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theelfmaid · 9 months

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FORBIDDEN - Father Paul Hill/John Pruitt fanfiction

Chapter 1 - Mystic Brews

Words: 1588

In the peaceful and secluded town of Crockett Island, where the sound of breaking waves and the aroma of salty air filled the atmosphere, the arrival of a new priest brought a sense of renewed faith to the community. Father Paul Hill, a man of gentle temperament and unwavering devotion, had been assigned as the new priest at Saint Patrick's Parish. Little did he know that his life was about to take an unexpected turn.

At the heart of the island, hidden among charming streets and picturesque buildings, stood a cozy coffee shop called "Mystic Brews." Run by a mysterious woman named Isabella, it was a place where locals and visitors sought comfort in the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, stuffed pastries, and other delights that only this place had the privilege to savor. Unknown to the rest of the world, Isabella was no ordinary woman. She was a witch, endowed with magical abilities that she kept well-hidden from prying eyes. Therefore, her personality was marked by professionalism and introversion when it came to personal conversations.

That day was marked by the presence of the new priest, who had come to replace Monsignor Pruitt, who was unable to return to Crockett Island due to his delicate health condition. Mystic Brews quickly filled up with a few faithful followers who came directly from Saint Patrick's, as they were frequent customers. Even though the number was small, the cozy coffee shop welcomed them with open doors, as the demand was not as high as in the big city. But Jane managed the place with ease, as there were not many expenses and she perfectly controlled the supplies.

As the time passed, the number of people in the coffee shop gradually decreased, which was quite usual. Sometimes she received orders that she delivered before the lunch hour, when Mystic Brews had no clientele.

Standing behind the counter, putting some croissants in the display case that had just come out of the oven, Jane finished her little task while waiting for lunchtime to close the coffee shop and make her deliveries around the Island. A sound interrupted her lost gaze at the floor and led her directly to the laptop, which was signaling a FaceTime call.

"Sasha," she pronounced the name that shone on the screen, while checking the Wi-Fi before answering to make sure the call wouldn't drop this time.

"Hi! Finally, Jane, this island's Wi-Fi is terrible. I almost sent you a letter; I might have received a reply before managing to make a call with you," Sasha laughed, taking the phone with her as she walked down the street.

"Wow, a new way to say I live at the end of the world," Jane rolled her eyes with a smile, adjusting the webcam so that Sasha could see her better.

Sasha agreed, pursing her lips, as she had no shame in voicing her opinion about her younger sister's life, and Jane pretended to care about the criticisms, but deep down, she didn't care at all about pleasing her sister. The young witch knew that Sasha followed the strict and intrusive steps of their mother.

"I'm sorry, J. But you know this place is the end of the world," Sasha admitted. "I think even the countryside would be less difficult to live in. A weirdly named island that smells like fish and is sinking further into misery."

Jane could be offended, but she chose to focus her annoyance on the place itself and the people who lived there, some of whom she had grown to like. Erin Greene, her dear friend, was one of them.

"I don't know how you manage to keep this book cafe running without sinking into debt and everything else," her older sister commented.

Jane took a deep breath, hoping her mind wouldn't be disturbed by the thoughtless words her sister so casually uttered without considering their impact. The gods knew that she wouldn't want those words to be overheard by any island resident, even though they were used to criticisms, or by her eight-year-old daughter, Matilda. The little girl had taken a liking to the place since they arrived a few months ago.

"I managed one of the Mystic Brews branches in Chicago, so cut me some slack. This was our grandmother's project and dream in her youth, before she came here to live with our grandfather. But she loved this place just as much, and she loved the people here. I'm proud to fulfill my part in her will and use it to escape the city and build her dream in the place she loved. This isn't the original Mystic Brews, but it certainly has Millie's essence." Jane wisely replied to her sister, silencing her for a moment to reflect on her thoughtless judgments.

"I understand, J," Sasha mumbled. "But I imagined you would want to pursue bigger ambitions before settling in a place like this that has nothing for you or Tilda."

Jane sighed.

"Matilda is happy here, she has few friends, but she helps me a lot. And she has a home surrounded by the ocean, trees, and books. Since the internet access is a disaster," Jane laughed. "But I see that it's enough for now. Away from the city's noise, from the hustle and bustle... from Howie..."

"And from her family," Sasha completed.

Jane sighed.

"Not from her family," Sasha. "We do the best we can-"

Jane's argument was cut off by the ringing of a bell coming from the door, announcing the entrance of a new customer. She looked up to see the tall, slender, and timid figure of a man with dark hair and a white collar around his neck.

He was a priest.

"Morning...! Hello," he smiled timidly, entering the place, carrying a leather bag and wearing a gray cardigan.

Jane corrected her posture, feeling a little awkward due to the unexpected presence. She gave a courteous smile.

"Hi! Welcome, feel free to make yourself comfortable, Father."

He alternated his gaze between her and some empty tables, taking a seat, still feeling shy as the place was new and quiet.

"Work is calling you!" Sasha said amidst the buzzing of the city, as she was still walking on the street during the video call.

Jane promptly turned her attention back to her sister, giving her a nod with a forced smile before ending the call. She stepped down from the stool behind the counter and slowly made her way to the jukebox.

The priest looked curiously from his seat at the surroundings. The plants, the organized and displayed books for customers' reading, the pastries in the showcase, the smell of coffee from the machine �� all of it gave him a sense of being at home.

In the background, he heard the jukebox's volume rise as the music began, and now Mystic Brews was less quiet and more inviting than it had seemed before. He watched in silence, a gentle smile on his face, as the young woman glided in her boots toward the counter and him, holding a menu in her hands.

"Maybe you already have something in mind to order, but still, I'll leave the menu with you to check out the options, in case you want something different from the usual and simple: coffee," she handed it to him, and he thanked her with a nod.

"Oh, thank you. The place is very inviting; I understand now why the parishioners spoke so highly of it," Father Paul Hill smiled, glancing over the menu. "I'm Father Paul Hill, by the way. I've come to temporarily replace Monsignor John Pruitt."

Jane vaguely remembered the figure of Monsignor, but not as much, as he had left Crockett Island shortly before she had noticed.

"Ah, yes, a figure of great influence here on the island. But I only knew him by sight," she replied.

Father Paul Hill furrowed his brow. "Really? You didn't attend his Masses?" he asked carefully.

Jane hesitated, but she answered, "I'm not a churchgoer, exactly... Well, I don't go to church. I don't believe in..."

He adjusted his posture, arching his eyebrows, and Jane imagined she had made Father Paul uncomfortable with her pagan and unbelieving presence.

"Forgive me," Father Paul said politely, surprising her. Forgive? "I couldn't have imagined, of course. But I shouldn't have assumed you had to be religious..."

Jane promptly reassured him, "It's alright, Father. I understand that such assumptions are common on an island where the heart lies in the Parish."

He smiled gently, nodding his head to look at the menu again and order something to satisfy his hunger.

"Well, I'll have the coffee..." He looked at Jane and let out a nearly inaudible laugh. "A croissant with salted caramel, and toast with egg and oregano. Please..."

"Jane,"

"Yes, yes... Jane," He said sweetly "Please, Jane."

The atmosphere was now calm and more relaxed. He watched Jane nod in agreement and leave to prepare his order. Father Paul took out his sacred book, a notepad, and a pen from his bag. With Neil Diamond's "Holly Holy" playing from the jukebox, he felt less anxious, now casually at peace in the presence of his thoughts, all focused on his future sermons. The aroma of coffee and fresh eggs filled the air.

Jane observed him curiously, happy to have another customer, especially someone who seemed pleasant and new to the place.

In the back of the coffee shop, behind some shelves, huddled and curious, was a little something with eyes fully fixated on the newly arrived figure of Father Paul Hill.

Jane's calm and melodious voice resounded, "Matilda...? Where are you, dear?"

AN: Thank you for reading my fanfiction with John Pruitt. Hopes you enjoy it and stay here, bexause it'll be more. Like and reblog if you like it, I'll love to know your opinion.

#father paul hill #father paul #monsignor pruitt #hamish linklater #paul hill #john pruitt #father john pruitt #midnight mass #fanfic #Spotify

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nashibirne · 3 years

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London Calling - 1

Yes, I'm still in my August phase and I'm not even sorry...I just can't stop thinking about the sexy mf and so this idea crossed my mind and turned into a storyline. I have to admit I'm even more nervous about posting this than usual because it's a little different from what I've written before and I really hope it's not going to bore the shit out of you. If you like this although the tension between August and my ofc builds slowly, please let me know. I appreciate every single comment, reblog and/or like! Thanks 💜

Pairing: Augut Walker x OFC (Lu Johnson)

Words: ~3.0 k

Summary and A/N: This story plays with the thought of "what if…" What if August Walker had taken another road? What if he had turned into John Lark for completely different reasons? What if he had found love before becoming a bitter, disillusioned man?So the events of "London Calling" take place about ten years prior to MI:Fallout and August Walker hasn't joined the CIA yet, he's an FBI Agent and his new mission in London that lies ahead of him is going to be a challenging one. Maybe it's even going to change his life.

Warnings: 18+! This story deals with the topic of a toxic/abusive relationship, gaslighting and problematic behavior of one of the protagonists in general. Please don't read if these topics trigger you or make you feel uncomfortable. Luckily I've never been in any kind of toxic or abusive relationship, so I lack personal experience but I hope still do this sensitive topic justice.

English is not my mother tongue but the lovely @sillyrabbit81 was so kind to be my very helpful and patient Beta! Thank you so, so much, bunny 🐇💜 You have no idea how much I appreciate your support, your encouragement, your help and the fact that you took the time to proofread this. (Edited by me, so there might still be mistakes and they're all mine)

📖 You can find my other fics on my Masterlist 📖

Credits: I don't own August Walker or anything related to MI:Fallout. Pics for the moodboard from pinterest, face claims: Lu - Hannah van der Westhuysen, Adam - Freddie Thorpe. FaceApp helped me with making August look a little younger

Taglist

@lunedelorient @inlovewithhisblueeyes @willkatfanfromasia @hell1129-blog @mis-lil-red @agniavateira @kebabgirl67 @omgkatinka @legendarywizarddetective @summersong69 @taebfada @xxxkatxo @artandotherdelights @notabronte @littlefreya @luclittlepond @eldarwen333 @meowpurrbooks @marantha @liliumdream @enchantedbytomandhenry @greensleeves888 @witcherfanfics101 @margauxmargaux07 @radaofrivia @m07belzen @a-little-counter-esperanto @starstruckkittyangel @mary-ann84 @sillyrabbit81 @emelinelovesjc @wheretheriversrunintothesea @lam0ureuxq @kingliam2019 @pandaxnienke

So...now...off we go...story under the cut!

"London? Are you kidding me, Kyle?"

August Walker stopped pacing the room with an incredulous frown. He raised his eyebrows, his blue eyes fixed on the other man's face.

"Absolutely not," his superior and close friend of many years said slowly, drawling both words more than necessary to stress that he wasn't joking. "They want you in London."

"What about my promotion? You gave me your word. You wanted me to finish Operation Old Bridge and that's what I did. You wanted Tony Salerno's head on a silver platter, that's what you got."

August's voice was surprisingly calm, his expression blank but his gaze was blazing with anger and frustration. His hands were balled into fists and he only opened them to lean on Kyle's wooden desk, which was very tidy, except for the piles of case files that slowly grew larger than him.

"Damn, Kyle, I risked my life when I went undercover and joined this Mafia mob."

"I know, August, but unfortunately my hands are tied. Interpol wants our best undercover Agent and that's you. Just this last job and afterwards you can happily join the CIA." SSA Kyle Langdon leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his neck with a sigh and an apologetic shrug.

"That's exactly what you said last time. Do you expect me to believe you?"

"As I said, it's not my doing. Manchester contacted Bill because the NCB needs help, blue notice, August. You know that we cannot say no and that means...London calling, man," Kyle pointed out with a smile. "You should be grateful, it's a great opportunity. So just do your job there, return and get your promotion."

"Why don't you just send someone else and I get my promotion right now? We have many great undercover agents. Craig for example. He's crazy about British pussies. He'll love London." August straightened his tall body before crossing his arms in front of his broad chest that was forced into a white button down shirt and a black suit jacket.

"No, Craig cannot go because they want you in this operation. They asked explicitly for Agent August Walker. That's a huge appreciation of your work and a big compliment. You're only 27, August, not many FBI agents are this well known and respected at such a young age." Kyle sat up straight, mirroring August's body language.

"I don't give a shit about their respect and appreciation. I know my worth and I know I'm your best agent. I've worked very hard to get where I stand now... just one step away from becoming a CIA agent," August said angrily, his brows furrowed, his eyes dark. "Fuck, Kyle...why use an American agent in a purely British matter in the first place? They could easily…"

"Listen, August," Kyle cut in and he got up and walked around his desk to face his friend, "the thing is, I am not asking you to do this, okay? It's not a request, it's an order. There's no room to negotiate."

He gave him a friendly smile to temper his words before placing a hand on August's shoulder. "No hard feelings. It's…"

"It's the job. Yeah. I know." August took a step back and nodded his head slowly, curling his lip. He had heard his boss say these words so many times and he hated that line although he was perfectly aware that it was the truth. That was the way it worked. They got orders, they did the job, no matter what. He took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes for a moment, feeling a bad headache brewing behind his forehead.

"I have already talked to Sloane about this. Erica seconds the motion by Interpol because she wants you to prove yourself in another operation abroad. If you are successful you will be part of her team. It's simple, Walker. Just don't fuck this up."

"I've never fucked anything up,” August snarled, clenching his teeth, his jaw grinding.

"See, that's exactly why they want you,” Kyle answered with a triumphant smile.

****

"Lu!" Adam Mayfield knocked impatiently on the bathroom door. "Get ready. We're going to be late." He glanced at his Rolex with an annoyed sigh before he straightened his tuxedo jacket and adjusted his bow tie for the umpteenth time. "God damn, this meeting is important." He banged his fist against the door again and rolled his eyes when he heard her muffled voice behind the bathroom walls. "Just a minute, Adam."

Although he was really a little angry that it took her so long to get ready, they weren't actually late, in fact there was more than enough time to meet up with his clients at The London Opera. He had just said that to make her hurry up. Lu had the tendency to dawdle around, she got easily distracted and it was his responsibility to help her with that bad habit and usually it worked well.

Compared to the woman she was when they had met at a party more than five years ago, she had improved her behavior a lot, thanks to his efforts and his strict education. She had been common as muck when they started dating, an ordinary working class girl, smart but not a bit sophisticated, pretty but with no sense of fashion or taste, ambitious but without any connections. He had changed that, he had moulded her into the beautiful, stylish, refined and cultured woman she was now. She was his work, his success, his pride...she was his.

When the door of the bathroom that was adjacent to the master bedroom finally swung open, the welcoming sight of his fiancee interrupted his thoughts and picked up his spirits immediately.

"Wow, this was worth the wait." He eyed her up and down with a smirk and leaned in for a kiss but she stopped him with her hands pressed against his narrow chest.

"No, you're gonna ruin my make-up, darling." Lu smiled at him and spinned around to present him her dress. The black, belted Burberry gown was elegant and classy. High-necked on the front but with a low back that showed off lots of her perfect, lightly tanned skin. Chaste and sexy at the same time, just the way Adam liked it.

"That dress is stunning, baby. You look wonderful." He grabbed her by her waist and pulled her close to leave a sensual kiss on her slim neck while his hands wandered to her ass where they rested for a moment before they squeezed her firm cheeks. "I really hope you're not wearing any panties."

Lu freed herself from his embrace with a frown and stepped in front of the large wall mirror opposite of their king-size bed to check her reflection one last time, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear.

"Of course I'm wearing panties. We're going to the opera with your VIP clients." She walked to her dressing table and took the diamond-encrusted, leaf-shaped brooch Adam had given her for their five years anniversary on New Year's Eve. "Would you help me with this?"

Adam took the piece of jewelry from her slim hand and pinned it carefully on her dress, right above her heart. He kissed her tenderly but his expression was stern when he spoke. "Strip it off."

Lu's eyes grew wide. "What?"

"You heard me. Get rid of your thong. I know you're wearing one of these slutty, tiny g-strings to make sure your look is flawless and your underwear doesn't show under your dress." His face hardened slightly, yet his voice remained soft and smooth.

"But…"

"Don't test me, Lu,” he said slowly, still smiling but screwing up his beautiful grey eyes. "I want you naked underneath that dress in case I want to have a little fun with you tonight. I mean, we both know Rigoletto is gonna be boring as fuck, we may need a little distraction." He gave her a lewd smirk and with a tiny frown and a raise of his brows he motioned her to be obedient. "You don't want anything to get in my way, do you? Not even a little piece of lace, right?"

"Of course not, Adam," she answered softly with a smile she had to force onto her lips. Lu reached under her dress with shaking hands and pulled down her panties till they hit the floor so she could step out of them carefully, making sure they wouldn't get tangled up in her stiletto heels.

"Good girl," Adam said with a wolfish grin and with a sly smile he added, "you know what, baby? I think I'm going to have a little fun with you just now. My clients can wait."

Lu didn't even try to argue with him, knowing exactly that she was in a no-win situation. She closed her eyes and turned around, lifting up her dress, when she heard him unzip his fly.

****

While Adam Mayfield was fucking his fiancee in front of a mirror in one of the most exclusive penthouses in London, August Walker was having a bad coffee, sitting at a table in the plain and pretty ugly meeting room of their FBI department at the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington DC, listening to the explanations of Kyle and the lead of 'Operation Brutus', Christine Carpenter. He didn't like her much but he respected her competence and her leadership qualities and most of all he trusted her with giving him the perfect fake identity for the job in London.

"So, what do you have for me, Chris?" August looked at her with a smile, but his eyes gave away that he'd rather be somewhere else.

"Well, let me just explain the background first, okay?"

She pressed a button on her laptop and the handsome face of a young man appeared on the screen behind her.

"This", she nodded at the picture, "is Adam Arthur Clive Mayfield, 27 years old, only son of Alfred Mayfair and his late wife Erica, heir of the immense family fortune and the private bank Mayfield & Holmes, that was established by his ancestors more than 200 years ago. He is one of the most eligible bachelors in the United Kingdom, and one of the richest, too. His father officially still runs the family business but he isn't in the best state of health, so in fact Mayfield junior is the one who's at the helm. Unlike his father he's not a man of integrity, he's been on the radar of the British authorities for years. From dealing drugs and other minor crimes in his college years to insider trading, investor fraud, misappropriation and money laundering nowadays. He is a big fish, has connections all over the world, drug rings, gun runners, human traffickers, you name it."

"And the Brits are not able to catch him without my help?" August couldn't help but smirk cockily.

"Don't be so full of yourself, Walker. The problem is, he is a damn genius. IQ score beyond 150, very clever, very cautious, a strategic mastermind, always ahead of the authorities. They tried to infiltrate his business a few times but they failed miserably, so now they want to concentrate on his private life."

"And this is gonna be my part?"

"Exactly," Kyle said, getting up to join Christine in front of the screen. "He has a few bodyguards he always hires from an American agency. They are known for their discretion and loyalty and the bodyguards they place with their clients are the best of the best. Unfortunately one of his bodyguards died in an accident a week ago and now he needs a new one. Luckily, we have the owner of the agency by the balls for several major crimes. He cooperates or he will end up behind bars for the rest of his life."

"To cut a long story short, he will place you with Mayfield and you can become part of his daily life. Your job consists of monitoring and collecting information and data. I will give you an exact briefing later," Christine finished Kyle's explanations.

"So I will just be his lapdog?"

"Not his," Kyle grinned, "hers."

The picture on the screen changed, now showing a young, blonde woman. The second he saw her, he judged her.

He could tell what she was like, just by her looks, by the way she jutted her chin in the picture, by her perfectly manicured fingers, by her flawless make up and the expensive clothes. He knew women like her, a walking stereotype, the blond, beautiful Trophy Wife Barbie that's always by Millionaire Ken's side. Pretty on the outside, boring on the inside. Lame bimbos that only lived for showing off their designer clothes and it-bags, tripping around in high heels that cost more than he earned in a month, finding self-fulfilment in stupid things like designing overpriced furniture, running a yoga studio or doing charity stuff. Useless, needless but still blueprints for millions of girls who would literally give the shirt off their backs to catch themselves a rockstar, a famous actor, a hyped football player or just a rich heir.

"This is Mayfield's fiancee," Kyle said, pointing at the photo, "you're gonna be her personal bodyguard."

"How am I supposed to monitor him, when I have to be on her heels all the time?"

"You're gonna live with them, there will be lots of opportunities. Just make her trust you, we need her to open up, get her to talk. They've been together for years, she should know what he's involved in," Chris explained and she made it sound easy when in fact it wasn't only hard to gain a stranger's trust, in this case it was even dangerous.

"Alright. Tell me about her."

"Her name is Lucretia Johnson, 24 years old," Kyle started reading the memo.

"Lucretia?" August let out an amused snort.

"Yeah," Kyle grinned, "her mother seems to have a preference for strange names, her younger sister's called Petronilla."

"What the fuck?" August laughed out loud. "Is she some kind of Latin professor or something?"

"Well, first of all she's dead," Christine took over with a serious look on her face, she was notorious for her lack of humour, "and secondly, no, she was not a professor. She was an alcoholic and a complete mess. An irresponsible, uncaring mother who spent too much time fucking around and too little time taking care of her daughters. Petronilla was taken away from her when she was 15 and was handed over to youth welfare. Lucretia was 18 at the time and lived on the campus of the Chelsea College of Art and Design."

"So she's an artist, huh?" August knew the ridicule in his voice wasn't very professional but he just couldn't help it.

"Maybe, at least she has a master degree in curating and owns a little gallery in Covent Garden. Well, actually Mayfield owns it, she just runs it."

"So, to sum it up, she's made it from the daughter of a drunkard to the fiancee of one of the richest heirs in the kingdom. She's fucked her way to the top. I guess that's all I need to know about her."

"Don't be so sure, August. She seems to be smart," Kyle threw in, "I think there's more to her than the pretty face. It's just a gut feeling but I guess you'll find out soon enough."

August took a deep breath, rolling his eyes at Kyle. "Sure. She's the saint that sleeps with the devil."

"That's not what I said, mate. But whatever she is, you'll have to deal with it."

"What's my cover, Christine?" August wanted to know.

"Well, your alias was born in 1981, just like you, but on the fifth of May. Born and raised in Portland, Maine. Only child, mother deceased, not on speaking terms with his father, a mechanic who still lives in Portland. You can find the details of your early life and your family tree in the memo," she waved the file above her head before she continued. "Careerwise...ex military, ex cop, had some problems following the rules and respecting the law. Single, no ex-wifes, no kids. We kept it plain and simple. They will not dig deep anyway. According to the agency boss, Mayfield expects his bodyguards to be disciplined, always on duty, quiet and discreet. There's three of you. Benjamin Garner is Mayfield's watchdog and his personal assistant, Edward Landow was Johnson's guard you're gonna replace, Andrew Brown is the back-up. You and Garner live with them, Brown lives nearby with his girlfriend. There's other staff of course, a housekeeper, a cook, cleaners. No chauffeur, no butler, no assistant, that's all part of your job."

"Great," August let out an annoyed snort, "so basically I'm gonna be her servant."

"Basically," Chris fixed her gaze on August, "you're not gonna leave her side unless you're told to. Just be professional, stay in the background, prick up your ears, listen closely and be careful. No obvious nosing around. Their penthouse is a high tech fortress, including video monitoring, so just…"

"I know how to work undercover," August cut in impatiently, "just gimme that fucking file and let me do my job."

Christine gave him a pissed look but she handed him the document with a shrug and without further comment. August grabbed it from her hands, staring at the data of his new life, his new name and the composite sketch of his new look. He would have to stop shaving.

*****

tbc

#henry cavill #cavillry #henry cavill fandom #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill fanfiction #august walker #august walker fanfiction #august walker x ofc #slow burn

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ckneal · 3 years

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So, up until the last year, I was not actively involved in fandom on tumblr. All of my fan theories and fic ideas were created for the sole purpose of entertaining me and me alone. And as such, when I happened upon the midam and angel communities, I did experience a certain amount of culture shock when I found that some of the things that I had just taken for granted from the very first viewing of the show—didn’t even need to think about it, it just seemed to be right there—were contrary to the beliefs of the overall fandom. And today, I feel like airing out one of these for fun of it.

(And warning, this might be an unpopular take.)

Before discovering the midam community, I believed that Kate Milligan was aware of the existence of the supernatural and complicit in keeping Adam in the dark.

To be clear right off the bat, I am not purposing a Mary Winchester situation. I do not think that Kate was a hunter. But I do think that the chain of events that led to Adam’s conception may have had more in common with what Sam laid out at the beginning of Jump the Shark. I have two main reasons in thinking this.

The first reason, is simply this: John gave Kate his cellphone number. She just had it on hand when Adam decided he wanted to meet his dad twelve years down the line. That just seemed really weird. John Winchester is not exactly the stay-for-breakfast type, let alone the type to stay in contact with a one night stand in a backwater town. But you know who he DOES give his phone number out to? People who know that he’s a hunter, and who might recognize the signs of the paranormal and give him a call in the future. People he expects might lead to further cases.

The second reason is pertaining to the ghoul children. How did they know about Kate and Adam? John had not been to see Adam in a couple of years by the time of Adam’s death, and is implied to have been an infrequent visitor before that. Would the ghoul children have really been staking out the town for over two years before making their move? That seemed so implausible to me, personally, upon the first viewing of the show that I dismissed it outright, and with subsequent rewatches it seems more clear—from the way that the ghoul seems to blink and search for the answers every time Sam and Dean ask about Adam’s history, and with Denise when she asks if “Adam” would like his usual order—that, no, the ghouls had not been watching Adam and Kate at length because clearly the ghoul’s impersonation of Adam was not polished. Kate and Adam were killed by amateurs.

And, to me, the fact that they knew to go after Kate only made sense because, somehow, she was part of the hunt. Not as some nurse who stitched John back together after he hauled himself away from the scene of the crime either.

What I think happened, was this. The ghoul children said that their father was not a monster, and they were telling the truth. A monster named John Winchester came to town with all the motivation of an exterminator coming to take care of a cockroach infestation. He heard about a creepy crawly feeding on the dead, and harmless though the creature was, he was there to kill it. But remember the ghoul we later met in season 13. Ghouls aren’t always just weirdos hiding in the shadows with gore crusted onto their faces. They are perfectly logical beings, capable of being functional members of society, and I think that when John showed up, the ghouls’ father was able to get by in society, maybe changing faces every now and then, but definitely capable of going undetected. I think the reason the ghoul attracted attention at all was because he had two (or three—I still like to think there might have been three) children to support. The father himself might have been able to get by sparingly by munching on the same bit of corpse for months to keep his appearance consistent, but you can’t expect that kind of restraint from children. And maybe, building off that, the ghoul kept his children hidden, because who knows how their shapeshifting abilities translate when they’re young?

But I digress. I think the ghoul found out that John was there—perhaps even met John Winchester and just barely managed to keep his cool—and decided to switch tactics, and switch faces. I think the ghoul moved from feeding out of a cemetery to a hospital morgue. The morgue, of course, is more dangerous. There are a lot more people milling around all day and night, not to mention the security cameras, but the ghoul gets a job as a janitor, using their new face and name, and reasons to himself that it was just temporary until John Winchester left.

However, things became complicated. The ghoul had planned to pull this off by switching back and forth between two different faces, by eating from two different corpses, but at some point John connected the ghoul’s older persona to the case, went to the house, and found the stash. The ghoul’s children had only just managed to escape, and the ghoul was put on edge. He started to get sloppy in his panic. With few options, he makes the decision that he and his children will have to flee—but the fact still remains that there are four of them, and this hunter is stubborn. The further they can go before stopping to feed, the better their chances of getting away unfollowed. So, the ghoul, in his hospital persona, goes back to the hospital for one last food run. He tells his kids to stay put in the car, and stay below the windows. They may look like any ordinary kids, but he doesn’t want to take any chances.

When he goes inside though, the ghoul is finally caught in the act, stuffing body parts into a black trash bag—no one would have thought twice about him hauling things off to the dumpsters. He would have been homefree, if Kate hadn’t walked in.

Meanwhile in the parking garage, the worst happens: John Winchester arrives in the impala. The ghoul children see him in the rearview mirror, and they recognize the man who had broken into their home, and crouch down deeper into the backseat of their own car, even as they start frantically whispering. Their dad told them to stay put, but he was in danger and they needed to warn him!

Inside the hospital, the ghoul had Kate tied to a chair, and he’s stuck holding a scalpel in hand, fighting a battle on the inside, because he is not a violent man. He’s just a single dad trying to take care his kids, and he’s always been so, so careful, but now he’s been caught. Instinct says to kill Kate. If she’s dead, she wont be able to give out any details that might somehow help the hunter find him. But on the other hand, he had been working at the hospital for weeks now, and he liked Kate. She was friendly, nice. They talked a lot—but that’s why she might know something that could help John find him, some detail the ghoul wouldn’t even remember sharing, but that a lunatic like John Winchester could hyper fixate on. You never knew what might give you away with hunters. . .

John barges in and finds them while the ghoul’s still agonizing over the decision—Kate seemingly roughed up with the ghoul standing there, poised to cut her throat, and it’s all over for the ghoul. He fights John as best as he can, slashing with the scalpel and biting with a savagery that he had always thought himself above in the past, but his kids were waiting for him. . .

And unbeknownst to John Winchester and the ghoul, there his kids were, watching from the air vent overhead, out of sight, the way their dad had always urged them to move when they were in danger. They saw the murder, they saw Kate, and they saw the officer, Joe Barton, show up to sweep the whole mess under the rug, never knowing that two (or three) witnesses were huddled there, waiting for everyone to leave so they could crawl away, because if they moved any sooner they would have likely given themselves away, the way that they were shaking.

And that’s why I think Kate knew. I think that Kate was there at the final showdown, or at least present enough during the case that the ghoul children would have seen her, and would have known to look for her as well as Joe Barton when they decided to take revenge. I think that they saw Adam, and the pictures of John their house, and they did the math.

I think that Kate made a mistake in keeping Adam ignorant--regardless of whether it was her idea or John’s (though I’m gonna be real with you guys, I always thought it was Kate’s; I think John would have thrown Adam in the back of the impala and driven him off in to a life and guns, alcoholism, and bloodshed in a heartbeat if it weren’t for Kate)--because she made the same mistake that Mary would have with her children, in thinking that if you aren’t part of this life, it can’t hurt you. She was wrong.

#my thoughts #adam milligan #john winchester #kate milligan #ghoul adam

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justforbooks · 3 years

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The many lives of John le Carré, in his own words.

An exclusive extract from his new memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel.

How I write

If you’re ever lucky enough to score an early success as a writer, as happened to me with The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, for the rest of your life there’s a before-the-fall and an after-the-fall. You look back at the books you wrote before the searchlight picked you out and they read like the books of your innocence; and the books after it, in your low moments, like the strivings of a man on trial. ‘Trying too hard’ the critics cry. I never thought I was trying too hard. I reckoned I owed it to my success to get the best out of myself, and by and large, however good or bad the best was, that was what I did.

And I love writing. I love doing what I’m doing at this moment, scribbling away like a man in hiding at a poky desk on a black clouded early morning in May, with the mountain rain scuttling down the window and no excuse for tramping down to the railway station under an umbrella because the International New York Times doesn’t arrive until lunchtime.

I love writing on the hoof, in notebooks on walks, in trains and cafés, then scurrying home to pick over my booty. When I am in Hampstead there is a bench I favour on the Heath, tucked under a spreading tree and set apart from its companions, and that’s where I like to scribble. I have only ever written by hand. Arrogantly perhaps, I prefer to remain with the centuries-old tradition of unmechanized writing. The lapsed graphic artist in me actually enjoys drawing the words.

I love best the privacy of writing. On research trips, I am partially protected by having a different name in real life. I can sign into hotels without anxiously wondering whether my name will be recognised, then, when it isn’t, anxiously wondering why not. When I’m obliged to come clean with the people whose experience I want to tap, results vary. One person refuses to trust me another inch, the next promotes me to chief of the secret service and, over my protestations that I was only ever the lowest form of secret life, replies that I would say that, wouldn’t I? There are many things I am disinclined to write about ever, just as there are in anyone’s life. I have been neither a model husband nor a model father, and am not interested in appearing that way. Love came to me late, after many missteps. I owe my ethical education to my four sons. Of my work for British intelligence, performed mostly in Germany, I wish to add nothing to what is already reported by others, inaccurately, elsewhere. In this I am bound by vestiges of old-fashioned loyalty to my former services, but also by undertakings I gave to the men and women who agreed to collaborate with me. It was understood between us that the promise of confidentiality would be subject to no time limit, but extend to their children and beyond. The work we engaged in was neither perilous nor dramatic, but it involved painful soul-searching on the part of those who signed up to it. Whether today these people are alive or dead, the promise of confidentiality holds.

Spying was forced on me from birth much in the way, I suppose, that the sea was forced on CS Forester or India on Paul Scott. Out of the secret world I once knew, I have tried to make a theatre for the larger worlds we inhabit. First comes the imagining, then the search for the reality. Then back to the imagining, and to the desk where I’m sitting now.

My Father: conman and inspiration

It took me a long while to get on writing terms with Ronnie, conman, fantasist, occasional jailbird, and my father. From the day I made my first faltering attempts at a novel, he was the one I wanted to get to grips with, but I was light years away from being up to the job. My earliest drafts of what eventually became A Perfect Spy dripped with self-pity: cast your eye, gentle reader, upon this emotionally crippled boy, crushed underfoot by his tyrannical father. It was only when he was safely dead and I took up the novel again that I did what I should have done at the beginning, and made the sins of the son a whole lot more reprehensible than the sins of the father.

With that settled, I was able to honour the legacy of his tempestuous life: a cast of characters to make the most blasé writer’s mouth water, from eminent legal brains of the day and stars of sport and screen to the finest of London’s criminal underworld and the beautiful creatures who trailed in their wake. Wherever Ronnie went, the unpredictable went with him. Are we up or down? Can we fill up the car on tick at the local garage? Has he fled the country or will he be proudly parking the Bentley in the drive tonight? Or is he enjoying the safety and comfort of one of his alternative wives?

Of Ronnie’s dealings with organised crime, if any, I know lamentably little. Yes, he rubbed shoulders with the notorious Kray twins, but that may just have been celebrity-hunting. And yes, he did business of a sort with London’s worst-ever landlord, Peter Rachman, and my best guess would be that when Rachman’s thugs had got rid of Ronnie’s tenants for him, he sold off the houses and gave Rachman a piece. But a full‑on criminal partnership? Not the Ronnie I knew. Conmen are aesthetes. They wear nice suits, have clean fingernails and are well spoken at all times. Policemen in Ronnie’s book were first-rate fellows who were open to negotiation. The same could not be said of “the boys”, as he called them, and you messed with the boys at your peril.

Ronnie’s entire life was spent walking on the thinnest, slipperiest layer of ice you can imagine. He saw no paradox between being on the wanted list for fraud and sporting a grey topper in the owners’ enclosure at Ascot. A reception at Claridge’s to celebrate his second marriage was interrupted while he persuaded two Scotland Yard detectives to put off arresting him until the party was over – and, meanwhile, come in and join the fun, which they duly did. But I don’t think Ronnie could have lived any other way. I don’t think he wanted to. He was a crisis addict, a performance addict, a shameless pulpit orator and a scene-grabber. He was a delusional enchanter and a persuader who saw himself as God’s golden boy, and he wrecked a lot of people’s lives.

Graham Greene tells us that childhood is the credit balance of the writer. By that measure at least, I was born a millionaire.

Sixty-something years back, I asked my mother, Olive, how prison changed Ronnie. Olive was a tap you couldn’t turn off. From the moment of our reunion at Ipswich railway station, she talked about Ronnie nonstop. She talked about his sexuality long before I had sorted out mine, and for ease of reference gave me a tattered hardback copy of Krafft-Ebing’s Psychopathia Sexualis as a map to guide me through her husband’s appetites before and after jail.

“Changed, dear? In prison? Not a bit of it! You were totally unchanged. You’d lost weight, of course – well, you would. Prison food isn’t meant to be nice.” And then the image that will never leave me, not least because she seemed unaware of what she was saying: “And you did have this silly habit of stopping in front of doors and waiting at attention with your head down till I opened them for you. They were perfectly ordinary doors, not locked or anything, but you obviously weren’t expecting to be able to open them for yourself.” Why did Olive refer to Ronnie as you? You meaning he, but subconsciously recruiting me to be his surrogate, which by the time of her death was what I had become.

There is an audiotape that Olive made for my brother Tony, all about her life with Ronnie. I still can’t bear to play it, so all I’ve ever heard is scraps. On the tape she describes how Ronnie used to beat her up, which, according to Olive, was what prompted her to bolt. Ronnie’s violence was not news to me, because he had made a habit of beating up his second wife as well: so often and so purposefully and coming home at such odd hours of the night to do it that, seized by a chivalrous impulse, I appointed myself her ridiculous protector, sleeping on a mattress in front of her bedroom door and clutching a golf iron so that Ronnie would have to reckon with me before he got at her.

Ronnie beat me up, too, but only a few times and not with much conviction. It was the shaping up that was the scary part: the lowering and readying of the shoulders, the resetting of the jaw. And when I was grown up, Ronnie tried to sue me, which I suppose is violence in disguise. He had watched a television documentary of my life and decided there was an implicit slander in my failure to mention that I owed everything to him.

For the last third of Ronnie’s life – he died suddenly at the age of 69 – we were estranged or at loggerheads. Almost by mutual consent, there were terrible obligatory scenes, and when we buried the hatchet, we always remembered where we’d put it. Do I feel more kindly towards him today than I did then? Sometimes I walk round him, sometimes he’s the mountain I still have to climb. Either way, he’s always there, which I can’t say for my mother, because to this day I have no idea what sort of person she was. I ran her to earth when I was 21, and thereafter broadly attended to her needs, not always with good grace. But from the day of our reunion until she died, the frozen child in me showed not the smallest sign of thawing out. Did she love animals? Landscape? The sea that she lived beside? Music? Painting? Me? Did she read books? Certainly she had no high opinion of mine, but what about other people’s?

In the nursing home where she stayed during her last years, we spent much of our time deploring or laughing at my father’s misdeeds. As my visits continued, I came to realise that she had created for herself – and for me – an idyllic mother–son relationship that had flowed uninterrupted from my birth till now.

Today, I don’t remember feeling any affection in childhood except for my elder brother, who for a time was my only parent. I remember a constant tension in myself that even in great age has not relaxed. I remember little of being very young. I remember the dissembling as we grew up, and the need to cobble together an identity for myself and how, in order to do this, I filched from the manners and lifestyle of my peers and betters, even to the extent of pretending I had a settled home life with real parents and ponies. Listening to myself today, watching myself when I have to, I can still detect traces of the lost originals, chief among them obviously my father.

All this no doubt made me an ideal recruit to the secret flag. But nothing lasted: not the Eton schoolmaster, not the MI5 man, not the MI6 man. Only the writer in me stuck the course. If I look over my life from here, I see it as a succession of engagements and escapes, and I thank goodness that the writing kept me relatively straight and largely sane. My father’s refusal to accept the simplest truth about himself set me on a path of enquiry from which I never returned. In the absence of a mother or sisters, I learned women late, if ever, and we all paid a price for that.

A trip to Panama

In 1885, France’s gargantuan efforts to build a sea-level canal across the Darien ended in disaster. Small and large investors of every stamp were ruined. In consequence there arose across the country the pained cry of “Quel Panama!” Whether the expression has endured in the French language is doubtful, but it speaks well for my own association with that beautiful country, which began in 1947 when my father, Ronnie, dispatched me to Paris to collect £500 from the Panamanian ambassador to France, one Count Mario da Bernaschina, who occupied a sweet house in one of those elegant side roads off the Elysées that smell permanently of women’s scent.

It was evening when I arrived by appointment on the ambassadorial doorstep wearing my grey school suit, my hair brushed and parted. I was 16 years old. The ambassador, my father had advised me, was a first-class fellow and would be happy to settle a longstanding debt of honour. I wanted very much to believe him.

The front door to the elegant house was opened by the most desirable woman I had ever seen. I must have been standing one step beneath her, because in my memory she is smiling down on me like my angel redeemer. She was bare-shouldered, black-haired and wore a flimsy dress in layer after layer of chiffon that failed to disguise her shape. When you are 16, desirable women come in all ages. From today’s vantage point, I would put her at a blossoming thirtysomething.

“You are Ronnie’s son?” she asked incredulously. She stood back to let me brush past her. Laying a hand on each of my shoulders, she scrutinised me playfully from head to toe under the hall light and seemed to find everything to her satisfaction.

“And you have come to see Mario?” she said.

If that’s all right, I said.

Her hands remained on my shoulders while her eyes of many colours continued to study me. “And you are still a boy,” she remarked, as a kind of memo to herself.

The count stood in his drawing room with his back to the fireplace, like every ambassador in every movie of the time: corpulent, in a velvet jacket, hands behind him and that perfect head of greying hair they all had – marcelled, we used to call it – and the curved handshake, man to man, although I’m still a boy. The countess – for so I have cast her – doesn’t ask me whether I drink alcohol, let alone whether I like daiquiri. My answer to both questions would anyway have been a truthless “yes”. She hands me a frosted glass with a speared cherry in it, and we all sit down in soft chairs and do a bit of ambassadorial small talk. Am I enjoying the city? Do I have many friends in Paris? A girlfriend, perhaps? Mischievous wink. To which I no doubt give compelling and mendacious answers that make no mention of golf clubs or concierges, until a pause in the conversation tells me it’s time for me to broach the purpose of my visit which, as experience has already taught me, is best done from the side rather than head on.

“And my father mentioned that you and he had a small matter of business to complete, sir,” I suggest, hearing myself from a distance on account of the daiquiri.

I should here explain the nature of that small matter of business which, unlike so many of Ronnie’s deals, was simplicity itself. As a diplomat and a top ambassador, son – I am echoing the enthusiasm with which Ronnie had briefed me for my mission – the count was immune from such tedious irritations as taxation and import duty. The count could import what he wished, he could export what he wished. If someone, for instance, chose to send the count a cask of unmatured, unbranded Scotch whisky at a couple of pence a pint under diplomatic immunity, and the count were to bottle that whisky and ship it to Panama, or wherever else he chose to ship it under diplomatic immunity, that was nobody’s business but his.

Equally, if the count chose to export the said unmatured, unbranded whisky in bottles of a certain design – akin, let us imagine, to Dimple Haig, a popular brand of the day – that, too, was his good right, as was the choice of label and the description of the bottle’s contents. All that need concern me was that the count should pay up – cash, son, no monkey business. Thus provided, I should treat myself to a nice mixed grill at Ronnie’s expense, keep the receipt, catch the first ferry next morning and come straight to his grand offices in the West End of London with the balance.

“A matter of business, David?” the count repeated in the tone of my school housemaster. “What business can that be?”

“The £500 you owe him, sir.”

I remember his puzzled smile, so forbearing. I remember the richly draped sofas and silky cushions, old mirrors and gold glint, and my countess with her long legs crossed inside the layers of chiffon. The count continued to survey me with a mixture of puzzlement and concern. So did my countess. Then they surveyed each other as if to compare notes about what they’d surveyed.

“Well, that’s a pity, David. Because when I heard you were coming to see me, I rather hoped you might be bringing me a portion of the large sum of money I have invested in your dear father’s enterprises.”

I still don’t know how I responded to this startling reply, or whether I was as startled as I should have been. I remember briefly losing my sense of time and place, and I suppose this was partly induced by the daiquiri, and partly by the recognition that I had nothing to say and no right to be sitting in their drawing room, and that the best thing I could do was make my excuses and get out. Then I realised that I was alone in the room. After a while, my host and hostess returned.

The count’s smile was genial and relaxed. The countess looked particularly pleased. “So, David,” said the count, as if all were forgiven. “Why don’t we go and have dinner and talk about something more pleasant?”

They had a favourite Russian restaurant 50 yards from the house. In my memory, it is a tiny place and we are the only three people in it, save for a man in a baggy white shirt who plucked at a balalaika. Over dinner, while the count talked about something more pleasant, the countess kicked off a shoe and caressed my leg with her stockinged toe. On the tiny dance floor she sang Dark Eyes to me, holding the length of me against her and nibbling my earlobe while she flirted with the balalaika man and the count looked indulgently on. On our return to the table, the count decided that we were ready for bed. The countess, by a squeeze of my hand, seconded the motion.

My memory has spared me the excuses I made, but somehow I made them. Somehow I found myself a bench in a park, and somehow I contrived to remain the boy she had declared me to be. Decades later, finding myself alone in Paris, I tried to seek out the very street, the house, the restaurant. But by then no reality would have done them justice.

Now I am not pretending that it was the magnetic force of the count and countess that half a century later drew me to Panama for the space of two novels and one movie; merely that the recollection of that sensuous, unfulfilled night remained lodged in my memory, if only as one of the near-misses of interminable adolescence. Within days of my arrival in Panama City, I was enquiring after the name. Bernaschina? Nobody had heard of the fellow. A count? From Panama? It seemed most improbable. Maybe I had dreamed the whole thing? I hadn’t.

I had come to Panama to research a novel. Unusually, it already had a title: The Night Manager. I was looking for the sort of crooks, smooth talkers and dirty deals that would brighten the life of an amoral English arms seller named Richard Onslow Roper. Roper would be a high-flyer where my father, Ronnie, had been a low one who frequently crashed. Ronnie had tried selling arms in Indonesia and gone to jail for it. Roper was too big to fail, until he met his destiny in the shape of a former special forces soldier turned hotel night manager named Jonathan Pine.

Working with Sir Alec Guinness

“We are definitely not as our host here describes us,” says Sir Maurice Oldfield severely to Sir Alec Guinness over lunch. Oldfield is a former chief of the secret service who was later hung out to dry by Margaret Thatcher, but at the time of our meeting, he is just another old spy in retirement. “I’ve always wanted to meet Sir Alec,” he told me in his homey, north country voice when I invited him. “Ever since I sat opposite him on the train going up from Winchester. I’d have got into conversation with him if I’d had the nerve.”

Guinness is about to play my secret agent George Smiley in the BBC’s television adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and wishes to savour the company of a real old spy. But the lunch does not proceed as smoothly as I had hoped. Over the hors d’oeuvres, Oldfield extols the ethical standards of his old service and implies, in the nicest way, that “young David here” has besmirched its good name.

Guinness, a former naval officer, who from the moment of meeting Oldfield has appointed himself to the upper echelons of the secret service, can only shake his head sagely and agree. Over the Dover sole, Oldfield takes his thesis a step further: “It’s young David and his like,” he declares across the table to Guinness while ignoring me sitting beside him, “that make it that much harder for the service to recruit decent officers and sources. They read his books and they’re put off. It’s only natural.” To which Guinness lowers his eyelids and shakes his head in a deploring sort of way, while I pay the bill.

“You should join the Athenaeum, David,” Oldfield says kindly, implying that the Athenaeum will somehow make a better person of me. “I’ll sponsor you myself. There. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” And to Guinness, as the three of us stand on the threshold of the restaurant: “A pleasure indeed, Alec. An honour, I must say. We shall be in touch very shortly, I’m sure.”

“We shall indeed,” Guinness replies devoutly, as the two old spies shake hands.

Unable apparently to get enough of our departing guest, Guinness gazes fondly after him as he pounds off down the pavement: a small, vigorous gentleman of purpose, striding along with his umbrella thrust ahead of him as he disappears into the crowd. “How about another cognac for the road?” Guinness suggests, and we have hardly resumed our places before the interrogation begins: “Those very vulgar cufflinks. Do all our spies wear them?” No, Alec, I think Maurice just likes vulgar cufflinks.

“And those loud orange suede boots with crepe soles. Are they for stealth?” I think they’re just for comfort actually, Alec. Crepe squeaks. “Then tell me this.” He has grabbed an empty tumbler. Tipping it to an angle, he flicks at it with his thick fingertip. “I’ve seen people do this before” – making a show of peering meditatively into the tumbler while he continues to flick it – “and I’ve seen people do this” – now rotating the finger round the rim in the same contemplative vein.

“But I’ve never seen people do this before” – inserting his finger into the tumbler and passing it round the inside. “Do you think he’s looking for dregs of poison?”

Is he being serious? The child in Guinness has never been more serious in its life. Well, I suppose if it was dregs he was looking for, he’d have drunk the poison by then, I suggest. But he prefers to ignore me.

It is a matter of entertainment history that Oldfield’s suede boots, crepe-soled or other, and his rolled umbrella thrust forward to feel out the path ahead, became essential properties for Guinness’s portrayal of George Smiley, old spy in a hurry. I haven’t checked on the cufflinks recently, but I have a memory that our director thought them a little overdone and persuaded Guinness to trade them in for something less flashy.

The other legacy of our lunch was less enjoyable, if artistically more creative. Oldfield’s distaste for my work – and, I suspect, for myself – struck deep root in Guinness’s thespian soul, and he was not above reminding me of it when he felt the need to rack up George Smiley’s sense of personal guilt; or, as he liked to imply, mine.

Lunch with Rupert Murdoch

One morning in the autumn of 1991, I opened my Times newspaper to be greeted by my own face glowering up at me. From my sour expression, I could tell at once that the text around it wasn’t going to be friendly. A struggling Warsaw theatre, I read, was celebrating its post-communist freedom by putting on a stage version of The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. But the rapacious le Carré [see photograph] wanted a whacking £150 per performance: “The price of freedom, we suppose.”

I took another look at the photograph and saw exactly the sort of fellow who does indeed go round preying on struggling Polish theatres. Grasping. Unsavoury appetites. Just look at those eyebrows. I had by now ceased to enjoy my breakfast. Keep calm and call your agent. I fail on the first count, succeed on the second. My literary agent’s name is Rainer. In what the novelists call a quavering voice, I read the article aloud to him. Has he, I suggest delicately – might he possibly, just this once, is it at all conceivable? – on this occasion been a tad too zealous on my behalf? Rainer is emphatic. Quite the reverse. Since the Poles are still in the recovery ward after the collapse of communism, he has been a total pussycat. We are not charging the theatre £150 per performance, he assures me, but a measly £26, the minimum standard rate. In addition to which, we’ve thrown in the rights for free. In short, a sweetheart deal, David, a deliberate helping hand to a Polish theatre in time of need. Great, I say, bewildered and inwardly seething.

Keep calm and fax the editor of the Times. His response is lofty. Not to put too fine an edge on it, it is infuriating. He sees no great harm in the piece, he says. He suggests that a man in my fortunate position should take the rough with the smooth. This is not advice I am prepared to accept. But who to turn to?

Why, of course: the man who owns the newspaper, Rupert Murdoch, my old buddy!

Well, not exactly buddy. I had met Murdoch socially on a couple of occasions, though I doubted whether he remembered them. I have three conditions, I say: number one, a generous apology prominently printed in the Times; number two, a handsome donation to the struggling Polish theatre. And number three, lunch. Next morning his reply was lying on the floor beneath my fax machine: “Your terms accepted. Rupert.”

The Savoy Grill in those days had a kind of upper level for moguls: red-plush, horseshoe-shaped affairs where in more colourful days gentlemen of money might have entertained their ladies. I breathe the name Murdoch to the maître d’hôtel and am shown to one of the privés. I am early. Murdoch is bang on time. He is smaller than I remember him, but more pugnacious, and has acquired that hasty waddle and little buck of the pelvis with which great men of affairs advance on one another, hand outstretched, for the cameras. The slant of the head in relation to the body is more pronounced than I remember, and when he wrinkles up his eyes to give me his sunny smile, I have the odd feeling he’s taking aim at me. We sit down, we face each other. I notice – how can I not? – the unsettling collection of rings on his left hand. We order our food and exchange a couple of banalities. Rupert says he’s sorry about that stuff they wrote about me. Brits, he says, are great penmen, but they don’t always get things right. I say, not at all, and thanks for your sporting response. But enough of small talk. He is staring straight at me and the sunny smile has vanished.

“Who killed Bob Maxwell?” he demands.

Robert Maxwell, for those lucky enough not to remember him, was a Czech-born media baron, British parliamentarian and the alleged spy of several nations, including Israel, the Soviet Union and Britain. As a young Czech freedom fighter, he had taken part in the Normandy landings and later earned himself a British army commission and a gallantry medal. After the war, he worked for the Foreign Office in Berlin. He was also a flamboyant liar and rogue of gargantuan proportions and appetites who plundered the pension fund of his own companies to the tune of £440m, owed around £4bn that he had no way of repaying and in November 1991 was found dead in the seas off Tenerife, having apparently fallen from the deck of a lavish private yacht named after his daughter. Conspiracy theories abounded. To some, it was a clear case of suicide by a man ensnared by his own crimes; to others, murder by one of the several intelligence agencies he had supposedly worked for. But which one? Why Murdoch should imagine I know the answer to this question is beyond me, but I do my best to give satisfaction. Well, Rupert, if we’re really saying it’s not suicide, then probably, for my money, it was the Israelis, I suggest.

“Why?”

I’ve read the rumours that are flying around, as we all have. I regurgitate them: Maxwell, the long-term agent of Israeli intelligence, blackmailing his former paymasters; Maxwell, who had traded with the Shining Path in Peru, offering Israeli weapons in exchange for strategic cobalt; Maxwell, threatening to go public unless the Israelis paid up. But Rupert Murdoch is already on his feet, shaking my hand and saying it was great to meet me again. And maybe he’s as embarrassed as I am, or just bored, because already he’s powering his way out of the room, and great men don’t sign bills, they leave them to their people. Estimated duration of lunch: 25 minutes.

A meeting with Margaret Thatcher

The prime minister’s office wished to recommend me for a medal, and I had declined. I had not voted for her, but that fact had nothing to do with my decision. I felt, as I feel today, that I was not cut out for our honours system, that it represents much of what I most dislike about our country. In my letter of reply, I took care to assure the prime minister’s office that my churlishness did not spring from any personal or political animosity, offered my thanks and compliments to the prime minister, and assumed I would hear no more.

I was wrong. In a second letter, her office struck a more intimate note. Lest I was regretting a decision taken in heat, the writer wished me to know that the door to an honour was still open. I replied, equally courteously I hope, that as far as I was concerned the door was firmly shut, and would remain so in any similar contingency. Again, my thanks. Again, my compliments to the prime minister. And again I assumed the matter was closed, until a third letter arrived, inviting me to lunch. There were six tables set in the dining room of 10 Downing Street that day, but I only remember ours, which had Mrs Thatcher at its head and the Dutch prime minister Ruud Lubbers on her right, and myself in a tight new grey suit on her left. The year must have been 1982. I was just back from the Middle East, Lubbers had just been appointed. Our other three guests remain a pink blob to me. I assumed, for reasons that today escape me, that they were industrialists from the north. Neither do I remember any opening exchanges between the six of us, but perhaps they had happened over cocktails before we sat down. But I do remember Mrs Thatcher turning to the Dutch prime minister and acquainting him with my distinction. “Now, Mr Lubbers,” she announced in a tone to prepare him for a nice surprise, “this is Mr Cornwell, but you will know him better as the writer John le Carré.”

Leaning forward, Mr Lubbers took a close look at me. He had a youthful face, almost a playful one. He smiled, I smiled: really friendly smiles. “No,” he said. And sat back in his chair, still smiling. But Mrs Thatcher, it is well known, did not lightly take no for an answer.

“Oh, come, Mr Lubbers. You’ve heard of John le Carré. He wrote The Spy Who Came In From The Cold and…” – fumbling slightly – “… other wonderful books.”

Lubbers, nothing if not a politician, reconsidered his position. Again he leaned forward and took another, longer look at me, as amiable as the first, but more considered, more statesmanlike.

“No,” he repeated.

Now it was Mrs Thatcher’s turn to take a long look at me, and I underwent something of what her all-male cabinet must have experienced when they, too, incurred her displeasure. “Well, Mr Cornwell,” she said, as to an errant schoolboy who had been brought to account, “since you’re here” – implying that I had somehow talked my way in – “have you anything you wish to say to me?”

Belatedly, it occurred to me that I had indeed something to say to her, if badly. Having recently returned from South Lebanon, I felt obliged to plead the cause of stateless Palestinians. Lubbers listened. The gentlemen from the industrial north listened. But Mrs Thatcher listened more attentively than all of them, and with no sign of the impatience of which she was frequently accused. Even when I had stumbled to the end of my aria, she went on listening before delivering herself of her response. “Don’t give me sob stories,” she ordered me with sudden vehemence, striking the key words for emphasis. “Every day people appeal to my emotions. You can’t govern that way. It simply isn’t fair.”

Whereupon, appealing to my emotions, she reminded me that it was the Palestinians who had trained the IRA bombers who had murdered her friend Airey Neave, the British war hero and politician, and her close adviser. After that, I don’t believe we spoke to each other much. Occasionally I do ask myself whether Mrs Thatcher nevertheless had an ulterior motive in inviting me. Was she, for instance, sizing me up for one of her quangos – those strange quasi-official public bodies that have authority but no power, or is it the other way round? But I found it hard to imagine what possible use she could have for me – unless, of course, she wanted guidance from the horse’s mouth on how to sort out her squabbling spies.

• This is an edited extract from The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories From My Life, by John le Carré, published next week by Viking at £20. Order a copy for £15 from the Guardian bookshop.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

#JUST FOR BOOKS #John le Carré #The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories From My Life

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

Text

Lilo and Stitch Crossover Arc: “Rufus” (Kim Possible) Better and Worse (Paid for by WeirdKev27)

Aloha all you happy people! It’s back to Kauai for the third of my look at LIlo and Stitch’s crossover episodes! This retrospective was made possible by WeirdKev27, who had the idea for it and paid for me to review these episodes. You too can buy reviews for only 5 bucks a pop. Just go to my ask, Direct Messages or discord.

Now with my plugging out of the way, this one, out of all four is the one I looked forward to the most, and out of the four shows in this crossoverathon to make the trip to the Kauai, this one is hands down my faviorite.

Kim Possible was just damn good and having rewatched a handful of episodes and the movie (Easily one of my faviorite Disney movies and the best DCOM, I will not back down on either), I can say it holds up every bit as good as it did in the early 2000′s. Frankly like Danny Phantom i’m surprised I never thought to get to it till now. But no time like the present: The show proper is a fun super spy sendup, but still feels unique: Instead of i’ts Teen Superspy working for some knockoff of MI6 or S.H.I.E.L.D., Kim is self employed, simply helping people because it’s the right thign to do and not for any reward with the help of her bumbling but loveable sidekick and future boyfriend Ron, though the romance angle wasn’t overplayed with the two, just hinted at here and there, enough to make it plausable for Ron to realize he has feelings in the movie and for Kim to return them and frankly it’s probably the best handled “Friends to lovers’ plot i’ve seen in a children’s cartoon. I”ll get more into that if I hit my stretch goal for it on patreon, more on that at the end of the review, but while it has no baring on this review I still felt it worth noting as that trope is NOT easy to pull off.

Point is, the show was smart, funny, engaging and had two great characters, a tremendously talented voice cast, and more anchoring it. It was a treasured part of my adolsence. It also had one of the only succesful “Save our show” campagins from fans i’ve ever seen. Despite So The Drama having been written as a finale and having reached Disney’s episode count, fan demand for a fourth season was so incredibly high we got one and it’s to this day one of the very few Disney shows to live past three seasons as a result. The show is in full on Disney Plus, along with the movie, which I HIGHLY recommend and hope I get to talk about, and the recent live action remake movie which .. is not bad. Not GREAT but the leads do make a good kim and ron, paticuarlly my boy Sean Gambone as Ron, and for a live action remake it really does get the spirit of the show.

But obviously we’re not here to talk about the show proper, though I REALLY want to now, but instead it’s crossover. So far the crossovers for Lilo and Stitch have been, much like said live action remake, OKAY, but nothing amazing, often shoving in sideplots related to Lilo and Stitch proper we didn’t need, forced morals and not really having a good amount of character intraction. The good news is this crossover DOES fix a lot of that.. the bad is that it also has some new problems, and still falls into some of the same traps the other episodes have. See what I mean with the full review under the cut!

We open at night, with Lilo and Stitch playing hide and seek. Adorably though Sttich dosen’t quite get the hang of it and proudly announces where he is. However things are quickly interupted when he’s kidnaped by a mystery ship out of the blue. It’s a good hook to start with, leaving us wondering who it could be...

And thus, if you hadn’t gone into this episode knwoing it was a crossover, giving us a hell of a reveal with a cut to Dr. Drakken being the one to kidnap stitch!

Look I love this Doofus. He’s easily one of John DiMaggio’s best roles, up there with Jake and Bender, and the one along with Bender that cemented his career. as one of voice acting’s finest. He’s just so loveably incompetent, over the top and quick to bicker with Sheego, which leads to some of the funneist moments in his home series as she’d either skewer him good or he’d shove his boot in his mouth and help her point instead of his own. He’s just such a great character and he not only fits neatly into Lilo and Stitch’s world, but the writers clearly get him perfectly. We get a hilarious bit where, fed up with Hamsterviel, who he’s teamed up with, he simply fakes the radio going out, adjusting the dials purposfully to make it come in buggy something I GUARANTEE he put in for SHeego and I gurantee she saw right through. His plan is to create a clone army of Stiches.. meaning Hamsterviel’s big evil plan.. is a copy of someone else’s.

Lilo goes to Jumb and Pleakly, the latter of whom has been collecting magazines adorably. Lilo plans to go after Stitch but Jumba says she can’t go on dangerous missions without him and to get a professional and this part.. does not work for me. Most of the time Jumba ENABLES Lilo’s behaviors and while not wanting an 8 year old to run out into the night is a good call, he also suggests getting help.. instead of you know GOING WITH HER WHEN IT’S LIGHT. It sounds more like Nani’s idea... it fits her more to not want Lilo to run out and to want to get help versus Jumba whose admant about keeping secrecy yet very lax on things, and you know would BE concerned that his prized creation was suddenly stolen and actually think about it. He’s just so horribly out of character it hurts.

And Nani’s absence really hurts the episode. See the last two, as much as I missed the lovely and talented Tia Carrere’s presence, didn’t really need her, though still could’ve included her: she could’ve made a cameo at the start since Lilo was there to visit her and she woul’dve made a better target for Spats than trudy, with Oscar fighting Jumba instead, allowing us some crossover interactions instead of having Jumba argue with a random asshole the episode wrote in. But it’s minor stuff. Here though? Her being the one to tell Lilo not to go would’ve made more sense: She’s protective by nature, and while she’s let go more since the movie, it’d make sense for her NOT to want Lilo to blindly chase after someone who beat stitch of all beings, as well as for her ot be the one to later tell Kim not to let lilo be involved. It’d be stronger coming from her sister and surrogate mother than Pleakly and it would’ve been a better arc to have Nani let Lilo off the leash so to speak and accept she needed to save kim. Instead she’s just gone for no reason and Jumba is grosly out of character and i’m disapointed.

That said the setup is the best and most intergrated so far: Pleakly sees an article about kim so he reaches out to her via a message on her site, while Lilo is stubborn about not being help.. obnoxiously so to the point it hurts the episode. While her being inscure about someone else saving Sttich would be fine, the episode never adresses that and instead just has her say she can because shut pu instead of accepting help. The episode would’ve flowed better if instead she accepted kim but Nani had Kim push her away, and thus create more problems. More on that in a bit.

But as I said this setup is great: it uses BOTH shows for once isntead of feeling like the first two, and honestly the next one judging by the blurb on the wiki, where its just “Hey x character visits Kauai”, here it blends both: The two main villians team up, and Kim is logically called for help since that’s what she does and they don’t want to risk lilo’s saftey. It’s good stuff.

So our other heroes enter the episode, on a ritzy jet as Kim’s dad had an old college friend with an airline. I admit the episode weirdly downplays Kim’s penchant for getting rides, getting a helicopter that appears to be a touring one and getting this one via her dad instead of the usual person who owes her a favor. IT was a neat part of her character: that she got help from people she already helped on adventure’s we hadn’t seen to establish she can’t drive herself yet and to show she’s an experinced heroine with a lot of history before the show started. I also like how a handful of episodes after season 1 had returns from people we HAD seen before or linked to them, a clever way of having callbacks.

It’s simple stuff Kim is ready for the wrold saving mision and ron hopes to get a vacation in. Nothing too out of the ordinary.

So the next day Lilo tries to go it solo but is spotted before she can leave, while Pleakly has built a.. photo colloage of Kim’s face on the wall...

... no wait i’m getting paid for this. Nevermind.

It is funny as it is unsettling though and Kim arrives and Pleakly faints.. Ron also arrives doing fake kung fu moves. This episode gets ron about half right... they overdo it a bit on the shenanigans, but Will Freidle’s natural charm and talent mean that even standard ron bits coughed up by a cat onto a page and used for this script still work simply because he’s that good at delivery.

We also get the who’s on first bit you all knew was coming as Kim asking what’s the Sitch confuses lilo and i’ts .. pretty funny. Again you could see it coming from a mile away, but Daveigh Chase and Christy Carlson Ramano really sell the hell out of it and we get a nice runner after of Kim misprouncing his name and trying NOT to say her usual catchphrase.

She also gets filled in on the alien thing... and while she admits i’ts a lot to swallow, she also admits she’s seen weirder. And given this episode would, by airdate (ignoring the one for So the Drama as that aired before the last batch of season 3 episodes but continuity wise takes place between seasons 3 and 4), take place around the same time as the season 3 intended finale “Team Impossible”, by this point she’s seen vengeful fishteens mutated by a horrifying summer camp, a rogue gentecist who basis her crimes against nature on a beanie baby knockoff, magical monkey based kung fu, a magican egyptian amulet, killer robot’s resembling teenage girls, a body swap episode, a plan using a barcode to destroy the internet, an attack on canada, a giant poodle, a complicated time travel plot, a trucker with a mullet, her sidekick getting turned into a surprisingly competent supervillian, and draken’s plan to use his rap career to promote brainwashing shampoo. And that’s just a handful of the things I was reminded of on the episode list. So yeah, this isn’t THAT much of a stretch. Oh and lest you think Kim never encountered aliens the series finale was an alien invasion by aliens Draken had pissed off earlier in the season. Suprised Lilo didn’t you know have Stitch and the family army pitch in. Maybe Leory and Stitch was going on at the same time?

Point is she’s in but goes with Pleakly in trying to keep Lilo out of it. And here’s yet another place the episode missteps: Kim’s REALLY patronizing to Lilo, treating her like she can’t do anything and later ignoring her advice when she brings up the current later, something that ends up getting Kim caught. The latter part especially bugs me since Kim normally listens to her clients pretty well, and had she doubted him could’ve at least asked Waid since she contacts him in the same scene. Speaking of which THAT’S why I feel her patronizing “not now kiddo” atittude dosen’t work: her spy master IS a child, her brothers have helped out multiple times, and the incident I mentioned from where she met her younger cousin who idolized her at an old west town was understandable: Her cousin was getting into dangerous stuff and throwing herself out there recklessly with no regards to her own saftey and impeding the mission with her well meant antics. Lilo.. knows who their looking for, knows the island well, and knows stitch’s weaknesses. And she goes from being annoyingly hostlile to kim to helpful, so it makes kim even more obnoxious for not accepting said help. It’s just.. draining as when this part of the plot ISN’T in play, Kim is fine. She’s her usual self.. not AS well written as the parent show, a bit too reliant on her catchphrases, but still not half bad and Christy Carlson Romanao, like Fredle helps paper over the weaker bits of the script. She’s not even out of character in her actions, as she does have a tendency to think she knows everything or undereistmate people.. the problem is it’s written poorly enough she comes across as insufferable, and unlike the show, where she actually learned something here.. she just learns to work as a team? When she does on a regular basis with Wade and Ron?

It’s just so frustrating because they almost had it just right, but instead just had to try and put some half assed moral about teamwork in there. They broke from the formula of having an experiment of the week but they still just HAD to keep to their own formula. And look Kim Possible has it’s own formula.. but it used that to great effect, often using the episode’s plot to shake it up in fun ways, and the plots were still diffrent enough and the villians bold and intrestin genough that it didn’t grate. This is starting to grate. And I do remember good and intresting episodes of the show.. but i’m starting tor ealize why I don’t remember NEARLY as much of Lilo and Stitch as I do the other shows it’s crossing over with: it’s so bolted to the formula they all just sorta blend together. It’s really fucking disheartning to realize something you loved so damn much as a kid just.. isn’t as good as you remember. And with these other shows.. I don’t have that as much. I accept proud family’s fault, Jake Long actually seems MORE intresting than it was at the time, and rewatching kim possible it’s excellent, same with recess coming up. I really need to watch more Recess. The most disheartining thing about this arc is the crossover just shows how BETTER the other shows were. Lilo and Stitch wasn’t a BAD show, and it isn’t here.. but it’s a mediroce one. it has a good premise. but it feels like they just don’t break away from the premise enough. This just... hurts a lot to type and realize. I really loved this show and movie as a kid and while the movie likely still holds up this.. this just dosen’t.

I need a moment... i’m breaking open the glass case containing my emergency patrick stewart clip excuse me...

youtube

That.. I needed that.

So before the bicker sisters can head off, we get our goofy comedy subplot: Jumba thinks Rufus is one of his experiments, one that could destroy the universe if not cancel and is highly unstable. As for why this one wouldn’t of worked out, I get why: it’s TOO powerful. Stitch is a weapon of mass distruction in a cuddly package, but he’s also easily deployable, kind of like Wolverine if he was in the body of a cartoon mascot. Having the THREAT of destroying ap lanet is fine and good for the long term but it does you no good if you can’t control it and i’td just destroy you too.

So he and Pleakly try to steal rufus without telling Ron why after Ron naturlaly refuses to sel land a chase insues. So while the boys and gender fluid person have their comedy plot, the girls head to where stitch was taken and find Draken’s glove.... they know it’s his because he put a note saying “return to dr. draken, his mother gave it to him”. That’s just.. fucking precious. And entirely in character. So kim aranges a ride, and dives into the ocean, but finds lilo in her parachute, and tries to send her back despite LIlo offering valuable advice both about the area , the current I mentioned earlier, and about stitch, i.e. Draken’s base is underwater (something Kim didn’t realize which feels odd for her), because Stitch can’t swim, something I genuinely forgot.

So while Kim sends Lilo back, or rather intercut with that but I choose to compress plots for my own convinence we cut back to Drakken and Shego. And I WAS worried that Shego wouldn’t show up, she wasn’t in the synopsis or anything and was delighted to find that nope she’s here. Drakken just isn’t the same without her.. I mean I liked the recurring subplot in season 4 where other villians would break her out, that was great, but in the end the two need each other. I may not ship them romantically but as a comedy team one just needs the other: Drakken needs Shego to cut down his ego and Shego needs someone to snark at and complain about. Sullivan and DiMaggio just had perfect chemistry and it’s easy to see why Drakken and Shego went from just another part of the Rogue’s Gallery to Kim’s arch enemies.

Which is why I am sad Gantu and 625 don’t show up for this one. I mean I can buy it: Hamsterviel likely is doing this on the sly to see if he can find a better minon, but the two sets of villians have similar dynamics and i’d love to see Shego and 625 dunk on their bosses together. It’s a really big missed opportunity but I do get it as they may of just nto been able to fit the two together or it may of been hard to block a lot of scenes iwth the human sized drakken and the giant sized gantu. So unlike a lot of missed opportunites in the other episodes, this one I at least can understand.

We get some GREAT banter with the two though. Out of the four guest characters in this one the crew really got Drakken and Shego down and the two bicker like any episode of Kim Possible, with Shego pointing out the massive bill on Stitch’s cage and how Drakken’s tried cloning about five times now and it’s never worked, and of course how he’s 50 50 splitting with a hamster bellow his station. Seriously why get rid of Gantu and 625 but keep the annoying rodent, I don’t get you episode.

Of course while they quack quack bicker bicker Stitch escapes and Shego gives chase. Sadly we don’t get a fight between the two like we did with Jake, another missed opprotunity but Stitch getting out of her grasp by licking her is objectively funny. Stitch finds he’s underwater though and gets recaptured.

Kim gets captured for the first time shortly after as the current caught her, but luckily she has kimunicator gloves and calls waid to call ron. Meanwhile Ron finally catches rufus back and Jumba explains the situation.. but Ron understandably dosen’t want to give up his buddy especially since Rufus has shown no signs of being a planet killer before. He’s not mooncake... althought i do think those two could hang. God now I just want a final space kim possible crossover to wash this out of my mouth.

So it’s down to Lilo, the really not all that ambigiously gay their pretty darn gay duo, and Ron to save the day. Lilo finally gets to do what she kept asking kim to do: use jumbas hot rod car spaceship thing to go down under the sea, and they send Lilo and Rufus in since hteir small enough to get in and suriive the pressures. Our heroes arrive and Drakken is nonplussed.. only for Lilo to prove WHY she can keep an alien in line by freeing stitch from teh leash drakken has him on using kim’s grapple gun, and then frees kim. The good guys win and the bad guys loose and the base starts to self destruct.. eh they’ll be fine. They still have the movie to get to.

So time for the wrap up: Stitch sniffs Rufus and confirms what the audience knew... that he’s a naked mole rat not an experiment. Which didn’t make sense to begin with for either show: Jumba’s archive should’ve been able to scan him or something (And if not he could build something to do that), and Kim Possible not only implied from day one Ron had Rufus a while, long before the rain of the pods, but A Stitch in Time outright confirms Ron bought him years ago in middle school. It just makes no sense and while it thankfully dosen’t take up a ton of the episode it still takes up too much.

But with that our heroes prepare to part on good terms but Pleakly decides to celebrate with Luau. Kim’s repsonse “Well I can do anything...”

And we get a gratuitous luau sequence! I do love a job that allows me to type the phrase “Gratuitous Luau Sequence’ They clearly ran short and we just get a good minute of everyone doing hula dances for no reason. I mean.. you could’ve done a quick gag with the experiment who was mistaken for Rufus... who I now realize given the finale was befriended by someone. I’m headcanoning now Kim and Ron came back for that one and Kim had him sent to space as part of one her dad’s projects where he and earth would be safer and he could help with space missions or something.

Final Thoughts: As you could tell I had mixed thoughts. As a crossover this melded things better, had a more original plot and the actors from Kim Possible brought their a-game.. but once again some disapointing characteteriztion and downright stupid decisions really let the episode down. These episodes just depress me every time and I’m looking forward to being done.. which given how excited I was going into this.. yeah. Like all of these despite their flaws I recommend checking it out if you like Kim Possible, if nothing else than for some extra drakken shego banter but.. keep your expectations low.

Next Time on Kim Possible: A team of spiteful assholes who are in a way repsonsible for Kim’s Career try to shut her down. It’s the intended finale episode outisde of hte movie people buckle up.. or you would if I was doing any of these. Though I should do “Team IMpossible” at some point.

On the finale of these crossovers: The Recess Gang are the final visitors to Kuai as Lilo must find and stop a lazy monster... no i’m not guest starring too.

Tommorow: Another kev one this time by patreon as I put two similar episodes of a show or franchise against each other and ask “Who Did It Better?” This time it’s two episodes of Celebrity Death Match, original versus revivial may the original.. probably win.

If you liked this review, please consider supporting my patreon, YOU CAN FIND THE LINK TO IT HERE. For just 2 bucks a month you get access to my discord, to pick a short each time I do one of my shortstravaganzas, and acess to my Patreon exclusive reviews! Next month I intend to do one for the show whose crossover gets the most likes within a week of it’s relase. Proud Family has already passed American Dragon so you have a week to get it ahed. And if you like Kim Possible, help me reach my 25 dollar stretch goal! At that i’ll review So The Drama, along with the Recess and Proud Family Movies. So check it out and i’ll see you at the next rainbow.

#lilo and stitch the series #lilo and stitch #kim possible #ron stoppable #doctor drakken #shego #Lilo Pelekai #Stitch #experment 626 #jumba jookiba

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fantastic-rambles · 3 years

Text

Reunion

Fandom: ID:Invaded

Characters: Hondomachi Koharu/Hijirido Miyo, Fukuda Tamotsu/Anaido

Warnings: Discussion of suicide/attempted suicide, mentions of murder

Word Count: 1.7k

Summary: Although Fukuda remains in a coma following the events of Asukai Kiki’s release, Hondomachi hopes to speak with the man who changed her life at least one more time. Thanks to the Mizuhanome, she discovers that it is possible to get her wish.

She looked down at the girl at her feet, and a flash of recognition pierced her strange amnesia.

"I know this girl's name. This is Kaeru. And so I remember who I am. My name is Hijirido Miyo, the brilliant detective."

And as the brilliant detective, she had to solve the mystery of Kaeru's death. But before she could begin her examination of the oddly segmented body, another voice interrupted her.

"Ha ha ha. You're not wrong, but you're not exactly correct, either."

Turning around, she saw a young man in a blue trenchcoat. He was smiling broadly as she looked at him, and she frowned in response.

"Who are you? And what do you mean?"

"I am the brilliant detective, Anaido. But I am also Fukuda Tamotsu, just as you... are... Hondomachi Koharu," he introduced himself, leaning over to tap her on the forehead in time with his words. Suddenly, all of her memories came flooding back, and her eyes widened as she took them all in. And then she was throwing herself at the man, wrapping her arms around him.

"Fukuda!"

He laughed again, raising his hand so he could pat her on the head.

"That's right, Hijirido. It was quite clever of you to use the Mizuhanome to arrange this. Am I correct to think that this is my id well?"

"Yes," Hondomachi replied, her voice slightly muffled by his coat. Stepping back and tilting her head up to look at him, she continued, "It seemed like you wanted to see it. And if Chief Hayaseura could enter his well even after he died, then you should be able to as well, even in a coma."

"And the Kura probably determined that there would be a low risk of a well storm, due to my unique condition in which I can remain a brilliant detective while remembering Fukuda Tamotsu. And even if there was one, I could get us out," Anaido finished cheerfully, jabbing finger guns at Hondomachi. "Cool! Though I must admit that it is rather uncomfortable to be missing my hole."

Instantly, Hondomachi looked contrite, dropping her gaze. "I'm sorry. But there was no other way--"

"It's fine, it's fine, it's fine," he reassured her, walking over to the window. "I got to see this place, and the nice job that you and Narihisago did with the old man."

He tapped on the glass, and she walked over to look out herself at the figure in red collapsed in the Mizuhanome cockpit. A feeling of satisfaction bubbled up in her chest as she recalled how they had managed to trap and defeat John Walker, who had incited so many serial killers, including the Perforator. They'd cornered him, stripped him of his ability to play God, and then sent him to a world where only his own death awaited him, if Narihisago's predictions were correct.

"Besides, it's better than Narihisago's well," Anaido added. "His always drove me crazy, though I haven't quite figured out how I can kill myself off in this one yet. I wouldn't have minded seeing your own well again, either, but I suppose this wouldn't have been possible, then, since you would have had a well storm."

"Or you could just wake up," Hondomachi suggested, but he just chuckled.

"Why would I want to do that? Other than something like this, everything is probably quiet and empty, right? That was the whole reason I put a drill through my head in the first place. And now that the Kura knows the truth about Anaido, they won't use me again since I have even less reason to stay alive in a well than before."

Hondomachi's face fell slightly, but he wasn't saying anything that they hadn't already figured out. For Fukuda, the only thing better than remaining comatose, in which there was a chance for recovery, would probably be actually being dead. She'd realized that herself when she'd entered Asukai Kiki's well and spoken to him again, and as the brilliant detective Anaido, he would feel that urge even more strongly. Perhaps even this was cruel of her, to drag him out of the void that he so clearly desired, just for her own satisfaction, but she'd wanted to talk to him again, at least one more time.

"Anyways!" Anaido interrupted, still as cheerful as before. He didn't seem to have noticed her mood at all--or perhaps he was just being considerate in his own way--as he clapped his hands to get her attention. "You still haven't told me what you think about my well, Hijirido."

Hondomachi looked around at the empty spaces that had been filled with the return of her memory, the way all the disjointed pieces fit together while still leaving gaps, and she smiled at Anaido.

"It's interesting, just like you."

"Isn't it? Let's take a look around," Anaido offered, pulling open the door to the room. Hondomachi spared a moment to glance back at Kaeru, then followed him out, letting him take the lead.

"So, what's this about? Just visiting?" he asked, and she nodded.

"I just want to know more about you. You saved my life, so the least I can do is try to remember you. But all I really know is the Perforator. What were you like before that? How did you become who you are?"

"Wow! What a hard worker!" Anaido exclaimed, turning around and walking backwards so he could look at her. "But there's no debt of obligation, Hijirido. I just did what I wanted to do, and it worked out for the best for both of us. And I was even able to get three wishes granted: I think I had the better end of the bargain."

"I still want to know," Hondomachi insisted, and he nodded, turning around again and leading them off in a different direction.

"Well, then, let's find somewhere that we can be comfortable while we talk," he suggested. After pulling a few more rooms together, they found the living room that was occupied by Fukuda's "family." The sight of his victims troubled Hondomachi somewhat, though Anaido seemed fascinated by them. Still, the prospect of talking to a real person rather than something his mind had generated proved to be a greater draw, and they continued to piece together the fragmented well.

Eventually, they were able to find a simple room that was probably part of a basement: blank walls, no windows, and a few pieces of furniture. Anaido's fingers tapped in a steady rhythm on his leg after they had each taken a seat, but there were no other obvious signs of his arithmomania in the mostly bare room.

"You know, even if John Walker hadn't shown up in my dreams, I might have started drilling holes in other people anyways," Anaido commented, and Hondomachi nodded. He wouldn't know anything that had happened in Asukai's well, but their conversation then had suggested as much. When she had reviewed Narihisago's investigations and interviewed Fukuda, she'd realized that he was the only one of Chief Hayaseura's targets who had refused to kill Asukai, since he had no interest in "dream holes." Unlike the other killers, who were driven by a desire to kill, he just wanted to help people in the way that a hole in his head had helped him: the resulting deaths were just incidental. It didn't make the reality any less terrible, and there was no doubt that Fukuda was certifiably insane for having such a thought process, but he was at least marginally more sympathetic for it.

"Before that, though, I think that I had a fairly ordinary life. Or as ordinary as it could be with this."

He raised a hand to tap the right side of his head.

"It was a blessing and a curse. I made good money as a programmer, enough that I could stay home most of the time so I didn't have to deal with a flood of numbers, other than when I was working. And I was good at what I did. But maybe that just made things worse, because they started to drown out everything else. I began to see numbers everywhere: four walls, two windows, even the cracks in the ceiling. Eventually, even when I closed my eyes, they continued to pour in. And when it finally became too much..."

He shrugged. When it had finally become too much, he had tried to end it by putting a hole through his head. It was a common enough method, if not for the tool he had chosen for the task.

"Why a drill?" Hondomachi asked, and Anaido smiled as he pointed at her hole.

"Why indeed? I always tried to put them in the same place, you know. How much do you know about the anatomy of the brain?"

"Not much," Hondomachi admitted, and Anaido turned his finger onto himself, placing it on his forehead where his own hole had been.

"The frontal lobe is in charge of many things, including working memory. In layman's terms, something like attention span."

Tracing his finger around his head to where the drill had broken through the back of his skull, he continued, "The parietal lobe is important for sensing, and more importantly, in my case, for numbers. It is perfectly possible to keep living even with damage to both those areas, as you've learned. I merely decided to roll the dice."

"And you won your gamble."

"I did. And so did you. Con-grat-s!" He jabbed his fingers toward her again, still as chipper as always. But Hondomachi noticed how his eyes were shifting, taking in everything in bits and pieces, but mostly focusing on her--or more likely, the patterns in her clothes--in the barren room. Reluctantly, she got to her feet, brushing off her legs.

"I'm sorry again. I'll go now, but... would you mind if we did this again sometime? Just talking a little, once in a while?"

Anaido's head cocked slightly, and his smile softened, looking more like Fukuda than the brilliant detective.

"If it really just is 'once in a while,' I might like that, Hondomachi."

She smiled back, and then both of them looked up as an invisible hand tugged them into the sky. Hondomachi opened her eyes as the Mizuhanome cockpit settled around her, her gaze shifting to the other machine, where Fukuda lay, unmoving. Two guards were already there, starting to move him to a gurney, and she just watched until they left.

"Are you alright, Hondomachi?"

She smiled, looking up toward the ceiling.

"I'm fine, Director Momoki."

"Then please get ready. We have a new well to investigate."

#id:invaded #id invaded #fanfic #fan fic #oneshot #koharu hondomachi #hondomachi #hijirido miyo #hijiriido miyo #hijirido #hijiriido #fukuda tamotsu #fukuda #anaido #the perforator #mine

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obxwritings · 4 years

Text

☆ Wouldn’t want it any other way ☆

requested by @im-blossoming: “Can you write an imagine where the reader confesses her love to JJ” I hope I lived up to what you wanted! Thank you so much for requesting! :) enjoy!

summary: just another friends to lovers story because that’s my favorite trope! (fem!reader x JJ) based off of one of these!

word count: 1,841

note: I did write this from 11 pm to about 1:30 am, so that’s something. Sorry if it’s so long! I guess I was just in a writing mood. oh also, italics mean flashback/ y/n’s thoughts so hopefully that’s clear! if not, sorry!

masterlist of other works by me!

If someone asked you to pinpoint the exact moment in time you began to have feelings for your best friend, you could give them the exact date and time. It was back in February of freshman year of high school.

February 13th

You were sitting on your bed trying not to cry. Tonight was supposed to be a fun night with your friends at the high school’s annual valentine’s day dance. While all of your friends had found someone to go with at least two weeks before the dance (well, except JJ. He was protesting the dance claiming it was just another way the school was taking money from students as well as the school condoning teenagers getting “nasty,” but no one had asked you until a few days before. You were ecstatic. It had been Tyler from your English class. And while he simply asked you after class one day, you couldn’t wait. You had the perfect dress, and you couldn’t wait to show it off.

And just as you finished your hair, you received a text from your date that was clearly meant for someone else:

Tyler: Look, I already asked her. That was the bet we made. Do I get my money now or do I still have to take her to the dance too?

Tyler: oh sorry wrong person.

You were heartbroken, to say the least. You didn’t even like Tyler like that, but his text just confirmed your original thoughts: no one wanted to go with you. So there you were, sitting on your bed with your hair done perfectly while you were still in sweats and your half-done makeup. You don’t remember when it was, but your mom had come into the room and seeing your current state, tried to console you. The two of you had spent the rest of the night watching old movies and doing anything to get your mind off of the stupid boy in your English class.

It wasn’t until the next day, the 14th, that you saw your friends again. You heard some loud noises from downstairs and went to investigate. Creeping down the stairs, you had stopped in your tracks when you saw your friends in their nicest attire hanging a few decorations around your living room. You almost weren’t going to say something until you saw JJ almost fall trying to hand a tiny plastic disco ball from your ceiling fan.

“Hey guys, what’s going on?” you asked, startling the group.

“There she is! We heard about what happened yesterday and wanted to make up for it.” John B smiled. “Go back upstairs and put on your dress! We’ll be done by then.”

True to their word, the pogues had finished decorating the living room when you returned. You were stunned. Upon your return, your mom came back with a disposable camera and insisted on taking pictures. After a few goofy pictures, JJ decided to get the music started and insisted on everyone on dancing.

Following your mom into the kitchen, you went to thank her for organizing all of this. You found out, however, she was not the mastermind behind this: JJ was.

“Oh sweetheart, as soon as he found out what your date did, he insisted on throwing a party of your own. Seems like he didn’t want his best friend to miss her special day.” she smiled at you and sent you back into the living room to join your friends.

After a while, the others went into the kitchen to get some drinks and snacks, you pulled JJ aside and gave him the biggest hug.

“Thanks for doing all of this JJ. It means a lot to me,” you gave the blond a smile.

“Hey, it’s no big deal. I know you were looking forward to it and showing off that dress, which you look beautiful in by the way, so it just seemed like the right thing to do. Besides, this is a dance with a cause I can get behind! Your mom supplied us with everything and I don’t have to socialize with people from school that I don’t want to. I get to spend it with my best friend.” JJ led you to the kitchen and showed you a small vase of flowers, “I also got these for you. I figured if we were going to do this, I had to go the whole nine yards to get you to smile.”

It was at that moment that you had fallen for your best friend. You were completely screwed.

And while that was just the beginning of your feelings for JJ, it worsened from there. In between exchanged smiles, sunset boat rides consisting of just the two of you, and slight touches such as a quick hug or hands brushing, your feelings for the blond had only grown. You were in deep and didn’t know how to stop it. There were so many nights where you had made up different situations on how to tell JJ your true feelings. However, all your made-up conversations of how you would confess your feelings to JJ all went to waste when JJ announced he had a date for the party on Friday night.

You were bummed. Of course he didn’t feel the same way you thought to yourself. Your posture deflated and you had a clear frown on your face. And while you didn’t mean to bring the mood of the group down, JJ could tell you weren’t feeling too good while the others argued over what to do later that night.

Pulling you aside, JJ tried to get you to talk, but you didn’t feel like it. Not when the rest of your friend group was no more than ten feet away. You had hidden your feelings for JJ for more than a year; you could certainly hide them for a while longer.

…

As the clock neared midnight, you figured it was time to go home. Your mom was probably still up waiting for you to come home, making sure you got back safely. As soon as you excused yourself from the group and said your goodbyes, JJ got up to go with you.

“JJ, you don’t have to walk me home. I am perfectly capable of walking.”

“I can’t let you walk home alone at night, y/n,” JJ stated, “it’s too dangerous. I can’t let my best friend get hurt.”

Best friend, that’s all I’ll ever be you thought.

“What did you say?” JJ’s question pulled you out of your thoughts.

“Uh, what do you mean? I didn’t say anything.”

JJ gave you a weird look, “yes you did. You said something about being best friends I think.”

Oh, so you had accidentally spoken your thoughts out loud, that’s great.

“It was nothing, okay JJ?” you sighed and began to pick up your pace, now being more desperate to go home and escape your best friend.

JJ was quick, however, catching up to you and grabbing your hand to stop you, “Y/N, something is clearly bothering you tonight. What is it?

And while JJ was talking, all you could think of was your best friend’s hand in yours. The thought made you want to smile, but you quickly remembered the predicament you were in. Shrugging you hand out of his, you looked at the ground thinking about how to avoid this talk with JJ.

“Look JJ, I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“I just can’t, okay?” clearly frustrated, you took a deep breath. “I’m just really nervous. I’ve rehearsed this in my head hundreds of times, but I don’t really know how to tell you now. I don’t want to ruin anything, and I’m a little scared the more I talk and think about it. I think I just need to go home, okay JJ?” you turned from your friend and began walking again. It wasn’t until you heard JJ’s voice that you turned around.

“Well, why don’t I do the talking then?”

Not knowing where this was going, you just kept your gaze on the ground.

“Y/N, I-- wow you’re right this is kinda nerve-racking,” JJ let out a nervous chuckle, “but, if I think I know what you were going to say, I just wanted to say that I really like you too. I have since you made some random comeback at Pope on the boat one day this past summer. It was nothing out of the ordinary, but maybe with the sunset making you glow and your smile, I started to like you as just more than friends. I started to notice all the small things like how you would play with your hair when you got nervous around me, how you would always ask for my sweatshirts for when we had bonfires, or even how you blush whenever I gave you a nickname. It was all those little signs that told me that you liked me back. Or at least I think. Am I reading this right still? If I am wrong, please stop me. I’m getting too sappy for my liking and --”

You cut JJ off by rushing over to him and wrapping your arms around his neck, bringing him closer to you. You closed your eyes and closed the gap between you two with a kiss. After realizing what was happening, JJ closed his eyes too and wrapped his arms around you, embracing you in a hug and pulling you closer (if that was even possible).

And while you didn’t want to break away, you did need to breathe. Your little high didn’t last too long though. You replayed JJ’s words in your head and moved back slightly.

“Wait, you knew? All this time you watched me get nervous and flustered and embarrass myself in front of you and you knew? Do you know how many times I laid in bed regretting every embarrassing thing I had said? It was a lot by the way.” you huffed, looking slightly annoyed.

JJ laughed and shook his head, “Well I kind of knew. You were acting like how people normally do around those they like, but you’re my best friend; I didn’t want to risk messing that up if I was reading all your actions wrong.”

“Well,” you started, “you certainly were reading it right. I really like you too, in case you didn’t know.”

“I think the kiss was a giveaway.”

“Oh be quiet, Maybank.” you laughed as you untangled yourself from the blond. “So, does this mean you still have that date for Friday?”

“Oh that? That was just to see your reaction to confirm my theory about your feelings for me. But, I would rather much have you as my real date for Friday instead of a fake one. What do you say?” JJ held out his hand for you and motioned to start walking back to your house. It was a little past midnight anyway.

You accepted his hand with a smile, “Of course. Wouldn’t want it any other way.”

note: if you made it this far, thanks for reading! let me know how it was :) as always, requests are open! ☆

#jj maybank #jj imagine #jj x reader #jj maybank fanfiction #jj one shot #outer banks imagine #outer banks fanfiction #outer banks netflix

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utterlyinevitable · 4 years

Note

and though love sometimes hurts, I still put you first - ordinary people by john legend for ethan and mc, thanks

thanks so much for the request!

Decisions

Part 1

Word Count: 1.9k Warning: angst Summary: This takes place somewhere after OH2 where Ethan and MC started dating.

A/N: I wasn’t going to do a part two to Was It but after every comment was asking for one I couldn’t ignore y’all.

not the best thing i’ve written but thankful to be coming out of my writers block.

________________________________________

Becca didn’t go to work for her next three shifts, taking personal time and swapping clinic hours with her roommates for next week. She just couldn’t bring herself to set foot into the hospital, not yet anyway. Instead, she sat in her room wallowing in her decision.

It was the right thing to do, she convinced herself.

There was so much heartbreak that came with loving Ethan Ramsey - too much heartbreak for one lifetime. Becca was deftly afraid she wouldn’t be able to handle the next blow - the next time her little slice of heaven was struck down to another circle of hell.

Ethan Ramsey was a man that could never settle down. His career and ethics, along with everything he’s ever told her, made that perfectly clear. It was better for her to end this before he left her high and dry once again. What even would a life be with an emotionally unavailable attending?

Her thoughts reeled, over and over again trying to find salvation in her decision.

Was she really in love with Ethan or was it a continued stage of infatuation for Dr. Ramsey, her medical hero? When did their honeymoon stage end, and when was she left with this sinking feeling of no return in the pit of her stomach?

Her mind replayed all of the moments where they had the privilege of just being Ethan and Becca - just people, not colleagues. All those sweet hours they spent as friends and lovers. All those wonderful moments that gave her a false sense of futuristic hope.

They both had a lot of room for growth. Ethan had a decade longer to prepare himself - to focus on his career and get ready for love and the long term commitment that comes with it. But Becca’s still only 27. She has a bright career ahead of her - something Ethan has always been trying to protect. And although she’d never admit it, she was thankful for it. He gave her everything she could possibly need so she can achieve her dreams. What if they were both mistaken? What if, deep down, her dreams all led to a path with a family - a few little feet running around the grassy backyard by the bay she’d save up for. Something Ethan was adamant he could never settle down for, no matter how much he would like to want to. It was another reason to go.

For her own sanity Becca needed to walk away.

She spent her whole life waiting for a love as great as Ethan. She never thought it was possible to be so completely obsessed and content in the arms of one person. How one person's presence could soothe all the current issues she’d be facing. She kept trying to convince herself she’d find a better match - someone with Ethan’s wit and intellect, his attractive features and banter. Someone who’s fingers fit just a bit better between her own and wanted the same dream as she.

In those days she wanted to call him and take everything back. But this wasn’t a movie. There was no fairytale ending, against her better judgment she knew that. Becca was confused and didn’t know what to do - about her heart or about work. How was she meant to work closely every single day for the next few years with the man whose heart she just broke?

God this hurts.

Is love supposed to hurt this much?

Ethan Ramsey was considered a god among doctors and aspiring medical professionals. His quick intellect and curt tendencies were admired much to his disapproval. The Ethan Ramsey did not believe in idolatry, especially among physicians. Ethan was just an ordinary person, sitting at his desk completely gobsmacked.

The event from the other night is still very much ingrained in his brain. He’d played those last few days over and over again, dissecting every little detail for any sign of dissatisfaction. Maybe if he could pin-point the moment her mind changed he’d be able to salvage their relationship. He needed to salvage their relationship for his own sanity.

They didn’t argue. They never really argued. Sure they had spats and quarrels but never over anything larger than life. They left as quickly as they started, with one of them admitting their wrong - usually Ethan. How was he meant to apologize if he didn’t know what he did to offend her so deeply?

Ethan sat at his desk a few streets away from the woman of his dreams and so unsure of what to do. His gut feeling was to flee - to accept a position elsewhere and let her have Edenbrook. These days Edenbrook needed Dr. Lao more than him. He has done all he could and it’s her turn to shine. But Naveen, he couldn’t leave Naveen. And deep down he knew Edenbrook was his home, more so than any other physical location has ever been. Aside from Rebecca. Rebecca has always been home.

What was Ethan supposed to do about their professional relationship now? He spent so long dreading the implications of having a relationship that he never thought to think about what would become if it had ended.

With a heavy heart and a sigh, he pulled the small rectangular black box out of his desk drawer, turning it over in his hands.

Where did I go wrong?

He always has and always will put Dr. Rebecca Lao first. So where does that leave Ethan now?

It was so quiet in the Diagnostics office between the still air and Ethan’s deprecating internal monologue that they didn’t notice one another. Becca gingerly entered the office, not noticing him sitting at the desk and Ethan still too transfixed by the box in his hand.

As if on cue, their cheeks naturally began to flush with heat before lifting their heads to let their eyes meet. Dark surprised brown meeting with deeply conflicted blue.

“I’m sorry,” they said in breathless unison.

Becca quickly added, “I didn’t think you’d be here. It’s your day off.” She stood up taller, mustering up all the courage she had left, and let the glass door slip from her fingers and close behind her.

Ethan tried to tear his eyes away from her but was frozen in place. He didn’t anticipate seeing her, not until he solved the case of her misery. Words fell off his tongue in an indifferent response, “A lot of work to do, I’ve been down a team member.”

She stood there awkwardly, wringing her fingers.

“Can I help you with anything?” he added when she didn’t advance.

“I was just coming to grab the new case file. Hirata said it was on your desk.”

He grabbed the lonely file from the edge of his desk and stood, carefully making his way over to her. Becca met him halfway, hesitantly. She held her hand out to snatch the hefty document but he pulled it up, using his height to keep it out of reach.

“Can we talk?”

“I don-”

He cut her off, “What happened?” A bated pause. Becca bit her lip, anticipating his next words. They were the words she herself couldn’t fully comprehend. “Why did you leave?”

“Ethan… don’t,” she warned, crossing her arms over her chest. The file now a distant memory. Ethan was within range she could feel the warmth radiating off of him even if he was three feet away. His gravitational pull was and will always be so strong.

Ethan’s bloodshot eyes bore her down, “Tell me. You owe me an explanation.”

Her eyes were fixated on the Hopkins Diploma on the wall behind him. “I told you,” she shrugged. “I can’t trust you not to break my heart - not again.”

He took in the feisty woman before him. Her scrubs hung off her body and the ever-present purple bags under her eyes certainly matched his own. Her large brown eyes were showing the after effects of days of tears. Ethan reached out for her with his free hand. He hated seeing her like this.

His hand ghosted her own. “Come back to me, Rookie,” he implored in the softest voice one would never have imagined came from the stern doctor. “We’ll make this work.”

She let his hand linger before pulling hers back tightly close to her body.

Becca watched as Ethan’s face fell. Any ounce of form he wanted to keep completely vanishing. Sadness coated his features and Ethan Ramsey never looked more human. It pained her to see him so vulnerable, though not enough to abandon her decision.

“I’ve heard that one before…” Becca muttered.

“I promise. I’ll do better.”

With a long sigh of the air she did know she was holding in since he tried to take her hand she told him curtly, “I’ve given you so many chances, E. You keep pushing me away and I can’t keep crawling back.” Finally her eyes met with his once more. “I deserve better.”

Without a moment's hesitation he agreed, “I know. You deserve so much more than me but…” He dropped the file to the floor with a thump and a scatter. His hands needed to be on her, to make her understand. But he couldn’t just grab her that would be wrong, he needed her permission. Instead he balled his fists as tightly as possible. “But you can’t help who you love.”

There those words were again. That four letter word she had waited so long to hear but he’d never vocalized in the right of circumstances. “And, as I’ve learned, though love sometimes hurts, I still and will always put you first.” His feet carried him towards her on their own volition. Ethan made his decision then and there; if Becca couldn’t take him back then Edenbrook wasn’t big enough for the both of them. “You can shine brighter if I step down.”

“Step down?” Becca’s jaw dropped. “What’re you talking about?”

A sad, ghostly smirk appeared on his supple lips, “It’s going to take some time to get over you. I’ll consult somewhere else for a while.”

There he was, leaving again. His selfish selflessness would be the death of her. But this time she didn't feel sad or abandoned, Becca felt empowered. She knew.

“Stay,” she told him. “We can work together.”

He wanted to ask her to clarify, but she continued on.

“What’s that?” she looked over him to the black box sitting on his desk.

“It’s nothing.”

Becca raised an eyebrow, “Doesn’t look like nothing.”

Ethan had no idea which way to go - if he withheld he just might always regret never asking her, if he told her he didn’t think he’d be able to handle the rejection of a second chance.

He didn’t get the chance to ask. In true Becca fashion she went ahead and opened the box anyway. Her fingers brushed over the silver, trying to accept if this was a fantasy she conjured in a sleep-deprived state or the reality she had been manifesting for months. In fact it was a declaration straight from heaven - her chest rose and fell at a rapid pace, anxiety setting in. She made a terrible miscalculation.

“Is this…?”

He nodded.

“We both made mistakes.” He crossed the distance between them, their bodies only inches from one another and Becca’s back pressed into his desk. “I love you. More than scientifically possible.” he declared and a crack of smile broke through their hesitant expressions. Ethan removed the small bit of shiny silver out of it’s makeshift container still held tightly in her hands, holding it delicately between his fingers Ethan asked,

“Move in with me?”

Becca’s eyes glowed, every doubt she ever had seemingly vanished all over again.

“Yes.”

________________________________________

Taglist: @ohchoices @dulceghernandez @aylamreads @binny1985 @ramseysno1rookie @interobanginyourmom @queencarb @perriewinklenerdie @rookiefromedenbrook @eramsey28 @choicesficwriterscreations @heauxplesslydevoted @schnitzelbutterfingers @purpledragonturtles @ramseyandrys @ermidc @mrsdrakewalkerblog @doilooklikeiknow @overwhelminglyaquarius @drethanramslay @edgiestwinter @rookieoh @lucy-268 @mvalentine @lilyvalentine

A/N: if it’s not obvious the silver is a key not a ring 👀

#open heart #open heart fanfic #choices open heart #ethan ramsey #ethan x mc #ethan ramsey x mc #choices oph2 #oph #oph ff #ff #ohsy #requests #choices fanfic

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tabernacleheart · 3 years

Text

[Saint Paul calls himself "the chief of sinners",] but what have we to say about that word 'chief'? Is not that exaggeration? Well, yes and no. For every man ought to know the weak and evil places of his own heart better than he does those of any besides. And if he does so know them, he will understand that the ordinary classification of sin, according to the apparent blackness of the deed, is very superficial and misleading. Obviously, the worst of acts need not be done by the worst of men, and it does not at all follow that the man who does the awful deed stands out from his fellows in the same bad pre-eminence in which his deed stands out from theirs. Take a concrete case. Go into the slums of Manchester, and take some of the people there, battered almost out of the semblance of humanity, and all crusted over and leprous with foul-smelling evils that you and I never come within a thousand miles of thinking it possible that we should do. Did you ever think that it is quite possible that the worst harlot, thief, drunkard, profligate in your back streets may be more innocent in their profligacy than you are in your respectability; and that we may even come to this paradox, that the worse the act, as a rule, the less guilty the doer? It is not such a paradox as it looks, because, on the one hand, the presence of temptation, and, on the other hand, the absence of light, make all the difference. And these people, who could not have been anything else, are innocent in degradation as compared with you, with all your education and culture, and opportunities of going straight, and knowledge of Christ and His love. The little transgressions that you do are far greater than the gross ones that they do. 'But for the grace of God, there goes John Bradford,' said the old preacher, when he saw a man going to the scaffold. And you and I, if we know ourselves, will not think that we have an instance of exaggeration, but only of the object nearest seeming the largest, when Paul said 'Of whom I am chief.' Only go and look for your sin... Take a dark lantern, and go down into the cellars. And If you do not find something there that will take all the conceit out of you, it must be because you are very short-sighted, or phenomenally self-complacent. What does it matter though there be vineyards on the slopes of Vesuvius, and bright houses nestling at its base, and beauty lying all around like the dream of a god, if, when a man cranes his neck over the top of the crater, he sees that that cone, so graceful on the outside, is seething with fire and sulphur? Let us look down into the crater of our own hearts, and what we see there may well make us feel as Paul did when he said, 'Of whom I am chief.' Now, such an estimate is perfectly consistent with a clear recognition of any good that may be in the character and manifest in life. For the same Paul who says, 'Of whom I am chief,' says, in the almost contemporaneous letter sent to the same person, 'I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept the faith'; and he is the same man who asserted, 'In nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing.' The true Christian estimate of one's own evil and sin does not in the least interfere with the recognition of what God strengthens one to do, or of the progress which, by God's grace, may have been made in holiness and righteousness. The two things may lie side by side with perfect harmony, and ought to do so, in every Christian heart.

But notice one more point. The Apostle does not say 'I was,' but 'I am chief.' What! A man who could say, in another connection, 'If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature; old things are passed away' -- the man who could say, in another connection, 'I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God' -- does he also say, 'I am chief'? Is he speaking about his present? Are old sins bound round a man's neck for evermore? If they be, what is the meaning of the Gospel that Jesus Christ redeems us from our sins? Well, he means this. No lapse of time, nor any gift of divine pardon, nor any subsequent advancement in holiness and righteousness, can alter the fact that I, the very same I that am now rejoicing in God's salvation, am the man that did all these things; and, in a very profound sense, they remain mine through all eternity. I may be a forgiven sinner, and a cleansed sinner, and a sanctified sinner, but I am a sinner -- not I was. The imperishable connection between a man and his past, which may be so tragical, and, thank God, may be so blessed, even in the case of remembered and confessed sin, is solemnly hinted at in the words before us. We carry with us ever the fact of past transgression, and no forgiveness, nor any future 'perfecting of holiness in the fear' and by the grace 'of the Lord' can alter that fact. Therefore, let us beware lest we bring upon our souls any more of the stains which, though they be in a blessed and sufficient sense blotted out, do yet leave the marks where they have fallen for ever.

Alexander MacLaren; Commentary on 1 Timothy 1:15

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the-darklings · 5 years

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—𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒍𝒅𝒓𝒆𝒏 𝒐𝒇 𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒔;

pairing: john wick x f!reader

word count: 6.5k+

summary: “Tell me a story with a happy ending.”

warnings: strong violence, blood, swearing.

notes: oh wow, it’s been a hot minute, huh? I miss posting my writing on here but life has been hectic and pretty unkind this year so apologies for the inactivity. All I can say is that I got an urge to finally write for Mr Wick. This is set pre-first movie so any spoilers will be up to that movie only. For now, I decided to split this into two, so expect another part some time soon and enjoy!

children of ares series: .. | 02 |

“Tell me a story with a happy ending.”

“I can’t. People like us don’t get happy endings.”

. . .

The first time you meet him, he points a gun to your face with a sharpness that makes your pulse race.

You’re just a second behind him, but you know perfectly well that it would have been a second too late.

“Oh, for goodness sake,” Tarasov grumbles under his breath, waving his hand in irritation. “Will you two lower your weapons, we aren’t in the zoo.”

The man clad in all black does so immediately, and you idly wonder just how tight his leash is if he obeys so seamlessly.

You watch him warily as you lower your arm as well, hesitating just long enough for Tarasov’s gaze to slide your way. While you don’t want to piss off your new boss, the man in black stands beside him with a stoic sort of calmness that makes your instincts prickle with unease.

You know who he is.

You’ve heard stories about him.

Soft, terrified murmurs of his infamy—of his terrifying skill. You would rather not meet him at all, truth be told.

Even amongst killers, John Wick’s name is spoken with a degree of reluctant respect and fear.

“John, this is our newest associate. I wanted to introduce you personally,” Tarasov explains easily, pouring himself another glass of vodka. “I was rather hoping you will be able to look after her for a bit. Show her how we do business.”

You rather he didn’t. Truly.

John Wick is tall, calm, and deadly focused on every twitch of your body.

Underground world has some certains you can find in any corner of the world: money, blood, drugs, and high egos. The latter goes hand in hand with an inflated sense of self-importance and posturing.

You’re used to that. You know how to handle people with egos. Know how to communicate with those who like the sound of their own voice a bit too much.

Yet, John Wick somehow manages to be the most fear-inducing thing in the room without so much as making a sound.

His dark eyes appear almost black when they finally connect with yours. There is nothing but polite coolness to be found in his gaze.

“Sure.”

Tarasov grins wider, saluting you both with his glass, “Excellent,” he intones in smooth Russian. “I do believe this is the start of something rather beautiful.”

. . .

Three months down the line, and you’re still unsure what to make of John.

Anyone who kills people for a living should be easy to pindown. Sure, everyone has their own reasons, but at the end of the day, they’re all a little twisted.

John is a walking contradiction.

He’s cold, he’s stoic, he’s frighteningly efficient in his field. John rarely speaks, and getting more than a few sentences out of him at any given time seems like an incredible feat.

But he’s also kind in the most subtle ways, thoughtful, and always—unfailingly—has your back on the field.

Tarasov originally wanted you to do three missions together before he sent you on your own. But somewhere along the way, he seems to have concluded that you work better as a unit.

It’s odd at first. You’re not used to working with someone, and you’ve never heard of John having a partner with him either. He’s the man they send when no one else wants the contract or they simply can’t finish the job. So working with him is as bizarre as everyone's reactions when they see you together.

Most of the time, you’re not sure if he even likes you because most of the time, it’s near impossible to read him.

On paper you should never work, you know that much.

He’s older. His name is known. He’s earned the respect of some of the deadliest in the world.

You’re a nobody from nowhere. Sure, your skills are finally being utilized and by merely associating with John and Tarasov, people are starting to take notice of you, too. But doubt still lingers in your mind as you go through one job after another.

Truthfully, you’re still unsure if there’s a place for you here, in this shadowy circle of Tarasov’s gang. Though all the alternatives are so much worse you can’t even entertain the idea of a different life right now.

“A stick of gum?”

John is silent for a long time, and for a second you worry that he may not have heard you over the sound of the wind, but you don’t dare to lift your gaze from the scope in front of you.

Patience you know well. It’s one of the very few areas where you and John are equals.

“Realistically, one,” he finally mutters, his voice low to a point you have to strain to hear. Blinking, you suppress a grin, adjusting your position as you wait for your target to appear.

“Just the one?” you repeat with obvious disappointment. “Huh.”

John’s breaths are quiet next to you, thoughtful, “Sorry to disappoint but choking is the only viable option,” he points out a little dryly.

You hum contemplatively, trying to think of your own spin on this scenario. It has become a bit of a game between you. When you first started working together, John’s company was near painfully boring, especially on long jobs. So you came up with the idea of challenging him with ordinary objects and drilling him on how many people he can realistically kill with them. Of course, he has to fully justify his reasoning for each casualty—that’s half the fun right there after all.

He still likes his space and peace to this day, but at least now you get him to talk with you regularly on jobs.

“See if it were me,” you begin in an unhurried drawl. “I would put slow-acting poison in the gum. Maybe even add a dispersing agent into it, so anyone the target comes into contact with would die as well. Multiple dead, I won’t even have to break a sweat.”

“Sounds dangerous,” he points out idly, but the challenge in his voice is clear. “And highly volatile. How can you be sure it won’t accidentally kill your partner or anyone else that needs to be kept safe?”

“Antidotes, John, c’mon now,” you shoot back playfully, your finger moving to rest against the trigger when you spot slight movement in the building opposite to you. “Oh, the party is a go. Target twelve o’clock.”

You both watch as the men file into the room, chatting and pouring drinks as both parties sit themselves down around the room. A typical setting for deal negotiations. Of course, Tarasov doesn’t want any negotiations to happen at all—hence why you and John are here, and ready to rectify that.

“You have a clear shot,” John speaks beside you after a long pause, and it still unsettles you how composed he is during jobs and outside of them. It’s like nothing can ever affect him. With every job, every interaction, you begin to understand more and more why the nickname The Boogeyman is starting to catch on. “Take the shot.”

You do.

Inhaling deeply, you line the shot and it pierces the air with a deafening whistle that shatters the hotel window to pieces.

Panic reigns and the men scatter like cattle. Some try to find where the shot came from, but by the time they come anywhere near the window, you and John are already walking down the fire exit in a calm, unhurried fashion. The target is dead, and that’s all either of you care about.

“You’ve gotten better.”

It’s not praise, not exactly, more of a tepid assessment. But you take what you can get with John nowadays. In the beginning, it unsettled you, but now you just know that’s how he is.

“Marcus is a pretty nice guy once you break past that prideful demeanour of his,” you joke with a slight laugh as you both get into his car. “I think he tolerates my pestering because of you, to be honest.”

You feel John’s curious gaze on you, and when you turn to glance at him one of his eyebrows is arched slightly. “That so?”

“Drive on, Wick,” you say instead. “I’m starving. I wonder what it is about doing this job that always makes me so damn hungry.”

. . .

“You’re a pain in my ass, I hope you know that.”

John only grunts in reply.

You half drag him with you through the front lobby of The Continental as you slowly approach the reception.

Charon welcomes you with his typical placid smile and a polite nod of his head.

“Mr Wick and Miss Vipress,” he greets politely, unfazed by all the blood covering you both as you stagger to a stop in front of his desk. “Pleasure as always. A room for two?”

You nod your head briskly, shifting on your feet till more of John’s weight is leaning against you. “Thanks,” you mutter, sliding the golden coin across the smooth wood. There’s still specks of blood on it, but Charon takes it without batting an eye.

“Will you be needing a doctor tonight?” he questions with a tilt of his head, ever the helpful hotel concierge.

You’re shaking your own head before he’s even finished speaking, and glance at the still dazed John beside you. He’s already looking better than he did fifteen minutes ago—less pale and clammy—meaning that the poison is slowly but steadily leaving his system.

“We’ll be fine,” you say wearily. “But if you could send us up some X7 and Aspirin later, I would appreciate it.”

Charon hums, noting your request immediately in a notepad in front of him.

“X7 will take a bit longer but consider it done,” he responds pleasantly, sliding your room key across the table. You grapple for it, clenching it tightly between your bloody fingers. “Enjoy your stay,” he adds as you turn to go.

You grunt some vague pleasantry back but your mind is only focused on getting John to the hotel room before his legs decide to give out on him.

By the time you make it to your room on the third floor—Charon has mercifully put your room only a few doors away from the elevator, and you make a mental note to thank him for it tomorrow—your arms are trembling from the strain. John falls on the couch heavily, a harsh groan rattling free the moment he does, indicating just how bad he must be feeling.

His dark, half-lidded eyes track your movements as you stumble towards the bathroom, grabbing the complimentary first-aid kit found in every room. A certain, intent sharpness you’re used to seeing is missing from his gaze and you snap your fingers in front of his face a few times.

“Hey, you still with me?”

John nods his head and groans as he sits up, leaving you once again impressed with his silent strength. It seems like things that would kill ordinary men ten times over barely leave a dent on John. Some part of you can’t help but be slightly envious of the fact that he’s really as brilliant and as unstoppable as everyone makes him out to be.

He shrugs off his jacket under your command, leaving him in only a shirt and a tie and you loosen it, hurriedly wrapping it above his bleeding forearm.

“See, poison is a bitch when it’s not done by yours truly,” you mutter under your breath, carefully tracking his breathing patterns. “Aren’t you a lucky boy to have me on hand?”

His answer to your poor attempt at a joke is a half-hearted glare, and you smile weakly, grabbing a small blade from your boot to cut off his shirt sleeve. The white material flutters towards the ground and you grimace at the deep gash running at least eight centimetres down his arm. It looks angry and inflamed; a side effect to the potent poison the blade to make that cut was laced with.

You brush the damp strands of loose hair away from his sweaty forehead, and press your palm against his skin. A pleased hum escapes you and you nod your head, satisfied, before turning to sanitize the needle you’ll be using.

“The fever is going down,” you tell him when you feel his silent question hang in the air between you. “That means the antidote is working. You should be back to normal in another hour or so. Gelsemine though? Jesus. I miss the days when people used Thallium and thought they were efficient poisoners.”

You grab your belt, taking it off with a hurried jerk as you offer it to John who looks up at you in confusion. “For the pain,” you supply, shaking your hand a little.

“Just get me something strong,” he grunts, pointedly shifting his gaze to the table where a bottle of something that looks like whiskey sits untouched.

Clicking your tongue, you shake your head, “Not if you want to start vomiting blood. The poison is still in your system. Alcohol will make it worse and likely kill the antidote too. Take it.”

John looks away and you roll your eyes, dropping the belt to the ground as you step between his legs to get better access to the wound.

“Right, okay, this will hurt.”

John doesn’t say anything—not that you expect him to. You start with cleaning the cut first, and John’s fingers sink into the couch but he remains stubbornly silent. His eyes focus on a spot just above your shoulder as you work quietly. Cleaning wounds is meticulous work, and your line of work assures that you’re always meticulous. By the time the needle finally pierces John’s skin, it already looks better.

His jaw clenches tightly as you move the needle in and out of his skin. You know it’s excruciating but he makes no protests aside from occasional soft grunt of pain. His blood is warm on your fingers and you work as quickly as you can without messing up, a slight tremor shaking your hand.

“How,” he begins before clearing his throat. “How did you get involved in all of this?”

You make a small sound at the back of your throat, unsure if he’s trying to distract himself from pain or truly asking because he wants to know.

“How does anyone get involved with this sort of thing,” you answer dully, not taking the bait. “We’ve known each other for almost a year and you’re only asking about my tragic past now? Tsk, tsk.”

You feel his eyes focus on you, and pull on the needle harder, tightening the stitches much to John’s clear discomfort.

You’re both silent for a long moment after that, and much to your surprise John doesn’t push further. Most people would.

But John Wick is not most people, you’ve come to find.

He’s the type of man who never tries to make passes on you, never makes unnecessary comments about you or your appearance, and always insists on two beds. If there’s no spare bed, he always offers to sleep on the couch or the floor—the only exception to this rule is if he’s injured himself.

“My parents,” you speak softly before stopping. There’s a sudden tightness in your chest and throat as you swallow, gripping John’s arm tighter so you don’t slip with all the blood coating your hands. You feel his attention turn to you, and work to control your breathing. “They worked for Tarasov when he still ran his drug operation in Moscow. Everyone owned him. He practically ran the city. People were watched, police bought out. I didn’t know about any of it. My father was tasked with the export of drugs from and into the country. My mother worked directly in one of his drug houses. Keeping the books.”

You pause, breathing deeply, and grab the nearby towel to wipe away the blood on John’s arm. Hesitating, you glance up at him. He looks alert again, sharp, and you wonder if you should continue.

This man is already lethal—the last thing he needs is leverage over you.

But—

You move towards the desk where the bottle of whiskey is sitting while you wipe your own hands on a towel, hiding the visible trembling of your fingers as you resume your story.

“They decided that it would be a good idea to have a side gig on the side,” you continue, your words flat, emotionless. By now, you don’t feel grief when thinking about your parents. Just anger. The destructive, bubbling sort of rage that festers under your skin every day. “My mother started adjusting the numbers. Little by little. Nothing Tarasov would notice. Never more than thirty thousand rubles per shipment. That may sound like a lot but actually, it’s less than five hundred bucks. Seems laughable now when I think about it. For us, of course, every month that kind of money made a big difference. We didn’t need many luxuries. But they say your greed grows as you eat.”

You turn back towards John, bringing the bottle over to him. Sitting down on the table in front of him, you pour some of the whiskey on a fresh towel and press the soaked material against his arm. John’s expression twists slightly but you can tell from the way his eyes focus on you seconds later that he’s listening intently to your every word.

“They started taking a bit more every month,” you whisper, swallowing your anger, “More and more. Just a bit. But penny after penny and it all adds up. Tarasov eventually found out, of course. He gathered everyone who works for him and had my parents shot in front of them. That’s how you keep sheep in line. You scare them till they’re too afraid to do anything, even help. I don’t blame them though. Those people had nothing. Elderly. Orphaned kids. Immigrants. Fear and hunger are all they’ve known. And well, after...”

Your head dips, and you nibble on your lip for a second, tasting blood. For the first time in a long time, the coppery tang makes you feel queasy.

“Tarasov came to our flat that same afternoon. Had me make him dinner practically at gunpoint,” you explain further, a sardonic smile twisting your mouth as you meet John’s steady stare. So far, he hasn’t made a sound. “We discussed my parents' debt to him. He could have just had me shot too of course. But he said he didn’t want that. He said that my talents with chemistry were too valuable for him to waste. So he gave me a choice. I work for him until my parents' debt is paid off or….”

For the first time since you began your story, John speaks, “Or?”

You chuckle under your breath, removing the towel from his arm, and lightly press your fingertips against the tender flesh.

“There’s many uses for a healthy, young woman, John,” you state flatly, your lips stretching into something that could never pass for a smile.

You can’t exactly pinpoint his expression, but you know it’s not pity. Perhaps it’s sympathy or even compassion. Some deeper understanding that can’t be expressed with words alone. But for once you feel like John is looking at you openly and without that uncrackable armour he usually wears like a second skin.

“I’m sorry,” he says, at last, his voice almost gentle. “About your parents.”

You scoff, taking a swing from the bottle and wince at the stinging burn the drink leaves in its wake. “They were stupid idiots,” you deadpan harshly. “I love them dearly. But they were fucking idiots.”

John nods once because you both know you’re right, and you swallow shakily, blinking your eyes rapidly.

For a few minutes, it’s quiet between you. You expect it to be awkward yet somehow it isn’t. In fact, it’s almost peaceful.

“Anyway, I made my choice and here I am,” you mumble, carefully pouring him a tiny amount of the drink. He should be fine to drink it by now. Probably. “Tarasov said that once the debt is repaid, I’m free to go.”

“And you believe that?”

Your eyes meet as John takes the glass from your hand.

“No,” you reply frankly, your smile pained. “But when you have nothing, you have to believe in something.”

. . .

You settle into an odd little routine, you and John.

Tarasov gives you a mission, you go, accomplish the impossible somehow and get to go on breathing for another day.

The longer you work together, the easier it becomes to correlate. Your only weakness—if one can even call it that—is that you’re both stubborn individualists. He’s a brute, relentless strength to your sly, vicious subtlety. That’s what makes the fact that character-wise you couldn’t be more different so stupidly hilarious to you. The only real arguments you have is the way in which the job should be approached.

That thought makes you chuckle and you wince in pain immediately after. The ice pack against your jaw shifts slightly, and you shift in your seat, trying to get more comfortable. Most of your body aches painfully, but your jaw feels especially sore. One of the idiots has managed to get three heavy hits in before John splattered his brain all over you. In return, you’ve been forced to kick John out of the path of a bullet hail.

He’s the one who pressed ice against your jaw while you were busy cleaning his bruised and bleeding knuckles.

Then you sat in silence, digesting another job well done, and basking in the tranquil air of the hotel room while the pain-reducing solution you’ve made works its magic.

And odd routine indeed.

“Hey,” John’s voice breaks the soft tranquillity, and you jerk up, realising that you’ve come dangerously close to dozing off. “Do you ever think about getting out?”

You blink slowly, clearing your head as his words register. Then, confusion blooms, “Out? Get out of what?”

John doesn’t look at you though. His heavy gaze focuses on something outside, out of your sight. The slopes of his profile have become familiar to you—the raven hair, dark eyes, the small crinkles that appear around his eyes on the rare occasion he does smile. He’s not standoffish in the way others often accuse him of being now. If anything he looks softer somehow, more human than a weapon Tarasov boasts of so smugly. More than a living nightmare so many fear.

He looks like a man. Simple as that, and when he finally turns to face you, you see the fresh cuts and bruises on his face. Just a man.

“Getting out of this life,” he replies slowly, his voice rougher from the lucky hit one of the guards managed to get into his throat. “Getting away from everything. From Tarosov.”

It strikes you then that John is asking from a genuine place of interest—something he rarely indulges in with you, considering nine out of ten times all conversations between you are started by you.

The second thing that strikes you is a genuine surprise. John is not the person you would ever expect to hear this type of question from. It’s private, it’s raw; he knows about your debt, about the chain around your neck. Better than most, perhaps better than everyone. But because you respect him enough to at least give it actual thought, you consider his question for a long time.

It takes at least five minutes until you finally speak and when you do your voice sounds hollow in your own ears, “I never wanted this life,” you begin softly, your voice thin. “I never asked to be involved in any of this. I didn’t ask for my parents to take me from country to country, never allowing me to settle down anywhere or make friends. When they kept secrets and were barely home. I didn’t ask for adventure, or danger, or even wealth, John. But—”

John stares at you, considering you, no doubt analysing your words, and you swallow the sudden lump in your throat at his show of keen interest.

“But,” you repeat again, your tone harsher. “I’m here, and I have to make the best of it. I’ve never been good at anything in my life. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned about myself in this last year is that I’m very, very good at this. I’m starting to think that violence is in my blood, and I don’t know what that means just yet but…”

You exhale, eyes fluttering shut and you only open them after counting to ten inside your head. Slow and steady as you meet his gaze straight on. “So to answer your question: no. No, I don’t think about it. Even after I’m finished dealing with Tarasov, I don’t see another path for myself anymore. It was taken from me.”

John peers at you for a long, long time after you fall silent. You’re not sure what he discerns from your expression or what he’s searching for, but you doubt he finds it as his obsidian eyes eventually slide away from you and towards the window.

The sun is rising in the East.

Milan is beautiful this time of year.

You sit together through the sunrise, not saying a word.

Years later, you would look back on this as the last true moment of peace for an interminable number of years.

. . .

Separation comes only two short months later like a punch to the face.

Tarasov’s argument is simple: he needs two jobs done on different sides of the world. One requires the lethality John is infamous for, another requires the most subtle of touches; a snake’s slyness.

Tarasov needs the Boogeyman and the Vipress but for vastly different things this time.

John must sense your unease—this will be your first solo mission after all—and he stops you as soon as you’re both out of earshot of any prying eyes.

“You’ll be fine,” he says so simply, effortlessly, with enough confidence in his low voice that for a second you believe him too. “It’s the perfect job for you.”

“Of course I’ll be fine,” you shoot back with forced nonchalance. “I’m not that helpless.”

Your smile is forced, and John knows it too.

He doesn’t point it out because deep down John is kind—no matter how ironic it is for a deadly assassin to be that.

For once, you expect him to say something else but he doesn’t. One of Tarasov’s men shouts him over because his flight is leaving in three hours. John’s gaze lingers on you for an insignificant second but he still walks away, leaving a cold kind of silence in his wake.

His name burns at the back of your throat as dread bubbles in the pit of your gut.

But you don’t call his name out.

. . .

It doesn’t go bad.

It doesn’t go well either.

It goes thoroughly and wholly to shit.

You grasp at your shoulder where blood is still pouring freely, and your eyes sting with tears of pain as you make your report to the silent Tarasov over the phone.

They have known.

They have prepared.

The target got away at the last moment.

You are lucky to still be alive.

“Better you weren’t then,” Tarasov purrs in Russian, the letters curling like a death grip around your throat. “Report to me tomorrow.”

“But—”

The line goes dead.

You pull the bullet out yourself. Through gritted teeth and sweat dripping down your forehead. You cry twice and throw up once before you pass out from pain and terror. Still, you manage to patch yourself up.

The lack of John’s presence stings in an unexpected, violent way when you wake up, bleary-eyed and shivering.

You have gotten dependent on him and his help.

Now it feels like a weakness.

Now, you hate yourself for shaking in terror as you make your way to Tarasov’s new office in New York.

You’re strong (but not strong enough), you’re smart (but not enough), you’re—

You wonder if you should pray, or perhaps plead for help from some higher power. Tarasov as good as admitted that you will be dead by the end of this meeting. There is no helping you now.

Sickness cramps your stomach and you dry heave in an alleyway behind his office. Your vision swims, your blood rushes in your ears and for a second you consider simply lying down on this cold, dirty ground and letting the world consume you.

You failed, you fucked up. First solo mission and you failed in the most spectacular way possible. The target got away. There’s no one to blame but yourself.

You’ve considered poisoning him, but that seems so unlikely to succeed now. His lackeys will never allow you to walk through the office door without ransacking you, nor would Tarasov be stupid enough to let you anywhere near him.

Death, now more than ever, seems like an inevitably.

John will save me.

A harsh bark of laughter tears from your throat at the sudden, invasive whisper of your mind. How pathetic. To mess up is one thing, to know that there’s close to nothing you can do to rectify the situation is another, but to actually hope someone else will save you…

Even if you are to allow yourself the overly indulgent thought, that still doesn’t change the fact that John is in Europe right now. Half a world away—too far away.

John.

Knees quaking, you stand up.

Squaring your shoulders, and ignoring the burn of pain in your left shoulder, you start walking.

John would face this with dignity, with that same cool detachment he does most things.

John would not quiver in some dingy alleyway. He would not cry like some pathetic idiot because of his own mistake. He would face it, and he would fight back.

Your forehead presses against the freezing wall of the building as you pull yourself together piece by piece.

You are no longer that same girl who wept over your parents because you have no idea where they are buried, or if they even had a burial. If perhaps their bodies have been thrown onto the streets, or woods, or simply fed to the dogs.

That girl has been killed by your parents' stupidity.

Now only the Vipress remains.

Vipress who is a master poisoner, whose name is no longer whispered with mockery but with reluctant respect that’s starting to rival John’s.

With every step, you stand straighter, walk with more confidence. Your shoulder throbs terribly but you step into the building as through a fog.

Tarasov greets you with a glass of vodka and a wide grin.

The hardness of his gaze is chilling though, and you try to keep your cool demeanour, emulating John as much as possible. Two other guards lurk in the dark corners of the room, and you still entertain the thought that you can take them if it comes to that.

Your heartbeat is so deafening in your ears, you barely catch Tarasov’s words.

“Sorry?”

His grin stretches even further, and he tuts, “My, my, I almost forgot. How’s the shoulder?”

He doesn’t sound like he cares. But not answering would be a stupid thing to do. “It’s fine, sir.”

Tarasov makes a small sound at the back of his throat before his fist strikes your shoulder with enough force that you crumble to the floor. A cry of pain manages to escape before you bite your cheek, hot blood flooding your mouth as you tremble on the floor before him.

“Oh, my,” Tarasov comments in sharp Russian as if surprised by your predicament while one of his guards hands him his glass. “Seems like you’re not as ‘fine’ as you say. You’ve disappointed me, (Name). Greatly.”

Tarasov pats your head, the contact heavy and patronizing, as he jerks your head up. He stares at you with a hum, shaking his head as his powerful features rearrange into a look of genuine disappointment.

“Stand up,” he orders sharply and lets go of you, allowing you space to stagger to your feet. “It would be undignified to shoot you like this. Believe it or not, my hopes for you were high and you’ve been rather useful to me. I at least respect that.”

The two guards shift in the dim room, and you bare your bloody teeth on instinct, lowering your blood-covered hand from your shoulder. If they want to fight...

Tarasov laughs genuinely this time, loud and booming, suddenly reminding you of your father. “You’ve got fire, little viper. I will need that ferocity for our expansion. But you also fucked up. Badly. But you will never fail me again, isn’t that right?”

You don’t answer, staring at him through a pain-fueled haze. Tarasov ‘tsk’s and the back of his hand strikes your face with numbing force. Your lip splits on contact, one side of your face tingling with raw pain as your head snaps to the side.

Few droplets of blood hit the pristine floor, and you stare at it dumbly, breathing harshly through your mouth.

“I grow impatient,” he mutters coldly in clipped Russian. “Isn’t that right? I expect an answer. What did you think I will kill you? No, no, my dear. Not yet. You’ve made a mess but it can be sorted. How severe your punishment is going to be, however, is entirely dependant on you.”

Swallowing thickly, you lift your eyes to his, “I won’t fail you again.”

Tarasov laughs again, and salutes you before drowning the half-full glass in one gulp. He exhales, looking rather pleased with himself.

“Of course you won’t,” he hums pleasantly, and pats your injured cheek with heavy intent. “Because if you do, I will have John himself put a bullet in your pretty little head. Now get out of my sight and don’t come back till I call for you.”

. . .

The knock on your door comes two days later.

You aren’t expecting guests so the first thing you do is grab your poisoned needles and your gun.

Gripping the familiar weight in your palm, you cautiously approach the door, levelling the gun against the wood. “Who is it?”

“It’s me.”

Your hand drops instinctively, and you crack the door open, only to find a familiar pair of dark eyes already staring at you. Your fingers tremble slightly as you open the door fully and John’s familiar stocky frame comes into view.

He, in turn, takes a good minute to no doubt take in your bandaged shoulder and bruised face. Even though you added ice the moment you left Tarasov’s office, one half of your face is still swollen. Ugly, blotchy bruises litter your skin and you swallow shakily upon noting the hard, near frightening intensity in which John is taking in your injuries.

“Why did you come?” you finally force out, and clear your throat when your voice cracks a few times. “Didn’t you have—”

“What happened?” John speaks instead, and there’s an icy undercurrent to his words you’re unused to hearing from him.

Turning away, you walk deeper into the room, and John follows you silently.

“I figured you would know. I’m the talk of the town,” you mutter dryly, and feel a stab of anger at the thought.

When you turn to face him, John’s expression is still oddly severe though his demeanour appears as calm as always. You’re not quite sure what to make of it.

“I do know what happened on the mission,” he replies, his mouth a tight line, and voice dropping into almost whisper. “I want to know about this.”

He reaches out and for a stupid—purely idiotic second—you think that he’s going to touch your face; maybe run his thumb over your tender jaw to soothe the pain.

But John stops halfway and allows his hand to drop back to his side, patient and quiet as he waits for your explanation.

There’s an odd tension in the air that you can’t quite pinpoint. The relief of seeing him, at knowing he cares enough to at least come and see you, is already enough. Which doesn’t explain why you feel a distinct stab of disappointment at the realisation that he’s not going to hold you or comfort you, regardless of how naive it would be to expect something like that from him. That hard demeanour of his is near impossible to crack through most of the time.

“Tarasov wasn’t happy,” you settle on the easiest explanation you can give him. “Reminded me that I will never fail him again or he will have you shoot me next time.”

John’s expression twists. “I—”

He cuts himself off and you smile sadly, wincing when you scabbed lip stretches too wide. You know what he was about to say. That he wouldn’t do it—that maybe he simply couldn’t. Even in the world of killers, there are grey areas no one likes to tread on. Friends, family, associates.

But you also know the truth.

You both work exclusively under Tarasov’s contract. John would have to do what he’s told regardless of his own feelings on the matter. And maybe even if he does care, even if he considers you an actual friend, it won’t be enough to deliberately place himself in danger by showing disobedience.

“It’s okay,” you say softly, and you wonder why you sound so sad without even meaning to. “We do what we’re told. We don’t ask questions. We just pull the trigger, right? It’s who we are. We’re made for violence and isn’t that fucking sad? We don’t even question it anymore, John. Do you think—”

His head tilts, his loose hair brushing against his forehead. “Do I think what?”

You exhale slowly, shaking your head, and give him another tiny smile. Somehow even ignoring pain is easier with him beside you.

“It’s nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

For a moment, it looks like John will say something else but he stops himself at last second and nods his head as if accepting your words.

The distance between you feels like a ravine even while you spend the entire evening in the same room, breathing the same air. But perhaps that’s just the endless paradox between you.

. . .

It doesn’t happen overnight. Or days. Or even weeks.

It’s slow. So much so that you don’t notice for a long, long time and by the time you do, it’s already painfully clear that there’s no going back.

Much like the name John wears, much like the man himself, it creeps up on you. Little by little. Bit by bit.

There’s no groundbreaking moment, there are no fireworks. There’s just the knowing that sits deep in the pit of your stomach. It’s a foolish, idiotic thing. You brush it aside because you know better. Because you’re not naive enough to hope for anything in a world like this.

Hope is a dangerous thing, and you’ve had yours broken too many times to rely on it anymore.

So you don’t.

You know not to expect good things anymore, to never try and rely on anything or anyone. Every good thing you’ve ever had has either died or been taken from you.

So you really should have known that this would never last.

. . .

Tarasov’s imposed “time out” lasts for three months.

It marks the beginning of the end.

And it starts with an accident that turns into a tragedy.

. . .

an: wooo, I hope you all liked that. I’m sooo rusty it’s not even funny but I hope you found some enjoyment in this. Also sorry for the very slowburn relationship I suppose? This isn’t super romantic. But considering the type of man John is (and the fact that he’s younger here) I actually don’t see him falling for someone immediately? Also, I love angst so....this is gonna be exactly that! Thank you for reading everyone!!

#john wick #john wick x reader #john wick imagine #keanu reeves #john wick fic #fic: children of ares

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the-sole-macgyver · 4 years

Note

Hi! How would the companions react to Sole having a strong accent?

Some of these are based on personal experiences and not at all meant to come off as offensive, that being said, we all experience things differently- where as I might take something lightly others might not- so if they do please tell me!

Prompt: Companions react to Sole having a strong accent

Excluded companions: none

Note: if there are any characters, ie: faction leaders or let’s say synth!Codsworth that anyone would like to be included please feel free to ask!

Warnings: swearing- like two swears- under cut

Cait: She laughs at them when they have difficulty communicating with settlers or traders, but it’s in good humour as she remembers a time where she had the same problem. She’ll help them out if communicating gets too difficult but will usually let them work things out their own way.

Codsworth: He doesn't care, Sole bought him pre-war and his top-of-the-line processor allow him to understand them perfectly, so it doesn't interfere with his ability too work and take orders.

Curie: When they first meet in vault 81 she asks them about it, more out of polite conversation than anything else. And then later on is more surprised that her new synth body has a harder time understanding them than the fact they have an accent at all, she knew robots and synths (and therefore humans) process sound differently, but to have first-hand experience in this is a unique scientific opportunity for her.

Deacon: He has so many questions about where they came from, what was it like pre-war? Would they consider going back to see how it is now? Could he come along and make it a vacation? Because they totally deserve a vacation. While they’re on missions he’ll do most of the talking, as he’ll be afraid it might make them too recognisable- especially if they're someone already well known.

Dogmeat: He doesn't care, he knows when he’s being called a good boy and that’s all that really matters.

John Hancock: He’s surprised when he hears them the first time but that’s about it, a lot of different people drift through Goodneighbor so it’s nothing out of the ordinary for the Mayor, he’s more interested in what Sole will do than what they sound like.

Nick Valentine: It doesn't matter too him, he has a good processor and Old Nicks memories, so communication between them isn't usually a problem and, hey, they're a good person and a damned good partner and that’s all that really matters.

Danse: The Brotherhood has members from all walks of life, as long as they're human. Strong, regional accents are not uncommon to Dance so he doesn't give Sole’s a second thought, but finds himself feeling guilty if he has to ask them to repeat themselves.

Piper: Sole certainly isn't the only one in Diamond City with an accent, and though she has to ask them to repeat things in their interview for accuracy's sake she’s generally more interested in the story they tell her. When they get closer she gets defensive on Soles behalf if anyone gives them grief over it.

Preston: He doesn't have time to think about it when they first meet and by the time they are in Sanctuary he’s already used to it, being a Minuteman means he’s met and worked with a good few people in his time from all over the Commonwealth, so he has an easy enough time at adapting, on the few occasions he has to ask them to repeat themselves he’s patient about it.

MacCready: He’s met enough people from all over through his travels as a mercenary that he doesn't really give it a second thought, as long as they're paying who gives a .. shucks, right? When they get closer thought his childish curiosity will win out and he’ll ask the occasional question about where they're from.

Strong: He gets frustrated when he can’t understand what they’re saying to him, and often ends up storming off to go smash something or someone.

X6-88: He has a harder time understanding them than he’d like to admit, and finds himself wondering if they think his hearing is faulty or if he just doesn't pay attention to them. He gets better as they spend more time together but that doesn't get rid of his own worries, though he’d never tell a soul that he had any.

Ada: Like Codsworth, her audio processors allow her to perfectly understand Sole, though she does have a passing interest in their accent that’s about as far as it goes.

Old Longfellow: He’s already slightly hard of hearing, and maybe he uses that as an excuse to not hurt Sole’s feelings when he asks them to repeat themselves, which is more often than he’d like. He thinks he’s slick, but Sole knows what he’s doing- though his efforts are appreciated.

Porter Gage: There’s weirder shit in Nuka-World than Soles accent, and though they both can get frustrated when trying to communicate- him with having to ask them to repeat themselves and them because his frustration is apparently infectious, he still has mad respect for them. He won’t admit to them that he gets frustrated because having to ask them to repeat themselves makes him feel stupid.

Addendum:I do not have a beta reader and I am dyslexic, I do proof read everything but am bound to make mistakes- and I would like to apologise in advance for any I have missed.

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radiojamming · 4 years

Text

[WARNING: In-depth discussion of human remains along with relevant images, some of which may be disturbing.]

In the electric hustle of the mid-1980s, there weren’t many eyes turned toward the loneliest corners of the Canadian Arctic. It was a forward-momentum period, caught up the 20th century’s mach-speed technological progress and cultural change. In all of this movement, it took something quietly monumental to turn heads toward the past and look, quite literally, into its eyes. The world looked into three 140-year-old graves in permafrost, and found three sets of eyes wearily looking back.

Their names were John Torrington, John Hartnell, and William Braine. In Victorian society, they would have faded into the backdrop of the social tapestry. One was a working-class petty officer, another a former shoemaker that had recently joined the Navy, and the third a private in the Royal Marines. In their world, they were perfectly ordinary—but it was their deaths that made them extraordinary. In time, they would be called the Beechey Island or Franklin Expedition mummies, and would become instrumental in helping to solve one of the greatest mysteries in exploration history.

In this first Mummy Monday, we’ll explore the lives and deaths of the Beechey Island trio, as well as their forensic results, cultural impact, and a further look into their unique process of mummification.

The Franklin Expedition

In international news, the Franklin Expedition has been something of a hot topic as of late. New artifacts, incredible discoveries, and potential vacation routes; not to mention a critically-acclaimed television series in 2018! Its impact is present in multiple facets, but it can be hard to gain a full scope of what it was and why it matters.

The quickest, dirtiest summary is this: in 1845, the British Admiralty sent two well-fitted bomb vessels—HMS Erebus and HMS Terror—into the Arctic to ply the waters for the fabled Northwest Passage. It got very, very cold to the point that the land was inescapable and all 129 men aboard succumbed to any number of horrible fates—disease, starvation, exposure, and possibly even more violent ends. Say what you will about ominous-sounding names for these ships and risking fate, but the results were horrifying across the board. Scottish explorer John Rae even made discoveries of cannibalism among the wreckage of what was to be the most promising of Her Majesty’s exploration attempts, much to the public’s disgust, chagrin, and fascination.

There is, of course, so much more to the story than just a few quick notes about the horrors nature can inflict and the question of imperialistic hubris. One peek into the fae realm of Franklin-related academia is a little bit mind-boggling, and there have been plenty of glorious attempts to parse it all out. The sources range from contemporary to theoretical, and as much as people agree or disagree, the siren call of Frankliniana can be hard to resist.

So where the hell do you start?

For the sake of Mummy Monday, we’re starting where most of Franklin’s rescue attempts did:

Beechey Island.

Beechey Island

It’s a forbidding corner of the Canadian Arctic, even today. Nestled at the foot of Devon Island in the Wellington Channel of modern-day Nunavut, it can appear either unremarkable or dread-inspiring, depending on the day and the weather. Its nearest inhabited neighbor is the town of Resolute, although its name in Inuktitut gives a better sense of the landscape: Qausuittuq or ‘the place with no dawn’.

Most explorers tracing the steps of Franklin stop in Resolute to charter passage to Beechey Island. Although there are animals living near the area (different species of sea bird and the iconic polar bear), the tourism sector of Beechey Island is profoundly dedicated to the quiet contemplation of the remains of Franklin’s first winter camp. Scattered across the stones are broken pieces of wood and rusted rings of old Goldner’s cans. To this day, it’s possible to see the ongoing decay of history in the shadow of memorials left behind by past searchers.

And then there are the graves.

The original headboards are now stored at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife. Weather-resistant replacements still bear the same messages as the originals, each recalling the names, statuses, and death dates of three of Franklin’s men. Two graves, from Erebus, have ominous-sounding Bible verses tacked on to the epitaphs.

There is a fourth grave belonging to Thomas Morgan, an able-bodied seaman (AB) from the HMS North Star who died during a search for Franklin in 1854. Morgan is entombed alongside his Erebus and Terror predecessors, but he has not yet been exhumed.

And yeah, exhumations. That’s what we’re here for on Mummy Monday, after all!

In 1984, Dr. Owen Beattie of the University of Alberta led a crew of researchers and scientists to this lonely point in the Arctic Circle. At the time, he was entertaining the possibility of lead poisoning being a factor in the ultimate fate of the Expedition. Part of this consideration came from the bajillion cans littered across the extensive trail, each soldered shut with clumps of lead that Beattie believed leached into the food the men were eating. Beattie had good reason to pursue this theory! His belief was that the acidic nature of some of the canned food would have caused a breakdown in the lead solder, causing the food to become contaminated. Even without this theory, he wouldn’t have been off the mark at all. Later discoveries contemporary to the Expedition found other cans manufactured and sealed by Stephen Goldner to have gone completely rancid. That, outside of the lead-poisoning theory, certainly wouldn’t have helped matters. Another explanation pointed to the lead piping installed in the ships themselves. Would water passing through these pipes have poisoned the men in the process of drinking or breathing? What about lead-based paints, often needing to be applied throughout the year in new coats, and condensation to follow on steam-powered and heated ships? What about the nature of being a person in the Victorian era in the first place? You were probably about as leaden as a musket ball.

So Beattie made his trek north, intending to exhume John Torrington and crossing his fingers on the possibility of exhuming John Hartnell. People knew these men had died young, even by Victorian standards. Torrington was 20 years old, Hartnell 25, and William Braine 32. Torrington and Hartnell died within three days of one another at the beginning of January, 1846. Braine died only a few months later in April. If Beattie’s theory was correct, then lead may have played a part in why these men were dropping like flies after only a few months on the Expedition.

As detailed in his book, Frozen in Time, great pains were taken to get permits and carefully exhume John Torrington. It was far from easy. Beattie and his team had to dig, pick, and melt their way through around six feet of gravel and cement-hard permafrost. They had entertained the possibility that permafrost might have preserved the bodies; they had no idea how right they were.

After uncovering one black coffin, edged in decorative white tape and bearing brass handles (one was still in the ‘up’ position), they carefully melted through layers of ice until one researcher reached a piece of blue wool cloth. As gently as possible, he tugged aside the cloth and revealed the frozen face of John Torrington.

Petty Officer and Lead Stoker John Torrington seemed to wearily peer back at the researchers. And he was, in fact, peering. Torrington’s body had been almost perfectly preserved, including his eyes, other soft tissue, and cartilage. His striking appearance startled the researchers, understandably. They had been expecting some degree of preservation, but not this.

He was only 5′4″ (163 cm) and weighed just under 88 lbs (40 kg). Dressed simply in clothing that showed exactly how underweight he was at the time of his death, something about his appearance struck some emotional chord with the team. In Frozen in Time, Beattie quietly makes the comment that Torrington looked, “just unconscious” and “anything but grotesque”.

“The expression on his thin face, with its pouting mouth and half-closed eyes gazing through delicate, light-brown eyelashes, was peaceful. His nose and forehead, in contrast to the natural skin colour of the rest of his face, were darkened by contact with the blue-wool coffin covering. This shadowed the face, accentuating the softness of its appearance. The tragedy of Torrington’s young death was as apparent to the researchers as it must have been to his shipmates 138 years before.” (pp. 171-172)

His jaw was bound shut with a polka-dot kerchief (think Jacob Marley) and his limbs were tied together using cotton wrapping. Researchers made note of his hands, which showed some of the greatest degree of his preservation.

What was even more incredible was the full degree of flexibility his body retained. Beattie and a team member lifted Torrington from his coffin for his full autopsy, and as they did so, Torrington’s head rolled onto Beattie’s left shoulder. Beattie also noted how light and limp Torrington was more or less like lifting an unconscious child.

Samples were taken of Torrington’s hair, nails, organs, and brain. The fact that these samples could be taken at all was incredible, especially in their state of preservation. After this was done, Torrington was reburied with the utmost respect and the expectation that the grave itself would refreeze from encroaching water. Not only would Torrington be preserved physically, but his photos were about to preserve his memory in ways no one could really expect.

But, of course, he was just one of three.

John Hartnell and the ‘Face of Death’

Researchers literally brushed the surface of Hartnell’s grave in 1984 as time constraints prevented them from doing a full exhumation. They had enough time to do an initial dig and uncover part of him, which was enough to sate their curiosity for the moment. Undoubtedly, they still thought of Torrington’s repose and his more delicate features.

They weren’t really prepared for, uh...

Probably the most pissed-off mummy known to man. At least, that’s what he looked like. One researcher, Walt Kowal, might have summed it up best when he remarked, “This guy is spooky. The quintessential pirate. This guy is frightening.” (p. 184)

He wasn’t entirely wrong. Something about John Hartnell’s face seemed angry, and it didn’t help matters that his right eye was missing. As the water drained away, John Hartnell grimaced where Torrington had just seemed to passively observe. In time, the entire figure of AB John Hartnell emerged.

Dark-haired and hazel-eyed, Hartnell appeared to be something of Torrington’s opposite. Both men had the distinct features of mummification-in-ice, such as the receded and pursed lips from the water and the half-open eyes. That was where the similarities ended, however. Hartnell was bundled up in a blanket and shroud with his head resting on a pillow, where Torrington laid on a bed of sawdust (often mistaken in pictures as his hair). Pains had been taken to make Hartnell look presentable; his hair was combed and cut, his nails trimmed, and his body dressed in three shirts and a hat (no pants, though).

The question remained almost tangible: why were these men so different?

As the researchers reburied the remains and returned to Alberta to pore over lab results, so to am I going to take a step back and look at their lives in detail.

The Men Behind the Mummies

There’s not much I can say about Torrington that hasn’t been beautifully covered in magnificent detail by my Torrington research counterpart, @entwinedmoon. Her Torrington research series absolutely floored me with its depth and clear passion for the subject! Literally everything about his life, death, and afterlife is covered in there, so I can’t recommend it enough. And I absolutely agree with the sentiment that tracking Torrington down is like cryptid-hunting. Oof.

What I can say in a pale shadow of entwinedmoon’s work is that John Shaw Torrington was born around 1825 in the city of Manchester, making him around 19 or 20 at the time of his death. He hadn’t served in the Navy prior to being assigned as a petty officer on HMS Terror, but his lung tissue showed that he’d definitely been exposed to the amount of smoke expected of both a lead stoker and a Manchester resident (given its Victorian reputation as a pollution-belching beast of a city). Exact details of his life are hard to follow, making him something of a shadowy figure for being so front-facing after his death. Examination of his hands showed that at the time of his death, he probably hadn’t done much work between his illness and the fact the ships were frozen in and thus not really needing someone to work their locomotive engines.

And he’d been sick. Really sick.

In the end, it was a combination of tuberculosis and pneumonia that sent John Torrington to his premature grave. He’d been, as discussed, incredibly underweight, but had been well enough to pass a health check in Greenland when some of his comrades had been sent back to England for similar health issues. The when of his illness isn’t known, but it had lingered long enough to thoroughly emaciate him. Had he been sick prior to leaving England and just covered it up? Possibly. Had he been sick but had a flare-up at some point after the health check? Also completely possible.

In short, after his autopsy it became clear that everything about Torrington’s body was at active war against his life. He’d been small in build and had lungs so scarred with smoke and illness that lung tissue adhered to his chest wall. This wasn’t a man destined to live very long.

As opposed to his neighbor.

A personal aside, John Hartnell is my favorite. I’ve spent years researching his life, his family, and every detail I can hunt down about him, and it’s taking a lot not to just fly right into overshare mode. I can say that Hartnell’s mummy wears a lot of reminders of his life, along with the life of another one of the Expedition’s non-mummified members.

John Hartnell was born in 1820 in Gillingham, Kent. He was the oldest of five siblings and after the death of his father in 1832, immediately went to work as an apprentice shoemaker. Yeah, not a Navy man or a dockyard worker like his father. He signed his name on a form dedicating his time and effort under one Henry Sarge and went to work crafting footwear. A necrotic right wrist bone tells a story of repetitive movements and damage. Growth arrest lines in his ankle bones say that the 5′11″ (180 cm) Hartnell had actually had his growth stunted around the onset of puberty, possibly owing to malnutrition. However, letters from his mother Sarah and brother Charles paint the image of a close-knit family avid to support one another.

So close-knit, in fact, that John was one of two Hartnells on Erebus. His brother, Thomas, was two years younger than him and accompanied John as an AB. Their names appear beside one another in the muster books (possibly including a cousin, John Strickland) and John was buried in one of Thomas’ shirts, with the initials embroidered on a shirttail.

Although no known letters exist from John or Thomas Hartnell, the grave contents alone paint a remarkable picture of family ties in extraordinary conditions.

A new question arose, however. Torrington may have been marked by fate with his illness, but Hartnell had been healthy even past the health check in Greenland. What had happened to him?

For that, we need to go back to Beechey Island in the summer of 1986.

‘Son of a bitch! He’s been autopsied!’

Beattie and his team returned to Beechey Island in June, 1986 with a renewed sense of purpose and, of all things, an x-ray machine. It was set to be the first time such a machine would operate above the Arctic Circle and the team was both eager to try and dreading the worst case scenarios. Results from Torrington encouraged them, as the lab gave the news that Torrington’s hair had showed lead levels far above average, further pointing toward the lead-poisoning theory. Now the researchers were prepared to see if the same held true of John Hartnell and William Braine.

Unfortunately, very little is known of Royal Marine William Braine, aside from the fact that he was a private from Somerset. He’d been married prior to his departure, and seemed to come from a large, poor family. Economic reasons may have led him to join the Royal Marines, and he’d had no choice in where he was set to be assigned. Just as with the rest of the Marines in the Expedition, they were to serve in the Arctic regardless of their choices, and at a regular pay rate as opposed to the regular crew’s double pay. Aside from this, Braine’s life is well-obscured by history at the moment, so I won’t go into his results as much as Hartnell’s which can be correlated with his personal history.

The team re-exhumed John Hartnell after a good deal of difficulty, as shown in this incredible NOVA documentary aired in 1988. In the two years since the last exhumation, very little had changed in Hartnell’s appearance. The main difference was that his remaining eye appeared more sunken, but clearly the ice had done its job in preserving him.

This time, the team cut away his toque and revealed, of all things, a full head of hair.

Brian Spenceley, a physics professor at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, stood in as a photographer during this exhumation. What made his presence remarkable was the fact that he was John and Thomas Hartnell’s great-great nephew. It’s somewhat eerie to see him in the NOVA documentary, juxtaposed with images of Hartnell that are clear enough to show some family resemblances.

Like Torrington, Hartnell was removed from his coffin for a full autopsy. Unlike Torrington, Hartnell was subjected to x-rays which required removal of his clothing. And very much unlike Hartnell, removal of his clothing revealed another detail that, at risk of sounding clickbait-y, shocked the researchers.

He’d already been autopsied.

Hartnell bore the scars and stitches of an upside-down Y-incision that terminated at his hips rather than his shoulders. It correlated with some initial results of his x-ray which showed a scrambling of organ material, some in places where it shouldn’t have been (his liver in his shoulder, for instance).

According to Beattie, John Hartnell had been autopsied while still on Erebus, presumably under the hands of assistant surgeon and naturalist Harry D.S. Goodsir. The autopsy appeared hurried, with Hartnell’s chest plate being replaced upside-down as well. Beattie estimated that the entire procedure lasted no more than a half hour. However it had gone, someone had quickly cut out his organs, examined some (such as his heart) in detail at the point of a scalpel, and then shoved the organs back in without a care as to where they went. There are plenty of explanations for the time constraints, including the cold, the threat of disease, and the possible pressure of doing an autopsy under the scrutiny of superstitious sailors and a distraught younger brother. All in all, it gave the team a remarkable chance to observe a Victorian autopsy as they did their own.

As with Torrington, the team took samples of organ, bone, nail, and hair for later analysis. Hartnell’s appearance pointed yet another accusing finger at tuberculosis, but not with the lung damage as sustained in Torrington’s body. It was possible there was something else at work with Hartnell.

Also, a polar bear interfered, leading to one of the best forensic case notes I’ve ever seen.

Once autopsies and x-rays were concluded (the x-ray machine worked fine, provided it was being warmed by a fish tank water heater), Hartnell was wrapped in a linen shroud with his clothes placed in a bag to be buried with him. With Spenceley present at the reburial and the thought that Thomas Hartnell had been at the graveside 140 years prior, the whole situation carried an extra emotional weight. As Spenceley recalled, at the end he felt as though he was burying someone he knew.

Once the grave was replaced as accurately as possible following archaeological diagrams and photographs, the time came to exhume the third mummy, William Braine.

And he didn’t look quite right.

Whereas Torrington and Hartnell had retained something of a lively appearance (loosely, at least), Braine looked well and truly dead. He had clearly decomposed to some degree before the preservation qualities of the permafrost could take effect. His eyes were sunken into his head, his skin wax-like, skull prominent, and body slightly twisted in the coffin. One arm was tucked under his body to make him fit into what seemed to be an ill-fitting coffin that, unlike the other two, was not fitted to his measurements. Even the lid had been shoved down until it pressed against his nose and deformed it slightly. And even worse, the skin of one arm showed rat bites. Obviously, it had taken a good while for poor Braine to actually be buried. Like I said, he was 32 at the time of his death. His body sure doesn’t make him look 32.

His x-rays were far more conclusive in the cause of his death, but less so in the case of his burial. Braine’s spine had been literally twisted by tuberculosis.

It clearly had more time to wrack his body. He weighed about as much as Torrington had but stood at 6′0″ (181 cm). A theory arose that Braine had possibly died in a sledge group, causing his companions to haul his body back to shore. He had probably been kept in the hold for some time, in accordance with the bite marks and level of decomposition.

Sadly, as said, little is known of Braine’s life. He was illiterate, having made an X mark in the muster records. No letters have been found addressed to him or from any of his siblings. While one cursory biography was written by a possible descendant, not much research has been done to solve the mystery of his life (yet).

Braine was thereafter reburied, and this chapter of the Beechey Island’s saga was nearly done. And yet, the exhumations only provided more questions than answers.

Heavy Metal

Lead. Pb. Atomic number 82.

Zinc. Zn. Atomic number 30.

Neither are innocuous, and both bore some of the blame for what killed the men of the Franklin Expedition. The question is to what degree is the blame well-placed?

Dr. Owen Beattie set about to find out. Sample results from Hartnell and Braine came back from the lab with more bad news on the lead front. Both bodies showed high levels, furthermore damning the solder and piping. However, both Hartnell and Braine showed markedly less lead in their systems than Torrington.

Results left the cozy realm of academia and out into the great, wide international world. As will be discussed, the photographs of the mummies alone had caused something of a media frenzy, inspiring a new cultural Franklin-themed wave of music, art, and literature. But the lead-poisoning theory rang some discordant bell in the public’s imagination and became less of a theory and more of an accepted fact. Most decided that Franklin’s men had been killed by the lowest bidder of the Admiralty’s victualing department.

Those naughty, naughty Goldner’s tinned foods.

It would be some years before this theory was questioned. In fact, by all appearances, it was Hartnell who seemed to question it the most. After all, the lead content of his body had gone down after leaving England. And how did we know that?

His nails told us so. And that wasn’t the only information they decided to divulge. Because of these findings, scientists could figure out when his sickness began nearly down to the day. Not only that, but they also discovered that John Hartnell had a very severe zinc deficiency.

‘Hartnell’s time machine’ as it was nicknamed became an incredible source for vital clues to the mysteries posed by the Beechey Island trio. The spike at the end of the chart shows the point that Hartnell’s body began to break down and essentially devour itself for one last effort at keeping itself alive. What this revealed was that Hartnell’s illness was practically a flash in the pan; he’d only really been sick for about a month and a half before his death. How did such a dramatic downturn occur?

So far, it seems like a combination of bad genes and that little demon of a zinc deficiency. John Hartnell’s autopsy reports revealed a whole slew of issues from a sprained ankle to a compacted vertebral disc (which would have been painful). It was clear he had lived a hard and active life, with the wear and tear showing on his very bones. The zinc deficiency’s symptoms would have manifested as weight loss, fatigue, poor wound healing, night blindness, and an increased risk of infection. The last symptom in that last may point the most damning finger at what finally killed John Hartnell. If he had a zinc deficiency as severely as it appears, his immune system would have been compromised and he wouldn’t have been able to fight off infection as well as some of his comrades.

Not only that, but lining up historical hints adds another sinister factor to the list.

In 1853, an exhumation attempt was carried out on his grave under the auspices of Sir Edward Augustus Inglefield of the HMS Isobel and his physician, Dr. Peter Sutherland (the group that put the pickax through his arm). One letter refers to the body as:

“perfectly preserved by the intense cold, exhibited no trace of scurvy or other malignant disease, but was manifestly that of a person who had died of consumption, a malady to which it was further known that the deceased was prone.” (Sir Roderick Murchinson, Royal Geographic Society, 1853)

Again: “known that the deceased was prone.” Someone apparently knew or believed that John Hartnell had previously been consumptive. Not only that, but plying a Maidstone newspaper brought up another point:

John Hartnell’s father, also named Thomas, died from a ‘lingering illness’. While there are multiple possibilities as to what this illness was, it lines up nicely with both the historical record and the clues in Hartnell’s body. It’s possible he was ill with tuberculosis prior, had his immune system compromised by his zinc deficiency, and had his previous illness exacerbated by Arctic conditions.

And all this was learned from one mummy.

While this doesn’t solve the deaths of every member of the Franklin Expedition, the findings at Beechey Island provided incredible insight into their lives and deaths, and may have opened a door into further understanding.

‘God have mercy on the frozen man’

The forensic results of the exhumations were astounding in themselves, but the cultural impact can’t be understated. The world was taken by the images of Torrington, Hartnell, and Braine. Torrington in particular had his image splashed across magazines and newspapers, becoming the quintessential poster boy of the Expedition. He haunted no lack of dreams (mine included, circa age 7) with his gaunt face and hazy, half-lidded eyes. One might say something about a man straddling the precipice of life and death, as it isn’t often that the dead look at you.

As said, the trio inspired a small but noticeable culture wave, with just a few key and oft-cited examples provided below:

Iron Maiden’s ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’

James Taylor’s ‘Frozen Man’

Margaret Atwood’s short story ‘The Age of Lead’

Also, this particularly recognizable scene from AMC’s The Terror!

Paintings, sculptures, tattoos, poems, short stories, cosplay, dolls, and on and on! You could even argue that the discoveries on Beechey Island reignited new interest in the Franklin Expedition, creating a wave of discovery which eventually culminated in the discovery of the shipwrecks of Erebus in 2014 and Terror in 2016. Suddenly, the men of the Expedition were real, as tangible as you or me. People saw their faces, realized that these men were reaching across from the Victorian era into the 20th century. Sure, now they’re mostly condemned to Listverse-type categories of scariest mummies, but they’ve certainly drummed up emotional reactions in their time.

The Process

Now that we’ve covered the who, what, and when, it’s down to the how. How is a body preserved so well in ice and permafrost? The answer, my dear, is as simple as this picture.

It’s refrigeration on a natural level! Just as a refrigerator or freezer slows or completely stops bacteria from causing decay in food items (freeze your meats, my dudes!), permafrost and ice extends the same courtesy to anything buried in them. Of course, the conditions have to be specific! Other bodies found of the Expedition haven’t had even close to the same amount of preservation as the Beechey Island mummies. Wind, animals, and other natural processes have left a trail of skeletons rather than mummies. Clearly, something about depth of burial and level of protection is important as well.

Other ice mummies set to be covered include Ötzi the Iceman, and the Qilakitsoq mummies of Greenland. While there’s some variation as to their causes (glacial freezing and cold, dry air, respectively), the process is essentially the same. Cold stops naughty bacteria! The deep freeze kept the Beechey Island mummies from complete and utter decay, like freezing beef in an ice cube. Granted, if the mummies were ever exposed to warmer-than-freezing air for a pronounced length of time, they would eventually decay.

Conclusion

The Beechey Island mummies are an invaluable information source for questions about the final, mysterious fate of the men of the Franklin Expedition. Their bodies have provided incredible clues and beautiful insight into their lives as well as the lives of men like them. Not only that, but their cultural impact inspired a new wave of interest and the thought that the border between life and death is a surprisingly fragile one. While their initial appearance may be frightening or shocking to some, it’s important to remember that these were young men thrust into extraordinary circumstances. Their memory and impact is still felt to this day (which I hope makes them happy, wherever they are!).

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions on this inaugural Mummy Monday, feel free to hit me up through my askbox or DMs! It’s a lot of fun for me and I’m totally open to any and all comments about how I’m doing! And the next Mummy Monday installment will be about the Qilakitsoq mummies!

Thanks for reading!

#mummy monday #tw death #tw mummies #mummies #mummification #franklin expedition #long post #this is very hartnell-centric and i can't find it in me to apologize #also it's still monday where i live so HAH take that DEADLINES

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autumnblogs · 3 years

Text

Day 18: Engineering our own misfortune

https://homestuck.com/story/2939

It never occurred to me until now that being betrayed by Jack Noir, the first person to accept him for who he is in a sense, is probably a signifcant part of the reason why Karkat is so angry. It’s probably ironic that the Blood Player’s relationships all have a tendency to disintegrate. Poor guy.

All but one of Karkat’s coplayers will either die, betray him, abandon him, or break up with him before the adventure is over.

More after the break. CW: This one has some suicide mentions in it.

https://homestuck.com/story/2950

WV and the other Carapacians may have some instinctive level of awareness of the players’ classes and aspects - while their legend is ensconced in Carapacian Lore, WV instantly senses the narrative presence of the Thief of Light.

https://homestuck.com/story/2960

Now here is something interesting. I just picked up on it, even though it has actually been present all throughout - when the Narrative addresses WV, it addresses him with information he almost certainly could not know - in a call and response fashion! While he’s jumping from one thought to another in terms of John’s different correspondents, the way that he phrases his dialogue suggests that he is aware of what the Narrative is addressing him.

https://homestuck.com/story/2962

And by all accounts, what he is viewing here is not the literal material events as they unfold, he’s literally looking at the same panels we are.

https://homestuck.com/story/2974

Vriska’s gloating here has always given me chills. It’s in moments like these that she really shines as not just a bully but an authentic diabolical mastermind who is, at least at this point in the story, utterly indifferent to the lives of other people.

https://homestuck.com/story/2975

Vriska’s external locus of control excuses her of feeling guilty about creating Bec Noir. While she is 100% responsible for it, that doesn’t mean, in her mind, that she should suffer any consequences for it (although she’s perfectly happy to take the credit for creating him, it seems.)

https://homestuck.com/story/2992

I’ve always thought that the Dream Bubbles were an extremely cool plot contrivance - semantically linking memories together with dreams and death is a really cool bit of linking.

https://homestuck.com/story/3008

Just as Jade has had effectively no parent to help her find her way in life, she will now have to suffer a sprite who cannot give her advice either. She remains alone.

https://homestuck.com/story/3010

Bec, to a greater degree than perhaps even the Seers, is directly cognizant of interruptions by Command Prompts.

https://homestuck.com/story/3017

I’m starting to be able to actually pick up the themes of the whole Exile plotline.

It seems, in general, to be a parable on power and authority, with each of the Exiles representing one kind or another. You’ve got WV who aspires to be first among equals, democratically elected, a community leader and organizer.

You’ve got the White Queen, who fits classical tropes related to the Good Monarch, a symbolic authority.

You’ve got the Peregrine Mendicant, whose take on governmental duty is more that of a functionary - her self-concept is as someone who does what is needed.

And then you’ve got the Aimless Renegade, who, as a Mad Max Type wasteland cop, could be read as either a playful parody of eighties and nineties copaganda, or as a criticism of copaganda, or both - government as the State, an enforcer of constructed order.

Of all of them, it’s clear that WV and PM’s takes on power are the most useful. The White King and Queen are quickly slaughtered once Jack arrives, because without their magical mcguffins, they remain little more than walking talking symbols.

AR is an interesting case though, because his defining character moment is that he hesitates to follow his orders, and while it could be argued that everything that ensues is his fault for not being stone cold enough to do what needs to be done, I’d argue that his hesitation is admirable - Jack escapes to live another day, and the Mayor survives. The Mayor’s infectious compassion ultimately saves his own life through the AR’s refusal to let him die by destroying the command stations in Cascade, because AR is not willing to trade lives.

https://homestuck.com/story/3040

I’ve never been entirely clear on whether the Dark Gods should be considered evil or simply incomprehensible, morally uncategorizable - in any case, the unique nature of the Kids’ session seems to preclude an ordinary relationship with them. By all accounts they also seem perfectly happy to help Rose create the Green Sun as well, sowing the seeds that will grow into Lord English, their own murderer.

Whatever they’re up to is extremely unclear, and they mostly seem to be a wildcard. I’ll have to see if any of my Homestuck chums have thoughts about the Horrorterrors. With the exception of the Dream Bubbles and their ability to facilitate interaction between the living and the Dead, talking to the Horrorterrors seems to be at best an exercise in facilitating inevitable misfortune - they seem to be all but completely useless.

I suppose learning how to navigate the furthest ring comes in handy exactly once, since it enables the kids to fly to the Alpha’s universe.

https://homestuck.com/story/3043

Rose’s pessimistic dissatisfaction manifests in two ways during this conversation - the first is her contemplation of self-destruction. Along with her suicide mission, one of the very first things she mentions about Doc Scratch is that he wants to die - which clearly fascinates her. The other thing is that, suspicious of the version of truth that Skaia presents, and lacking an anchor, she is very easily swayed by characters who offer her an alternative truth.

https://homestuck.com/story/3045

It has just occurred to me that while Rose doesn’t do anything directly to harm her co-players the way that Vriska does, the main actual thing that they have in common, that I was having a hard time putting my finger on, is actually another parallel between the two of them and Aradia - by allowing themselves to be manipulated by forces of evil beyond human comprehension - Doc Scratch in particular - Rose and Vriska both make manifest all sorts of misfortune. In Aradia’s case, it’s her continuous manipulation by the voices of the dead.

Both of them create nearly all of their own problems, and while they’re at it, create immense amounts of suffering from other people who happen to be in the vicinity. And, according to the rules of the Alpha Timeline, both of them therefore give their assent to their misfortune. The Alpha Timeline is, of course, the same as the Glub Glub trap - if you refuse to participate, you are destroyed, but participation is horrible.

https://homestuck.com/story/3055

Couple things.

The first and most obvious is;

Monkey see, Monkey do.

We’re starting to see the fallout of Vriska’s attempts to acculturate Tavros - she’s tried to force a square peg into a round hole, and has had no luck. Tavros doesn’t fit her vision of an ideal troll, and he never will; that’s not the kind of person that he is.

The use of the word hero is what’s important here. Notice especially the way that he draws a line from physical fitness and personal worth - the ability to do important things that you want to do has become Tavros’ idea of how to self-actualize. He has internalized Vriska’s toxic ideas.

The other thing is that while Grandpa may not have literally committed suicide, but he is clearly emotionally checked out of life - playing Indiana Jones when he’s away from home, and interacting with fantasy women at his tea party, instead of engaging with his real life granddaughter.

Suicide’s a touchy subject, one which Homestuck touches on. As I’ve already said, I’m not going to touch on the Epilogues or HS^2, both of which also touch on the subject. It’s not a central theme, I don’t think, although either killing themselves or waiting around to die recur multiple times as possibilities in the minds of different characters, particularly the Lalondes and Striders. I’ll have more to say about each individual instance, but in both the insincere threat of suicide Rose uses in her early strife, and here in Act 5, the act of self-destruction is not motivated by despair, but by spite - for Rose, self-destruction would be an act to spite someone else who wants her to exist.

Grandpa Harley’s complete emotional absence from the life of his loved ones might be called a bit of emotional suicide. Checked out of personal reality completely to pursue a life of fantasy (and to facilitate Sburb), Grandpa Harley may as well have been dead from Jade’s perspective, even before he died.

https://homestuck.com/story/3056

The link between being a Hero Coolguy and Romantic (Reproductive) Success is drawn very neatly by Tavros, but because the premise is false, the conclusion is also false.

https://homestuck.com/story/3059

Vriska immediately calls attention to the way Tavros is parroting her behavior because of her influence - without all of the chest-beating and saber-rattling that Vriska does, the skillfully executed showmanship of being aloof and confident, there’s not that much difference between what Tavros tried to pull just now, and what Vriska has always done - even repeating her romantic faux-pas.

https://homestuck.com/story/3078

And we’ll pause here, before I get to another walkaround, which I will do tomorrow.

Not a lot that inspired me to talk in the 150 or so pages I got today. Lots of action in Act 5, but less emotional meat to dig into.

For now, it’s Cam signing off, alive but not alone.

#liveblogging #commentary

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thewreckkelly · 3 years

Text

Watch "Could Only Happen In Ireland" on YouTube

GOOD GOLLY IT’S DOLLY (My Mother Myself)

I love my Mum – loved her when I was under her care, loved her throughout my independence, love her now she’s in someone else’s care. Of course I’m aware such maternal love is by no means exclusive and undoubtedly, while the expression of such love tends to soften with distance and age, it remains an emotional bond that is a true unbreakable.

Recently I’ve been helping a florist – who also happens to be a great friend - with an online marketing campaign for ‘Mothers Day’ and, (during the course of concocting and plagiarising four line sentiments and graphic displays of floral fawning) , got to thinking of my Mum and what we have shared throughout a lifetime of mutual love.

A strange highlight dominated my walk through that particular past!

-o-

The year was 1980 (I think) and I was slowly ridding myself of the adolescent petulance properly associated with teenage angst while also - willingly and without excuse or apology – continuing to embrace the evolutionary revolutionary mindset of ‘Punk’.

Don’t get me wrong I had never fallen into the ‘Mohawk’, ‘Piercings’, ‘Gobbing’, ‘Pogoing’ or ‘Safety Pin’ syndrome - not this good Catholic boy. It was more than enough for me that the freedom of expression associated with the genre felt ridiculously inspirational and challenging in its raw depth – ‘Never Mind the Bollox’ proving a universally perfect mantra of how to be young in that very beneficial yet restrictive first world of change and changelings.

My Mum was the polar opposite in her musical taste and, (with a small ‘c’), conservative view of people, society and trends. Perry Como was more her cup of tea than the subversive Sinatra or Elvis while country music provided the stories of life she could relate to. Her idea of rocking out was to blare the Ray Conniff’ big band singers through my Da’s good stereo speakers on Sunday mornings - after mass - while letting go of any dancing inhibitions as she prepared the traditional roast.

The funny thing is; I sort of liked her music – without ever admitting such a ‘terrible’ thing to my friends and so called musical peers of course. There is an argument I liked the stuff she liked in much the same way liking anything that defines a good person has a habit of doing, but I don’t believe that was the reason.

I was too young and self-obsessed to understand that all was not simple and simple was, most certainly, not all – yet somehow aware enough to know without really knowing. Later I would realise my Mum had a terrific universal ear for much of what was good and great but back then ...... well .......

My Mum’s life, at the time, was neat and tidy by design - honed from a lifetime of consideration for others and struggle against an incomplete education, social gender relegation and being without too often. Mine was naturally a mess - a snap semi considered series of decisions and influences borne out of immediacy and yearning coloured by arrogance and naivety – a rebel searching for a ‘because’ if you like.

I had spent the summer just gone in London immersing myself in a musical and literary culture that was maturing from the raucous irregular nature of punk and had taken in lots of pub and small venue gigs that ranged in influence from ‘The Jam’ to ‘Elvis Costello’ to ‘John Cooper Clarke’ to ‘Jimmy Pursey’ to ‘Billy Bragg’ to 'Kafka' to 'Tom Wolfe' to 'Philip Larkin' .

It was my coming of age moment when all of such seemed terribly exciting and dangerous to the person I was and surely massively influential in opening up my, (up till then), purposely covert disdain for authority and establishment

In the autumn of that year, weighed down by the morass of all such personal contradictions, I secured two front row seats for a Country & Western show at the RDS - with some degree of trepidation – to treat and play chaperone to my Mum, who was a big fan and unlikely - at that time - to actually enjoy or have the opportunity to avail of such an occasion.

And so it came to pass the two of us left the semi in the suburbs and drove to a monolith in the better part of town to see Dolly Parton do her thing.

-o-

The Royal Dublin Showgrounds in Ballsbridge, Dublin, was, and probably still is, a throwback statement in architecture and class driven membership designed to promote and embrace all of what was good from the Protestant protectorate time of Victoria - while actually succeeding in highlighting much of what was insidious about those whom believed in a realm upon which the sun would never be expected to set. A venue where aspiring middle-class Dubliners and those beyond the pale could, on occasion, sample and digest possibilities their betters expected them to aspire to but rarely achieve.

The entrance to the RDS is signature and a facade of understated power – inviting and intimidating in measure and construction. I hadn’t been in the exhibition hall before and was hugely underwhelmed by its ordinariness, the starkness of the concrete floors and rows of institutional collapsible chairs set out in slightly skewed rows. The room was cavernous, very bright with a stage that looked more suited to a communist political convention than a glitzy C&W extravaganza.

Mum was dressed to the nines, which had worried me slightly to begin with only for such fear to rapidly evaporate upon arrival - it was twenty year old me, dressed as conservatively as I could allow in Wrangler jeans, Polo shirt and black suit jacket, that looked out of place among the throngs of Sunday best middle aged men and women taking their seats in an excited, orderly and happy manner. I felt like the proverbial fish out of water and had to reach deep to marry myself to my Mother’s mounting excitement and sense of occasion.

The support act that night was a solo artist called Kevin Johnson. Here I was on relatively safe ground as his big song was; ‘Rock & Roll I Gave You All the Best Years of My Life’ to which I knew all the lyrics and felt some level of identification with. He was a good competent performer with the troubadour’s presence and I remember being impressed at his professionalism along with enjoying the Americana folksiness of the set. I relaxed a touch and, when he finished off with that song, felt at least I’d got my money’s worth and anything else would be a bonus.

A sense of fervent excitement in the hall grew as we waited for the headliner and, to a point, became infectious. I genuinely had no idea what to expect and the sense of expectation bordering on privilege emanating from this packed venue caused me to doubt any possibly disingenuous pre-conceptions I had inwardly held since I’d bought the tickets and surprised Mum.

The lights went down, the band silently took to the stage as shadows. A fanfare of guitars, fiddle, bass and drums in galloping beat broke the deafening silence of the seated audience and then .......

‘GOOD GOLLY IT’S DOLLY’ issued forth from a disembodied deep male voice - in the pronounced accent of a Southern American State - to rapturous applause.

A spotlight broke the darkness and concentrated its stardust on the wings from which a tiny giant bounded and danced her way to centre stage with more energy than Sellafield.

Clad in a very revealing figure hugging silver diamantes laden dress, sporting perfect make-up on cheeky cultured facial features pronounced with ruby red lipstick – all artistically framed by an abundance of perfectly coffered Dixie blonde tresses.

This would be first lady of country music lit the auditorium miles beyond the ability of mere electricity.... Oh yes Ms Dolly Parton made an entrance you couldn’t beat with a stick.

The show is a blur – I do remember her doing ‘Applejack’ on the banjo, with ridiculous big painted nails not being a bother at all – and the best I can actually recall for the most part is before you could wail ‘Jolene’ I found myself cheering, clapping, dancing and singing along with songs I didn’t know in the company of equally uninhibited people I didn’t know and wising the show would never end. This was new to me; this was a living example of the best at what they do, doing it for me along with everyone else and delivering on every level.

The famous composer of melodies, Thomas Moore, once wrote:

‘And the best works of nature can only improve – when we see them reflected in looks that we love’

When Dolly caused us all to settle down, mid set, and invited each and every one present to relive a childhood memory of Motherly love with her soft ballad; ‘Coat of Many Colours’, I glanced smilingly at my Mum and her returned look allowed an understanding of exactly what Tom Moore was getting at.

Thanks for giving me Dolly Mum, (I’ve held on to her ever since), and, of course, all the rest of the other stuff.

Happy Mother’s Day

#conde nast #new york times #washington post #boston globe #the guardian #the irish times #bbc radio 4 #chicago tribune #ny times #la times #bbc #irish times #dolly parton #grand ole opry #country music

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seymour-butz-stuff · 3 years

Link

One of social media’s most notorious alt-right trolls in the 2016 election—known then as “Ricky Vaughn,” hiding the identity of a 28-year-old Vermont man named Douglass Mackey—was arrested Monday by the FBI on charges that he and others schemed to interfere in the election by convincing some 4,500 voters to use a fake text-message system, thinking they were submitting their official ballots. Predictably, there were immediate cries of outrage from the white-nationalist far right.

None were quite as predictable, however, as the defense of Mackey that was broadcast nationwide by Tucker Carlson on his Fox News show that evening: Beyond mere gaslighting his audience about the threat of white nationalism, as well as who Mackey is and what he did, Carlson unleashed on his audience a deluge of straight-up lies about the case.

youtube

The indictment of Mackey is noteworthy, not least because Republicans have claimed—without any evidence—throughout the past four years that Democrats have engaged in massive vote fraud, and yet we are presented with yet another example of very real vote fraud undertaken on behalf of Donald Trump.

It details how Mackey and his cohorts—which included Tim “Baked Alaska” Gionet, another alt-right troll who was arrested last week for his role in the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol—coordinated an online scheme in which they targeted Democratic voters with a scam convincing them they could vote online. The voters were told they could vote for Hillary Clinton simply by posting a specific hashtag on Twitter or Facebook, or by sending a text with her name in it to a specific phone code.

Mackey, an unrepentant racist on Twitter, made no bones that his personal agenda was primarily to “limit black turnout,” the complaint says. As HuffPost’s Luke O’Brien details, Vaughn was working with some of the worst of the worst:

The complaint lists four co-conspirators referred to only by Twitter “user IDs,” a unique string of numbers assigned to each Twitter account. HuffPost can report that one co-conspirator is a prominent alt-right botmaster who goes by “Microchip” and was instrumental in making pro-Trump and anti-Hillary Clinton hashtags and content go viral on Twitter during the 2016 election. A fascist accelerationist who has expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler and Nazism, Microchip claims to have been involved in the early spread of the QAnon conspiracy cult and repeatedly told this reporter that his goal was to destroy the United States.

“Ricky Vaughn” was not just your average troll, either. As the DOJ explained in its press release on the case, he had a large Twitter following of about 58,000, but his influence was very broad. It notes: “A February 2016 analysis by the MIT Media Lab ranked Mackey as the 107th most important influencer of the then-upcoming Election, ranking his account above outlets and individuals such as NBC News (#114), Stephen Colbert (#119) and Newt Gingrich (#141).”

Then in November 2016, Twitter banned “Ricky Vaughn,” along with a number of other white-nationalist accounts, and his influence vanished practically overnight. Then, his identity was revealed during a spat with white-nationalist politician Paul Nehlen, and in short order his past as a Middlebury College grad, his employment in the financial sector in Manhattan, and other personal details all came to light in a HuffPost profile.

“What Mackey allegedly did to interfere with this process—by soliciting voters to cast their ballots via text—amounted to nothing short of vote theft,” remarked William F. Sweeney Jr. of the FBI’s New York Field Office in the DOJ press release. “It is illegal behavior and contributes to the erosion of the public’s trust in our electoral processes. He may have been a powerful social media influencer at the time, but a quick Internet search of his name today will reveal an entirely different story.”

Unsurprisingly, Carlson’s instantaneous defense of Mackey after his arrest Sunday omits all of this information, and tries to portray Mackey as a harmless meme-wielding prankster and the scheme as simply “making fun of Democrats.”

It was a performance not only perfectly aligned with Carlson’s running claims that the threat of the white-nationalist right is a “hoax,” but likely as well a preview of how Republicans and conservatives will be approaching the issue: namely, by gaslighting the public into believing that what happened on January 6 in the U.S. Capitol didn’t really happen.

But Carlson’s defense of Mackey, as well as his general campaign to convince the public that white nationalists pose no threat to American democracy, is also veering into the same kind of self-own that conservatives used—successfully—in 2009 to trample an earlier attempt by the nation’s law-enforcement apparatus to tackle the radical right. That was when the Department of Homeland Security released a bulletin to law-enforcement agencies warning of a resurgence of radical-right organizing and recruitment, and right-wing media (led by Fox News) shrieked hysterically that the bulletin was an “indictment of conservatives” and an “attack on the tea party.”

Carlson has been saying essentially the same thing this week, identifying ordinary conservatives and Fox News watchers with the white nationalists who invaded the Capitol on January 6. On Monday he ran a clip of Congressman Adam Schiff commenting on the need for a swift response by law enforcement to the takeover:

Schiff: We have been urging for some time that the FBI and Department of Homeland Security raise the priority to domestic terrorism to white nationalism as it threatens the country. And we’re going to continue sounding the alarm and make sure they’re devoting the resources, the time, the attention, just as we did after 9/11 to the threat from international terrorism, we need to give the same priority and urgency to domestic terrorism.

Carlson then launched into a tirade that directly identified his audience with those domestic terrorists, claiming that Schiff was talking about ordinary Republicans:

Got that? Vote the wrong way and you are a jihadi. You thought you were an American citizen with rights and just a different view. But no, you’re a jihadi. And we’re going to treat you the way we did those radicals after 9/11. The way we treated Bin Laden. Get in line, pal. This is a war on terror.

… Keep in mind, they’re talking about American citizens here. They’re talking about you. But nobody seems to notice or care.

On the same broadcast, Carlson offered a similar defense of the QAnon cult, portraying their counterfactual and reality-bereft conspiracy theories as mere political beliefs, and attempts to expose and counter their smears, falsehoods, and violent agenda as part of a liberal scheme to enforce a kind of thought control.

“Once politicians attempt to control what you believe, they are no longer politicians. They are by definition dictators,” he intoned, and then went on to charge that “they have all, almost every one of them, joined the mob of censors, hysterics, and Jacobin destroyers, all working on behalf of entrenched power, to take total control of everything.”

Carlson’s rhetorical gambit on Monday was essentially a kind of hard-nosed gaslighting, insisting that what ordinary people see emanating from the radical right can all just be explained away if you frame it in benign enough terms. But on Tuesday, he didn’t simply whitewash the reality, he resorted to outright baldfaced lies in rising to defend Douglass Mackey.

His opening line, in fact, was utterly false: “Mackey is a 31-year-old conservative journalist from Florida,” Carlson said. In fact, Mackey is not any kind of journalist at all; he has never published any piece of journalism at any publication, having in fact been an economist at John Dunham & Associates until 2016. Carlson clearly wanted to make this all about the First Amendment, even if the facts inconveniently did not fit.

He went on:

At 7 a.m. FBI agents showed up at Mackey’s house. They threw him in handcuffs and they dragged him to a cell. He now faces ten years in prison. His crime? He made fun of powerful Democrats on social media.

As the federal criminal complaint puts it, ‘Mackey made coordinated use of social media to spread disinformation relevant to the impending 2016 presidential election. The disinformation spread by these individuals, the Biden administration solemnly proclaimed, often took the form of memes.’

Yes, memes. Online mockery. Mockery online is now illegal if it’s aimed at the wrong people. Doug Mackey hurt their feelings, so they put him in jail.

According to Joe Biden’s Justice Department, Doug Mackey violated 18 U.S. Code Section 241. He did this by tricking people, like the dastardly trickster that he is, into not voting in the presidential election. What’s interesting is that prosecutors showed no evidence whatsoever that Doug Mackey actually tricked anyone into anything, voting or not. Not a single person.

This is just risibly, utterly false. Right in the DOJ’s press release/statement on the case, prosecutors explain that a substantial number of people were gulled by Mackey’s scam: “On or about and before Election Day 2016, at least 4,900 unique telephone numbers texted ‘[Candidate’s first name]’ or some derivative to the 59925 text number, which was used in multiple deceptive campaign images tweeted by the defendant and his co-conspirators.”

And of course, it would not be a complete Tucker Carlson episode without completely whitewashing who and what “Ricky Vaughn” was, as online entities go: “By the way, we have no ideas what Mackey’s views are,” he sniffed. “We don’t care. What CNN is telling us is those views are a crime.”

In fact, the crime with which Mackey is charged only incidentally involves his views, and of course revolves entirely around his efforts depriving Black citizens of their vote by deception, which is a federal felony. But it also is important for the public to understand what depraved beliefs motivated Mackey to commit these crimes along with other white nationalists—particularly the vicious anti-Semitism and relentless racial and ethnic bigotry.

Media Matters’ Nikki McCann Ramirez provides a number of examples of the ugliness of Mackey’s memes—the same memes that Carlson laughs off as harmless pranks, and dismisses as insignificant. These memes ran the gamut of bigotry: misogynist, homophobic, nativist, racist, and deeply anti-Semitic.

As Sarah Posner and I noted in our Mother Jones report on Trump’s interactions with the alt-right and other extremists, he was among the top influencers spreading the white-nationalist “white genocide” hashtag. Meanwhile, three members of Trump’s inner circle followed “Ricky Vaughn” on Twitter, and his son Donald Trump Jr. sometimes retweeted him.

But Carlson saved his most hysterical rhetoric for the end of his rant:

What, you may be wondering, does a case like this mean for the First Amendment? Well, it means that it’s effectively suspended. You can now be arrested for saying the wrong things. And at 7 a.m. this morning, one journalist actually was arrested for that. Almost no one tonight seems to be defending him. ‘He had bad thoughts! He deserves it!’ They think it’s OK. And that shouldn’t surprise you. Because we’re clearly living under some form of martial law at the moment.

This new version of democracy is a democracy where everyone fervently agrees with the people in power or else they go immediately to jail. Doug Mackey’s problem, it turns out, is that he doesn’t properly understand what democracy is.

… You may have thought you were a decent American in good standing. Ten years ago, nobody in this country would have called your views extreme. They weren’t extreme then. You don’t think they’re extreme now, you’ve always considered yourself a pretty moderate person—live your life and get along with others. Oh ho, that’s not possible now—because the rules have changed. You are now a dangerous insurgent. You are no different from a bloodthirsty Pashtun in Helmand Province, or an ISIS terrorist in Erbil! You’re part of a guerrilla insurgency.

So there you have the essence of the gathering Republican response to any kind of effort to confront the right-wing extremism that fueled the January 6 insurrection: When you crack down on white supremacists and far-right domestic terrorists, you crack down on ordinary Republicans.

Carlson has not been alone. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul attacked Joe Biden’s inauguration speech, in which he called for confronting domestic terrorism, as “thinly veiled innuendo” targeting Republicans. “Calling us white supremacists, calling us racists, calling us every name in the book,” he said on Fox News.

It’s a strategic response, in fact, that—despite its seemingly obvious self-indictment, not to mention its complete estrangement from the actual wording of the accusations—worked well in 2009, when Fox News-fueled hysteria forced DHS to ultimately withdraw and apologize for that domestic-terrorism memo that turned out to be so prescient today. And there’s little question that the law-enforcement failures that subsequently ensued over the next decade were directly related to that counterfactual hysteria.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who was a congressman at the time, told USA Today that the letter foreshadowed the events unfolding before us.

"When we decided as a society that we were going to just simply not address violent right-wing extremists, we simply allowed that movement to grow. We allowed that movement to flourish,” he said.

If you get upset when someone threatens a white supremacist, you might be a white supremacist.

#2 #tucker carlson #white supremacy #white supremacists

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