good looking as ever, "Look what you got yourself into Arthur! You have a 5 thousand dollar bounty on your head! You're wanted in several states and you're a murderer, do you expect me to be all willing to let you into their lives? Next thing you know Rosie will be wanting to join your gang, then what? She gets a 5 thousand dollar bounty and I got to watch my daughter hanged? I told you this world is changing and I'm adapting to make sure my children stay alive and they live a good life and they are good people. The question here Arthur, are you willing to adapt? Because I certainly don't think you are. Me agreeing to talk to you is putting their lives at risk."

Arthur didn't know how to reply, couldn't reply because what she was saying was true. He was a bad man, and he's undeserving to anything good that comes his way and that applies to Elizabeth and her children. She was doing something he couldn't do for the sake of his children. Unlike him, Elizabeth knew where her loyalty lied and left the gang. Some people would have saw it as betrayal, but she was doing the right thing, and Arthur didn't quite know if he would have left with her if he knew.

He couldn't even be angry at her anymore as he took a look around the room. His children is living in a life of luxury but he knew they weren't spoiled because Elizabeth would make sure they weren't. The world is changing and Arthur couldn't adapt in time to be there for his family, even if he didn't know he had one. All his time was spent foolishly going after a women who could never love him, only wanted him because he was a challenge. The one person who was willing to accept him for all his flaw was Elizabeth and he went ahead and left her. It was his biggest mistake.

"I think that's enough," Hosea cut in between the two, "Eliza, I promise we won't bring any problems to this this household. I'm just glad you and your kids are doing okay."

Where Hosea was involved, Elizabeth couldn't be mad, because he was like a father to her. Took her in and raised her, tried to raise her right and raise her with good morals. Elizabeth never forgot about all the small lessons he taught her and all the stories he ever told her. She looked up to him in more ways then one. It wasn't Dutch she respected, but it was Hosea, he was the reason why she agreed to meet them.

"Indeed," Elizabeth mumbled, "why don't you all run along now and make arrangements to come here. Not all at once, send a small group every other day to here," waving her hand for Timothy to escort them out, her gaze landed on Hosea, "would you like to stay Hosea and go fishing with me and the kids? It's been too long since we just talked and I'd like to catch up with you."

"It would be a great joy of mine Eliza," Hosea smiled as the corner of his eyes crinkled with age, but tenderness. He always had a soft spot for Eliza, so did Bessie as she absolutely adored the girl like she was her own daughter. Turning to the guys he tipped his hat slightly, "You three go back to the camp and get arrangements ready. It'll be best to send Abigail and Jack here first."

Reluctantly the three men left, Arthur silently telling Elizabeth that he wanted to have a nice long chat when they get the time.

Once everyone left, leaving Hosea and Elizabeth alone, the women slumped in her chair as she rubbed her temples. Before she looked timeless as if time was in her favor, but now she looked tired as if she hasn't rested a day in her life. Glancing up at Hosea, she offered a small genuine smile, "I see Arthur in Rosie whenever I look at her. She has this thing to her that he had, James is such a shy boy. I wonder how he'll ever find himself a women."

Hosea chuckled lightly, "I'm sure James will be just as charming as his father. They both seem healthy and happy, I can tell you've been a good mother to them."

"Have I though Hosea?" She was was uncertain as she confronted her past and now she was contemplating if she ever made any of the right decisions, "is it horrible that I hid Arthur from them?"

"I don't think so Eliza, I think you've made a decision any mother would have made. For a long time the gang was your family, but now you have a new one, two young ones that needs guiding and protection," he was always a wise person, always giving good advice.

"That's what I missed the most Hosea! You always knew what to say, I didn't know what to do when Rosie started asking about her father. At first she thought he abandoned them and didn't love them," she still couldn't get the image of her distraught daughter when she thought that, "I ended up telling them that he didn't leave us, that I left him. Told them he was a good man but just did bad things."

"Parenting was always a tricky thing," Hosea confessed as he walked over to the window and admired the view of the city, "but you were always just thinking about what would be best for them. I could only imagine what could have happened if you decided to stay."

"How is Dutch anyway Hosea? He just...something just ain't right with him," Dutch never snapped at her the way he did before, but then again time changes people.

"I wish I can tell you Eliza, it's just been hard on all of us," Hosea sighed as he began to wonder about the future of the gang. He was getting old and couldn't keep doing ridiculous heists anymore. If only the gang believed in Arthur and his plans, things could have gone differently.

Standing up, Elizabeth decided not to waist time anymore and to focus on her children, "I'm gonna go and get changed for fishing, feel free to explore the place and don't be shy around James and Rosie."

*****

I don't even know what to write anymore. Everything don't make sense anymore after Blackwater and I get to meet Eliza again but then I find out I have two kids. They got Eliza's hair and that little mark underneath their left eye, but everything else was me. All this time while I was running around robbing banks and fooling around with Mary, I had two kids I could have been taking care of.

Even if Eliza kept it a secret, I should have known. She was 5 months pregnant when she left the gang, how did I not notice? And we are gonna live with them now, how do I even act around those three, I want to be there for James and Rosie now, but Eliza doesn't want me anywhere near them. Can't blame her, I'm a bad man. A wanted man. An Outlaw.

*a picture of Eliza and next to her James and Rosie*

Finishing up my drawing, I tucked my journal back into my satchel as I leaned back against the wagon in which my make-shift bed was pressed up against. The gang was hiding out in a secluded area in the forest a little far off from a small town called Valentines. Dutch was currently making plans on sending us to where Eliza is living, but I wasn't so sure about this. We were already so close to civilization as it is, but now we're literally gonna be a few steps away from a city that don't want no Outlaws anymore.

My mind wandered back to Elizabeth and the twins and I couldn't help but start playing the game of what if. Dutch tried to reassure me that Eliza would come around and let me be the father to my kids, but I doubt that. The women was as stubborn as Dutch when he thinks he has a big score. Then again, I couldn't blame her, she was right, I am a man with a high bounty on my head and would probably only cause trouble for them.

Then the what if's came.

If only she just told me she was pregnant instead of leaving, I could have done things different. I would have done right and be there for them, protect them this time. It wasn't painful to think about Isaac now as I just remember the good times with him, and I regret not being there when he needed me the most. But I would have done right by Elizabeth if she just told me, hell it probably would have snapped me out of my delusional love with Mary and I probably would have left the gang with her.

I could have watched James and Rosie grow up.

God does James look so much like me but remind me so much of Eliza. They were both timid and wary of strangers, and sometimes it could be mistaken as shyness. James even does that thing of gripping something that Eliza did to him when they ever met someone new. It was adorable in his eyes and I even noticed the protectiveness he had over Rosie when she came a greeted me. The boy sure did have his mother's warning gaze.

Then Rosie reminded me of well... me. It was hard to explain his, but she just did. The girl certainly was more welcoming to strangers then her brother was.

"You look deep in thought," Mary-Beth walked up to me, snapping me out of my train of thoughts and misery, "may it have to do with a certain Elizabeth Orléans?" Mary-Beth always had this tone whenever she wanted to get someon talking and she was using it on me.

"Dutch told you about the plans?" I grumbled as I tipped my hat forwards to slightly hide my face.

"Just that we'll be living with her, but you seem like there's more bothering you then that."

"She's a past lover of my," There was no use withholding the information Mary-Beth wanted. It was best to just satisfy her romantic side so she can quickly leave you alone.

"What happened?" She sat at the edge of my bed as she pressed for more information.

"Foolishly left her for Mary."

"Well I hope she's more pleasant then Mary. I never liked her."

"Trust me Mary-Beth, Eliza ain't nothing like Mary. She's...she's more accepting and she just had these more pretties green eyes, and this birth make under her left eye that I always loved..." I began to imagine her face as I never once forgot about what she looked like. Several pages of my journal had some sketches of her that I drew over the years and they never did her any justice to her beauty. Many would think Abigail was beautiful, but then Eliza is gorgeous in his eyes.

"Arthur Morgan!" Mary-Beth sounded almost offended as he pointed an accusing finger at him, "are you by chance...still in love with her?" She whispered the last part to not attract attention.

#rock star #red dead redemption 2 imagine #red dead redemption #red dead redemption imagine #red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 #cowboy #western love #cowboy love #lenny summers #lovestory #john x abigail #abigail #abigail marston #arthur morgan x oc #arthur morgan imagine #arthur morgan #Arthur morgan x reader #miss orleans #dutch van der linde #valentine #rich #hosea matthews

[undeadwicchan]

I would say it's less EF's mourning a character that never existed and more like Adam just wasn't... A character. He just was. He existed for no other reason than to be a tool for development. The White Fang plot was entirely shelved and given to Ghira, Kali and Ilia to resolve it off-screen in the V5 finale. You have to at least agree there is a discrepancy with how Adam was written in V2 and how he ended up being like.1/2

And also I don’t see people shitting on Ilia for ALSO being an adult of age during the Adam Trailer. I see people calling Adam a pedophile grooming a young and impressionable Blake, which he may have been doing, but we don’t know because again he just… Is. He has no backstory, no true motivation, no… Essence. Ilia is better but let’s not excuse her just because she’s a girl and female characters seem to get preferential treatment in the FNDM. She, too, was doing the same to young Blake. (2/2)  

(Okay, so it took awhile to answer this ask because not only this anon wrote me two paragraphs for this one so I wanted my response to be longer than usual. But, I accidentally refreshed the page while answering this ask, so I lost a bit of motivation, and now I’m writing all of my responses to any asks on Google Docs from this point on.)

I will agree that there is a bit of discrepancy in his writing. Let me start with Volume 3’s Adam.

Volume 3 Adam was a mostly calm and collected high ranking member of the White Fang with the Vale branch under his leadership. He didn’t want any part in human affairs at all, especially if it’s going to concern the wellbeing of his fellow faunus brethren. While on the other hand,  he was violent  and hostile towards humans, showing a complete lack of compassion towards them. He didn’t seemingly show any care regarding Blake leaving either until he rencounters her while he’s at Beacon and harming other innocent people.

Now I’m clearly not defending Adam’s actions here as I most definitely have been calling him out on his abusive shit. However, I would like to analyze his little “I will destroy everything you love” promise towards Blake is not just out of him being petty, but going by how the White Fang runs things when there’s a traitor or someone that tries to leave the White Fang. A example on one of them being Tukson. Tukson was a former member of the White Fang and tried to go into hiding after leaving, but then ends up getting hunted down and killed for doing so. Sienna threatens Adam with execution for bringing in a human in their base of operations and considers it a act of betrayal towards the White Fang. It’s terrifyingly considered the NORM around their organization to do something like that. However, Adam went even further with Blake’s punishment for leaving the White Fang. Instead of outright killing her as per apparent code of conduct within the White Fang, he promises to kill everything she loves. So she can know how it feels to be truly alone and perhaps beg for death or/and forgiveness from him. It’s a incredibly cruel and abusive promise towards Blake and just shows how merciless, cold, and sadistic Adam can be towards even someone who he used to consider ‘dear’ to him. He wanted to see Blake suffer for her betrayal plain and simple. What a “lovely” guy he is.

Now THIS is where they messed up. Adam’s combat prowess and how powerful he is. He easily tosses aside Blake like her combat prowess was nothing compare to his own which makes sense considering he was her mentor, but the power gap between them was insanely huge to the point it felt like he was more of a near-end game boss. And, then came the part where he easily slices Yang’s arm off. He even casually cuts down a Grimm that went towards him. And the fact that CINDER didn’t even want to use force with Adam until she got at least half of the Fall Maiden’s powers says a lot about how strong he really is. Adam is a incredibly competent fighter this is supported furthermore during his own character short on just how easily Adam tosses aside his enemies like they’re nothing compared to him. In Volume 4, it was reported that any huntsmen or police force that tried to apprehend him has been met with brutal force by his hand meaning he’s clearly stronger than the average huntsmen. With this imagery and knowledge they added for him, CRWBY had to keep him an incredible threat towards our heroes right? Well…. Then comes Volume 5’s Adam.

There were indeed some considerable changes to Adam (and not just his clothes), as a character and as a fighter. First off without hardly any proper context on explaining his new behavior that came about. Adam went from what I described him as in Volume 3 to a incredibly hot-headed, conceited, with a lack of compassion for anyone but himself, and was willing to harm other faunus for his own selfish goals. Like Sienna Khan for example, whom he was willing to kill off with no remorse merely in order to have Salem no longer worry about Sienna’s compliance and Adam would become the new High Leader of the White Fang. Another thing is that Adam is way more mentally unhinged and incredibly willing to go to war with humanity alongside Salem if it’ll mean that humanity will serve the faunus as the end results. And the reasons why? There’s nothing to explain this change because all we can do is assume on what changed him, like I’m assuming that Salem and Adam actually had a talk at one point in Volume 4 that was never shown. Not only that, but he’s incredibly obsessed with Blake like as many said he’s acting like the “crazy and obsessive ex-boyfriend’. Had Adam not tried to send assassins at Ghira and Kali, I doubt Blake’s plan would work and Adam would have been able to destroy Haven as he had planned with Salem and the other members in her circle. Hell, in his own words to Blake back in Volume 3.

“I will make it my mission to destroy everything you love.”It was HIS OWN personal mission yet, he didn’t bother to travel down to Menagerie to do the job himself once he learns of Blake’s location? Volume 5 did have some questionable writing every now and then but, this. Yeah…I don’t even know…

Now this is the part where I’ve heard fans say “Adam was nerfed!” and I agree very much at this portion of Volume 5 (I’d argue while in Volume 6 that Adam wasn’t nerfed and was just blinded by so much rage, he became reckless). While I do so much love how Blake told off Adam, her abuser, and it was a strong point for Blake’s character in the series. This also hurts how much of a threat Adam is, especially considering from what we were told and and seen about how powerful he is as a fighter in Volumes 3 and 4. Volume 5’s ending was rushed quite a lot with so much getting resolved fairly quickly, I was honestly expecting Adam’s time as the High Leader of the White Fang to go on for so much more longer. I would like to point out is that, wouldn’t have Adam noticed something is wrong by now when Corsac or Fennec didn’t attempt to contact him for a whole month? But, that’s just me. The whole White Fang plot line was done after five volumes and it honestly didn’t feel as satisfying as I thought it would have and feel it should have at least concluded during the Atlas arc considering that’s where the most discrimination against the faunus is at.

Now onto Ilia. I don’t think she did any part in grooming Blake at all compared to Adam who was heavily implied for it considering she might have been roughly the same age as Blake, and even then she never really had any intentions to do so. Let me explain about their ages, using Adam. In the first scene of his character short. Look at Adam’s coat, you don’t see ANY patterns on it, not even his own emblem was on there! Let’s go to the next scene which is where it appears the other White Fang members are already wearing masks that were probably Adam’s little heist buddies back in Mantle. Not only does Adam have his markings on his mask, but his emblem and that dash of white are on his coat. Ghira was still the High Leader here, and then when we move onwards to the scene with Adam and Blake. Where there still aren’t any new additions to Adam’s coat, meaning their conversation in Forever Fall took place a long time ago because this was way before Adam was promoted to lead the Vale branch. Yet, if we look at Blake she doesn’t look younger at all. I personally, wouldn’t determine their age based on their character model when Adam hasn’t really shown to not age a day, and we can only tell just by how many patterns to his coat he added. It would really help if we knew the exact age for both Adam and Ilia.

“But, Barbara and Arryn said–” Look, I take VA comments on characters with a grain of salt to be honest. I’d feel more comfortable if I heard it from Miles or Kerry on how old Adam actually is. Especially considering the RWBY Wiki actually removed Adam’s age because of this.

Honestly, I don’t understand why there’s been hate or backlash on Ilia for supposedly ‘stealing’ Adam’s role? Am I the only Adam fan here that likes Ilia? Adam wasn’t going to be redeemable or have a redemption arc, he may have had a extremely traumatic and abusive past, but again that doesn’t excuse his actions towards others.

While it would be nice to learn more about Adam’s backstory and motivation, this is Ruby’s, Weiss’s, Blake’s, and Yang’s story where they are the main characters after all.

#RWBY #Adam Taurus #Asks #Anon #rwby spoilers

[themagiciansreccenter]

Author Spotlight: @kaci3po

Every week we interview a writer from The Magicians fandom. If you would like to be interviewed or you want to nominate a writer, get in touch via our ask box.

First things first, tell us a little about yourself.

By day I'm a health insurance claims processor and by night I'm a fanfic writer who has probably been in fandom longer than most people on this website have been alive. I have terrible taste in music and share my home with two dogs and five cats.

How long have you been writing for?

I've been writing fanfiction since 2005, but I've been writing in general since before Kindergarten. I was always a writer. Fanfic just helped me figure out where I was interested in aiming my efforts.

What inspired you to start writing for The Magicians?

I read the books years ago and liked them well enough until the last one. Julia and Alice were my favorite characters so when the show was announced, I put off watching it because I was convinced they would never do either of those characters justice. I eventually caved and binged it on Netflix and I'm really glad I did. The show is an entirely different beast than the books, and to be honest the show is way more in my wheelhouse. Watching 3x05 and then not having it addressed for the rest of the season left me really frustrated but I've always believed in writing the stories you want to see in the world so I dusted off my keyboard and got to work.

Who is/are your favourite character(s) to write? What it is about them that makes them your favourite?

Quentin is my favorite POV to write from. That voice comes pretty naturally to me. And I like writing him because I can identify with a lot of his issues and choices. But Eliot is my favorite to write from an outside POV because he has a very specific voice that you can have a lot of fun with. You can put some fairly outrageous things in his mouth and have it still be in-character, because that's the sort of guy he is. Even though I think I end up writing more drama than comedy, the latter is definitely my favorite to do and Eliot is such a great source for both.

Do you have a preference for a particular season/point in time to write about?

3x05 and 4x05. I'm not someone who comes up with great plots for fics. I admire people who can do that, but that's not the sort of writing I'm good at. What I like doing is "fix-it" or "fill-in-the-blank" type stuff. I like being given a situation and then figuring out how characters I already know would react to that circumstance. 3x05 and 4x05 are perfect for me because they showed just enough to leave the door wide open for speculation.

Are you working on anything right now? Care to give us an idea about it?

I'm toying with the idea of writing Margo's reaction if/when she ever finds out the full story about the mosaic timeline and the Conversation they had when they remembered. I find it interesting that until that moment, Margo was the person who had seen Eliot at his worst and still loved him, but she has no idea (as far as we know) about this new memory that Eliot himself considers his darkest and most shameful. Their friendship is one of the most important things on the show to me, so I am very curious about how she'll react to Eliot keeping all of that a secret if/when she eventually finds out.

How long is your “to do list”?

Not very long. Like I said, I'm not the sort of writer who comes up with tons of plots she'd love to write. I just ask questions based on canon and explore the answers.

What is your favourite fic that you’ve written for The Magicians? Why?

Probably 'all these young bodies turn,' which I did not realize was a title someone else had already used for a Queliot fic when I posted it so great minds, I guess. I liked writing that one because it let me explore the trope of quests demanding sacrifices and the fact that Quentin was very aware of that fact. I like the way the show twists and turns tropes on their heads and I liked getting to do that too, in my own small way.

Many writers have a fic that they are passionate about that doesn’t get the reception from the fandom that they hoped for. Do you have a fic you would like more people to read and appreciate?

Not really. Everyone's been super nice and supportive of my work in this fandom, probably more so than my writing actually warrants. I'm that person who (a lot like Quentin, actually) is sort of always surprised people like my work and want me around. Blindsided by it, to be honest.

What is your writing process like? Do you have any traditions or superstitions that you like to stick to when you’re writing?

I honestly don't have a process or rituals. I've never been the kind of person who likes writing from outlines or notes. I just sit at the keyboard and keep asking myself, "Okay...and what comes next?" I'm just as surprised by what comes out of my brain as the next person.

Do you write while the seasons are airing or do you prefer to wait for hiatus? How does the ongoing development of the canon influence and inspire your writing process?

I like to write while the episodes are airing, if possible. If I wait, I lose the inspiration and frantic drive to fix and fill in blanks. Once the entire season is out, it feels to me like it's been chiseled in stone and that's not as much fun for me to play with. Writing while the episodes are airing allows for interesting moments where your predictions turn out to be completely wrong but the canon spins you off in a new direction you never would've thought of.

What has been the most challenging fic for you to write?

"5 Times Quentin and Eliot Had to Have Uncomfortable but Necessary Conversations and 1 Time They Didn't Need to Talk at All." I honestly don't know why but writing that fic was like pulling teeth. I rewrote huge portions of it constantly and I'm still not fully satisfied with it.

Are there any themes or tropes that you like particularly like to explore in your writing?

I don't know that I've really gotten to explore this yet in The Magicians fandom, although after 4x05 I think I might, but my all-time favorite trope is the character who swears up and down they don't want to be in love and can't help falling anyway. Most of my all-time favorite couples fit into this trope and now with the reveal that Eliot rejected Quentin's interest in him, I can't wait to see them actually together once he gets his body back and decides to be brave.

Are there any writers that inspire your work? Fanfiction or otherwise?

Seanan McGuire is my biggest writing inspiration. If I could write half as well as she does, I'd be happy.

What are you currently reading? Fanfiction or otherwise?

The "Home For Wayward Children" series by Seanan McGuire is my latest obsession and I'm also listening to the audio book of "Anger is a Gift" by Mark Oshiro. Fanfiction-wise, I'm just devouring every post-4x05 fic AO3 has to offer.

What is the most valuable piece of writing advice you’ve ever been given?

This is a tough call because I've had some great mentors over the years, but the most helpful thing I've ever been told is to read everything I write out loud. It probably looks silly when I do it, but I do full-on dramatic readings complete with different voices and actually acting the parts of everything I write. I don't post it until I've done a complete read through with no complaints. Not only does this help you catch any grammar or spelling mistakes, but the biggest thing it does is help you make your dialogue more natural. I'm trained in scriptwriting, not prose, and in that genre all you really have to tell your story with is dialogue, so it's important to me that mine sounds like people really talk. I don't post something until I can read it out loud and think, "Yeah, that's how those characters actually speak."

Are there any words or phrases you worry about over using in your work?

I use ellipses way more than anyone probably should and I'm overly fond of pulling up sentences short with punctuation that's not grammatically correct but makes you read it in the exact cadence I want you to.

What was the first fanfic that you wrote? Do you still have access to it?

I don't remember what my first actually was about, but it was in the Friends fandom and probably Monica/Chandler. I don't have access to it anymore, and I tried googling around to see if it was still out there on the internet somewhere, but it doesn't seem to be. That's probably for the best because I'm sure it was absolutely awful.

Self-edit or Beta?

Self-edit. In a perfect world, I'd have stuff beta'd but it's been years since I had someone I trusted to do that. These days I just go over it with a fine-toothed comb and hope for the best.

Comments or Kudos/Reblogs or Likes?

Comments always make me happy and I obsessively read the tags on reblogs, but it doesn't bother me if someone doesn't take the time to do that. People have busy lives and sometimes you can really like something without having more to say about it other than, "This was good." So a like or kudos is fine by me.

Smut, Fluff or Angst?

Smut, then fluff. I don't really like writing angst. Fandom is my escape from the real world so I'd rather focus on happy stuff if I can.

Quick & Dirty or Slow Burn?

Quick and dirty as a writer, slow burn as a reader. I like to "get in quick, hit hard, and get out" as a writer. The fewer words I can convey something in, the better. But given the choice as a reader, I'll take a 100k+ slow burn any day. It's always so satisfying when you get to the end.

Favourite season?

Season Three

Favourite Episode?

4x05 and 3x05 are the obligatory answers, but I also absolutely loved the bank heist episode.

Favourite book?

The Magicians

Three favourite words?

Fuck, callipygian, & widdershins.

Want to be interviewed for our author spotlight? Get in touch here.

#the magicians #the magicians rec center #author spotlight #author spotlight: kaci3po