#forever in a sea of limbo

[villainihavedonethymotheronao3]

My Critical Role conspiracy theory is that near the end of the Calamity Elias Alterra got sick of being an ageless eternal 14 year old swimming the Astral Sea, kissed his father goodbye forever, and went back to Exandria, where he rejoined the fragmented shards of the Gau Drashari and brought them ancient druidic knowledge gleaned from an childhood in golden age Cathmoira and several centuries dream-drowning. He became an archdruid, shepherded the nascent Ashari into their places, had a big happy family, and never stopped grieving the sorrow of what he lost in the first place.

And that’s why Keyleth is a redhead.

#exu calamity #critical role #alterra:the earth ashari’s terra #I am connecting the dots #I do think it’s wild to assume Elias is still in the astral sea #Evandrin got forcibly astralized but Elias was still a normal teen! limbo is no place to leave a normal teen forever #he grieved and he spent time with the dad he lost and eventually he went home

[rhysdarbinizedarby]

Our Flag Means Death season 2 shot a crucial scene in the Avatar 2 tank

A behind-the-scenes look at how Taika Waititi and Rhys Darby shot their big merman moment

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Our Flag Means Death, Season 2, Episodes 3]

Season 2 of David Jenkins’ pirate comedy-romance-drama Our Flag Means Death has finally premiered on Max, with an opening three-episode arc that’s guaranteed to get the series’ fandom buzzing. The third episode in particular ends with a sequence that feels like it was intentionally crafted to inspire the crowds of fan artists who have turned the series into an obsession. Polygon talked to the series’ VFX supervisor, David Van Dyke, about what went into shooting that sequence — and how James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water helped out.

At the end of episode 3, Ed “Blackbeard” Teach (Taika Waititi) is in limbo after being assaulted and nearly killed by his crew. There, he meets his former captain Benjamin Hornigold (another of the series’ historical pirate characters, played by Mark Mitchinson), who tries to help him through his emotional crisis over being abandoned by Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby). Except Hornigold mostly helps by pointing out Blackbeard’s failings, then tying a stone to his waist and throwing him off a cliff into the sea — where he sees a vision of Stede as a fish-tailed merman, coming to save him.

“Just so you know, Rhys and Taika did very well underwater,” Van Dyke told Polygon about shooting the scene. “Rhys is not an Olympic synchronized swimmer, but he’s a strong swimmer. They were both very comfortable underwater. They both did a really good job of being mermen.”

Van Dyke says he was originally asked whether he could do the scene with CG versions of the two men, for safety reasons. He explained that it was possible, “but that’ll cost millions and millions of dollars, and we don’t really have that.”

Instead, he ended up shooting the scene practically. Season 1 of Our Flag Means Death was shot on a soundstage in Los Angeles, but for season 2, production moved to New Zealand. That gave Van Dyke a lot of advantages in terms of shooting natural backdrops to use on the production’s giant virtual environment screen, and in using experienced crews from past special-effects-heavy productions, from Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies to James Cameron’s Avatar movies.

“There were definitely a few pieces that were serendipitously to our advantage,” Van Dyke says. “New Zealand was where they shot a lot of Avatar stuff, and there just so happens to be an enormous tank on the lot. There are a bunch of Avatar crew who are SCUBA certified, because they’ve been shooting in that tank forever. This was not something we had to figure out — we didn’t have to send a bunch of grips and lighting technicians off to SCUBA school. So they were there, they had really amazing underwater photography teams, and obviously a really good stunt team that was able to train up Taika and Rhys to make sure the scene was working.”

Van Dyke points to New Zealand’s thriving mermaid freediving community as a boon when it came to designing Darby’s merman outfit. “There are a lot of incredible mer-tails out there,” he said. “We were able to take those, and [costume designer Gypsy Taylor] and her team brought them together to make these beautiful physical pieces, so Rhys was able to actually sell it and do the performance underwater.”

For Van Dyke, the sequence really started with the cliff-jump sequence, which actually used considerably more CG than the underwater shots. “That cliff sequence was a great culmination of effects, merging physical photography and our LED wall, because you can’t really put those two guys on a thousand-foot cliff,” he said. “The insurance alone would be out of control. Also, we’re not really in the business of having people fall to their deaths.”

The cliff sequence began with sequences shot off New Zealand’s Bethells Beach, using drones to capture images looking inward from the ocean and photogrammetry of a specific ledge for production designer Ra Vincent and the art department to reproduce in the studio.

“The wide shots use production plates of those cliffs, and the tighter shots use photography we shot specifically to build out the stitching of the cliff sequence,” Van Dyke said. “Hornigold and Blackbeard are standing on a cliff set. We tied in drone plates of the actual cliffs so we can see the ocean and really set up how terrifying [the drop would be]. Then he falls into the ocean, falls into our tank.”

Once Waititi was in the tank, the next step was the shot where the stone tied to a rope around his waist pulls him deep underwater. That part of the scene required more conventional, practical production trickery than the rest of the sequence.

“The tank is massive, but it’s not 300 feet deep. It’s pretty darn big, but it’s never big enough, as they say,” Van Dyke says. “So when Taika is being tugged by the rock, we actually shot that sideways. By turning the camera sideways, you get more length to the shot. The problem is the bubbles — they should be streaming off him and then rising to the surface, but if you’re going sideways, they’re going to come off him and then go up, perpendicular to him. So we took over with CG to make sure our bubbles were traveling toward where the surface was supposed to be.”

The CG in the underwater sequence was mostly used to hide the lighting and rigging necessary to shoot it, Van Dyke says. “Anytime you’re shooting anything underwater, there’s gonna be a lot of gear. There’s no way you can get around that. So we’re making sure we have [convincing deep-sea] lighting and the bubbles. And then there’s his performance — that’s a real performance.”

For Van Dyke, the real complication was the costuming and makeup for both Darby and Waititi. “Taika’s wig — I was amazed that thing stayed on so long. It’s a long shoot. He was shooting all day, all weekend. But things stayed on. It’s a heavy weight. And Rhys is really working underwater, so his tail has to be working, so it all feels seamless.”

The shot in the underwater sequence that seems most likely to be a CG creation has both men just floating deep in the sea, facing each other above a seemingly endless abyss. Again, Van Dyke says, he used very little CG for that shot, and it was mostly to hide the tank walls.

“In that case, we were not shooting sideways,” he said. “It’s essentially a locked shot. It was about getting them at the right depth underwater, and making sure the shafts of light above them were working properly. We don’t have to track as much, we don’t have all these moving elements, we don’t have to worry about where the bubbles are going. That one was really just about cleaning up the tank, doctoring out the sides of the shot, where we can see the water receding into blackness, then giving the base of the tank true depth, so it really feels like they’re suspended a hundred feet below the surface.

“Obviously, a fair amount of CGI and visual effects had to go into it. But at the same time, it was a moment where we really needed to let the story take over, and have the visual effects just get out of the way, man.”

The first three episodes of Our Flag Means Death season 2 are now streaming on Max.

Source: Polygon

#rhys darby #taika waititi #behind the scenes #ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd bts

[uglypastels]

Not Wholly Evil |IX| pirate!Eddie au [NSFW]

a/n we are getting so close to the endddd oh my god i am so excited and sad at the same time because i don't want this story to end as much as some of you, but I also cannot wait to share my next lil projects with you 🥰 thank you for all the support on the last chapter!

this chapter will include explicit scenes. Minors DO NOT Interact. 18+. if you have read the previous chapters but do/should not wish to consume this content, please read:

Chapter 9 (safe for work version)

Series Masterlist

word count: 13k

"semi dark fic" - READ the warnings:. (gun/sword)violence. blood. mention of severe wounds. minor character death. allusions to suicide. kidnapping. imprisonment. alcohol. open and deep sea. near-death experiences in water. men are pigs: mentions of non-con, but it does not actually occur. [in-dream] non-consensual behaviour. malnourishment and weight loss. paranoia. mention of poisoning. abuse. manhandling. lying. small wounds inflicted by fire. blackmail. binds and knifes. SMUT 18+ ONLY, MDNI - p in v sex. oral (f receiving). no condom (this isn't the 18th century. wrap it before you tap it). choking. thigh riding. jealous!eddie.

Chapter 9: Paragon

“Perhaps the wolf wasn't quite so dangerous as he pretended. Unfortunately, there was only one way to find out for sure——give him a little rope and see if he hung himself… And pray that he didn't tie her up with it instead.”

― Sabrina Jeffries, Dance of Seduction

He looked like he saw a ghost. And maybe he had. You didn’t feel like yourself, so who was to say if you were still alive? You had comprehended how you carried yourself back to the Hellfire. Standing in his room felt like you were looking down at yourself. Aware of everything around you but understanding none of it.

‘I thought you had left.’ He stepped into the room, leaving the door wide open. As he walked, you noticed he was clearing the way for you, allowing you to leave if you wanted to. His eyes were intently focused on yours and threaded lightly. Like any wrong move would cause you to disappear.

‘I wanted to,’ you admitted. You still wanted to. Your thoughts had screamed through the night for an escape. Yet, something tied you down to this ship and made you return.

‘Then why didn’t you?’ He came closer, and so did you. That string pulled at your ribs again, pulling you two closer. You had tried long enough to fight it to no avail. Whatever you thought you wanted did not compare to your subconscious need to be next to him. 

‘I don’t know.’ Deep down, you knew the reason, but the time was not there yet to admit it. In your mind, you still despised everything about him, this ship, the crew, and, therefore, yourself for needing his touch as much as you did at this moment. It was weak to give in to him like you did.

The candle’s light fell upon him at angles that brought something new out in him or maybe revealed what had always been there. The signs of the wear and tear of a life at sea. He wasn’t hiding it any more, letting all that pain be visible, and he looked beautiful. You held back from reaching out and tracing the thin scar against his brow or the flawed line of his nose that must have been broken once. The longer you looked at him, the more you realised that you could look at him in this way forever. 

And that scared you. 

Munson walked past you to his desk, occupying himself with whatever he could reach. It would have been good for you to have something to focus on instead of him, but you stood in the middle of the room with nothing but him to clutch onto. Neither of you spoke, stuck in an awkward limbo, tiptoeing around one another to see who would be the first to step over that line. The line that had kept you, your heart, safe until now. You could impossibly predict what was to happen if it was crossed.

The ship creaked as the tide softly bounced off it. For the rest, it was uncharacteristically quiet on board.

‘Is the rest coming as well? Will we be departing soon?’ It was ridiculous to change the topic in this manner, but you simply did not know what else to say, and this barrier between you and him was dreadful. You could sense it in the middle, waiting for that catalyst to burst. And you wanted it to. Just how?

‘No, I doubt they realised I’ve gone.’ He finally turned back to face you, leaning against the desk, arms crossed, eyes on the ground. If he could just look at you—would that make things easier or that much harder?

‘Why did you? Leave the tavern, I mean.’ With your heart pounding in your throat, tightening your breath, you stepped toward him. 

‘I noticed you were gone. Then I heard you had gone to the harbour with some man and I thought…. I grew worried.’

‘Why?’ You could not imagine him caring for you to go out, away from his crew and his festivities, to look for you. 

‘I know what you’re thinking, and at first, yes, I was thinking about the money,’ he admitted, which took you aback. You took a step closer. ‘But then I—when I realised, or thought, that I had actually lost you, I thought about how I would never see you again, and I realised—’ his words faded as you took your final step towards, letting your chest press against his. He finally let his eyes meet yours. 

‘Realised what?’ Considering your proximity and seclusion, you hadn’t meant to whisper, but it felt right. 

‘That I was scared’ His breath was shaky as his eyes took all of you in. ‘Of loosing you.’

‘I was scared too.’ And maybe that is what kept you from leaving. The idea that if you would go, there was a possibility that you would never see him again, and it was enough to hollow out your entire being with dread. It felt wrong. But that gnawing in your chest stayed there the whole night, even when you had returned to the Hellfire, and it only left once you felt his fingers intertwine with yours. A flutter of a touch at the fingertips.

‘And? Are you still scared?’ He matched your hushed tone with his response. The question was simple on its surface, but only the facade for an obliterating iceberg was the truth. 

‘No.’ Standing in front of him, feeling his breath on you, the warmth that radiated off him, his gentle touch on your skin, seeing the smile hiding in his features, you saw nothing to be scared of anymore. There was nothing to fear anymore. The voice in you that had screamed for help all those days was silenced for a final time when you leaned in to kiss him.

His lips were chapped, cheeks rough with scars and the light shadowy scruff of a beard. His touch was featherlight, as if he was scared to pursue it as if you were to break underneath him. It starkly contrasted the force he had pulled you in with hours before. The intensity had been dizzying, and yet this was what genuinely shut your mind down entirely. But you could tell that he was not there yet wholly. Something kept him guarded. 

You pulled away, but your lips still shared the same breath. When you opened your eyes, you were met with his and how they were shaking with uncertainty as he took all of you in. 

‘Is there something you’re still afraid of?’ you asked.

‘Many things,’ his hand found its place on your waist, ‘but mostly of myself,’ and gently pushed you away. ‘And what I will do to you. I have made so many mistakes, mistakes that hurt you, already in that I will have to live it for my eternity, but I do not know what I will do if I make one again.’ 

There was silence as you took in his words. You understood them, possibly more than anyone could, for they were yours. As your lips met, you thought if what you were doing would lead to your doom, if it would all end in a disaster, but could something that felt so right be so devastating?

He had let his eyes fall to the ground. You reclaimed the one step he had made you take, closing the gap between you once more and letting your hand guide him to look up at you.

‘Do you think that kiss was a mistake?’ Your heart beat faster than it ever had as you waited for an answer, but his lips remained shut, so you continued. ‘If so, do not play with my heartstrings, but tell me, and I will leave. I will return to my cell, and you can lock me up and never see me again until you bring me back home.’ It would only be a couple of days, and it would hurt to mend this extremely fragile piece of you that you had just opened, but like all wounds do, it would heal eventually.

‘Answer me, captain.’ You kept your voice as steady as possible, regaining the confidence you had built up since you got onto the ship. ‘Was that a mistake?’

‘No.’ And with that one final word, you both leaned in for a kiss. Your hand was still on his cheek, his holding you tightly, but you still felt that urge to pull yourself closer to him. As you felt the press of his chest fully against yours, he actually pulled his lips away from yours. He hesitated but finally spoke against the corner of your mouth. ‘But… call me Eddie. Please.’ 

You couldn’t help but smile into your next kiss. Just like that, all that weight of the world fell off both your shoulders, down into the depths of the ocean, never to be seen again. You didn’t hold back with this newfound freedom when you pushed him up against the desk. The furniture shuffled with a creak over the floor, and you could hear some things topple over at the impact. Still, neither of you cared, too occupied with one another. He could just about manage to extend his hand and begin to push all the loose items off the desk to make space for himself. The papers flew around you, and all the measurement equipment clattered onto the crowd. 

As the kiss intensified, Eddie shrugged and smoothly sat up on the desk, pulling you in with him. As he slowly let himself fall back, you followed, attached by the lips, hands, and hearts, until you practically lay on top, arms keeping you up from falling entirely onto him. Well, one hand, as the other found him and laced your fingers together once more. He had tried to make more space around you, pushing objects aside, when he cursed loudly.

You startled away and saw the clench in his jaw as he took a deep breath. He must have read your panic-stricken face as he showed you his hand. ‘It’s alright,’ his voice was calm, humour peaking through it. ‘I might have just put my hand right into the flame.’ And indeed, the side of his hand was glowing red. 

Hearing this did not put your mind at rest as you tried to grab his hand and inspect the damage more deeply, but he pulled it away from you, instead taking your fingers in his and kissing your knuckles. 

‘Don’t worry, my darling,’ he smiled while kissing your hand, ‘Can barely feel it.’

He had just made direct contact with fire; you doubted it would be alright, but then again, you had seen all the scars on his body. This would just be another small blister among the list of many. But you blinked the thought away. Tried your best to not think about the pain he had endured. You doubted he wanted you to feel pity for him and what had once happened to him. 

The look in his eyes was adamant. He needed you to let it go, so all you could do was sigh.

‘You’ve gone mad.’ 

Eddie chuckled at your comment as he let his lips travel over your wrist, over the length of your arm. ‘As mad as any other sane man.’ His kisses moved over the material of your shirt. The lack of contact that was so clearly there shot sparks of anticipation through you, but he took his time taking you all in until his lips reached your collar. He had practically strained his neck to reach you from his position. Some of you wanted to back away to see how far he would follow you, but your weaker portion gave into his touch and melted over it. 

He had just kissed your neck, sparking a fire through you on the spot, when a noise boomed over the silent ship, bursting you out of the solitary moment of bliss. In an instant, Eddie held you by the hips as he gently pushed you off him and got himself back on the ground. There was an alarm in his features, and so, when he looked at you and told you to “Stay here”, for once, you listened.

He closed the door behind him as he left to see what the noise was, and when minutes later, he had not returned, but there had also not been any more ruckus or signs of danger; you calmed down. Unsure of what to do now, you lay down on the bed. In the past few days, the bed had gotten more comfortable as you got used to it, but it still felt strange. You lay down on your side, facing the wall. The patterns in the wooden planks almost seemed to move in the shadowy light and, unfortunately for you, brought you into a trance of clarity and thoughts.

What were you doing? How could you have let all this happen? Kissing the man that had caused the death of so many people that you had deemed friends. How could you betray their souls by… by falling for him? You had lost control of all your feelings and emotions. 

It was a trick of the sea. You had simply been captured on this ship for so long that you did not know what was wrong or right. How else could you explain the yearning feeling that still circulated through you? Why else did you wish he was still here with you, touching you?

With all these thoughts occupying your mind, you must have missed Eddie walking back into the room, mumbling something about how it had been a few of his crew that stumbled back up to the ship. Too busy with your own mind, you did not hear him calling your name softly, assuming you had fallen asleep and telling you good night. You did not hear how deflated the last words came from his mouth. You only caught the sound of the door closing behind him. 

And soon you managed to turn all these thoughts off and fall asleep. Except then, they came back even stronger and in the form of dreams. You found yourself back on the Red Tail. The hawk flapped its wings on the flag in the wind and every man’s uniform. The sun shone brightly in its last few minutes before hiding behind the horizon. It was a strange illusion as you stared down at the ship and the two figures that stood out looking at the sparkling sea. You watched yourself talking to Admiral Carver.

‘I would have imagined you to have grown tired of the water by now,’ he laughed.

‘I won’t say I will be happy to return home, but I can’t ever see myself becoming tired of this view. It is beautiful.’ You leaned forward onto the balustrade and breathed in the salty air. ‘Besides, you have done this for much longer than I have, and you’re here too, so it can’t be that bad.’ It seemed it was only your first expedition while he had crossed the world several times. If anyone was to grow tired of it, you thought it would be him. 

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he had his arms behind his back, ‘but everything is more bearable when there is something back home to look forward to.’ 

‘I suppose so.’ You would not exactly know what he meant. Of course, you could not wait to see your father again, and your friends, but nothing at home gave you the sense that it genuinely anchored you there or drew your heart in for your return. ‘I am sure you miss your family very much.’

‘Yes, of course,’ He took a step closer to you, ‘but I will miss these moments.’

‘Oh,’ you were startled by his proximity, unsure how to respond. Politely, you smiled and tried to keep the conversation going, ‘I’ve enjoyed them too, uhmm-’, but you were suddenly thrown off-guard when you felt his hands on you. Before he had the chance to do anything, you were quick to push him off. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Taking our last chance before it’s too late.’ He leaned in again, and you stepped back. 

‘What about your–’

‘She does not need to know.’ The sea was a free playing field for most men, so what happened out there was not up to the women at home to know. You had seen adultery but never thought the admiral would participate in such activities. He had been drinking; maybe he wasn’t thinking straight. Before he would make any more mistakes, you attempted to walk away, but he caught you by the arm, putting all his strength into the hold.

‘Admiral, you’re hurting me.’ You tried to pull your arm back, and this is where things began to change. Where the dream made itself apparent. Carver’s handsome features turned into vicious angles as he spoke. 

‘So you’ll kiss Munson, but not me?’ 

‘What- what are you–’ you tried to get away, but it was as if he grew in size. And there were flashes. These flashes of light. Like lightning, there was no thunder, rain, or light. It blinded you, and you tried to regain your sight by blinking, but each time you did so, he seemed to change right in front of you. 

There was him like you knew him, but the next second he turned into this nightmarish version of himself, but there were moments when he wasn’t himself at all. You’d blink, and suddenly you saw Captain Munson. Still in that uniform, however, you would try to make sense of it all. Still, before you could, he would disappear again, and you would be looking into Carver’s blank eyes, and you’d see the blood dripping from his mouth as he spat out his words.

‘Don’t trust him.’

‘What?’ You had tears in your eyes, and your wrist burned from his touch. There was another flash of light. Eddie stood before you again, just as you knew him. 

‘Do not trust him.’

Don’t trust who? Who were you meant to trust, then? The questions rang through you as you woke up, head throbbing with pain, limbs sore and dehydrated. If you did not know any better, you would have blamed the rum you consumed the night before on everything, making you imagine all that had happened. Still, the sensation that Eddie had left on your whole body felt too real to be just a drunken dream or nightmare.

He was not in the cabin when you awoke, but you could hear him outside, yelling commands out. When you looked outside the window, you could tell by how the waves moved that you had departed the Saint Claire harbour and were on your way again.

You sat up in bed but remained still afterwards, uncertain what to do next. Some part of you wanted to go outside and see Eddie, talk to him about whatever it was that had happened that night. Still, a bigger side of you doubted you could ever look him in the eye again. Seeing your reflection from the glass doors of a cabinet in the room, of yourself in his bed, made you feel bad enough. So, staying in the room for the rest of the day was not an option either. You were already at the door, hand on the handle, when it opened, nearly crashing into you. 

‘Sorry,’ his apology was muffled. 

‘I was just on my way out,’ you muttered in the same awkward tone and walked past him. 

‘Wait,’ Eddie reached for you, and the memory of your dream of Carver made you retract away from him, regretting it as soon as you did. Eddie wasn’t him, but you treated him the same because of something your exhausted mind had decided to conjure up. Eddie kept his distance. ‘Can we talk?’

‘Later,’ you pleaded. This was not the right time. You could tell that it would not end well if you stayed there. 

But when would it be right? When would the stars align correctly for you to speak? It certainly wasn’t the next two days, as you kept walking in circles around eachother. You avoided him like the plague, and it was unlikely that he had not noticed yet. 

You kept yourself occupied with anyone else but him, really. Talking to Robin, Steve, and anyone else who seemed to require company as much as you. Almost as much, at least. It shocked you as well as them how smoothly the conversations went. While only a little was exchanged, neither side being too keen on sharing too much of their past, somehow, you still managed to fill hours with polite pleasantries. Some even showed you how to work around the ship, probably more than happy to give you some of their workload now. You didn’t mind. It was alright if it stopped you from overthinking everything that had happened in the past weeks. But it was still hard to do when you felt Eddie’s eyes on you. He’d watch you work the sails or anything else from afar, but when you’d try and catch him, he’d be suddenly occupied with something and walk away. 

The biggest surprise, however, came one evening when everyone had gathered for their final meal of the day. You had gotten your portion and were ready to return to the cabin when Robin pointed to the seat between her and Steve. You wanted to politely decline, feeling like you did not strictly belong in this dynamic—the crew’s meals felt more sacred, a moment for them to spend together, but they all saw your argument coming and shut it down. 

‘Never thought I’d say this,’ Wheeler, one of the lankier crewmates, said at some point, ‘but I might actually miss you.’ There was a cloud of agreeable laughter to which you belonged. It was funny, but what scared you was that you would miss them too when that eventual day of your return home would come. 

And it was coming.

Something about the air around you began to feel more familiar each day. And when you talked to Robin, you could sense that she knew how much time there was left. But each time you asked, she avoided answering straightforwardly. 

‘Not sure. But you know how seatravels are, you can never be sure… I mean, we should have been there days ago and yet,’ she laughed nervously, tying knots in a piece of old rope that someone had cut off once. 

‘I suppose you’re right.’ You had your own piece of rope and were toying with the frayed ends, pulling them apart mindlessly. You could hear Eddie talking to someone somewhere around, and you did your best not to look up. It had been days, but your tension still felt raw and strange. You wanted to simultaneously run into his arms and run away from him as far as possible, and you could not figure out which urge was the right one to follow.

‘It probably won’t take much longer, don’t worry.’ Robin said, her shoulder slumping as she untied another knot to remake it.

‘I’m not worried,’ you admitted. 

‘No, and you don’t need to be,’ Robin panicked, not wanting to give you the wrong impression of what she had intended to say, ‘but I’m sure you’ll be glad to be home.’ To this, you had no response because, very much like in your last days on your old ship, you had been eagerly awaiting your return home but did not feel like you were actually happy to go back. On top of that, you actually had the sense that you would miss this crew. By leaving, you would be leaving something behind, and you had never felt that before.

But it still did not feel right. Like a kink in your neck that you were trying to stretch out until it disappeared.

‘Can I ask you something?’ you said cautiously. 

Robin glanced up from her rope. ‘You always scare me when you say that.’ 

‘I hadn’t noticed I did it often.’ 

‘You’re quite inquisitive. It’s commendable, but dangerous.’

‘Should I be scared?’ You blinked. 

‘Not here, but in other parts of the world they’re not too keen on it, so just beware.’ She had tied a knot she couldn’t loosen anymore. ‘But what was your question?’ 

You took a deep breath. ‘Why did you target the Red Tail? And I know it was targeted, since the captain was aware what ship you were attacking.’ There was that other puzzle piece that was missing in your brain. How would he know if you were supposed to be on that ship or not? 

Robin froze and dropped her rope. You watched it fall to the ground and her reaching to pick it up clumsily. Once she did, she fumbled around even more with it. ‘I’m probably not the best person to ask this; I joined the crew late, I don’t know everything that’s going on around—’ she was getting distracted, losing the point of your question, or so you thought, ‘I had only heard things, but you have to know that people around here, we trust each other and that trust is earned. We might cheat once in a while in a game of cards or dice, but some things you just can’t lie about.

‘So, I didn’t need much convincing from the captain when he said that those— that those were bad men.’

‘He told you that my crew were bad men?’ 

‘They needed to be punished.’ Robin shrugged, but not in the way that made you think she thought indifferent. More so that, there was nothing she could do about it. It was a brief apology to you, not for what they had done, but as if she was sorry for being the bearer of the news. 

‘Punished for what?’ you asked, but Robin shook her head. Right, she wouldn’t be able to know, and you didn’t blame her. Was there anyone around willing to share more of the specifics of this situation? You felt like you had the right to explain what had brought you to their ship, but it would go past some lines of comfort for the men. Could you dare ask Eddie? 

But to ignore him for days just to come up with these questions could not be appreciated; then again, he owed you at least this after being the sole reason for your presence on this ship in the first place. He had caused all this mess. He could at least help you clean it up. 

You finished your conversation with Robin slowly, without any urgency to actually put it to an end. It must have been confusing to Robin, who saw how you tried to tie your sentences up to walk away, just to disentangle them just as she had been doing with her rope and keep pulling it back. Ultimately, she stopped it all and excused herself from the argument she needed back on her lookout post. She walked away, giving you this look that made it clear to you that she knew what you were planning to do and how apprehensive you were to do it. And whatever for? You had fought, punched, slapped and kissed Eddie in the past days without hesitation; why could you not just talk to him now?

Because that would actually mean something to you. It would unblur all the lines that connected you into a clear pattern, and you would have to live with those results, and you just were not ready for that yet. 

You took deep breaths as you walked up to the captain’s quarters. The door creaked as it slid open but was met with a resistant force as you collided with Eddie. He grunted lightly at the impact, and you began to apologise. 

‘Sorry,’ you mumbled, not expecting him to be so close suddenly. You had hoped to catch him at his desk, where the furniture could keep some kind of barrier between you. Still, now he stood mere inches away, towering over you and the heat of his body radiating onto yours. 

‘I was just on my way out.’ He scratched his beard casually, but his eyes said enough about how similarly he felt about your sudden appearance.

‘I hoped we could talk,’ you blurted out, and Eddie blinked.

‘Talk? Now?’ To this, you only nodded shyly. It had been too long. You had made him wait for days, which was simply too long. Why would he want to listen to what you had to say now? Eddie was ready to brush past you, but you were quicker, catching his arm and pulling eachother closer until your lips met in a chaste kiss. The suddenness stunned him, but for a blink of an eye before his muscles melted into position around you. It only confirmed your worst thoughts, how perfectly the two of you fit together, how your bodies simply locked into place with one another. The heat that grew between you could not only be felt by you. It was too strong for that. As much as you did not want to admit it, there was something there that you did not want to lose.

‘I’m sorry, ‘you said breathlessly, ‘for everything I’ve done in the past few days.’

‘You have done nothing to apologise for.’ He sighed.

‘Exactly,’ you jumped back at how loud you sounded. Still, his pull on your waist kept you close, ‘I have done nothing, while I should have stayed here with you, and we should have talked of, of whatever it is that stands between us, but—but I was scared. I thought I hadn’t been, but I was, and that, in turn, scared me even more, so I thought I needed time to think—’ 

‘And did you?’ He looked down at you inquisitively like he was observing a strange, yet highly fascinating, phenomenon in front of him. Something that he should not be enjoying as much as he was. The unwanted smirk appeared on his lips no matter how hard he tried to hide it. It made you aware of just how much you had tried to say in what short of an amount of time.

‘Yes,’ you said with a slow breath to help you calm down. At this, Eddie simply reacted with a gesture telling you to go on, to tell him what kind of discovery you had made. Would it be anything that could help your conundrum? Clear things up in your heads and maybe even hearts? You could not be sure, but it was a start if you just let those parts of you speak freely.

You took one more deep breath. ‘That night you asked me if I was scared, and I said “no”, but…’ you pushed past the shake of your voice. ‘But I realise now that that wasn’t the truth.’ As you announced this, the hand on your waist tightened its grip before leaving your body entirely. The immediate lack of contact made you regret your choice of words. Maybe you should have prepared what to say, but letting it come out unrehearsed and unplanned felt like the right thing to do. It would not cut out any of the emotions you felt. What you wanted him to know that you thought, so you stammered out your following words.

‘There is so much that I am scared of. It scares me how and how much I have changed in the past few days, and I am scared that I do not mind it. It scares me how much I enjoy being here and how much I want to be… with you.’ Your last words faded as you had not expected to hear yourself say them out loud. Eddie, who you had watched as he walked around the room in slow paces as he listened, must not have expected them, too, for he stopped to stare at you, dumbfounded.

‘Why?’ was the only thing he said in response. 

‘Because…’ you let out an exasperated sigh, walking up to him. You had somehow managed to find yourselves at his throne, ‘because this is not who I am supposed to be. I shouldn’t be. You are you; I am me, and nothing here is right.’ Yet the puzzle had never fit tighter together than it did now. But at the same time… ‘As much as I want to spend my days with you, I cannot stop thinking about all the chaos you have caused in my life. Whether on purpose or not…There is blood on your hands, Eddie.’ there were tears in your eyes. Eddie looked down at his hands as if you had meant it literally. They were pale and had a shake to them, but he quickly put them down to his sides.

‘And yet you’re still here.’ He said it with a distance, more to himself than anyone else, narrating the events as if putting it all into words could make it make more sense somehow, and maybe to him, it did. However, you were still utterly clueless and running in the dark.

‘I am.’ You nodded your head lightly. ‘And I wish I could explain why. To you and to myself, but I simply do not know.’

‘Let me pose you these two questions then,’ he spoke sternly, and you got the unexpected feeling that this would be a test you had to ace. ‘Are you still scared of me? Do you regret anything that happened between us?

‘Answer yes to either of my questions,’ he held two fingers up, ‘and I will make all of this very easy for you and disappear. You will never have to see me again but be honest.’ Looking into his eyes the way you were, it was difficult to lie, or it would have been if you had any intention of doing so. The word came easier to you than anything else had in your life, but you still needed to know some things before sealing your fate.

‘Before I answer, I need to know your business with the admiral.’

Eddie scoffed, looking out the window, ‘I could not care less about the admiral.’ Something in him tensed up despite his attempt to make his reply come out casually. Everything besides his eyes, which flickered with so many emotions simultaneously, you could not distinguish between them soon enough.

‘But the attack on my ship was deliberate, was it not?’ You did not need this to become another one of your rows and spoke as carefully as you could manage. If one of you began to raise your voice or fill your words with anger, it would take over the other, exploding fatally in the middle, and that is not what you wanted.

‘What do you remember from that day?’ He looked at you, head cocked to the side as he studied your face. He saw you blink slowly, trying to understand what he was implying.

‘I remember everything.’ How could you not? It was one of the most terrifying days of your life. ‘I remember being on the deck and seeing your dark sails and how I hid under that desk as the canons went off–’ 

‘Whose canons?’ He stared at you blankly, and you mirrored him perfectly. 

‘What?’

‘What canons did you hear go off? Who shot first?’ He did not say anything else, just stood still as you tried to reply with confidence that you lost as soon as you gave your answer some thought.

Everything had happened so quickly, and it was so loud. All you had tried was to block it out. But you heard the bangs. They came from all sides, but the first one... the first one was the closest.

Eddie must have seen the recognition on your face. ‘I know that those people were your friends. And I am sorry that that is how things-’

‘But you said I was not meant to be on board. You knew what ship it was.’ You cut him off at the memory. ‘You would have attacked either way, wouldn’t you?’

‘It is not that simple.’ He shook his head.

‘Isn’t it?’ 

‘No, and I wish I could explain, but I fear that whatever I tell you will only make you see the worst in me and them.’ 

‘You could at least try.’ You reached for his hand, and a bit of you leapt in relief when you saw he did not pull away. ‘I want to understand, Eddie. You do not know how horrible it is to live in this realm of uncertainty and oblivion.’

‘Would you rather live with the horrors of the truth?’ He asked genuinely, with the pain that exactly this truth had caused him in his eyes.

‘Is that not a choice I deserve to make by myself?’ You once again found yourself up against him. Funny how it always came back to this and how you would not have wanted it any other way.

‘You’ve said it yourself; I’ve hurt you enough times. I can not risk doing it again. I will not let myself do that.’ He brushed a strand of hair from your face, brushing his fingers over your cheek. ‘Now, will you please answer my questions?’

‘No,’ and with that, you answered both. Whatever tugged at you from the inside to feel such anxiety had nothing to do with Eddie.

On the contrary, you felt a sense of calm whenever you saw him. And you had wanted, really wanted, to regret those kisses, but you still dreamt of them at night, and it was all with a magical wonder that you wished to experience once more. Despite everything in your life that had led to this that would have told you to turn around and run away, you stayed firmly in your place in front of him with no intention of ever running away again.

Eddie leaned in, and you anticipated a kiss that never came as he spoke against the corner of your mouth, sending shivers down your spine. ‘I need you to say it, darling.’

‘I’m not scared of you, Eddie.’ The tremble in your voice had nothing to do with fear but all with the way he held you. His hand had moved down your cheek onto your neck, fingers wrapped around your throat, thumb caressing your jaw. His eyes pierced through you. ‘And I do not regret anything.’

You knew Eddie had seen all the far corners of the world. You must have come across the grandest of riches. Yet standing in front of him, you could not help but think how seeing Captain Eddie Munson beam his most genuine smile was the rarest and most beautiful treasure of them all. It was infectious; you could not help but smile at it. 

He let himself come close again, but just as your lips were about to touch, he spoke instead. Right against you, the hot air of his breath pricked at your skin with his light laugh. ‘Before all of this, had you ever imagined yourself here with me?’

As much as you had wished it was not true, ‘I did, actually.’ Your mind flashed to your dreams, the ones you had once thought were conjured up to plague you, but now you realised it was just your heart screaming out your deepest desires.

Like a reward, Eddie kissed your cheek for your reply. ‘Really? The princess had thought of me, a filthy pirate?’

‘I’m not a princess.’ You rolled your eyes playfully.

‘Out of all the things to dispute, you argue my words of affection?’ He chuckled, and you could feel the vibrations deep within his chest. 

‘There was nothing else to correct.’ You wanted to laugh but instead froze at the sensation of Eddie lightly putting pressure on your throat as he was still kissing pieces of your face. Just like that, everything in the past minutes disappeared from your mind. When he pulled away, you saw the mischievous glint in his eyes that once used to bring out fear of the worst in you.

‘Glad to know you haven’t changed too much, darling.’ With his hand around you, he gave you little choice but to look up at him. There was a moment in which both of you took everything of the other in. You tried to soak in all his features from this small distance, for some reason feeling the need to remember them all. Meanwhile, he read your face for any signs of reluctance, which he found none of. ‘You enjoyed that, didn’t you, princess?’ 

A question which brought a lot of enjoyment out of him.

Still taken aback by his actions, you stood there with your lips slightly parted, bewildered, so all you did was nod. And again, your response was rewarded with another kiss, finally letting you meet his lips while tightening his hold on you.  The weak sound that came out of your mouth at the feeling was an instinct. You had never heard yourself make such a sound, and he must have known it somehow as his grin grew wider against you. 

The kiss grew in strength by the fleeting second as you both lost control over your bodies, just letting them speak for themselves. It was messy and heated. The pent-up tension that had been sitting between you was finally finding its release. Eddie’s hands roamed over your body, almost in a hunger-like manner, devouring you with his touch alone. Maybe this hunger felt too real when Eddie’s teeth grazed over your neck, sending an unknown spark through your body at the sensation.

You held onto him tightly, one hand on his shoulder as the other rooted itself in his dark locks—which made you soon realise that the tiniest of motions of you caused a reaction in him as well, in the form of a low hiss as you pulled the hairs on the back of his neck. It had been an accident, as you tried to keep yourself up when the pleasure he brought you made you feel light as a feather.

Eddie hummed at your response as his hands continued their wandering path across your body. The pressure of his palms, combined with the slow and tantalising pace at which he moved, drove you to press your body eagerly against him, which, in turn, only spurred him on to continue down this track of your curves. His movements got rougher as he kept going.

With your urge to keep your bodies close, you quickly caught on Eddie walking backwards. You followed him mindlessly until he found his throne seat and pulled you along with him, right on top of his lap. At this proximity, you could feel all of him underneath you.

‘Tell me,’ he kissed you briefly between words, ‘have you ever been with a man before?’

‘Yes,’ you dared to reply with the truth. Anywhere else, it would have been considered a great shame, a sin of the highest degree, but with Eddie, somehow, you felt like he had wanted that to be your answer. You tried to focus on his face, that smile he shot up at you and the short answer you gave him, instead of how his hands roamed over your thighs. Even with the fabric of your trousers in between, his effect on you was immense. He must have felt how you tensed up when he reached your core. 

‘Did anyone ever touch you like this?’ 

‘Uhm, no, not in this way.’ You struggled with the words as he let his fingers press over your most sensitive parts, everywhere all at once. You could barely keep track of it. Another moan escaped you as his hand moved over your breast. Even with the fabric keeping your modesty intact, he had still found a way for his fingers to move smoothly across your nipples. The feeling lulled you into comfort, brewing the heat inside your chest. And so, you gasped as, with one aggressive pull, Eddie ripped the material of your shirt in two, revealing you to him entirely. Your eyes were wide in shock as his darkened with want.

‘Not scared of me yet, are you, princess?’ His hand was on your ribs, waiting for permission to touch your bare skin. 

‘No,’ your voice sounded like a hushed, airy whisper. Eddie smiled but still hesitated with his subsequent actions. As the shirt sleeve fell off your shoulder, he kissed you again. Except this time, his lips met your breast. The arch in your back, the tug of your hips towards him, was an almost mechanised reaction to it. And with it came the friction of his thigh against you. 

‘Eddie.’ His name sounded shaky coming from you as you could barely inhale a steady breath, too occupied with him.

‘That’s right, princess.’ He groaned as his lips remained on your skin, kissing the valley of your chest. With each kiss, your want for him grew, but your movements over his thigh barely covered the needed friction. You dug your nails into his shoulders, making him groan out in pained pleasure. He cursed before taking you by the hips. ‘Stand up.’

You did as he asked, something that did not go unnoticed by either of you. Eddie chuckled as he looked up at you, chin on your stomach, lips nearly pressing against it, so close you could feel the vibrations of his voice. 

‘So you can be good for me.’

A snide remark was already forming on the tip of your tongue, but Eddie was quicker. Smoothly, he pulled down your trousers and let them pool at your ankles. You stood in front of him in only your torn-up shirt. His large eyes were on you up until the moment his face made contact with your core, and at that moment, everything went black. You could just about make out that you held him close to you, pulling at his hair; as for the rest, the world was turning upside down and around at a speed that made everything seem like a sea full of stars. Your moans filled the room as his tongue licked through your slit. 

You assumed that with how he held you with one hand, his fingers would leave marks for days, but the other was much lower. You could hear the sound of a belt unbuckling. He was clearly struggling to work around his clothes with only one hand, especially with most of him already preoccupied with you and your pleasure. Never before had you seen such kind of ferocity in a man. Not when he pulled himself closer to you and practically fell to his knees from the throne. You surely would have fallen back if it had not been for him and the desk that hit your legs and now acted as an extra grip. It was especially needed when Eddie pulled your leg over his shoulder, gaining even more access to you. 

The desk kept sliding back with the force at which he held you in your place, grazing the floor, but it was all blocked out by your moans. They were filled with curses and the repetition of his name as your vision blurred with ecstasy and your body tightened with need. There was no possible way that the rest could not hear you through the thin walls of the cabin, but you could not care less about them. At this moment, they simply did not exist. 

‘You taste absolutely divine.’ Eddie spoke while kissing your inner thigh, making your legs even weaker. You noticed his lips glistening, never looking more kissable than ever before. 

He had run your mind through a mill; words were hard to come by. All you could muster out was a weak hum as you let your hand brush through his hair. At that, he nuzzled himself between your legs again, this time much gentler, and took his time kissing every inch of skin he had access to, giving you the time to catch your breath while still keeping you on that high edge.

‘I—I never…’ you still struggled to form a sentence.

‘Hmm,’ he kissed your stomach, ‘I know.’ And he slowly rose to his feet, catching your face in one more passionate kiss. You had gotten so used to how he tasted—rum, tobacco, sea air— that your flavour threw you off for a moment, but soon enough, you were sinking into him just as before. And again, you could hear the struggling twinkle of a locked belt buckle. 

‘Would you be a doll,’ he said with his amusement running down your cheek, ‘and help a poor man out.’

You reached for his trousers, undoing the belt and unbuttoning them so they could drop down his thighs. You had felt it before, how aroused he had grown, but seeing it made you take a step back. 

‘Nothing to be afraid of, darling.’ He grinned, placing a hand on your cheek. The other made itself comfortable between your legs, toying with your wetness. 

‘I know.’ You looked into his eyes. The warmth of them had burned up into a dark and hungry desire. Putting a light pressure onto his shoulders, you pushed him back down into the chair. Eddie practically bounced in the seat, taking you all in as much as you took the moment to look at him. Your flicker of confidence in the moment when you thought you knew what you were doing fizzled, but he must have read that off of you, as the next second he was the one pulling you down. 

‘Was this how you expected it to be,’ he murmured against your ear, ‘when you thought about us.’ 

‘No,’ you admitted. It was nothing like you had imagined. All your dreams had been of what you had thought he was; careless, dangerous, feeding off your fear. There had been none of this passion that you felt now. None of the heat, the tenderness or the feeling.

‘Anything you’d still like to change,’ he kissed the soft spot of skin behind your ear that made you shiver. 

‘No,’ you gasped. You could feel him against you, just waiting for the moment to enter you. The two of you were dancing around it, letting other make that next move, the plunge off the cliff, with no return. You shuffled over his thighs. One more kiss would seal the final deal when you moved your hips up and he adjusted himself infront of you.

The moan you let out at the feeling of him inside you, of him stretching your walls and filling you whole, was impossible to miss. Ships from miles away could probably tell what was going on, but again, they were not a part of your universe in this moment. Just you. You concentrated at the pace he was making you keep up with. The roll of your hips against the grind of his. Each thrust went deeper and harder making Eddie more aggressive in the most blissful of ways. There was nothing else to think about, because why would you when this felt so good? Reality went lost on you, until you felt his fingers dig into your side, a pain rushing through you. 

Both of you froze.

‘What’s wrong?’ Eddie immediately looked to where he had held you, pulling the remaining pieces of your shirt up to reveal the scar. The rough skin was a stark contrast to the rest of you. He met your eyes again. ‘Does it still hurt?’

‘It’s just sensitive.’ You wanted to push his hand away, cover the mark up again so neither of you had to be reminded of it. It had been a stupid mistake, that much you knew, and it was not as if you could change the past, so why let it pester you? But Eddie was not the kind to give up easily. He pushed the shirt material back up, keeping your hand away from him, to inspect the damage he had caused. 

‘I’ve done a lot in my life that I will forever regret,’ he kissed your shoulder as his thumb traced over the scarred line, ‘but this will probably haunt me the longest.’ His words and touch, combined with how you sat in his lap, still full of him, got you lost for words. Because, of course, you had hoped that this was his sentiment, you understood and appreciated his words, but what else was there to say? The only thing you could think of replying, which felt silly to do seeing your current position, was ask for some clarification.

‘What happened? I would have thought you had more control over your sword than that.’ You aired the conversation with a bit of laughter, but it only spurred him on to thrust deeper into you.

 ‘I had thought so too,’ he kept moving his hips forcefully, ‘I had hoped so,’ he kissed you sloppily, ‘but I lost it all when I saw you with him.’

‘Who?’ you asked. Maybe under different circumstances, you could have thought more clearly to realise what he was speaking of, but that did not seem possible. 

‘Harrington,’ the name came out of him with a bitter taste. Apparently, the feelings from that day had not disappeared as far as he had thought, but now he could let these frustrations out in a less hazardous manner. It still took a toll on you, but there was no pain to speak of. Just pure pleasure. 

Still, the mention of the crew member had surprised you. ‘Why– why would you—’

‘The way he held you, smiled at you, don’t you think I had wanted to do that? From the moment I saw you—but all I did was drive you away. It was just another reminder of my failure and before I knew it I—’ he stopped himself, still unable to properly speak of what happened. You kissed the bridge of his nose. 

‘For what it’s worth,’ you tugged at the words to come out cohesively, ‘I never thought of him as—’

‘It does not even matter what you think of him,’ he laughed, more so at himself, ‘You could fall for and by happy with any man on this earth and I could make my peace with it. I just don’t want to be the reason for your suffering.’

‘I think—’ a moan burst through your thought with another deep thrust, ‘I think you have managed to pay back any of your wrongdoings.’

‘Oh, darling, I haven’t even started to repay my debts.’ And so, Eddie kissed your neck, over and over, and with those kisses moved down to your brest. Your head rolled back with a soft whine at the attention he gave you, if not with his mouth, than the hand that kneaded your flesh and played with your nipples. 

As he kept going, and as your hips met his and the pleasure burst through you, you could feel everything coming to a close. The tightness in your body swelled while your control over it strayed. There was no possible way you could hold on for much longer and from the looks of it, Eddie had no plans on making you wait. He bucked his hips into you harder and harder, almost impossibly for you to keep it all in. You could explode with this pleasure and that is exactly what he wanted.

‘Mmm c’mon, princess. Feel so good around me,’ he hummed, ‘could anyone make you feel this good?’ 

‘Just you,’ you moaned out, holding tightly on to him as you felt the tension build up in you. 

‘That’s right,’ he had a smug smile across his face that you wished you could wipe off, and you would if you did not need him to keep doing whatever it was he did. Were his fingers back between your legs? Rubbing tight circles, sparking up your sensitivity. ‘Just me.’

‘Just you, Eddie,’ his named squeaked out from between your teeth when he reached the deepest part of you.

‘I’ll never get enough of you saying my name.’ 

‘Eddie,’ you repeated it in in a haze with his final thrusts that finally brought you over the edge. Stars fell over you in pleasure as Eddie slowed down his movements, letting you come down from the high. He held you tightly in his arms as you let your head fall on his shoulder until you fell into a comfortable silence. There was only the rush of the waves and your tired breaths that filled your ears.

Once your heart settled back to a steady pace, you knew it wasn’t safe. As good as this moment felt, it wouldn’t last. Whatever this was, there was no possibility in which it would outlive this voyage. Then, once it was over, it would hurt. That much you knew. Possibly more than anything had hurt before, and you would just have to be on the lookout for that end until then to let yourself become at peace with it. There wasn’t another choice, as this idea always stayed with you in the back of your head from that moment on. When you fell asleep in Eddie’s arms that night, you thought how many more days you got to wake to in such bliss as you did the next morning.

You could not tell if Eddie had these troubles, you could not tell, for he went through his following days much like before. The only difference was that his free minutes were now occupied with you.

It had not been your intention to make it so obvious to the crew, but there was also so little you could hide from them. Nothing could escape the dozens of interested eyes, so why hide your affection towards their captain? He certainly was not making any attempts. Any chance he got, he found himself at your side, holding you, kissing you, then behind closed doors, do all the other unspeakable things to you that made the others turn green of envy. 

Your mornings and afternoons were much the same as they had been before the night of the storm and the Hellfire’s arrival at Saint Claire, as you still spent it in each other's company. The difference was now that instead of being separated by the large oak desk, Eddie would often pull you into his lap to sit in the throne, if not making himself comfortable with you on the bed. The nights began with kisses and limbs tangled with eachother and merged into a joined slumber. Unfortunately, as happy as your days felt, it would not stop the nightmares from coming, but each time you would awake in a cold sweat or with shaking hands, he would be right there to coax you back to peace. What surprised you, however, was that you would do the same to him. 

Somehow, the thought of the notorious captain waking up screaming in the middle of the night, chest heaving, eyes wide with fear, had never occurred to you. You had never imagined him reaching for your thigh to ground himself as his reality spiralled in the dark.

‘Shh,’ you held him tightly, ‘it’s okay.’ 

Neither of you asked what the dreams were about, knowing you could do nothing about them. You could just help the other through it. And then, each time, the dreams that followed were much sweeter. 

Then you’d wake up in each other’s arms long before the rest of the world seemed to. Those few blissful moments where nothing could disturb you and the time you could spend in that bed was endless. 

Except it very much was not. And you realised it exactly through what you thought would be your escape. 

It was a sunny morning. The golden sunrays illuminated the cabin as you reached for Eddie, just to find the side of the bed to be empty. Only his impression in the covers, the faint temperature his body had radiated onto them, was still there. It could not have been long since he had gotten up, and indeed, you caught him standing at the window—leaning against it, more like. His trousers were loose on his hips, and his shirt was still on the ground around you. 

Grabbing that shirt and throwing it over your naked body, you walked over to him, and he looked in your direction as soon as he heard your footsteps. The smile in his eyes was genuine but weak. As soon as you were close enough, he pulled you into an embrace, twirling you around so your back would hit his chest and you could look out at the sea. With how the sunrays sparkled across the waves, it all felt like a dream, too good to be true, but you did not know yet that the dream was at the end of its tether.

‘I really am sorry,’ he mumbled, having his face already nuzzled in the crook of your neck, kissing the spot where it met your shoulder.

‘What for?’ Apologies had become a frequent appearance in his vocabulary, showing up in almost every conversation, if not sentence.

‘You know.’ Yes, you did know. For everything. He held a moment of silence, enjoying your presence in his arms for a little longer, before speaking again. ‘I just keep thinking about how everything between us happened, and if it had not been for me, we could have had more.’

‘I’m just as guilty.’ You had been stubborn, aggressive, and just as blind to your feelings. 

‘Highly doubtful statement.’ He laughed, and his breath tickled the hairs on your neck.

‘I don’t think so.’ You shrugged in his hold.

‘Still just as stubborn, aren’t you, princess.’ He squeezed you tighter. 

‘Is that not one of my most desirable attributes?’ You spun yourself around in his hold and quickly wrapped your arms around him. Doing so, hearing his tone and joy in his  voice, you had expected to see him smiling, but he looked just as sombre as when you had walked up to him. ‘What’s wrong?’ Your hand mindlessly began to trace over the scars on his chest, knowing it brought comfort to both you and him by now.

Eddie shook his head, holding back a laugh. ‘You know…’ he kissed your forehead,  ‘when I woke up, I saw you lying there, with the sun shining on your face, and you looked so peaceful, I had honesty considered just locking you away and keeping you forever, but I am a man of my word, am I not?’

‘I…don’t understand.’ You tried to see the meaning behind his words in his eyes, but there was nothing, and it only got harder to figure out when he held his forehead against yours, keeping you close. You still tried to make sense of what he said when you saw it. There, in the far back corner of your eye. So far, it could have been a play of light, and yet it was more real than anything. So undeniably real it crushed everything around you without question. 

From the angle the ship stood at, that was as much as you could envision through the windows, and thus you ran out of the room. As much as you did not want to leave Eddie behind, knowing it could be one of the last moments the two of you had, you ran out onto the deck to meet the silhouette of mountains against the rising sun. The longer you looked at it, the clearer the details became. The ridges of the mountains, the forests, the watch towers and houses. The uniformed ships that stood in the harbour.  

You knew this day was coming, you had been waiting for it, and yet, now that it was right there in front of you, you wished to be as far from it as possible. In what must have been shock, you took a couple of steps back just to collide with something—someone. You turned around to see Eddie and his soft but sad smile.

‘Welcome home,’ he announced.

Home, sweet home.

Your head turned between him and the land in the too-near distance, waiting for one of them to disappear, maybe even both. Why was this so difficult for your mind to comprehend? Why were the first words to come from your mouth, ‘Can we turn back?’ 

‘As much as I would want to,’ he sighed, ‘I’m sure they’ve noticed us by now.’ They must have. The watchers in those towers had the eyes of hawks, one of the reasons why your town was named after the bird.

‘So, what do we do?’ This is not how someone who is to be returning to their family after months spent with criminals was meant to respond. Everything about this was so wrong.

‘Go put your dress on.’ Eddie cocked his head back to the cabin. ‘I doubt they will appreciate you wearing this, as much as I adore it on you.’ That is when you realised you stood out on the main deck wearing only his shirt. ‘I’ll meet you in a few minutes.’ And with that, he gave you that look he had given you all those times before when you had been too headstrong in your own actions. Please, listen to me. It will be alright.

You walked back, feeling like you were floating, but not anywhere near the same way that you had the previous few days. It did not feel like you were weightless, on a cloud, free of worry or from the world. You were drifting. Far out into the abyss with nothing to hold on to. In this same state, you walked over to the wardrobe, where you had hung your dress, removed the item of clothing you had on and put on the old and tethered garment. It had once fit you like a glove, but you were far from the person it was measured for.

Just as you finished putting it on, the door opened, and Eddie walked in. 

You didn’t want to look at him. Not because of anger, you had, after all, no reason to be angry at him at that moment, but because you were sure that if you looked into those brown irises again, you would break down. He must have had the same idea as you as he walked past you, only grabbing the nearest shirt off the rack, and making a headway to the desk.

‘What are you going to do now?’ After all, that had been what pulled you two together, the money your father would offer for your return. That is what kept you on this ship safe for as long as it did… although, in retrospect, you doubted that Eddie would have ever done anything to you. Maybe he had always intended to bring you home before even speaking to you. Perhaps the money made no difference. But funnily enough, you wanted him to get it. Something in you, a deep instinct, told you that it was what he deserved.

‘Write a random note,’ he said, and you could see he was doing his best not to laugh. ‘Then we’ll send the note out, hope it reaches your dearest, and we’ll make the exchange.’ His words were quick and emotionless, but you noted the hint of novice apprehension in his plan.

‘You’ve never done this before, have you?’ you asked as you made your way up to the chair across from him.

‘Try not to sound too disappointed over my lack of experience in selling beautiful maidens back to their prosperous fathers.’

‘Not at all,’ you shook your head, grabbing the piece of parchment and quill from him. ‘But let me. It will be proof of life, and besides, your handwriting is unrecognisable. He won’t be able to read any of it.’ 

Eddie stared at you blankly as you began writing. 

Dear father, 

But what were you to write? The ink dripped off the quill as you pondered on the words. For a message that was quite clear, it was hard to actually phrase it and write it out. By the time you had signed your name at the bottom of the page, the Hellfire had almost reached the coast. You read it through once more: 

Dear Father, 

I know it has been a long time since you last heard from me. The Red Tail is no more; I was the only survivor, to my knowledge, saved by a crew of rogue sailors. They have kept me locked away but are willing to free me for the price of 5.000 pounds. Please meet me at noon at the Star Port for the exchange.

Love, 

Your daughter, 

—

You had decided against the mention of piracy or anything specific about the ship’s sinking, knowing that it would only drive your father away from pain the ransom. Eddie had been unable to keep still while you wrote your drafts but now stood behind you, hands on the backrest of your chair, reading the note along with you, over your shoulder.

‘Who would have thought, my darling extorting her own father.’

‘I am doing no such thing!’ You looked up at him, ‘I am simply… aiding you in extorting my father.’ when it came to this, you had little sympathy for your father. He had plenty of money to spare and often spent it on ridiculous causes. A faux rescue of his only daughter could surely fit in between those other purchases.

There was a knock on the door, which Eddie welcomed, and Harrington walked in. 

‘Got any mail for me to deliver, cap?’ it had been unanimously agreed that Harrington was the most inconspicuous of the whole crew and would be able to walk through the city unbothered to deliver the message. 

You had just been in the middle of folding the parchment. The last thing left was to let the wax melt to keep the corners together. With the seal done, you handed Steve the letter. He smiled at you with thanks, but his face hid an expression of loss, almost. A farewell. But before he left, you clutched him in an embrace, almost knocking Steve over.

When the door closed behind him, it was only a matter of waiting. After your fifth round of pacing through the room, Eddie walked up in front of you, blocking your already quite well-outlined route. He had met you right in the middle. 

‘I would prefer if you did not spend our last moments together walking holes into my carpet.’ 

‘You do not have a carpet,’ you quipped. 

‘Must you be so difficult now?’ He laughed that laugh you cherished so much before he placed his hands on your cheeks and kissed you the way you adored even more. The sun was almost at its peak, and so was your heart, and you had no idea what to do when it would finally fall. Either way, you would find out in a few minutes.

‘Do you think—’ 

‘Highly doubtful,’ Eddie said somberly before you could even finish your thought. ‘You had said it yourself, darling; you are you, I am me. This is not meant to work.’ But what if it could, you wanted to shout, shocking yourself for the millionth time on board this ship.

‘Well, then it had been an honour being your captive, captain.’ You said with a deep breath to keep your composure up.

‘Oh, don’t look so sad just yet, princess, the real fun is only about to begin.’ At this statement, you blinked slowly. ‘Or did you think you were done aiding me?’

‘What else do you need me to do?’ 

‘Since you mentioned it, I think we need to make you look the part of my sweet captive. Make your father believe we really had kept you all good and locked up, hmm?’ He grinned. ‘I really did not do a good job at this, did I? Got you all spoiled up here.’

‘It was much appreciated.’ You giggled, incapable of keeping a straight face when Eddie got like this. Looking back, you could barely imagine the cold and dark exterior that he had once posed in front of you since he had been an entirely different person underneath that. Then again, so were you. ‘So, what did you have in mind?’

‘A lot,’ he licked his lips, ‘but I don’t think we have the time for that. We’ll probably have to do with tying you up like a pretty gift—just your hands, of course,’ he quickly added as he saw your eyes widen. ‘And I’ll be sure to not make it too tight.

‘Alright,’ you nodded. After all, you trusted him. You watched him look through the room for something to wrap around your hands. In the end, he found a piece of rope hanging among the many items on his wall. It was a bit too long for even the intricate, but relatively weak, knot he tied over your wrists—enough to give the impression of captivity, but in reality, barely grazed your wrists. He made sure to check. 

And then it was time. You walked out of the cabin for the final time. The room in which you had spent so many tumultuous days and nights. A silly part of you wanted to actually run down the ladder into the lower deck to see the holding cell one last time. For what reason, you could not fathom. 

Eddie guided you with a hand on your back, down the gangplank, which wobbled with every step you took. You tried to keep your breathing under control, but then again, if this had been a real threat to your life, you would probably feel similarly. The walk down the harbour was the longest of your life. There just came no end to it, and you could not, frustratingly enough, make your mind up if you wanted that or not. After all, each step closer to the port was one step further away from him… and when had you become so dependent on him? Weeks ago, you had thought up visions of killing him in his sleep; now, you could not think of life without him. 

Your thoughts were still fighting for some kind of cohesion when you saw him walk down the street. Accompanied by his usual entourage of guards. Two of them carried a large trunk between them, which must have been filled with gold or other treasures to meet the demand.

‘Papa!’ You screamed out; an incautious urge to run towards him propelled you forward, just to be pulled back by Eddie. You glanced his way, and your breath hitched at what you saw. In the short amount of time that might have felt like an eternity that it took you to walk down the harbour, he had turned into what you could only describe as his old self. The same version of him that you had seen when you were “welcomed’ aboard the Hellfire. The Eddie that terrorised your nightmares. His eyes were pointed like daggers at your father. 

He, in turn, stood aback at the sight of who had been holding you. Most of the men around him did, in fact. It caused a bit of a stir, the murmur of his name travelled in disbelief, but Eddie was the first to speak up in full volume.

‘Governor. I see we meet again.’

‘Munson.’ Your father always had the skill to look unimpressed at the sight of any man, always seeming to be above them, and even now, he did a good job hiding any other emotion, but you could see the crack of fear breaking him on the edges. It was, however, quickly replaced as he spoke in his usual tone of business.

‘Munson. What are you doing here?’

‘Why, returning your precious jewel, of course.’ He grinned, pulling you closer to him. Some of the guards leapt forward but were stopped by your father and Eddie, who reached for the knife at his side. All eyes were on you and him as he let the blade slowly track over your arm. ‘Don’t wanna do that, gents. It will only cost us more trouble.’ 

‘You got the gold, Munson, now let her go!’ There were still several feet between the two sides of the deal. Eddie looked around theatrically. 

‘Do I?’ He cocked his head in his own direction. The two men in charge of the trunk hauled it over to you. You had no idea how Eddie was meant to carry it back to the ship. As they brought the gold over, your father spoke again. 

‘Is she well? Unharmed?’ 

You nodded, but Eddie nudged you with the hilt of his knife, his lips against your ear, ‘C’mon, darling, the man’s asked you a question.’

‘I am fine, father.’ You spoke. By that point, the men reached you and, with a final kiss to your temple, Eddie let you go. You were immediately pulled out of his reach by the guards. They must have thought they were holding you up as your legs objected to moving. You were unable to look away from him. All up until you felt your face pressed against your father’s jacket. 

‘There, there, it is alright,’ he hushed, and it took you a moment to realise why. You were crying. And if only he, or anyone else, understood that it was for all the opposite reasons. No fear or relief was escaping you through those tears. It was a loss as you saw Eddie standing there, bowing down at the end of his performance, blowing you a kiss goodbye.

It was the panic when you saw the rest of the people in the harbour. All of their eyes on you. On him. None of them were simple bystanders or civilians. 

Your dream had been crumbling into ruin all these days, but this was the final blow. All of it came down, all at once, and it started with your father’s call.

‘Guards!’, and suddenly the tenfold of guards appeared out of all possible directions. They had him surrounded, weapons at the ready. Eddie had nowhere to run. Your father spoke clearly, cutting the silence with the blade of his words. ‘Munson, I arrest you on charges of murder and high treason!’ 

Chapter 10

thank you so much for reading!! if you want more of where this came from, check out my masterlist.

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@nope-thanks @seventhlevelofhell @strangerfreaks @hangmanscoming @blueberrylemontea-fanfic @vintagehellfire @raven-rust @eddiesguitarskills @taccobelle @imjusteddietrashatthispoint @lunar-corgimon

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#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson au #eddie munson smut #eddie munson angst #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson series #pirate!au #pirate!eddie #pirate!eddie munson #fanfiction #fanfic #fic #imagine #smut #angst #fluff

[screechingsandwichhologram]

dsmp characters & how likely it is they are an avatar of each fear part one : ctommy

web : 1/10 - much much more likely to be a victim rather than an avatar. one point for shroud

eye : 3/10 - i think he'd be more likely to be a victim rather than an avatar. however in exile arc and just discduo in general he does come in contact with the eye a lot. he's watched. a lot. also he has become the main character so that's a point to the eye and hes being watched all the time about that. EDITED : previously i gave this 1/10. however someone in the tags pointed some things out so i have upped the points.

stranger : 0/10 - he's not stranger. at all.

spiral : 1/10 - again he's not spiral.

lonely : 11/10 - holy shit my god ctommy is so so so lonely to me. so so lonely. consider exile. consider pogtopia. consider any moment ever. he Is a lonely avatar

vast : 9/10 - there are SO many vast coded things about c!tommy. the tower. his limbo. even the sleepwalking into the sea feels vast to me

hunt : 0/10 - ctommy is not a vengeful person. not at all. it's like the main part of his character he could not be hunt

slaughter : 0/10 - again ctommy hates violence. nope

flesh : 1/10 - i can't really see it? but maybe slightly

buried : 5/10 - now this one i can see. and i think most of the reasoning for this is smaller stuff but i really do think ctommy would and could sit in the mud and sink forever. however he's also claustrophobic so minus one point for that

corruption : 3/10 - hmmm. my main reasoning is that he's totally the bugs are friends kinda guy. i don't think he's really into disease or like any of the other stuff tho. minus one point for being literally immune to the egg

desolation : 3/10 - okay so like the whole arson thing. i get it. however like all the other stuff is not his style. loss of potential ? like yeah but no

dark : 3/10 - the main point for this is his limbo. uh that's kinda it. i don't think he's necessarily opposed to the dark it's just not really too much of a thing

end : 2/10 - those points are for being dead.

extinction : 1/10 - he's not extinction. like in theory i can kinda kinda see it so that's the point but he's just so much about life and the little things and living in the moment that i really can't see extinction

end notes : lonely / vast combination avatar. victim of the web.

#c!tommy #ctommy #tommyinnit #ctommyinnit #c!tommyinnit #dsmp lore #tma #tma dsmp #tma fears #the fears #the entities #the magnus archives #rain feathers dsmp

[arandompigeon5]

just roll with it riptide and siblings aeughhhhh

they all lost them but in different ways

to Jay losing Ava was like falling off a cliff. She was alive one second and gone forever the next. She was helpless, unable to have done anything to stop it. She didn’t even have a clue Ava was in danger until it was far too late. And maybe when she originally became a pirate that felt like betrayal to Ava.

And then she loses chip too. and this time she could’ve done something. She could’ve saved him. At least in her head. And she failed to do that and now her friend is a walking corpse. She’s stuck in limbo, hovering midair off the edge of the cliff, with no way of knowing if she’ll be able to get him back again.

chip didn’t have anybody for half of his life until he met the black rose pirates. And that was good. The best he’s ever had it. Something he chases desperately for the rest of his life, unable to appreciate the good things he has now. He lost all that in one night. He lost Lizzie in one night and was convinced she was dead for the longest time.

and then he meets her again and she’s trying to kill him until she realises it’s him. Now she’s leading a rebellion. Now she’s planning an attack on a navy base. Now she’s a soldier. And he barely sees her now, and when he does it’s usually because somethings gone wrong. He has to live with knowing she’s out there doing her own thing. He just wishes they could be as close as they used to be.

To Gillion, a sister was something earned, and something that could be taken away if he didn’t ‘deserve’ it. He lived in uncertainty, no way of knowing how long it would be until he saw her next. She was his only safe space. The only place he could be a child.

and presumably he sees it as his fault they were split up. He’s the one who fucked up and got exiled and that’s why they didn’t see each other for ages. He lived with that guilt, and the constant fear of wether she was ok or not for months.

a sister is no longer a reward, but the uncertainty of when he’ll see her is still there. And maybe he blames himself this time as well. If she wasn’t off trying to protect him or get revenge on the elders or whatever it was she was doing, he would be able to see her. But instead he’s in the Black Sea, painfully aware he might never see her again

#el’s rambles #jrwi #just roll with it #just roll with it riptide #jrwi chip #jrwi gillion #jrwi riptide #gillion tidestrider #jrwi jay #jay ferin #ava ferin #edyn tidestrider #lizzie lafayette

[soleilnomoon]

i would love to place an order for Meringue Cookies, Dark Chocolate, Jelly Beans, Candy Necklace, & Blan Manje, with Caramel & Honey. Side menu # 1 for Boa or Nami. either is fine! with a g/n reader! These stories are a blast to read!

anon i am so so sry this took forever 😭💕💕💕 but i finally finished and i'm actually happy with it; also ty for requesting, i love boa hancock sfm i wish more ppl wrote for her.

4.3k words, gn reader (no pronouns), nsfw, 18+ mdni; angst angst angst bc that's how i vibe & smut, and if you squint real hard there's some fluff somehow i think. hancock is a brat as usual and reader ain't shit, but they go great together <3 feat. cute things like oral (f receiving), fingering, a lil bondage, hair pulling, some pussy slapping, more stuff that idr anymore ૮₍ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ₎ა (if u see grammar/spelling errors no u didn't ;_;)

tagging lil’ kaia bc she asked so nicely ❤︎ @cvvor

“our love would be death” — anaïs  nin

sea salt sifts through the wind, warm and fine enough that most don’t notice its intrusion. it lands on your nose and lips, coats your tongue when you exhale through your mouth; no matter how many times you try to wash away the taste, it still lingers. a persistent annoyance that refuses to leave you alone. it’s a bitter, yet familiar taste — one that fills your heart with memories you’ve long wanted to keep buried. you’re no stranger to heartache, but this is different.

you find that you can never sleep through the entire night without dreaming of your ex — of how you begged them to stay, of how you told them you couldn’t live without them. pathetic, you tell yourself one morning after another restless night — you know you need to find a way to move on, but there’s no way you can, not when you carved so many pieces of yourself to give away without much thought.

what you’re left with is a battered heart that can barely function on its own; it flops pitifully in your chest, rattling against your rib cage weakly. every day it gets harder to breathe, harder to face the truth that you’re all alone — again.

boa hancock doesn’t know why she even fucking bothers, but she can’t seem to stay away from you. it’s a privilege, in her opinion, for you to be graced with her presence, let alone be allowed to touch her intimately. so, when she finds you staring wistfully out of the window, sighing to yourself again she snaps.

“y/n, look at me,” she commands loudly, voice piercing through your body like a thick arrow that keeps you frozen in place. you know better than to disobey her, even though you want to; you know you’re being unreasonable, but the heart always wants what it can’t have, right?

not that she cares about any of that. in her mind, your ex is an ex for a reason. she grabs your face with her hand, squeezing tightly, delicate brows furrowed together as irritation drips down her spine. she could easily kill you and you know it. “i’m the most beautiful woman in the world,” she boasts, although there’s something melancholic about the way she says it.

you narrow your eyes at her, mouth moving before you can think better of it. “and what of it?” it’s not often that you challenge her like that, but today you’ve had enough of her games, of constantly catering to her whims and desires, of her veneer that she insists on keeping even when she’s alone with you.  

it dawns on her then what the actual problem is. “you’re still in love with them.” anger seeps through her pores, and she knows if she doesn’t walk away soon, she might say or do something she’ll possibly regret.

you flinch, eyes widening — she’s not entirely wrong, but she’s not right either. you’re just stuck in limbo, unable to move on because you refuse to do so; after seeing them so happy with someone else, you can’t fathom finding any sort of happiness yourself. so, you cling onto the past, even when it threatens to destroy your present life.

for some reason, this pisses you off — that hancock is so much more perceptive than people give her credit for; that she’s not afraid to tell you the truth, despite how your friends sugarcoat everything for you. the rage that’s bubbled deep inside of you for months finally pushes out; you can barely think or see properly, and you forget yourself when you practically shout back at her.

“and you’re just jealous because for once, you’re not the focus of my attention.” you’re not sure why you say it, but as soon as the words leave your mouth, you feel like shit.

there’s rarely a moment where hancock finds herself in absolute shock, but your venomous words cut into her bruised ego with vigor. it's a harsh reality that she refuses to accept, so she lashes out at you again.

“you’re pathetic.” her tone is cold, and she steels her face enough that she almost looks bored with you. hancock releases her hold on you and swivels on her heels to walk away. you don’t bother calling after her, but she pauses in her gait to look over her shoulder at you. “i’m done playing with you, get out of my sight.”

the dismissal is the first slap of many and her insistence on blatantly keeping her back turned while she ignores you is another. something in you breaks, but you know you’ve angered the pirate empress enough for one day. you don’t hesitate before scrambling to your feet and leaving her alone. after you close the door, you hear a shriek that’s accompanied by what sounds like a large vase shattering. you don’t bother checking on her, because you know you’re not wanted in her presence right now.

you should’ve seen this coming. one doesn’t simply think about another lover while in the presence of boa hancock; it’s absurd and theatrical, but it’s an unspoken rule that you keep breaking over and over. in the back of your mind, you know you should go make things right with her, but you just don’t know how.

hancock’s frustration continues to build throughout the day. she doesn’t know why someone — you, a commoner who should be groveling at her feet daily — can be so insolent without remorse. she’s smashed several expensive sculptures, shredded her mattress and bed sheets with large scissors, and cursed out every staff member in kuja palace. her anger only intensifies when she hears someone whisper your name, so she locks herself in her bedroom, refusing meals or assistance from anyone.

you’ve always thought that the pirate empress was annoying, self-centered, and unnecessarily mean without reason. you’ve told her this on several occasions, stunning her into silence — a feat that most cannot achieve. hancock would normally sentence someone to death for those sorts of callous remarks, but for some reason she spares you. maybe it’s because despite her incomparable, unrivaled beauty, you don’t helplessly pine after her.

and she absolutely hates that about you.

hancock’s not someone who’s used to being treated like a regular person, and yet that’s what you do to her. you barely hold any reverence for her, give her the minimal amount of respect owed as a citizen of amazon lily, and you don’t flinch when she threatens you publicly. most are afraid to be associated with you, out of fear for incurring the snake princess’ wrath — not that you care, you’ve known that your personality can’t be tolerated by most because you tend to happily go against the grain.

you’ve always found her beauty to be intense and intoxicating — imposing like the sun, forcing a heat to surge through you that has yet to dissipate. you hate that your attraction to her impedes your daily life, especially when you’re plagued by dueling thoughts of her and your ex. you’re barred from entering the palace, and you’re thankful for it as you don’t know how you’d be able to face hancock after all that you’ve said. you know that you should apologize profusely, but a woman like hancock requires something extravagant and elaborate — something that’ll prove that your adoration and loyalty is genuine and not forced.

the first few days are relatively easy; you work tirelessly to keep your mind and body busy, and you’re so exhausted by the end of the day that you sleep without dreaming. when a week passes, you start to notice that certain things are off; you didn’t make it a habit of frequenting the palace that often, but you were there enough that the staff didn’t give you a hard time when you showed up unannounced. you tell yourself that distance is good — it means you’ll be able to finally focus on the things that are important to you.

but, when you sit and think about it, you’re not quite sure if that’s entirely true.

after the second week, you start getting antsy. your friends keep pestering you, asking why your mood keeps shifting day to day — you’re intolerable and grouchy, snap at minor things and make mistakes all day. your heart, as tired and as worn out as it is, still skips a beat when you think about hancock despite what you try to tell yourself when you’re alone. somehow, you’ve convinced yourself that the only reason why you’re thinking about her, is because you miss fucking her.

the lie is tough to digest, but you keep repeating it and sooner or later you’ll believe it, right?

soon, everything reminds you of her.

on a warm night, a small festival is held, and you wander around listless and slightly tipsy. memories of the first time you met boa hancock — outside of all the fanfare that her royal title awards her — plague you relentlessly. you remember the warmth from that night, similar to this one; you remember how highly oppressive and unbearable the humidity was; and you also remember that you were on your third drink when you unceremoniously bumped into the pirate empress.

at first, her sisters demanded you apologize, but you were annoyed and had just been dumped so you chose audacity instead.

hancock’s irritation was evident, despite her not saying much — and it wasn’t until your rambling struck a nerve that she fired back. it was the first time he’d let her walls down, and her sisters watched in shock as both of you went back and forth over nothing. hancock called you all sorts of terrible names, and you sneered and laughed in her face. the fact that you weren’t cowering in fear or salivating over her beauty set her skin on fire in a way she didn’t understand.

you remember her dismissing the other gorgon sisters, insisting that she’d be able to handle you on her own. and she did, in a way. if anyone were to ask her about that time, hancock would easily admit that she regrets meeting you that night — but it would be a lie. the only thing she regrets is allowing you to infiltrate her heart, to settle without permission, to make her feel less than when she knew she was anything but.

her brattiness is unappealing on the surface and you normally wouldn’t be attracted to a woman who boldly wears such an ugly personality with pride. somehow, hancock has made the trait endearing to you, in a strange way; she’s so unapologetic with her behavior, that you find it rather comical. why people take her seriously is beyond you.

but, despite all of that, you do miss her.

you miss seeing the way her nose would scrunch and wrinkle when she was disgusted with something insignificant and minute; you miss kissing her in the middle of arguments and watching her easily melt underneath your touch; but you mostly miss hearing her complain about your lack of etiquette, about how odd she finds your views on the world, and about how you see her more clearly than anyone else on the island.

that sort of vulnerability terrifies her, and it’s why she’s been so miserable without you.

her sisters pay you a visit one morning and implore you to talk some sense into hancock. they tell you about how her temper tantrums have gotten uncontrollable (even for them) and how she barely eats or bothers leaving the palace these days. that bit surprises you, as hancock thrives off the validation from the populace. at first you mean to refuse them, but when you take note of how marigold anxiously fidgets with the gold bracelet around her wrist and the way sandersonia has dark circles under her eyes, you give in.

after taking a long, long soak in the bath, hancock pads back to her room naked, deciding to keep the windows open so she can air dry properly. you find her shortly after, out of breath from running over to the palace; she didn’t lock her door — and why should she? she’s the empress, after all — so you enter her room with ease. because she’s been so out of it lately, she’s been sluggish in her reactions to certain things; especially since she hasn’t stopped thinking about you.

with the door shut and locked behind you, hancock’s mind clears a bit; she blinks slowly, her dark eyes honed on you, taking in your thick thighs and toned body. as usual, hancock’s face only features an impassive expression, and she keeps her tone flat when she addresses you.

“why the hell are you in my bedroom?” she grabs the silk robe that’s draped over her mattress and puts it on in a rush.

before you can answer her or move closer, she picks up a large pillow and chucks it at you in the hopes that you’ll get the hint and leave her alone. you sidestep the attack, lips pressed together as you hold back a laugh; she can’t honestly think that a pillow will stop you, can she? hancock keeps throwing things, anything within her reach that isn’t nailed down to the floor or wall. you try to reason with her, try to make your way closer, but stop when you see the way her lips quiver.

she keeps fumbling with tying her robe properly, keeps looking down at her trembling fingers — the same ones that have tugged on your hair more times than you can count — but still she won’t say anything else to you.

after a minute, hancock manages to compose herself once again, her lips pressed tightly together as she fights the urge to berate herself for looking weak in front of you — as if you care about any of that. your silence compels her to swiftly make her way towards you, long legs shimmering in the sunlight, captivating you so much that you forget you’re supposed to be angry with her.

“look at you,” she stands tall, her pride giving her the confidence she needs to verbally tear you apart. “you’ve come begging for my forgiveness, right?” she doesn’t wait for you to respond and simply flips her hair over her shoulder before continuing. it’s all she can do to keep her composure around you; she knows if she gives you even a fraction of an inch, you’ll take a whole damn mile. “i should have you gutted for entering the palace without permission. you should know your damn place.” while her words are harsh, her delivery doesn’t quite match the expression on her face. maybe it’s because you haven’t taken your eyes off of her since you entered her room; or, maybe it’s because she’s standing much closer than necessary but can’t physically move herself away.

did you cast a spell on her without her knowledge?

while her eyes do narrow at that possibility, she highly doubts that you could, as there’s no one on amazon lily that doesn’t succumb to her treacherous beauty. but you continue to defy her expectations and you never know when to quit. which is why she just wants to grab you by the neck and toss you out the window; maybe if she actually kills you this time, she’ll be done with you forever.

except, she could never bring herself to harm you — not really. so she continues with her rant, reminding you that you’re beneath her, that you should be happy someone like her gave you any attention at all, but the more she talks, the more you want her to just shut the hell up.

“you’re right,” you say, cutting her off without remorse or any regards for your own safety, “and i deserve all of that,” and possibly more, but you don’t add that bit in. it becomes a little difficult to focus, what with hancock watching you with a different kind of intensity than you’re used to. “i… should’ve just explained myself properly before. but, more importantly,” you decide to take a risk and gently grab her by the hips.

silence wraps around her, blending into her thoughts, warping her perception of everything that’s happening. your hand is warm — much too warm, hot almost; she can feel the heat through the flimsy fabric as she presses her body closer to yours. whatever it is you want to tell her doesn’t matter — maybe she’ll pester you about it all later, but right now all she wants is you.

so, you give in and allow yourself to be more selfish than usual.

when your lips brush against hers, she completely comes alive — the longing you both felt for weeks, the irritation and unsaid words, they all prompt her to wrap her arms around your neck. it’s something short of a loving embrace, but you know better. your kiss goes from slow and tender to something much more fevered and enthusiastic; her lips are soft and supple, wholly inviting and terribly mesmerizing. you back her against the wall as she threads her fingers through your hair, tugging on it roughly, her patience practically nonexistent from all her wanting. you laugh at her in between kisses, breath warm against her skin — a feat that simultaneously annoys and arouses her — and remind her to play nice.

when she tugs on your hair again, you bite her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood, but run your tongue along the miniature wound to soothe the sting. she inhales sharply, the pain not noticeable, but the way you suck on her lip makes her head spin while also leaving her breathless.

 a woman like hancock doesn’t beg, but when you grab her ass roughly — aggressive, yet completely undoing — she lets out a whimper so pathetic she’s almost ashamed of herself.

she should slap you, but all she does is roll her hips forward once you spread her legs and run your fingers against her folds. in a fit of desperation, to excuse her reactions, she tells herself that it’s because she hasn’t been touched in so long — but deep down she knows the truth; she knows it’s because there’s no one else she’d rather have here with her, and that is a terrifying revelation. still, she’s very receptive to your touch, her back arching as soon as you spread her with your fingers.

her arousal drips down slowly, and while you’d love to take your time with her, you also know that if you don’t hurry up you might actually lose your mind. you trail kisses down the length of her neck, and hancock presses her lips together to keep from making any more embarrassing noises. it’s ridiculous the way her body can easily be commanded by you without much effort; she wants to hate you for leading her down this path, but she can’t ever bring herself to do so.

love makes people incredibly foolish and tender indeed.

“that won’t do,” you remark lightly, gliding your fingers back and forth, barely grazing her clit. her breathing stops momentarily when you open her robe completely and drop to your knees in front of her. “why are you holding back?” you don’t ask her because you actually want the answer; you ask because you know it’ll annoy her greatly.

you tease her entrance with your fingers and a shiver fires through her entire body; with her lips parted, you strain your ears a bit, but you hear through her all of her light panting, her softly saying please, please, please. she’s trying so hard to hold it together, and you commend her for her efforts by inching your fingers inside of her slowly. hancock’s façade finally shatters, and you hear her moan audibly as you plunge your fingers in and out of her pussy. you love the way she clenches around your fingers — warm and tight, soft in a way that just doesn’t make sense to you — and the way she moves her hips once your tongue playfully swirls around her clit.

you drape her long, shapely leg over your shoulder and scissor your fingers inside of her pussy; you hum against her skin, thoroughly enjoying the way her chest heaves and how she can’t seem to stop moaning your name.

if only she was always this compliant.

a heat passes through your body as her nails rake against your scalp, and if you weren’t so hellbent keeping her steady, she’d probably fall over by now. you eat her pussy with vigor, swapping your fingers for your tongue; you thrust it inside without remorse, and she quickly becomes a whimpering mess as she chants “yes, yes, yes.” you mean to tell her to keep it down, but a part of you also enjoys it when she lets go and gives into her desires. you don’t want to get caught, but the thrill of it incites you to lap at her pussy — greedy and eager, as if it’s the most savory meal you’ve ever had. her wetness drips down your chin, glistening along your lips but you don’t stop.

she watches you in a trance, unsure if she’ll ever be able to let you go after this. possessive by nature, hancock never thought she’d find herself in this sort of position, but there she is, completely under your spell. every swipe of your tongue brings her closer and closer to the edge — a dangerous dance that she does without thinking. she brings her free hand to cup and knead one of her breasts — hefty and round, moaning repeatedly, voice already straining as she shamelessly rides your face.

you love it, though and when you suck on her clit roughly, lightning wraps around her veins, time slowing down around her, causing her vision to blur. she’s so wound up, that the orgasm takes her completely by surprise — her hips buck wildly and you hold her firmly as you work your fingers back into her pussy. you pull away just to give her a haughty look — one that she catches by accident through her tear-stained lashes — voice low and husky as you continue teasing her. “you’re doing so good,” you lick her clit hard enough to have her eyes roll back, “do you trust me?”

it's not fair of you to ask her genuine questions right now, but you need to know.

hancock swallows hard, unable to think properly, but answers without hesitation: “y-yes.”

her voice is sweet, much more demure than you’re used to; your heart suddenly feels much too big for your chest, the beats growing louder and thunderous; a dangerous combination when coupled with your cowardice. but you know better than to cower away, so you muster the courage to quietly respond with, “good, i’m glad.”

you’re not sure why you ask her that, but you keep thinking about it when you have her naked on her bed with her hands bound above her. thanks to you, her normally blemish-free skin is littered with bite marks and dark red bruises — small and harmless, but you do feel a sliver of remorse when you realize she’ll have to cover herself up for a bit when she’s outside of the palace. you tell her she’s a masterpiece worthy of exhibition, and she tells you that you’re insolent for stating the obvious.

she’s so beautiful and vulnerable in this position — flushed cheeks, tears in her eyes, legs shaking as they’re spread wide for you; her pussy is swollen after you slapped it a few times when she gave you lip a few minutes ago. out of habit, hancock wants to run her mouth again when you hover over her, but her words never come out. she looks up at you, silently wondering why you keep coming back to her. the melancholy that accompanies those thoughts is heavy enough to make her want to cry, so she ignores it. she wraps her legs around you as you rock your hips against hers, cunt still dripping — eager and inviting.

fucking hancock is like being trapped in a feverish dream, one where you fall over and over, unable to predict if you’ll survive in the end. it’s an unending maelstrom — powerful and unpredictable, wild, and all-consuming. sweat pools at your temples, but you don’t slow down until you wrench another orgasm out of her. her voice grows hoarse, and she claws at your chest; you lick the tears off her cheeks and kiss her in a way that deludes her into thinking that she’s your one and only.

when you finally cum, it’s with her name on your lips. your hips stutter and your breath is uneven — for you, your pleasure comes mostly from watching her unravel underneath you. hancock never lets you stay over, but she’s surprisingly soft with you afterwards, even letting you run your fingers through her silky, ink-black hair.

the intimacy scares both of you, but you can’t stop yourself from touching her like that. and even though you’re both sticky and sweaty, skin burning in a way that doesn’t make sense, you still stay close to one another.

she opens her mouth several times, the compulsion to curse you out for driving her mad grows weaker as time passes. she watches you fall asleep and she admires your features without restraint. she refuses to tell you that you’re much more attractive than she’d like you to be; she’d rather you be hideous with a shitty personality, but that’s not the case, is it? she’s hopelessly enamored with you, and you with her.

nothing will ever be perfect between the two of you, but you don’t need perfection or superficiality — not with her; you like dealing with the true, raw version of herself. there will be a moment — not now, but in the near future — where you’ll be brave enough to finish your confession; but for now, you keep it to yourself, tucked safely away in your heart, and enjoy the way your limbs are tangled with hers.

#*cries softly* #i am finished!!! finally #fic request #500+ followers event #milestone event #🍭✨🍨sticky & sweet event🧁✨🍭 #one piece smut #one piece angst #one piece x reader #one piece x y/n #boa hancock #boa hancock x reader #boa hancock x y/n #boa hancock smut #hancock x reader #hancock x y/n #one piece imagine

[comparativetarot]

Death. Art by Nara Lesser, from Neurotic Owl’s Faerytale Tarot.

I’m feeling cautious today so the listings for this one are just Death/Mermaid instead of The Little Mermaid.  The fairytale is public domain, my version has literally no resemblance to the animated movie, but Disney will absolutely take it down based purely on a title or tags and then I have to wait months for an adjudicator somewhere to look at the damn thing and admit it’s not their IP.  I went through it with an old Rapunzel painting, which featured a Japanese Rapunzel, actually named Mizuni (but with Rapunzel in parentheses) in a kimono, but still got pulled just in case it might have anything to do with Tangled.   Sigh.

ANYWAY.  This is one of the first cards that popped into my head and I’m pretty excited that it worked out almost exactly as I pictured it.

The Little Mermaid is, even for an HCA story, deeply obsessed with death.  The reason the protagonist goes to the sea witch isn’t primarily because she’s fallen in love at first sight with a handsome pirnce – it’s because she wants and immortal soul.  In Andersen’s story, mermaids live for hundreds of years, but when they die they dissolve into sea foam.  The only way to gain an immortal soul is to win the love of a human, so it dovetails nicely that she has a crush on a human prince.

Most of the story progresses as you know it, though there’s no real trickery making the prince fall in love with someone else – he just does.  But on that wedding night, the little mermaid’s sisters rise out of the sea to her, crying, to give her a special knife they traded their hair for.  They tell her that if she’ll go stab the prince and let the blood fall on her legs, they’ll turn back into a tail and she can live out the rest of her natural lifespan with them.  If she doesn’t do it, when the sun rises she’ll dissolve into sea foam and be gone forever.   (Weird Disney wasn’t into this, huh?)

She makes the merciful choice and leaps into the sea as the sun rises, dissolving into foam but then rising up as a Spirit of the Air, ready to live again in a new form and with a new chance to gain an immortal soul.  (The rules about that are, naturally, sort of moralistic and sanctimonious and basically blame crying children for lengthening the spirits’ limbo, so yeah, still an Andersen story.)

So you can see why this was such a natural choice for the card -she’s dying, transforming, and being reborn, all at once.

#Nara Lesser #Neurotic Owl’s Faerytale Tarot #Death #Major Arcana #Tarot #Folklore #Literature #Hans Christian Andersen #The Little Mermaid #Racial Diversity

[kemetic-dreams]

What the Hell?

Judaism does not have a specific doctrine about the afterlife, but it does have a mystical/Orthodox tradition of describing Gehinnom. Gehinnom is not hell, but originally a grave and in later times a sort of Purgatory where one is judged based on one's life's deeds, or rather, where one becomes fully aware of one's own shortcomings and negative actions during one's life.

The Kabbalah explains it as a "waiting room" (commonly translated as an "entry way") for all souls (not just the wicked). The overwhelming majority of rabbinic thought maintains that people are not in Gehinnom forever; the longest that one can be there is said to be 12 months, however, there has been the occasional noted exception. Some consider it a spiritual forge where the soul is purified for its eventual ascent to Olam Habah (heb. עולם הבא; lit. "The world to come", often viewed as analogous to heaven). This is also mentioned in the Kabbalah, where the soul is described as breaking, like the flame of a candle lighting another: the part of the soul that ascends being pure and the "unfinished" piece being reborn.

According to Jewish teachings, hell is not entirely physical; rather, it can be compared to a very intense feeling of shame. People are ashamed of their misdeeds and this constitutes suffering which makes up for the bad deeds. When one has so deviated from the will of God, one is said to be in Gehinnom. This is not meant to refer to some point in the future, but to the very present moment. The gates of teshuva (return) are said to be always open, and so one can align his will with that of God at any moment. Being out of alignment with God's will is itself a punishment according to the Torah.

Many scholars of Jewish mysticism, particularly of the Kabbalah, describe seven "compartments" or "habitations" of hell, just as they describe seven divisions of heaven. These divisions go by many different names, and the most frequently mentioned are as follows:

Sheol (Hebrew: שְׁאוֹל – "underworld", "Hades"; "grave")

Abaddon (Hebrew: אֲבַדּוֹן – "doom", "perdition")

Be'er Shachat (Hebrew: בְּאֵר שַׁחַת, Be'er Shachath – "pit of corruption")

Tit ha-Yaven (Hebrew: טִיט הַיָוֵן – "clinging mud")

Sha'are Mavet (Hebrew: שַׁעֲרֵי מָוֶת, Sha'arei Maveth – "gates of death")

Tzalmavet (Hebrew: צַלמָוֶת, Tsalmaveth – "shadow of death")

Gehinnom (Hebrew: גֵיהִנוֹם, Gehinnom – "valley of Hinnom"; "Tartarus", "Purgatory")

Besides those mentioned above, there also exist additional terms that have been often used to either refer to hell in general or to some region of the underworld:

Azazel (Hebrew: עֲזָאזֵל, compd. of ez עֵז: "goat" + azal אָזַל: "to go away" – "goat of departure", "scapegoat"; "entire removal", "damnation")

Dudael (Hebrew: דּוּדָאֵל – lit. "cauldron of God")

Tehom (Hebrew: תְהוֹם – "abyss"; "sea", "deep ocean")

Tophet (Hebrew: תֹּפֶת or תוֹפֶת, Topheth – "fire-place", "place of burning", "place to be spit upon"; "inferno")

Tzoah Rotachat (Hebrew: צוֹאָה רוֹתֵחַת, Tsoah Rothachath – "boiling excrement")

Mashchit (Hebrew: מַשְׁחִית, Mashchith – "destruction", "ruin")

Dumah (Hebrew: דוּמָה – "silence")

Neshiyyah (Hebrew: נְשִׁיָּה – "oblivion", "Limbo")

Bor Shaon (Hebrew: בּוֹר שָׁאוֹן – "cistern of sound")

Eretz Tachtit (Hebrew: אֶרֶץ תַּחְתִּית, Erets Tachtith – "lowest earth").

Masak Mavdil (Hebrew: מָסָך מַבְדִּ֔יל, Masak Mabdil – "dividing curtain")

Haguel (Ethiopic: ሀጉለ – "(place of) destruction", "loss", "waste")

Ikisat (Ethiopic: አክይስት – "serpents", "dragons"; "place of future punishment")

Maimonides declares in his 13 principles of faith that the hells of the rabbinic literature were pedagogically motivated inventions to encourage respect of the Torah commandments by mankind, which had been regarded as immature. Instead of being sent to hell, the souls of the wicked would actually get annihilated.

#hell #sheol #kemetic dreams #Haguel #Ikisat #Gehinnom #Tzalmavet #Abaddon #Kabbalah #judaism #yadut

[sorenphelps]

PIRATE AU! Marauders

I decided to revisit and expand my take on the magical pirate au concept I had for last year's @siriusblackfest. This will be an unreasonably long description of my ideas, so if you don't feel like reading it, I absolutely understand. (I'm an artist first anyway.) I’d really really appreciate if you further expand or actually write these ideas into a proper fic, I mean, YES PLEASE!

I will definitely do more art for this concept, so stay tuned! My other pirate au works are here, here and here, or refer to my pirate au tag.

🌊🏴‍☠️⚓pirate AU concept ideas⚓🏴‍☠️🌊

About the lore:

Wizards and witches are all descendants of the lost empires Atlantis, Lemuria and Mu:

The Atlantean mages were once the world's most powerful leaders, who could predict the future with their magical stones, created great underground palaces, conquered the entire world with their gilded ships, commanded sea monsters such as the Kraken, the Leviathan, sirens, hydras and other sea demons. They possessed an extremely high level of technical and spiritual knowledge, which they could use to rule over life and death.

The Lemurians were tall, noble wizards, who were able to turn invisible or into an animal whenever they wanted. They were talented in alchemy, they knew a lot about the magical properties of precious stones and metals, which was the basis of their magic. They were very friendly with non-magical people, who often took advantage of their hospitality and stole their treasure which got scattered all around the world.

According to their belief, the wizards of Mu are the direct descendants of god-like creatures coming from the Sirius constellation. In Mu, wizards were excellent architects and sailors who lived in luxurious homes. Their magic was based on starlight and they had exceptional knowledge of astronomy. With the help of their advanced magical rituals, they could achieve anything. Hence the exact way of performing such rituals was kept as a secret, which was passed down from generation to generation only to those who were deemed worthy of it.

As the power of the "sea wizards" was feared among ordinary people, the wizarding world was forced into hiding, and the islands were swallowed up by the sea, seemingly forever… until a powerful dark wizard named Voldemort began searching for hidden treasures (horcruxes) to bring Atlantis and their superior magical capabilities back to the surface.

According to the legends, each of the Four Founders and the Peverell brothers created a horcrux (seven in total) to perform the most powerful magic known to wizardkind, which managed to sink and forever hide the Islands. They had poured all their power into their respective horcrux, giving up their magic forever. To release the power from a horcrux, a dark, forbidden ritual must be performed: the one who performs it will gather their power in exchange of a piece of their soul. Each horcrux is unique in shape and nature, and the rituals to release their binding requires immerse energy which is the easiest sourced by slaying mythical creatures and sacrificing innocent lives. The one who gathers and releases all seven horcruxes, will break the magic sealing the Islands to the bottom of the oceans and ascend to become a new immortal being with infinite power. However, their soul will be lost forever, never to be repaired, stuck in limbo for all eternity.

The horcruxes made by the Founders are Gryffindor’s Sword, Slytherin’s locket, Hufflepuff’s Cup and Ravenclaw’s Diadem. The Peverell Brother's horcruxes are:

Antioch’s Astrolabe: made from metals as shiny as the stars, could predict the future. If used incorrectly, it could give its user a false sense of assurance of potential events happening, making them too reckless. Most users died young as the results were misinterpreted easily. It belongs to Mu.

Cadmus’ Coat of Arms: a gold ring inset with the Resurrection Stone, engraved with the power to recall people from death. It belongs to Atlantis.

Ignotus’ Crown of Invisibility, an invisible crown-like object resembling peryton antlers. It belongs to Lemuria.

About the characters:

James - The Captain. He is a fun, mischievous and charismatic wizard of Lemurian origins. He is always up to no good but has the necessary natural leadership skills to make the most critical decisions quickly even in the tensest situations. He owns the ship ‘The Marauder’, which can turn invisible upon his command. His ancestors had a strong connection to perytons (large stag-bird hybrids), could call them at will, and because these beasts had the shadow of a man, people thought they were shapeshifters. The antlers can be forged to the strongest of metals possessing great power and their fur and wings are said to be the key to achieve true invisibility able to conceal its wearers so absolutely that even death itself could not find them. As perytons were prophesied to lead to the downfall of Atlantis, they were hunted to extinction supposedly. According to legends, a wizard of James’ lineage will be able to summon them again. He originally started his journey to find and secure these mythical creatures. When conveying his magic, his aura slightly changes to resemble antler motifs, prompting his nickname as “Prongs”.

Sirius - The Navigator. He is the firstborn son of an ancient wizarding family from Mu, therefore he has very powerful magical abilities, expertise in the art of combat and superior astronomical knowledge. Even though he is James’ closest and most trusted mate, who clearly possesses the necessary skills to be Quartermaster or Master Gunner, the Crew voted him unfit for those positions because of his rebellious nature, recklessness, and short temper. (Before they started sailing together as a Crew, during a full moon he decided to settle his personal disagreement with Snape by locking him in the underwater cabin they prepared for Remus. James intervened, earning him his position as the Captain.) He is very skilled in map reading and excellent at calculating the exact latitude of the ship just by observing the stars, making him the perfect Sailing Master responsible for navigating and sailing the ship flawlessly. He also has several magical tattoos to further enhance his navigation prowess. He enjoys music and pranking his fellow crew members, who like him nevertheless as he is fiercely loyal and protective of them.

Remus - The Quartermaster. He is not a wizard, but a sea monster. His mother was a selkie, who gave up her sea life willingly for her lover. Fenrir Greyback, an evil maniac obsessed with sea monsters and driven mad by siren songs, attacked and stole the seal-skin of Remus’ mother. Remus’ father, in a desperate attempt at helping his lover, offered her the skin of their son. The ritual backfired, and Remus became a selkie himself, who transforms into a sea monster every full moon. His mother never recovered and eventually disappeared. Remus has joined James’ pirate crew to find his mother and seal-skin to reunite his family, but ended up finding a new one. He’s elected as the Quartermaster of ‘The Marauder’, responsible for coordinating the ship’s day-to-day operations and discipline, dividing the shares fairly, settling disputes and acting as a representative for the Crew members when presenting their wishes to the Captain. He is very intelligent and practical, enjoys researching and is quite skilled in map reading/drawing. He is fascinated by Sirius’ expertise in navigation.

Peter - The Cook & Cooper. He is a seemingly weak and clumsy man with no magical talent. He claims he lost his right hand in an accident; others suspect it was cut off because he was caught stealing, but the truth is that he willingly sacrificed it during a ritual to gain the ability to turn into a rat. He is very resourceful, always listening to whispers and gathering all information. He serves as the Cook and the Cooper on ‘The Marauder’, spending most of his time onboard in the kitchen and food chambers, taking care of the provisions, preparing meals and making and maintaining barrels. He never fights, even when teased with being a coward. He knows every secret on the ship, making him possibly one of the most dangerous crew members, yet he maintains his helpless façade so perfectly, no one really suspects anything about him.

Lily - The Surgeon. She is a curious young lady with a passion for medical science, which she could develop while observing her father during work. Her father was a doctor, who often visited an orphanage nearby to help the monks. She met and befriended Severus there, they collected herbs and other ingredients for fun. She discovered she had magical abilities when the potions she had brewed all somehow possessed healing properties. (Severus’ potions on the other hand usually turned out to be poisonous.) Lily joined ‘The Marauder’ as the Surgeon, after James’ multiple unsuccessful attempts at recruiting her. (He made his crew to stage very elaborate emergency scenarios, which theoretically required immediate medical assistance... until one time it was not theoretical anymore.)

Severus - The Boatswain. He is an intelligent and perceptive young man, with an extraordinary talent for alchemy. His father married his mother hoping the woman could make him the richest man alive as she was the descendant of known Alchemists. However, Severus’ mother only held the Book of Magick Moste Evile as a family heirloom which couldn’t turn anything to gold. Severus was sent to an orphanage after his father killed his mother, where he met with Lily. He had learned every bit of potion making and dark magic from his mother’s book in an attempt at impressing the girl, but the better he became, the more she estranged from him. He eventually ran away from the orphanage, and lived by his wits and magic. He served as a Powder Monkey and a Cabin Boy of famous pirate captains, where he gathered remarkable sailing experience too. On ‘The Marauder’, he was appointed as the Boatswain, responsible for the general maintenance of the ship and making sure all the supplies (including gunpowder, medicine, magical ingredients) were in order. The Crew somewhat respects his abilities but dislikes him as he has a grumpy and unpleasant personality and is scarily skilled in dark magic.

Marlene - The Master Gunner. She is a no-nonsense witch of Lemurian descent, in charge of the cannons, the gunpowder, the shots and weapons of ‘The Marauder’. She is the foremost expert in the art of combat and war strategy onboard. Her family was tasked to guard the Sword of Gryffindor for centuries, unaware that it was a horcrux. The sword was forged from pure silver and is inset with rubies, said to ignite great courage in the hearts of everyone wielding it and capable to defeat all enemies. Marlene wears a necklace decorated with a large and shiny ruby, representing her brave and combative personality. The stone also enhances her fighting abilities.

Dorcas - The Carpenter. She is an easygoing girl with ancestors from Mu. Despite being loosely related to Sirius, her magic differs a lot from his. She is a fortune teller (uses cards and not the stars to predict the possibility of events), and has a natural affinity for working with wood. (A magical tree is the symbol of the eastern side of Mu, which is also tattooed on Sirius’ neck.) She works as the Carpenter, responsible for the ship's maintenance and damage control, even during battle. Her job is to reconstruct entire sections of the ship and the sails. She designed and built the underwater cabin for Remus’ transformations. She also enjoys music and is in a relationship with Marlene.

#sirius black #remus lupin #james potter #lily evans #peter pettigrew #severus snape #marlene mckinnon #dorcas meadowes #marauders #pirate au #fanart #art by lau #lau draws with a tablet #lau doesn't write because of reasons #fetchalgernon

[bracketsoffear]

Nightfall (Isaac Asimov & Robert Silverberg) "From TV Tropes: Lagash's six suns means an Endless Daytime, except for once every 2,049 years, when five suns set and the only sun left in the hemisphere is eclipsed by the moon. The scientists are trying to prepare civilization and themselves for the upcoming nightfall, but when it does occur, no-one is prepared for the thirty thousand stars that suddenly appear in the night sky. This leads to the far more devastating revelation how tiny and insignificant they are by comparison." "Aton, somewhere, was crying, whimpering horribly like a terribly frightened child. 'Stars — all the Stars — we didn't know at all. We didn't know anything. We thought six stars in a universe is something the Stars didn't notice is Darkness forever and ever and ever and the walls are breaking in and we didn't know we couldn't know and anything —'"

The Jaunt (Stephen King) “As a family prepares to be "Jaunted" to Mars in the 24th century, the father entertains his two children by recounting the curious tale of the discovery and history of this crude form of teleportation. He explains how the scientist who serendipitously discovered it quickly learned that it had a disturbing, inexplicable effect on the mice he "sent through"—eventually concluding that they could only survive the "Jaunt effect" while unconscious. That, the father explains, is why all people must undergo general anaesthesia before using the Jaunt.

The father spares his children the gruesome semi-apocryphal account of the first human to be Jaunted awake, a condemned murderer offered a full pardon for agreeing to the experiment. The man "came through" and immediately suffered a massive heart attack, living just long enough to utter a single cryptic phrase:

It's eternity in there…

The father also doesn't mention that since that time, roughly thirty people have, voluntarily or otherwise, jaunted while conscious; they either died instantly or emerged insane. One woman was even shoved alive into eternal limbo by her murderous husband, stuck between two jaunt portals. The man was convicted of murder; though his attorneys attempted to argue that he was not guilty on the grounds that his wife was not technically dead, the implications of the same argument served to secure and hasten his execution.

After the father finishes his story, the family is subjected to the sleeping gas and Jaunted to Mars. When the father wakes, he finds that his inquisitive son held his breath in order to experience the Jaunt while conscious…Hair white with shock, corneas yellowed with age, clawing out his own eyes, the boy reveals the terrible nature of the Jaunt: "Longer than you think, Dad! It's longer than you think!"

Underland (Robert MacFarlane) "A series of essays on "deep time" - that is, viewing the world over timeframes of billions of years, rather than the shorter timeframes we live within & understand. It is essentially the vastness of time. This concept stretches eons into the past and future and is very daunting to read about. The essays all revolve around things underground and often focus on how they're so much larger than us, existing far before us and stretching far beyond.

Also there's a chapter where the author talks about a calving glacier he saw surge upwards hundreds of feet from the sea, unbelievably huge. He recounts how the ice at its base hadn't seen sunlight in eons, and had never even been seen by human eyes, it was so ancient - it then sank underwater again, to once more be hidden. And if that doesn't sound like the origin of a vast avatar idk what does"

#vast poll #the vast #poll #the magnus archives #leitner tournament #Nightfall #Isaac Asimov #Robert Silverberg #The Jaunt #Stephen King #Underland #Robert MacFarlane

[muzzleroars]

helloo I also go feral whenever you post I love how much thought you put into everything .. auuuoaua it's so good,,

I am curious, what are your thoughts on the ferryman?

aaaa thank you!!! speculating on lore and creating headcanons is one of my favorite things to do with media i love, so i'm glad you all like listening to my thoughts ;o; and double thank you for letting me talk about the ferryman!!!!

the ferryman is one of my favorite enemies in the game, but i think it makes sense considering how much the character has going on. they're a being that sits at odds to everyone else in hell, save for perhaps those in limbo - they are ashamed of what they were and long so much more for heaven than others seem to on the lower layers, while they also maintain a loyal love to gabriel when otherwise he is viewed with hatred for what he's done to the citizens of hell. so central to the ferryman is their loneliness, appropriate for a sailor on an endless ocean, who only has their faith to sustain them in an unforgiving storm.

however, there's a dichotomy to the ferryman - they stand apart from all the other sinners, yet they take massive amounts of pride in their work and it benefits those very sinners. i find it quite interesting that they develop their ships, they incorporate new technologies into them, but most of all, they make them comfortable. the interior of their ship is almost welcoming, a place where new and terrified souls could possibly relax if there is such a thing to the freshly damned. love is worked in, a care for those that are afraid because they understand that fear too and perhaps that's inherent to them, perhaps it's what gabriel did for them, perhaps it's both. so while it’s true that the ferryman is alone, they show an aching sort of love in all of their work from their idols to their ships. they are totally detached from all others, set apart from the sinners they still show thoughtful kindness toward through their work and separated impossibly from gabriel who they sculpt forever for in his long absence.

and their devotion to gabriel has to be discussed given how central it is to their character and what we know about them, how their ship is decorated to honor him with paintings, with sculpture, with his hologram. it's. utterly tragic, it stacks onto their isolation and their love and ultimately crystallizes it. they carefully craft the idols in his honor, the image of the virgin and child as tribute most likely to gabriel's role in the annunciation. to them, he is the gentle messenger written of in the bible, he guides with words of comfort and he is their unwavering faith in a world so desolate and broken. the ferryman knows they will never be saved, at least deep down even if they can't consciously admit it - they are an ailing sailor forever lost at sea and they know they did it to themselves, they chose their fate long ago, but gabriel's care is enough to see them through, to carry them forward in sin so heavy it made them tear their flesh from their bodies. they have mortified their physical form to its destruction and i have to imagine it carries heavy consequences, an agony and ever-present ache in their bones, a rattling cough from phantom lungs when they have nothing to protect them from the driving rain. there is a sickness to them, but still they write in their journal of gabriel, they painstakingly carve another idol of the holy mother, and they work, they work, they can never forgive what they were but he is there even if he never returns. love and loneliness. the ferryman only has themself, and so they hate their only company.

by the events of the game, i do wonder what the ferryman must be feeling, how they were nearly drowned in the souls that poured in from man's demise but since have no longer had any sinners to ferry. and for me, it means they have nearly totally withdrawn into themself, into the memory they have of love and are now forever looking inward. in my version of events, i do have the ferryman live without confronting v1, but it's honestly a complete accident - since my v1 is always flipping a coin, it does so when boarding the ferryman's ship and so they take it as payment. the action does surprise and fascinate v1 briefly, leading it to produce another coin in front of the ferryman to see if they'll take a second (an attempt to establish a pattern). but when they indicate that they need no more, v1 simply moves on and largely places them out of its mind, especially considering the rest of its passage. for the ferryman, they are as detached as ever, knowing not where v1 came from nor willing to wonder at this point. they are wholly within themself by now, totally isolated in their love for their idea of gabriel with so little else on their infinite ocean. they feel their illness working itself impossibly deep, yet know they will never succumb.

("small" side note to end things, i’m so TORN about whether or not I want them to have had any additional contact with gabriel after he saved them. i do think him coming to them once and never again has a distinct melancholy in it, one that suits someone at sea forever thinking of the one they love and knowing they will never come home to see them. and it sort of goes both ways in a sense, that the ferryman is both the sailor and the lover waiting, so it’s in line with their character. BUT in terms of gabriel’s character, i do like him attempting to keep some connection to the ferryman due to his increasing fear that he’s failing them, that he’s failing all the sinners of hell. with every crime he commits against them all, he feels that weight growing on his back and so he wants to have one sinner he could protect, one that he could save from heaven’s punishments. and so he sees them, very rarely, usually briefly, but always with words of comfort, of understanding, of affection. he knows their feelings for him and he can’t know how to respond, he wonders often if his visits do more harm than good...but they have nothing else, no one in that freezing rain. so i just. MAYBE i’m soft and sometimes i want him to give them a little warmth, a brief window where they stop working and their cough lightens. AUGH)

#i think when the ferryman finds sleep #they often believe they will die of whatever they're sick with #and things seem to turn into a bad dream. all of hell a nightmare #and they're so close to finding heaven when they wake #but they always wake on their ship or cabin once more #back to work it is! #also think they have a room for gabe somewhere on that ship. just in case. #SORRY i've been developing on them lately actually.....more fallen gabe arc stuff...... #ferryman lives. they can swim even if leviathan destroyed their ship!! #and get to fixing it oh good lird..... #cake answers

[uglypastels]

Not Wholly Evil |IX| pirate!Eddie au [SFW]

a/n we are getting so close to the endddd oh my god i am so excited and sad at the same time because i don't want this story to end as much as some of you, but I also cannot wait to share my next lil projects with you 🥰 thank you for all the support on the last chapter!

this is the "censored" version of Chapter 9. If you wish to read the explicit version (18+ ONLY. Minors DO NOT interact) please check out:

Chapter 9 (not safe for work version)

Series Masterlist

word count: 11.4k

"semi dark fic" - READ the warnings:. (gun/sword)violence. blood. mention of severe wounds. minor character death. allusions to suicide. kidnapping. imprisonment. alcohol. open and deep sea. near-death experiences in water. men are pigs: mentions of non-con, but it does not actually occur. [in-dream] non-consensual behaviour. malnourishment and weight loss. paranoia. mention of poisoning. abuse. manhandling. lying. small wounds inflicted by fire. jealous!eddie. binds and knifes.

Chapter 9: Paragon

“Perhaps the wolf wasn't quite so dangerous as he pretended. Unfortunately, there was only one way to find out for sure——give him a little rope and see if he hung himself… And pray that he didn't tie her up with it instead.”

― Sabrina Jeffries, Dance of Seduction

He looked like he saw a ghost. And maybe he had. You didn’t feel like yourself, so who was to say if you were still alive? You had comprehended how you carried yourself back to the Hellfire. Standing in his room felt like you were looking down at yourself. Aware of everything around you but understanding none of it.

‘I thought you had left.’ He stepped into the room, leaving the door wide open. As he walked, you noticed he was clearing the way for you, allowing you to leave if you wanted to. His eyes were intently focused on yours and threaded lightly. Like any wrong move would cause you to disappear.

‘I wanted to,’ you admitted. You still wanted to. Your thoughts had screamed through the night for an escape. Yet, something tied you down to this ship and made you return.

‘Then why didn’t you?’ He came closer, and so did you. That string pulled at your ribs again, pulling you two closer. You had tried long enough to fight it to no avail. Whatever you thought you wanted did not compare to your subconscious need to be next to him. 

‘I don’t know.’ Deep down, you knew the reason, but the time was not there yet to admit it. In your mind, you still despised everything about him, this ship, the crew, and, therefore, yourself for needing his touch as much as you did at this moment. It was weak to give in to him like you did.

The candle's light fell upon him at angles that brought something new out in him or maybe revealed what had always been there. The signs of the wear and tear of a life at sea. He wasn’t hiding it any more, letting all that pain be visible, and he looked beautiful. You held back from reaching out and tracing the thin scar against his brow or the flawed line of his nose that must have been broken once. The longer you looked at him, the more you realised that you could look at him in this way forever. 

And that scared you. 

Munson walked past you to his desk, occupying himself with whatever he could reach. It would have been good for you to have something to focus on instead of him, but you stood in the middle of the room with nothing but him to clutch onto. Neither of you spoke, stuck in an awkward limbo, tiptoeing around one another to see who would be the first to step over that line. The line that had kept you, your heart, safe until now. You could impossibly predict what was to happen if it was crossed.

The ship creaked as the tide softly bounced off it. For the rest, it was uncharacteristically quiet on board.

‘Is the rest coming as well? Will we be departing soon?’ It was ridiculous to change the topic in this manner, but you simply did not know what else to say, and this barrier between you and him was dreadful. You could sense it in the middle, waiting for that catalyst to burst. And you wanted it to. Just how?

‘No, I doubt they realised I’ve gone.’ He finally turned back to face you, leaning against the desk, arms crossed, eyes on the ground. If he could just look at you—would that make things easier or that much harder?

‘Why did you? Leave the tavern, I mean.’ With your heart pounding in your throat, tightening your breath, you stepped toward him. 

‘I noticed you were gone. Then I heard you had gone to the harbour with some man and I thought…. I grew worried.’

‘Why?’ You could not imagine him caring for you to go out, away from his crew and his festivities, to look for you. 

‘I know what you’re thinking, and at first, yes, I was thinking about the money,’ he admitted, which took you aback. You took a step closer. ‘But then I—when I realised, or thought, that I had actually lost you, I thought about how I would never see you again, and I realised—’ his words faded as you took your final step towards, letting your chest press against his. He finally let his eyes meet yours. 

‘Realised what?’ Considering your proximity and seclusion, you hadn’t meant to whisper, but it felt right. 

‘That I was scared’ His breath was shaky as his eyes took all of you in. ‘Of loosing you.’

‘I was scared too.’ And maybe that is what kept you from leaving. The idea that if you would go, there was a possibility that you would never see him again, and it was enough to hollow out your entire being with dread. It felt wrong. But that gnawing in your chest stayed there the whole night, even when you had returned to the Hellfire, and it only left once you felt his fingers intertwine with yours. A flutter of a touch at the fingertips.

‘Are you still?’ He matched your hushed tone with his response. ‘Scared, I mean?’ The question was simple on its surface, but only the facade for an obliterating iceberg was the truth. 

‘No.’ Standing in front of him, feeling his breath on you, the warmth that radiated off him, his gentle touch on your skin, seeing the smile hiding in his features, you saw nothing to be scared of anymore. There was nothing to fear anymore. The voice in you that had screamed for help all those days was silenced for a final time when you leaned in to kiss him.

His lips were chapped, cheeks rough with scars and the light shadowy scruff of a beard. His touch was featherlight, as if he was scared to pursue it as if you were to break underneath him. It starkly contrasted the force he had pulled you in with hours before. The intensity had been dizzying, and yet this was what genuinely shut your mind down entirely. But you could tell that he was not there yet wholly. Something kept him guarded. 

You pulled away, but your lips still shared the same breath. When you opened your eyes, you were met with his and how they were shaking with uncertainty as he took all of you in. 

‘Is there something you’re still afraid of?’ you asked.

‘Many things,’ his hand found its place on your waist, ‘but mostly of myself,’ and gently pushed you away. ‘And what I will do to you. I have made so many mistakes, mistakes that hurt you, already in that I will have to live it for my eternity, but I do not know what I will do if I make one again.’ 

There was silence as you took in his words. You understood them, possibly more than anyone could, for they were yours. As your lips met, you thought if what you were doing would lead to your doom, if it would all end in a disaster, but could something that felt so right be so devastating?

He had let his eyes fall to the ground. You reclaimed the one step he had made you take, closing the gap between you once more and letting your hand guide him to look up at you.

‘Do you think that kiss was a mistake?’ Your heart beat faster than it ever had as you waited for an answer, but his lips remained shut, so you continued. ‘If so, do not play with my heartstrings, but tell me, and I will leave. I will return to my cell, and you can lock me up and never see me again until you bring me back home.’ It would only be a couple of days, and it would hurt to mend this extremely fragile piece of you that you had just opened, but like all wounds do, it would heal eventually.

‘Answer me, captain.’ You kept your voice as steady as possible, regaining the confidence you had built up since you got onto the ship. ‘Was that a mistake?’

‘No.’ And with that one final word, you both leaned in for a kiss. Your hand was still on his cheek, his holding you tightly, but you still felt that urge to pull yourself closer to him. As you felt the press of his chest fully against yours, he actually pulled his lips away from yours. He hesitated but finally spoke against the corner of your mouth. ‘But… call me Eddie. Please.’ 

You couldn’t help but smile into your next kiss. Just like that, all that weight of the world fell off both your shoulders, down into the depths of the ocean, never to be seen again. You didn’t hold back with this newfound freedom when you pushed him up against the desk. The furniture shuffled with a creak over the floor, and you could hear some things topple over at the impact. Still, neither of you cared, too occupied with one another. He could just about manage to extend his hand and begin to push all the loose items off the desk to make space for himself. The papers flew around you, and all the measurement equipment clattered onto the crowd. 

As the kiss intensified, Eddie shrugged and smoothly sat up on the desk, pulling you in with him. As he slowly let himself fall back, you followed, attached by the lips, hands, and hearts, until you practically lay on top, arms keeping you up from falling entirely onto him. Well, one hand, as the other found him and laced your fingers together once more. He had tried to make more space around you, pushing objects aside, when he cursed loudly.

You startled away and saw the clench in his jaw as he took a deep breath. He must have read your panic-stricken face as he showed you his hand. ‘It’s alright,’ his voice was calm, humour peaking through it. ‘I might have just put my hand right into the flame.’ And indeed, the side of his hand was glowing red. 

Hearing this did not put your mind at rest as you tried to grab his hand and inspect the damage more deeply, but he just pulled it away from you, instead taking your fingers in his and kissing your knuckles. 

‘Don’t worry, my darling,’ he smiled while kissing your hand, ‘Can barely feel it.’

He had just made direct contact with fire; you doubted it would be alright, but then again, you had seen all the scars on his body. This would just be another small blister among the list of many. But you blinked the thought away. Tried your best not to think about the pain he had endured. You doubted he wanted you to feel pity for him and what had once happened to him. 

The look in his eyes was adamant. He needed you to let it go, so all you could do was sigh.

‘You’ve gone mad.’ 

Eddie chuckled at your comment as he let his lips travel over your wrist, over the length of your arm. ‘As mad as any other sane man.’ His kisses moved over the material of your shirt. The lack of contact that was so clearly there shot sparks of anticipation through you, but he took his time taking you all in until his lips reached your collar. He had practically strained his neck to reach you from his position. Some of you wanted to back away to see how far he would follow you, but your weaker portion gave into his touch and melted over it. 

He had just kissed your neck, sparking a fire through you on the spot, when a noise boomed over the silent ship, bursting you out of the solitary moment of bliss. In an instant, Eddie held you by the hips as he gently pushed you off him and got himself back on the ground. There was an alarm in his features, and so, when he looked at you and told you to “Stay here”, for once, you listened.

He closed the door behind him as he left to see what the noise was, and when minutes later, he had not returned, but there had also not been any more ruckus or signs of danger; you calmed down. Unsure of what to do now, you lay down on the bed. In the past few days, the bed had gotten more comfortable as you got used to it, but it still felt strange. You lay down on your side, facing the wall. The patterns in the wooden planks almost seemed to move in the shadowy light and, unfortunately for you, brought you into a trance of clarity and thoughts.

What were you doing? How could you have let all this happen? Kissing the man that had caused the death of so many people that you had deemed friends. How could you betray their souls by… by falling for him? You had lost control of all your feelings and emotions. 

It was a trick of the sea. You had simply been captured on this ship for so long that you did not know what was wrong or right. How else could you explain the yearning feeling that still circulated through you? Why else did you wish he was still here with you, touching you?

With all these thoughts occupying your mind, you must have missed Eddie walking back into the room, mumbling something about how it had been a few of his crew that stumbled back up to the ship. Too busy with your own mind, you did not hear him calling your name softly, assuming you had fallen asleep and telling you good night. You did not hear how deflated the last words came from his mouth. You only caught the sound of the door closing behind him. 

And soon, you managed to turn all these thoughts off and fall asleep. Except then, they came back even stronger and in the form of dreams. You found yourself back on the Red Tail. The hawk flapped its wings on the flag in the wind and every man’s uniform. The sun shone brightly in its last few minutes before hiding behind the horizon. It was a strange illusion as you stared down at the ship and the two figures that stood out looking at the sparkling sea. You watched yourself talking to Admiral Carver.

‘I would have imagined you to have grown tired of the water by now,’ he laughed.

‘I won’t say I will be happy to return home, but I can’t ever see myself becoming tired of this view. It is beautiful.’ You leaned forward onto the balustrade and breathed in the salty air. ‘Besides, you have done this for much longer than I have, and you’re here too, so it can’t be that bad.’ It seemed it was only your first expedition while he had crossed the world several times. If anyone was to grow tired of it, you thought it would be him. 

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he had his arms behind his back, ‘but everything is more bearable when there is something back home to look forward to.’ 

‘I suppose so.’ You would not exactly know what he meant. Of course, you could not wait to see your father again, and your friends, but nothing at home gave you the sense that it genuinely anchored you there or drew your heart in for your return. ‘I am sure you miss your family very much.’

‘Yes, of course,’ He took a step closer to you, ‘but I will miss these moments.’

‘Oh,’ you were startled by his proximity, unsure how to respond. Politely, you smiled and tried to keep the conversation going, ‘I’ve enjoyed them too, uhmm-’, but you were suddenly thrown off-guard when you felt his hands on you. Before he had the chance to do anything, you were quick to push him off. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Taking our last chance before it’s too late.’ He leaned in again, and you stepped back. 

‘What about your–’

‘She does not need to know.’ The sea was a free playing field for most men, so what happened out there was not up to the women at home to know. You had seen adultery but never thought the admiral would participate in such activities. He had been drinking; maybe he wasn’t thinking straight. Before he would make any more mistakes, you attempted to walk away, but he caught you by the arm, putting all his strength into the hold.

‘Admiral, you’re hurting me.’ You tried to pull your arm back, and this is where things began to change. Where the dream made itself apparent. Carver’s handsome features turned into vicious angles as he spoke. 

‘So you’ll kiss Munson, but not me?’ 

‘What- what are you–’ you tried to get away, but it was as if he grew in size. And there were flashes. These flashes of light. Like lightning, there was no thunder, rain, or light. It blinded you, and you tried to regain your sight by blinking, but each time you did so, he seemed to change right in front of you. 

There was him like you knew him, but the next second he turned into this nightmarish version of himself, but there were moments when he wasn’t himself at all. You’d blink, and suddenly you saw Captain Munson. Still in that uniform, however, you would try to make sense of it all. Still, before you could, he would disappear again, and you would be looking into Carver’s blank eyes, and you’d see the blood dripping from his mouth as he spat out his words.

‘Don’t trust him.’

‘What?’ You had tears in your eyes, and your wrist burned from his touch. There was another flash of light. Eddie stood before you again, just as you knew him. 

‘Do not trust him.’

Don’t trust who? Who were you meant to trust, then? The questions rang through you as you woke up, head throbbing with pain, limbs sore and dehydrated. If you did not know any better, you would have blamed the rum you consumed the night before on everything, making you imagine all that had happened. Still, the sensation that Eddie had left on your whole body felt too real to be just a drunken dream or nightmare.

He was not in the cabin when you awoke, but you could hear him outside, yelling commands out. When you looked outside the window, you could tell by how the waves moved that you had departed the Saint Claire harbour and were on your way again.

You sat up in bed but remained still afterwards, uncertain what to do next. Some part of you wanted to go outside and see Eddie, talk to him about whatever it was that had happened that night. Still, a bigger side of you doubted you could ever look him in the eye again. Seeing your reflection from the glass doors of a cabinet in the room, of yourself in his bed, made you feel bad enough. So, staying in the room for the rest of the day was not an option either. You were already at the door, hand on the handle, when it opened, nearly crashing into you. 

‘Sorry,’ his apology was muffled. 

‘I was just on my way out,’ you muttered in the same awkward tone and walked past him. 

‘Wait,’ Eddie reached for you, and the memory of your dream of Carver made you retract away from him, regretting it as soon as you did. Eddie wasn’t him, but you treated him the same because of something your exhausted mind had decided to conjure up. Eddie kept his distance. ‘Can we talk?’

‘Later,’ you pleaded. This was not the right time. You could tell that it would not end well if you stayed there. 

But when would it be right? When would the stars align correctly for you to speak? It certainly wasn’t the next two days, as you kept walking in circles around eachother. You avoided him like the plague, and it was unlikely that he had not noticed yet. 

You kept yourself occupied with anyone else but him, really. Talking to Robin, Steve, and anyone else who seemed to require company as much as you. Almost as much, at least. It shocked you as well as them how smoothly the conversations went. While only a little was exchanged, neither side being too keen on sharing too much of their past, somehow, you still managed to fill hours with polite pleasantries. Some even showed you how to work around the ship, probably more than happy to give you some of their workload now. You didn’t mind. It was alright if it stopped you from overthinking everything that had happened in the past weeks. But it was still hard to do when you felt Eddie’s eyes on you. He’d watch you work the sails or anything else from afar, but when you’d try and catch him, he’d be suddenly occupied with something and walk away. 

The biggest surprise, however, came one evening when everyone had gathered for their final meal of the day. You had gotten your portion and were ready to return to the cabin when Robin pointed to the seat between her and Steve. You wanted to politely decline, feeling like you did not strictly belong in this dynamic—the crew’s meals felt more sacred, a moment for them to spend together, but they all saw your argument coming and shut it down. 

‘Never thought I’d say this,’ Wheeler, one of the lankier crewmates, said at some point, ‘but I might actually miss you.’ There was a cloud of agreeable laughter to which you belonged. It was funny, but what scared you was that you would miss them too when that eventual day of your return home would come. 

And it was coming.

Something about the air around you began to feel more familiar each day. And when you talked to Robin, you could sense that she knew how much time there was left. But each time you asked, she avoided answering straightforwardly. 

‘Not sure. But you know how seatravels are, you can never be sure… I mean, we should have been there days ago and yet,’ she laughed nervously, tying knots in a piece of old rope that someone had cut off once. 

‘I suppose you’re right.’ You had your own piece of rope and were toying with the frayed ends, pulling them apart mindlessly. You could hear Eddie talking to someone somewhere around, and you did your best not to look up. It had been days, but your tension still felt raw and strange. You wanted to simultaneously run into his arms and run away from him as far as possible, and you could not figure out which urge was the right one to follow.

‘It probably won’t take much longer, don’t worry.’ Robin said, her shoulder slumping as she untied another knot to remake it.

‘I’m not worried,’ you admitted. 

‘No, and you don’t need to be,’ Robin panicked, not wanting to give you the wrong impression of what she had intended to say, ‘but I’m sure you’ll be glad to be home.’ To this, you had no response because, very much like in your last days on your old ship, you had been eagerly awaiting your return home but did not feel like you were actually happy to go back. On top of that, you actually had the sense that you would miss this crew. By leaving, you would be leaving something behind, and you had never felt that before.

But it still did not feel right. Like a kink in your neck that you were trying to stretch out until it disappeared.

‘Can I ask you something?’ you said cautiously. 

Robin glanced up from her rope. ‘You always scare me when you say that.’ 

‘I hadn’t noticed I did it often.’ 

‘You’re quite inquisitive. It’s commendable, but dangerous.’

‘Should I be scared?’ You blinked. 

‘Not here, but in other parts of the world they’re not too keen on it, so just beware.’ She had tied a knot she couldn’t loosen anymore. ‘But what was your question?’ 

You took a deep breath. ‘Why did you target the Red Tail? And I know it was targeted, since the captain was aware what ship you were attacking.’ There was that other puzzle piece that was missing in your brain. How would he know if you were supposed to be on that ship or not? 

Robin froze and dropped her rope. You watched it fall to the ground and her reaching to pick it up clumsily. Once she did, she fumbled around even more with it. ‘I’m probably not the best person to ask this; I joined the crew late, I don’t know everything that’s going on around—’ she was getting distracted, losing the point of your question, or so you thought, ‘I had only heard things, but you have to know that people around here, we trust each other and that trust is earned. We might cheat once in a while in a game of cards or dice, but some things you just can’t lie about.

‘So, I didn’t need much convincing from the captain when he said that those— that those were bad men.’

‘He told you that my crew were bad men?’ 

‘They needed to be punished.’ Robin shrugged, but not in the way that made you think she thought indifferent. More so that, there was nothing she could do about it. It was a brief apology to you, not for what they had done, but as if she was sorry for being the bearer of the news. 

‘Punished for what?’ you asked, but Robin shook her head. Right, she wouldn’t be able to know, and you didn’t blame her. Was there anyone around willing to share more of the specifics of this situation? You felt like you had the right to explain what had brought you to their ship, but it would go past some lines of comfort for the men. Could you dare ask Eddie? 

But to ignore him for days just to come up with these questions could not be appreciated; then again, he owed you at least this after being the sole reason for your presence on this ship in the first place. He had caused all this mess. He could at least help you clean it up. 

You finished your conversation with Robin slowly, without any urgency to actually put it to an end. It must have been confusing to Robin, who saw how you tried to tie your sentences up to walk away, just to disentangle them just as she had been doing with her rope and keep pulling it back. Ultimately, she stopped it all and excused herself from the argument she needed back on her lookout post. She walked away, giving you this look that made it clear that she knew what you were planning to do and how apprehensive you were to do it. And whatever for? You had fought, punched, slapped and kissed Eddie in the past days without hesitation; why could you not just talk to him now?

Because that would actually mean something to you. It would unblur all the lines that connected you into a clear pattern, and you would have to live with those results, and you just were not ready for that yet. 

You took deep breaths as you walked up to the captain’s quarters. The door creaked as it slid open but was met with a resistant force as you collided with Eddie. He grunted lightly at the impact, and you began to apologise. 

‘Sorry,’ you mumbled, not expecting him to be so close suddenly. You had hoped to catch him at his desk, where the furniture could keep some kind of barrier between you. Still, now he stood mere inches away, towering over you and the heat of his body radiating onto yours. 

‘I was just on my way out.’ He scratched his beard casually, but his eyes said enough about how similarly he felt about your sudden appearance.

‘I hoped we could talk,’ you blurted out, and Eddie blinked.

‘Talk? Now?’ To this, you only nodded shyly. It had been too long. You had made him wait for days, which was simply too long. Why would he want to listen to what you had to say now? Eddie was ready to brush past you, but you were quicker, catching his arm and pulling eachother closer until your lips met in a chaste kiss. The suddenness stunned him, but for a blink of an eye before his muscles melted into position around you. It only confirmed your worst thoughts, how perfectly the two of you fit together, how your bodies simply locked into place with one another. The heat that grew between you could not only be felt by you. It was too strong for that. As much as you did not want to admit it, there was something there that you did not want to lose.

‘I’m sorry, ‘ you said breathlessly, ‘for everything I’ve done in the past few days.’

‘You have done nothing to apologise for.’ He sighed.

‘Exactly,’ you jumped back at how loud you sounded. Still, his pull on your waist kept you close, ‘I have done nothing, while I should have stayed here with you, and we should have talked of, of whatever it is that stands between us, but—but I was scared. I thought I hadn’t been, but I was, and that, in turn, scared me even more, so I thought I needed time to think—’ 

‘And did you?’ He looked down at you inquisitively like he was observing a strange, yet highly fascinating, phenomenon in front of him. Something that he should not be enjoying as much as he was. The unwanted smirk appeared on his lips no matter how hard he tried to hide it. It made you aware of just how much you had tried to say in what short of an amount of time.

‘Yes,’ you said with a slow breath to help you calm down. At this, Eddie simply reacted with a gesture telling you to go on, to tell him what kind of discovery you had made. Would it be anything that could help your conundrum? Clear things up in your heads and maybe even hearts? You could not be sure, but it was a start if you just let those parts of you speak freely.

You took one more deep breath. ‘That night you asked me if I was scared, and I said “no”, but…’ you pushed past the shake of your voice. ‘But I realise now that that wasn’t the truth.’ As you announced this, the hand on your waist tightened its grip before leaving your body entirely. The immediate lack of contact made you regret your choice of words. Maybe you should have prepared what to say, but letting it come out unrehearsed and unplanned felt like the right thing to do. It would not cut out any of the emotions you felt. What you wanted him to know that you thought, so you stammered out your following words.

‘There is so much that I am scared of.  It scares me how and how much I have changed in the past few days, and I am scared that I do not mind it. It scares me how much I enjoy being here and how much I want to be… with you.’ Your last words faded as you had not expected to hear yourself say them out loud. Eddie, who you had watched as he walked around the room in slow paces as he listened, must not have expected them, too, for he stopped to stare at you, dumbfounded.

‘Why?’ was the only thing he said in response. 

‘Because…’ you let out an exasperated sigh, walking up to him. You had somehow managed to find yourselves at his throne, ‘because this is not who I am supposed to be.  I shouldn’t be. You are you; I am me, and nothing here is right.’ Yet the puzzle had never fit tighter together than it did now. But at the same time… ‘As much as I want to spend my days with you, I cannot stop thinking about all the chaos you have caused in my life. Whether on purpose or not…There is blood on your hands, Eddie.’ there were tears in your eyes. Eddie looked down at his hands as if you had meant it literally. They were pale and had a shake to them, but he quickly put them down to his sides.

‘And yet you’re still here.’ He said it with a distance, more to himself than anyone else, narrating the events as if putting it all into words could make it make more sense somehow, and maybe to him, it did. However, you were still utterly clueless and running in the dark.

‘I am.’ You nodded your head lightly. ‘And I wish I could explain why. To you and to myself, but I simply do not know.’

‘Let me pose you these two questions then,’ he spoke sternly, and you got the unexpected feeling that this would be a test you had to ace. ‘Are you still scared of me? Do you regret anything that happened between us?

‘Answer yes to either of my questions,’ he held two fingers up, ‘and I will make all of this very easy for you and disappear. You will never have to see me again but be honest.’ Looking into his eyes the way you were, it was difficult to lie, or it would have been if you had any intention of doing so. The word came easier to you than anything else had in your life, but you still needed to know some things before sealing your fate.

‘Before I answer, I need to know your business with the admiral.’

Eddie scoffed, looking out the window, ‘I could not care less about the admiral.’ Something in him tensed up despite his attempt to make his reply come out casually. Everything besides his eyes, which flickered with so many emotions simultaneously, you could not distinguish between them soon enough.

‘But the attack on my ship was deliberate, was it not?’ You did not need this to become another one of your rows and spoke as carefully as you could manage. If one of you began to raise your voice or fill your words with anger, it would take over the other, exploding fatally in the middle, and that is not what you wanted.

‘What do you remember from that day?’ He looked at you, head cocked to the side as he studied your face. He saw you blink slowly, trying to understand what he was implying.

‘I remember everything.’ How could you not? It was one of the most terrifying days of your life. ‘I remember being on the deck and seeing your dark sails and how I hid under that desk as the canons went off–’ 

‘Whose canons?’ He stared at you blankly, and you mirrored him perfectly. 

‘What?’

‘What canons did you hear go off? Who shot first?’ He did not say anything else, just stood still as you tried to reply with confidence that you lost as soon as you gave your answer some thought.

Everything had happened so quickly, and it was so loud. All you had tried was to block it out. But you heard the bangs. They came from all sides, but the first one... the first one was the closest.

Eddie must have seen the recognition on your face. 'I know that those people were your friends. And I am sorry that that is how things-'

'But you said I was not meant to be on board. You knew what ship it was.' You cut him off at the memory. 'You would have attacked either way, wouldn't you?'

‘It is not that simple.’ He shook his head.

‘Isn’t it?’ 

‘No, and I wish I could explain, but I fear that whatever I tell you will only make you see the worst in me and them.' 

'You could at least try.' You reached for his hand, and a bit of you leapt in relief when you saw he did not pull away. 'I want to understand, Eddie. You do not know how horrible it is to live in this realm of uncertainty and oblivion.’

‘Would you rather live with the horrors of the truth?’ He asked genuinely, with the pain that exactly this truth had caused him in his eyes.

‘Is that not a choice I deserve to make by myself?’ You once again found yourself up against him. Funny how it always came back to this and how you would not have wanted it any other way.

‘You’ve said it yourself; I’ve hurt you enough times. I can not risk doing it again. I will not let myself do that.’ He brushed a strand of hair from your face, brushing his fingers over your cheek. ‘Now, will you please answer my questions?’

‘No,’ and with that, you answered both. Whatever tugged at you from the inside to feel such anxiety had nothing to do with Eddie.

On the contrary, you felt a sense of calm whenever you saw him. And you had wanted, really wanted, to regret those kisses, but you still dreamt of them at night, and it was all with a magical wonder that you wished to experience once more. Despite everything in your life that had led to this that would have told you to turn around and run away, you stayed firmly in your place in front of him with no intention of ever running away again.

Eddie leaned in, and you anticipated a kiss that never came as he spoke against the corner of your mouth, sending shivers down your spine. ‘I need you to say it, darling.’

‘I’m not scared of you, Eddie.’ The tremble in your voice had nothing to do with fear but all with the way he held you. His hand had moved down your cheek onto your neck, fingers wrapped around your throat, thumb caressing your jaw. His eyes pierced through you. ‘And I do not regret anything.’

You knew Eddie had seen all the far corners of the world. You must have come across the grandest of riches. Yet standing in front of him, you could not help but think how seeing Captain Eddie Munson beam his most genuine smile was the rarest and most beautiful treasure of them all. It was infectious; you could not help but smile at it. 

He let himself come close again, but just as your lips were about to touch, he spoke instead. Right against you, the hot air of his breath pricked at your skin with his light laugh. ‘Before all of this, had you ever imagined yourself here with me?’

As much as you had wished it was not true, ‘I did, actually.’ Your mind flashed to your dreams, the ones you had once thought were conjured up to plague you, but now you realised it was just your heart screaming out your deepest desires.

Like a reward, Eddie kissed your cheek for your reply. ‘Really? The princess had thought of me, a filthy pirate?’

‘I’m not a princess.’ You rolled your eyes playfully.

‘Out of all the things to dispute, you argue my words of affection?’ He chuckled, and you could feel the vibrations coming from deep within his chest. 

‘There was nothing else to correct.’ You wanted to laugh but instead gasped at the sensation of a little pinch on your side. While still occupied with leaving kisses on your face, Eddie pinched your thigh. You could feel the smile forming on his lips as he kissed your jaw. When he pulled away, you saw the mischievous glint in his eyes that once used to bring out fear of the worst in you.

‘Glad to know you haven’t changed too much, darling.’ There was a moment in which both of you took everything of the other in. You tried to soak in all his features from this small distance, for some reason feeling the need to remember them all. Meanwhile, he read your face for any signs of reluctance, which he found none of, giving him the sign to finally let your lips meet his again.

The kiss grew in strength by the fleeting second. It was messy and heated. The pent-up tension that had been sitting between you was finally finding its release. You held onto him tightly, one hand on his shoulder as the other rooted itself in his dark locks—which made you soon realise that the tiniest of motions of you caused a reaction in him as well, in the form of a low hiss as you pulled the hairs on the back of his neck. It had been an accident, as you tried to keep yourself up when the pleasure he brought you made you feel light as a feather.

With your urge to keep your bodies close, you quickly caught on Eddie walking backwards. You followed him mindlessly until he found his throne seat and pulled you along with him, right on top of his lap, making you lightly yelp from the suddenness of the drop.

‘Not scared of me yet, are you, princess?’ He smiled, brushing some hair out of your face.

‘No,’ your voice sounded like a hushed, airy whisper. You looked into his eyes. The warmth of them had burned up into a dark and hungry desire. Eddie smiled before kissing you again. 

‘Was this how you expected it to be,’ he murmured against your ear, ‘when you thought about us.’ 

‘No,’ you admitted. It was nothing like you had imagined. All your dreams had been of what you had thought he was; careless, dangerous, feeding off your fear. There had been none of this passion that you felt now. None of the heat, the tenderness or the feeling.

‘Anything you’d still like to change,’ he kissed the soft spot of skin behind your ear that made you shiver. 

‘No,’ you gasped as you repeated yourself. He had run your mind through a mill; words were hard to come by. All you could muster out was the one weak word and hum as you let your hand brush through his hair, but it didn’t make that one word any less true. Maybe on another day, you would have wished to change everything that had happened; before this moment, you would have changed every single interaction you had with the captain, but knowing it led to this moment, you would not want it any other way.

You let him take over all your senses, closing your eyes and breathing him—the rum, tobacco and sea air—in, the taste and touch of his lips and his rough hands. There was nothing, not anything or anyone, else to think about because why would you when this felt so good? Reality went lost on you until you felt his fingers dig into your side, a pain rushing through you. 

Both of you froze.

‘What’s wrong?’ Eddie immediately looked to where he had held you, pulling your shirt up to reveal the scar. The rough skin was a stark contrast to the rest of you. He met your eyes again. ‘Does it still hurt?’

‘It’s just sensitive.’ You wanted to push his hand away, cover the mark up again so neither of you had to be reminded of it. It had been a stupid mistake, that much you knew, and it was not as if you could change the past, so why let it pester you? But Eddie was not the kind to give up easily. He pushed the shirt material back up, keeping your hand away from him, to inspect the damage he had caused. 

‘I’ve done a lot in my life that I will forever regret,’ he kissed your shoulder as his thumb traced over the scarred line, ‘but this will probably haunt me the longest.’ His words and touch, combined with how you sat in his lap, got you lost for words. Because, of course, you had hoped that this was his sentiment; you understood and appreciated his words, but what else was there to say? The only thing you could think of replying, which felt silly to do, seeing your current position, was ask for some clarification.

‘What happened? I would have thought you had more control over your sword than that.’ You aired the conversation with a bit of laughter, but it only spurred him on.

 ‘I had thought so too,’ he kissed you sloppily, ‘I had hoped so,’ hungrily, ‘but I lost it all when I saw you with him.’

‘Who?’ you asked. Maybe under different circumstances, you could have thought more clearly to realise what he was speaking of, but that did not seem possible. 

‘Harrington,’ the name came out of him with a bitter taste. Apparently, the feelings from that day had not disappeared as far as he had thought, but now he could let these frustrations out in a less hazardous manner. It still took a toll on you, but there was no pain to speak of. Just pure pleasure. 

Still, the mention of the crew member had surprised you. ‘Why– why would you—’

‘The way he held you, smiled at you, don’t you think I had wanted to do that? From the moment I saw you—but all I did was drive you away. It was just another reminder of my failure and before I knew it I—’ he stopped himself, still unable to properly speak of what happened. You kissed the bridge of his nose. 

‘For what it’s worth,’ you tugged at the words to come out cohesively, ‘I never thought of him as—’

‘It does not even matter what you think of him,’ he laughed, more so at himself, ‘You could fall for and by happy with any man on this earth and I could make my peace with it. I just don’t want to be the reason for your suffering.’

‘I think—’ you smiled, considering everything that just happened, ‘I think you have managed to pay back any of your wrongdoings.’

‘Oh, darling, I haven’t even started to repay my debts to you.’ And so, Eddie kissed your neck, peppering you with the small kisses and nips, making you giggle and pull him closer into your arms. He kept going until the two of you simply fell into a comfortable silence. He held you tightly in his arms as you let your head fall on his shoulder. Only the sound of the rushing waves and your sweet breaths filled the room.

Once your heart settled back to a steady pace, you knew it wasn’t safe. As good as this moment felt, it wouldn’t last. Whatever this was, there was no possibility in which it would outlive this voyage. Then, once it was over, it would hurt. That much you knew. Possibly more than anything had hurt before, and you would just have to be on the lookout for that end until then to let yourself become at peace with it. There wasn’t another choice, as this idea always stayed with you in the back of your head from that moment on. When you fell asleep in Eddie’s arms that night, you thought how many more days you got to wake to in such bliss as you did the next morning.

You could not tell if Eddie had these troubles, you could not tell, for he went through his following days much like before. The only difference was that his free minutes were now occupied with you.

It had not been your intention to make it so obvious to the crew, but there was also so little you could hide from them. Nothing could escape the dozens of interested eyes, so why hide your affection towards their captain? He certainly was not making any attempts. Any chance he got, he found himself at your side, holding you, kissing you.

Your mornings and afternoons were much the same as they had been before the night of the storm and the Hellfire’s arrival at Saint Claire, as you still spent it in each other's company. The difference was now that instead of being separated by the large oak desk, Eddie would often pull you into his lap to sit in the throne, if not making himself comfortable with you on the bed. The nights began with kisses and limbs tangled with eachother and merged into a joined slumber. Unfortunately, as happy as your days felt, it would not stop the nightmares from coming, but each time you would awake in a cold sweat or with shaking hands, he would be right there to coax you back to peace. What surprised you, however, was that you would do the same to him. 

Somehow, the thought of the notorious captain waking up screaming in the middle of the night, chest heaving, eyes wide with fear, had never occurred to you. You had never imagined him reaching for your thigh to ground himself as his reality spiralled in the dark.

‘Shh,’ you held him tightly, ‘it’s okay.’ 

Neither of you asked about the dreams, knowing you could do nothing about them. You could just help the other through it. And then, each time, the dreams that followed were much sweeter. 

Then you’d wake up in each other’s arms long before the rest of the world seemed to. Those few blissful moments where nothing could disturb you and the time you could spend in that bed was endless. 

Except it very much was not. And you realised it exactly through what you thought would be your escape. 

It was a sunny morning. The golden sunrays illuminated the cabin as you reached for Eddie, just to find the side of the bed to be empty. Only his impression in the covers, the faint temperature his body had radiated onto them, was still there. It could not have been long since he had gotten up, and indeed, you caught him standing at the window—leaning against it, more like. His trousers were loose on his hips, and his shirt was still on the ground around you. 

 You walked over to him, and he looked in your direction as soon as he heard your footsteps. The smile in his eyes was genuine but weak. As soon as you were close enough, he pulled you into an embrace, twirling you around so your back would hit his chest and you could look out at the sea. With how the sunrays sparkled across the waves, it all felt like a dream, too good to be true, but you did not know yet that the dream was at the end of its tether.

‘I really am sorry,’ he mumbled, having his face already nuzzled in the crook of your neck, kissing the spot where it met your shoulder.

‘What for?’ Apologies had become a frequent appearance in his vocabulary, showing up in almost every conversation, if not sentence.

‘You know.’ Yes, you did know. For everything. He held a moment of silence, enjoying your presence in his arms for a little longer, before speaking again. ‘I just keep thinking about how everything between us happened, and if it had not been for me, we could have had more.’

‘I’m just as guilty.’ You had been stubborn, aggressive, and just as blind to your feelings. 

‘A highly doubtful statement.’ He laughed, and his breath tickled the hairs on your neck.

‘I don’t think so.’ You shrugged in his hold.

‘Still just as stubborn, aren’t you, princess.’ He squeezed you tighter. 

‘Is that not one of my most desirable attributes?’ You spun yourself around in his hold and quickly wrapped your arms around him. Doing so, hearing his tone and joy in his voice, you had expected to see him smiling, but he looked just as sombre as when you had walked up to him. ‘What’s wrong?’ Your hand mindlessly began to trace over the scars on his chest, knowing it brought comfort to both you and him by now.

Eddie shook his head, holding back a laugh. ‘You know…’ he kissed your forehead,  ‘when I woke up, I saw you lying there, with the sun shining on your face, and you looked so peaceful, I had honesty considered just locking you away and keeping you forever, but I am a man of my word, am I not?’

‘I…don’t understand.’ You tried to see the meaning behind his words in his eyes, but there was nothing, and it only got harder to figure out when he held his forehead against yours, keeping you close. You still tried to make sense of what he said when you saw it. There, in the far back corner of your eye. So far, it could have been a play of light, yet it was more real than anything. So undeniably real it crushed everything around you without question. 

From the angle the ship stood at, that was as much as you could envision through the windows, and thus you ran out of the room. As much as you did not want to leave Eddie behind, knowing it could be one of the last moments the two of you had, you ran out onto the deck to meet the silhouette of mountains against the rising sun. The longer you looked at it, the clearer the details became. The ridges of the mountains, the forests, the watch towers and houses. The uniformed ships that stood in the harbour.  

You knew this day was coming, you had been waiting for it, and yet, now that it was right in front of you, you wished to be as far from it as possible.

In what must have been shock, you took a couple of steps back just to collide with something—someone. You turned around to see Eddie and his soft but sad smile.

‘Welcome home,’ he announced.

Home, sweet home.

Your head turned between him and the land in the too-near distance, waiting for one of them to disappear, maybe even both. Why was this so difficult for your mind to comprehend? Why were the first words to come from your mouth, ‘Can we turn back?’ 

‘As much as I would want to,’ he sighed, ‘I’m sure they’ve noticed us by now.’ They must have. The watchers in those towers had the eyes of hawks, one of the reasons why your town was named after the bird.

‘So, what do we do?’ This is not how someone who is to be returning to their family after months spent with criminals was meant to respond. Everything about this was so wrong.

‘Go put your dress on.’ Eddie cocked his head back to the cabin. ‘I doubt they will appreciate you wearing this, as much as I adore it on you.’ That is when you realised you stood out on the main deck wearing only his shirt. ‘I’ll meet you in a few minutes.’ And with that, he gave you that look he had given you all those times before when you had been too headstrong in your own actions. Please, listen to me. It will be alright.

You walked back, feeling like you were floating, but not anywhere near the same way that you had the previous few days. It did not feel like you were weightless, on a cloud, free of worry or from the world. You were drifting. Far out into the abyss with nothing to hold on to. In this same state, you walked over to the wardrobe, where you had hung your dress, removed the item of clothing you had on and put on the old and tethered garment. It had once fit you like a glove, but you were far from the person it was measured for.

Just as you finished putting it on, the door opened, and Eddie walked in.

You didn’t want to look at him. Not because of anger, you had, after all, no reason to be angry at him at that moment, but because you were sure that if you looked into those brown irises again, you would break down. He must have had the same idea as you as he walked past you, only grabbing the nearest shirt off the rack, and making a headway to the desk.

‘What are you going to do now?’ After all, that had been what pulled you two together, the money your father would offer for your return. That is what kept you on this ship safe for as long as it did… although, in retrospect, you doubted that Eddie would have ever done anything to you. Maybe he had always intended to bring you home before even speaking to you. Perhaps the money made no difference. But funnily enough, you wanted him to get it. Something in you, a deep instinct, told you that it was what he deserved.

‘Write a random note,’ he said, and you could see he was doing his best not to laugh. ‘Then we’ll send the note out, hope it reaches your dearest, and we’ll make the exchange.’ His words were quick and emotionless, but you noted the hint of novice apprehension in his plan.

‘You’ve never done this before, have you?’ you asked as you made your way up to the chair across from him.

‘Try not to sound too disappointed over my lack of experience in selling beautiful maidens back to their prosperous fathers.’

‘Not at all,’ you shook your head, grabbing the piece of parchment and quill from him. ‘But let me. It will be proof of life, and besides, your handwriting is unrecognisable. He won’t be able to read any of it.’ 

Eddie stared at you blankly as you began writing. 

Dear father, 

But what were you to write? The ink dripped off the quill as you pondered on the words. For a message that was quite clear, it was hard to actually phrase it and write it out. By the time you had signed your name at the bottom of the page, the Hellfire had almost reached the coast. You read it through once more: 

Dear Father, 

I know it has been a long time since you last heard from me. The Red Tail is no more; I was the only survivor, to my knowledge, saved by a crew of rogue sailors. They have kept me locked away but are willing to free me for the price of  10.000 pounds. Please meet me at noon at the Star Port for the exchange.

Love, 

Your daughter, 

—

You had decided against the mention of piracy or anything specific about the ship’s sinking, knowing that it would only drive your father away from pain the ransom. Eddie had been unable to keep still while you wrote your drafts but now stood behind you, hands on the backrest of your chair, reading the note along with you, over your shoulder.

‘Who would have thought, my darling extorting her own father.’

‘I am doing no such thing!’ You looked up at him, ‘I am simply… aiding you in extorting my father.’ when it came to this, you had little sympathy for your father. He had plenty of money to spare and often spent it on ridiculous causes. A faux rescue of his only daughter could surely fit in between those other purchases.

There was a knock on the door, which Eddie welcomed, and Harrington walked in. 

‘Got any mail for me to deliver, cap?’ it had been unanimously agreed that Harrington was the most inconspicuous of the whole crew and would be able to walk through the city unbothered to deliver the message. 

You had just been in the middle of folding the parchment. The last thing left was to let the wax melt to keep the corners together. With the seal done, you handed Steve the letter. He smiled at you with thanks, but his face hid an expression of loss, almost. A farewell. But before he left, you clutched him in an embrace, almost knocking Steve over.

When the door closed behind him, it was only a matter of waiting. After your fifth round of pacing through the room, Eddie walked up in front of you, blocking your already quite well-outlined route. He had met you right in the middle. 

‘I would prefer if you did not spend our last moments together walking holes into my carpet.’ 

‘You do not have a carpet,’ you quipped. 

‘Must you be so difficult now?’ He laughed that laugh you cherished so much before he placed his hands on your cheeks and kissed you the way you adored even more. The sun was almost at its peak, and so was your heart, and you had no idea what to do when it would finally fall. Either way, you would find out in a few minutes.

‘Do you think—’ 

‘Highly doubtful,’ Eddie said somberly before you could even finish your thought. ‘You had said it yourself, darling; you are you, I am me. This is not meant to work.’ But what if it could, you wanted to shout, shocking yourself for the millionth time on board this ship.

‘Well, then it had been an honour being your captive, captain.’ You said with a deep breath to keep your composure up.

‘Well, then it had been an honour being your captive, captain.’ You said with a deep breath to keep your composure up.

‘Oh, don’t look so sad just yet, princess, the real fun is only about to begin.’ At this statement, you blinked slowly. ‘Or did you think you were done aiding me?’

‘What else do you need me to do?’ 

‘Since you mentioned it, I think we need to make you look the part of my sweet captive. Make your father believe we really had kept you all good and locked up, hmm?’ He grinned. ‘I really did not do a good job at this, did I? Got you all spoiled up here.’

‘It was much appreciated.’ You giggled, incapable of keeping a straight face when Eddie got like this. Looking back, you could barely imagine the cold and dark exterior that he had once posed in front of you since he had been an entirely different person underneath that. Then again, so were you. ‘So, what did you have in mind?’

‘A lot,’ he licked his lips, ‘but I don’t think we have the time for that. We’ll probably have to do with tying you up like a pretty gift—just your hands, of course,’ he quickly added as he saw your eyes widen. ‘And I’ll be sure to not make it too tight.

‘Alright,’ you nodded. After all, you trusted him. You watched him look through the room for something to wrap around your hands. In the end, he found a piece of rope hanging among the many items on his wall. It was a bit too long for even the intricate, but relatively weak, knot he tied over your wrists—enough to give the impression of captivity, but in reality, barely grazed your wrists. He made sure to check. 

And then it was time. You walked out of the cabin for the final time. The room in which you had spent so many tumultuous days and nights. A silly part of you wanted to actually run down the ladder into the lower deck to see the holding cell one last time. For what reason, you could not fathom. 

Eddie guided you with a hand on your back, down the gangplank, which wobbled with every step you took. You tried to keep your breathing under control, but then again, if this had been a real threat to your life, you would probably feel similarly. The walk down the harbour was the longest of your life. There just came no end to it, and you could not, frustratingly enough, make your mind up if you wanted that or not. After all, each step closer to the port was one step further away from him… and when had you become so dependent on him? Weeks ago, you had thought up visions of killing him in his sleep; now, you could not think of life without him. 

Your thoughts were still fighting for some kind of cohesion when you saw him walk down the street. Accompanied by his usual entourage of guards. Two of them carried a large trunk between them, which must have been filled with gold or other treasures to meet the demand.

‘Papa!’ You screamed out; an incautious urge to run towards him propelled you forward, just to be pulled back by Eddie. You glanced his way, and your breath hitched at what you saw. In the short amount of time that might have felt like an eternity that it took you to walk down the harbour, he had turned into what you could only describe as his old self. The same version of him that you had seen when you were “welcomed’ aboard the Hellfire. The Eddie that terrorised your nightmares. His eyes were pointed like daggers at your father. 

He, in turn, stood aback at the sight of who had been holding you. Most of the men around him did, in fact. It caused a bit of a stir, the murmur of his name travelled in disbelief, but Eddie was the first to speak up in full volume.

‘Governor. I see we meet again.’

‘Munson.’ Your father always had the skill to look unimpressed at the sight of any man, always seeming to be above them, and even now, he did a good job hiding any other emotion, but you could see the crack of fear breaking him on the edges. It was, however, quickly replaced as he spoke in his usual tone of business.

‘Munson. What are you doing here?’

‘Why, returning your precious jewel, of course.’ He grinned, pulling you closer to him. Some of the guards leapt forward but were stopped by your father and Eddie, who reached for the knife at his side. All eyes were on you and him as he let the blade slowly track over your arm. ‘Don’t wanna do that, gents. It will only cost us more trouble.’ 

‘You got the gold, Munson, now let her go!’ There were still several feet between the two sides of the deal. Eddie looked around theatrically. 

‘Do I?’ He cocked his head in his own direction. The two men in charge of the trunk hauled it over to you. You had no idea how Eddie was meant to carry it back to the ship. As they brought the gold over, your father spoke again. 

‘Is she well? Unharmed?’ 

You nodded, but Eddie nudged you with the hilt of his knife, his lips against your ear, ‘C’mon, darling, the man’s asked you a question.’

‘I am fine, father.’ You spoke. By that point, the men reached you and, with a final kiss to your temple, Eddie let you go. You were immediately pulled out of his reach by the guards. They must have thought they were holding you up as your legs objected to moving. You were unable to look away from him. All up until you felt your face pressed against your father’s jacket. 

‘There, there, it is alright,’ he hushed, and it took you a moment to realise why. You were crying. And if only he, or anyone else, understood that it was for all the opposite reasons. No fear or relief was escaping you through those tears. It was a loss as you saw Eddie standing there, bowing down at the end of his performance, blowing you a kiss goodbye.

It was the panic when you saw the rest of the people in the harbour. All of their eyes on you. On him. None of them were simple bystanders or civilians. 

Your dream had been crumbling into ruin all these days, but this was the final blow. All of it came down, all at once, and it started with your father’s call.

‘Guards!’, and suddenly the tenfold of guards appeared out of all possible directions. They had him surrounded, weapons at the ready. Eddie had nowhere to run. Your father spoke clearly, cutting the silence with the blade of his words. ‘Munson, I arrest you on charges of murder and high treason!’ 

Chapter 10

thank you so much for reading!! if you want more of where this came from, check out my masterlist.

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taglist on the nsfw version

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson au #eddie munson smut #eddie munson angst #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson series #pirate!au #pirate!eddie #pirate!eddie munson #fanfiction #fanfic #fic #imagine #smut #angst #fluff

[danelloevee-sky]

OC world building: Civilizations

Ancestors (I have to think about what to name them)

Children of light

Some returned as spirits to give guidance to sky children so they don’t repeat their mistakes

Alef and Resh are the same person, Resh is simply the name he took as king. Alef is currently stuck in limbo (forever. maybe. idk yet)

Sea People

Children of darkness

Named such because they are born rising from the sea (as opposed to sky children falling from the sky)

The oldest surviving civilization

Typically live in settlements around the seas, rivers, other large bodies of water or even in the water

When Resh’s kingdom fell and the world was enveloped with corrupt darkness they were at risk of falling into madness

During that time they expanded to a lot of territory in order to survive (this will be relevant later)

Heralds of light

Children of light

Created from some of Megabird’s brightest stars

Born to replenish the Light in the world and restore the balance between the light and darkness

One of their duties included purifying the shards that fall from the mountain of Eden (there are no more shards falling into the world in the present time)

Handled the brunt of the aftermath

Many were hunted by powerful and corrupted dark creatures

No longer roam the earth (except for Ved), the last ones turned their bodies into the shrines so their Light could remain in the world and be of use

Witches

Children of the earth

Bodies from the earth with a core from either the light or the dark

Represent neutrality, like their god

Unaffected by light or dark magic from either gods’ children. They cannot be harmed by it but they cannot be healed by it either

Possess animal-like features and can turn into the animal in question

Only group that is technically allowed to freely pass through the borders as agreed upon in the accords

Main territory are the forests: on the lands the mountains and underwater

Sky People

Children of light

Light is not as powerful as the Herald’s, this protected them from being actively hunted by dark creatures

Slowly but steadily continued returning Light to the world

Conflicts with sea children over territory; eventually settled with the accords between sea children, witches, and sky children

Evening stars

Sky children who gave away their very light in exchange for a new life as a child of darkness

There’s like a whole baptism thing in sacred water it’s very painful and very rare

Only about 50 exist

Will continue to be edited

#story time #oc lore #dianthe writing #info: world #writing: lore

[t-horn-n]

— the magic word

PAIRING:  katsuki bakugo x reader (female) — anime 

GENRE:  angst 

WARNINGS: mentions of death, canon-level violence, mentions of severe injury

SUMMARY:  what can bakugo do when you are injured?  absolutely nothing.  and he cannot stand it.

An interesting phenomena occurs when the mind and body is forced under extreme duress.  An almost out-of-body experience, yet not quite the total severing of the consciousness from one’s physical form.  Katsuki Bakugo does not care to know the name of this sensation.  

He cannot decipher what he feels.  

He probably wishes that he was numb, but more accurately it seems as though enough emotions to fill the sea have crashed over his head at once.  He chokes on emotion.  Something wells in his throat.  An uncomfortable weight solidifies and settles atop his Adam’s apple.  Bakugo cannot move and for once he is silent.  

Time slips around him in odd ways, as though he has been displaced onto some spectral plane where logic does not exist.  Seconds lurch past, then elongate into aeons.  Light warps against his eyes strangely.  Flashes of red and blue conspire together at the edges of his peripheral vision, blurring together into gelatinous spills. 

Rationally he knows that he cannot have gone into cardiac arrest, but then his eyes focus again and once more he sees your silhouette less than fifteen feet away.  A mess of acute angles.  Oil slick beneath you, reflecting the strobing emergency lights.  No, not oil.  Bakugo thinks that perhaps a villain had torn his heart from its space within his rib cage while he was distracted.  Or more likely, he tells himself, he allowed you to take one too many cog from the machine of his core and now the entire system is failing.  

What happened?

Throughout the history of his life, Katsuki Bakugo has been alone.  His righteousness, his strength, his ego.  They had been all he needed.  Now?  Now shock permeates through his blood.  He cannot bring himself to think for any kind of reason.  

One thousand worst cases circuit his brain.  

What would he do if you were forever trapped within a limbo between life and death?  If you awoke with an amnesia-riddled mind?  If your eyes never opened again?  

It occurs to him then that he does not know whether air is still filling your lungs; if blood still floods your arteries.  

His sanity ripples and he is at your side.  Your face cool against the skin of his palms.  Growing ever cooler, he feels.  Every degree colder is another step towards death, Bakugo thinks.  His panic renews.  Mercy mercy mercy.  Where is the mercy?  

Katsuki Bakugo could never be mistaken for an optimist.  He has never believed that the world employs any concept of equity, but still he cannot help but silently demand how this is fair?  

Stars please help us. 

Your face is more stagnant than he has ever seen it.  

Mercy, he pleads with whatever higher powers may be listening.  

Faceless medics begin tearing you away from him.  Fear.  When was the last time he has felt fear like this?  This terrible, suffocating, all-encompassing emotion that threatens to cease his entire existence. 

He says no.  He asks why.  Only a hand remains wrapped around your wrist.  The medics say they must.  They say he must let you go.  

Tires screech.  The world continues rotating, life roars its ever-lasting cacophony.  The ambulance disappears around the blocks, but Bakugo is still kneeling by the oil slick you laid in.  No, not oil, he reminds himself. 

Red Riot is running up to him from behind, calling his name.  He cannot tell if he does not hear him or if he simply does not have the presence of mind to answer.  

Where is his mind?  He does not know.  Red eyes turn even redder.  Has he been crying?

Please. 

— m. list

#katuski bakugo x reader #katsuki x reader #bnha #bnha x reader #mha x reader #mha #bnha fanfiction #mha fanfiction #bakugo x reader #katsuki bakugo fanfiction #bakugo fanfiction #my hero academia #my hero academia x reader #my hero academia fanfiction #boku no hero academia #boku no her academia x reader #boku no her academia fanfiction

[magnorious]

Percy Jackson and Why the Best Villains are Right (update)

I feel like this post needs an update after the first two long-awaited episodes aired so here goes. This is long and I am not sorry one bit, but I made it its own post anyway because it's so long).

This is the original, read at your leisure.

First, let me set the stage: Last Olympian came out when I was in 6th grade. I had the first four books in paperback and couldn’t wait for book 5 to make a perfectly matching set, I needed to read it the day it debuted. I, like many fans heard they were making a movie adaptation of TLT and we all collectively lost our minds. Finally! We would see our heroes on the big screen, and it was the guy who directed Sorcerer’s Stone. This dude knew how to make successful franchise-starting movies.

We. Were. Hyped.

Then… the rumors started. The actors weren’t the right age. Annabeth wouldn’t be blonde. Grover was this… unrecognizable slick, smooth-talking lady killer. Camp Half-Blood didn’t look like we pictured. Chiron looked okay? The special effects looked decent?

I didn’t get to see the movie when it came out. In fact, I remember being on a road trip and seeing it for $16 on demand at our hotel and my grandparents just couldn’t reconcile with that kind of price. I was crushed.

Turns out, they were unknowingly sparing me from disappointment. Everyone knows the two movie adaptations were awful. If you never read the books, they were tolerable, I suppose. If you never read them, you didn’t have the emotional investment we did, and you didn’t see why all the little details mattered so much. You didn’t care if it didn’t follow the book exactly because it was kind of funny and a little bit ridiculous but not *awful*.

Those movies are up there with the M. Knight Last Airbender as some of the worst kids’ fiction adaptations in history. Then the years pass. Harry Potter releases Deathly Hallows Pt. 2, the end of an era while the fandom money machine keeps on churning. Percy and co get new books, and some tangential spin-offs, the foundations of a much larger world of multi-pantheon fantasy, but after the failure of Sea of Monsters, an adaptation of Titan’s Curse would never be made.

We’d never see emo, angsty Nico and Bianca, never see the development of Percabeth, never meet Thalia or Fred or Artemis. The fandom was in limbo, forever tethered to just being a series of books that would never compete with the Boy Who Lived.

Then, years pass, and we hear rumblings of a new adaption. This time, Disney is handling it. This time, Rick is neck deep in development making damn sure they stay faithful. This time, it’ll be good.

But, if you’re like me, and so many other people unenthused by Disney’s releases over the last decade or so, you were more than a little afraid that Percy would be twice-doomed by another awful adaptation. You heard the rumors again about tiny minutiae that didn’t exactly match the book but still dared to hold out hope that they learned from their mistakes. They’d succeed where so many stories in recent years fell flat.

Then, finally, we get trailers, and we get episodes.

Just so everyone is aware of just how much pressure is riding on this show to succeed. It’s not just an adaptation probably ten years late for those of us who grew up with the books and Percy. It’s a redemption.

So, I’m not Uncle Rick, and if he signed off on the tiny detail changes, then so be it, but I want to explain to all those who rolled their eyes the last time at why we were so pissed Annabeth wasn’t blonde the first go around: It represents that if the director didn’t give a shit about making sure the simplest of details were correct, he wouldn’t care about the big details like themes and the characters’ personalities and the actual messages of the story (which, surprise surprise, he didn’t). One wig would have been a sign of good faith with zero excuse to fall short.

We’ll ignore Annabeth this time around because she has an equally valid reason for not being blonde this time (for anyone who doesn’t know, Annabeth was meant to break the “dumb blonde” stereotype. Having her played by a minority speaks to the same spirit. The books were also written a long ass time ago in terms of the evolution of pop culture and I appreciate that Rick is evolving with the times where it fits, as his books have increased in diversity across the board beyond three white, straight, cis protagonists).

I’ll ignore Percy not having a NY accent (not that it’s crucial or anything, but he’s got the sass and sarcasm of the born and bread New Yorker that he is and it would have been a nice touch). I’ll ignore Percy and Grover playing Mythomagic – even though that’s Nico’s game and matters because Nico was such a dorky little nerd before everything went to hell and Percy just. Wasn’t. He specifically liked skate parks and trying to be at least a little cool. I do like that the game was even there in the first place for all of us who recognized it on the spot. I also liked the nod to the Minotaur’s tighty-whities in the textbook (though strange).

Details do matter. Percy’s got black hair and sea green eyes for a reason. All the children of the Greek Big Three have the black hair, and only them. Apollo and Athena kids are blonde for a reason. Characters tell Percy over and over again how much he looks like his dad and it matters. If Potterheads get to complain about Harry and Lily’s eyes, so do we. But maybe the actor didn’t want to dye his hair or wear a wig. At the end of the day it doesn’t break the immersion and ruin the story.

All I’m trying to convey is that usually, the curtains aren’t just blue for kicks. Characters are designed with intent. Color choices matter. The Sith aren’t running around with blue lightsabers just ‘cause they ran out of red LEDs on set. And if this tiny detail was waved away, what else will be?

But hey, that was just my first impression. I saw this kid pop up on screen and my immediate thought was: That’s not Percy (though it is Percy’s eyes).

So, did the rest of the premier change my mind? Does the show still capture the spirit of the books, even it if can’t quite capture an exact reflection?

I made a list while I was watching of all the other minutiae that I noticed, for better or for worse and here’s the positives:

Chiron’s actor hits that “best teacher I ever had” vibes perfectly.

Baby Percy is fricken adorable.

12-year-old Percy’s thick-ass eyebrows just work for some reason?

Grover’s actor is good, no notes, fits him well.

They still hit a lot of the beats (Nancy, Yancy, Mrs. Dobbs, the cabin, the wreck, the matador fight, Sally vanishing, the minotaur horn, the Hermes Cabin, dinner at the pavilion, the bathroom scene, capture the flag, claiming) in order.

How often they dress him in shades of blue and/or green before the orange camp shirt.

Annabeth’s signature line.

Dionysus is on point, what a dick.

Percy’s sass and disrespect for authority!

CHB is solid, no notes.

The wood nymph makeup on whoever that lady was is fantastic.

The cloven council is four books early. Points for continuity?

The nightmares are different than the books but fit the same vibe.

Percy sucking ass at every skill was perfectly executed (but it would have been nice if they showed him excelling at canoeing because it was funny).

The physical acting, the fight choreography, was excellently executed.

But, for all the inexplicable changes, there were many that were a disservice.

As much as events being out of order and lines and explanations being spoken by the wrong characters at the wrong moments pains me (Sally never got the chance to tell Percy anything, her grave mistake was not saying anything sooner, trying to keep him close to her as long as she possibly could and that’s things went so wrong at the start of the book, they also didn’t fight), I get how adaptations work. Sometimes page-to-screen just can’t be done.

That said: Grover didn’t sell Percy out to Yancy, but he did try to gaslight him. Gabe was way meaner and fuglier in the book and first adaptation and wouldn’t dare let Sally talk back to him, or say “please”. Sally also didn’t look quite as world-weary as I’d hoped, for being trapped in an abusive relationship and a minimum wage job. As Percy’s first taste of combat, they really speedran the Mrs. Dobbs fight. He didn’t have Riptide during the Minotaur fight; he beat that bastard with his bare hands. Chiron worked up to his centaur reveal after all the exposition dropped. Not a single character has a NY accent and that Di Angelo name drop is… cheap and nonsensical. It’s only there because of how insanely popular Nico became (for better or for worse).

For episode 2: Percy’s conversation with Chiron and Mr. D was completely different, mostly because all his lines were given to Sally and Grover and it suffered some pacing issues because of it. Exposition and when they decided to do it felt like purposefully stepping on all the cracks in the sidewalk. It was written in the book that way, in that order, because it worked.

Where tf was Annabeth? She didn’t make a real appearance until ¾ of the way through the premier. All but her signature line was stolen by other characters and, because of this, she has almost zero rapport with Percy at the start of their quest. All her attitude is there, with none of what makes her sympathetic, and it’s very telling, not showing. Luke and Clarisse exist. I only know it’s Luke because of his scar and his unnamed friend that skulks around with him is… somebody. One of the Stolls, maybe? We were 0 for 3 on characters having the correct hair color. Grover’s tangent to the Council was a mess and we have the PJO equivalent of midichlorians with “kleos” as if Percy needed another motivation to succeed in tangible hero points and, finally, there was no hellhound fight (for rating issues, I assume?). Not sure yet if they’ll keep the hippie in the attic and the entire concept of prophecies that are so critical to the plot and themes (see my first post).

Overall, it’s a shame that the performances feel so stiff and robotic. I get that they’re all kids and this is probably all their first acting roles but if the fight choreographer trained them so well, the acting coaches could have stepped up their game. So many lines are delivered without emotion, or too much emotion (like Clarisse screaming bloody murder at her broken Maimer), which causes some very important scenes to feel bland.

When Percy has the chance to choose his companions, the choices TV Grover and Annabeth have made make them incredibly unappealing candidates. Annabeth has been nothing but rude, vague, and unkind, and was absent for her most important lines. Grover sold him out to the headmaster, gaslit him, revealed how much he’d lied about the world of the gods, agreed to keep lying to him about what he now knows about Sally, and Percy still hasn’t forgiven him.

So, is this a worthy adaptation?

Honestly… I wish it would have been animated, like Arcane or Dragon Prince. Animators would have saved the inexperienced actors from such stiff visual performances. They wouldn’t have had to deal with creating lifelike CGI and could have made some events much more kinetic without the laws of reality getting in the way as this is a story about mythology come to life. It’s a shame, too, that animation is still bound to the shackles of seeming inferior to live action when people absolutely adore Spiderverse and Arcane, and both would have been worse off in the constraints of reality.

The whole thing feels like it tried its best to follow the roadmap of the book, but lost the soul of the book. Changes to the source material are okay if they improve the story, but a lot of the reordering of events and exposition just makes it clunky.

It’s not bad. Gods know it’s already better than the movies in spirit. Maybe it didn’t have the budget or the time or the resources, or Covid caused problems, but this is Disney Money. There are ten whole books in this series and a fandom rabid for a good adaptation. There is zero excuse not to invest the proper time, money, and effort into hitting it out of the park when you can commit to ten entire seasons of a show in the era of eight-to-ten episode stints.

Maybe I’m being too hard on it, you decide. I’m tired of giving the Mouse the benefit of the doubt when they have All the Money at their disposal to hire the best people possible for the job and to get it right this time.

#percy jackon and the olympians #pjo #Percy Jackson review #disney+

[whelved-in-words]

shackled

i am loved. i am loved. i am loved.

but what if i dont want to be loved?

all i want is to be free.

the days are blurring together. im trapped in a forever gaping abyss that never closes it's yawn, teetering in the limbo between something and nothing. the clock is always ticking too fast yet never fast enough. all i want is for the heaviness in my chest to melt away like a slippery cube of ice in the wake of a splendid summer sun. all i want is to taste the relief of succumbing to an eternal, everlasting sleep.

all i want is to be free.

'life is a gift,' they say. but it's the kind of gift that evokes tight smiles and forced, empty gratitude. it's the kind of gift you want to shove away into the shadowy depths of your closet so it can fade from your memory. it's the kind of gift you know shouldn't belong to you when it could delight another far more.

yet it's the kind of gift you know you'll never be able to return.

because poor mother, she will have sacrificed so much for naught. poor father, he will forever have his vision tainted with regret. poor sister, she will carry a heart gnarled with guilt in all the coming years.

it's like im shackled under water, tethered to the sea bed by my relationships. every breath i take feels like it's choking me, but i can't escape. i can't snap the strings that tie me down into the quicksand at the bottom of the waters.

all i want is to be free.

but i am loved, i am loved, i am loved.

sometimes i so terribly wish i wasn't.

#my writing #new poets society #original poem #original writing #poetry #poem #poets corner #poets on tumblr #spilled writing #spilled poetry #spilled emotions #spilled thoughts #spilled ink #spilled feelings #spilled journal #spilled pages #spilled poem #poem of the day #short poem #writers and poets #writing #writers on tumblr #open wounds #vent #i feel so ungrateful for this #i just really want to let go