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hostess-of-horror · 1 year

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Inspired by our other conversation. If you were put in charge of the next HHN, you can make the houses, the stories to them and the scarezones, what would you do?

Kinda like the HHN wishlist but I am curious of what you would do in the details of it. 👀

- @classicdeadfan

*SQUEALS OF PURE DELIGHT*

@classicdeadfan, you have no idea how much I wanted to talk about something like this! I love haunted houses, scarezones, and Halloween in general, so of course I would have tons of ideas as to how I would develop a proper attraction!

The Main Theme:

Now, I never really thought about an overall theme for HHN, mainly because I only ever thought about specific themes for houses and scarezones. Although, the more I think about it, the more I'm leaning toward a "deranged artist" horror story theme. I know that The Director is a "deranged artist" that already exists within the HHN-verse, but I was thinking more along the lines of the Killustrator from Singapore's HHN event.

Or perhaps, Sander Cohen from BioShock.

Okay, maybe not him specifically, but an Icon character much like him. If there's anything I love, it's the concept of an artist who uses murder and other horrific ways to create masterpieces.

Another thing I also really want is Cindy to make her appearance as an Icon (she was going to be one years ago, but she was switched due to the multiple child kidnappings in Florida at the time).

So... Cindy + "Deranged Artist" = A very meta main storyline where Cindy, after years of being promised to have her own "Icon"ic debut, finally lashes out against Universal Studios for denying her the chance to shine. With a cursed sketchbook in hand, Cindy unleashes her twisted, child-like drawings into the streets, killing anyone and everyone in their path.

2. The Scarezones:

I'm going to do five scare zones for my HHN event because there were five of them last year, and honestly, there are so. many. ideas.

Halloween Horror Nights 32: Drawn in Blood - the main entrance to the entire event. Cindy has finally taken over Halloween Horror Nights as her personal canvas and the blood of those who denied her years ago is the ink of her pen. You will encounter Universal Studio employees and creative teams being torn apart, gutted, beheaded, and tortured by her living creations. Her father, the Caretaker, will also be there, supporting his daughter as she wreaks havoc. Beware of Cindy, or else you will become her next biggest inspiration!

Army of Frankenstein - the scarezone spin-off to The Bride of Frankenstein Lives, where the Bride's various experiments have now been released into the outside world. Cower in fear as you witness villagers get attacked by these man-made beasts and are forced to bow before their malevolent conqueror. Nothing will stop the Bride from hunting down all of mankind until she either wipes them out or until they surrender to her...

Vamp '32 - a "prequel" to Vamp 85. Set in the year 1932, the Great Depression has fallen upon all of humanity. Where life has become difficult, death is now far easier than ever before! Enter the party of the century as poor souls are tricked into getting easy employment for the hosts and higher-ups. In the world of undead flappers and gangsters, fresh blood is the most valuable of all!

Bugs: Unleashed! - the sequel to Bugs: Eaten Alive. After the failure and destruction of Buzzcon, the mutated bugs are now taking over the world! Step into the 1950s as a suburban neighborhood becomes a hot spot for breeding and human food supplies, and armies are just about helpless in fighting these bugs off. You better BUZZ off, or else you're dead meat...

Haunted Couture - inspired by Vanity Ball, this scarezone has turned into an exclusive R.I.P. tour of the "Gore"-geous world of fashion. Using the leftover flesh from her previous massacre (main entrance), Cindy's revenge has taken to new heights as her victims become living mannequins for all to see and scream! As someone once said: "Beauty is pain."

3. The Haunted Houses:

All of these are not in a particular order, as I am searching through wiki pages and whatnot to come up with some good house ideas.

Vikings Undead: Glory and Gore - a previous scarezone turned haunted house. Follow along with an excavation team and witness their newest discovery yet: an unknown burial mound that holds the remains of an ancient Viking king named Audun the Unyielding. Little did they know that their trespassing has cursed them all and he and his Draugr army now rises to satiate their bloodlust. Face your fears in battle and prove yourself worthy of the gates of Valhalla!

Terrifier - an IP haunted house about Art the Clown and his menagerie of gore. Venture through the dingy neighborhood as you are caught in the midst of a grisly murder spree, and Art is on the hunt! This maze is not for the squeamish or the faint of heart... Use your wits to escape, or die trying!

Universal Studios: Opera of Terror (Phantom/Dracula maze) - the sequel to the Universal Monsters line-up. A mob has risen to take down the infamous Opera Ghost as Christine Daae is in his clutches. But as the Creature from the Black Lagoon emerges from the depths of the sewers, chaos unfolds as the two iconic Monsters battle it out for Christine's love. Bodies will drop (as well as the chandelier... again!). Who will win, and who will drown in defeat?

Yokai Hotel (Japanese Creature maze) - Check-in into one of Japan's finest hotels for a night or two... but watch out! This modern hotel has a secret: within its wall remains an ancient curse and the ghouls had taken their place as its eternal residents. You will encounter vengeful ghosts, horrifying demons, and unsettling creatures as they try to feast on your soul. As you go deeper, you will unlock the secrets behind the owner's lineage and what their true intentions are.

Feartime Emporium (Devil Dogs) - Schittie's Kidz from Slaughter Sinema has now become a funhouse of death! Enter Lizzy Lemming's Funtime Emporium as the children within turn psychotic and kill anyone they see. Climb through the booby-trapped playgrounds, sneak through the blood-soaked arcade center, and pray they don't catch you. And whatever you do, let them eat cake... and pizza... and whatever the hell else they want!

SyFy's Chucky - the official HHN house of this year... very self-explanatory!

Retail Hell (original) - it turns out that working in retail isn't all that it's cracked to be. The horror comedy maze of the HHN event, Retail Hell is a minimum wage employee's worst nightmare. A "Karen" has been infected with rabies, and now every "Karen" and "Ken" are going into an animalistic rage, ripping human flesh with their teeth! Survive your way along with the employees and security as you fight against these ballistic zombies. The main mission? Protect the manager at all costs.

Dollhouse of the Damned: Restitched - the popular haunted house from HHN 24 (2014) has finally returned with a vengeance! Revisit the horrors of the dollhouse, now with brand new scares and even more terrifying toys to be frightened of. As you enter, you will experience a realm where good toys go to die and evil comes out to play. Once again, this house is no child's play!

Horrormoon Suite (original) - during the 1970s, Cupid's Arrow Resort was once the perfect place for newlyweds to spend their post-wedding days together. To this day, it lays dilapidated... but far from abandoned. Within its graffitied walls resides a cult of "Undesirables" - people who were rejected in terms of love. In the hopes of finally having love in their life, the Undesirables will do anything to achieve an inkling of romance. Anything...

Legends of London (original) - Jack the Ripper is not the only terror that stalks the foggy streets of London. The city is wrought with death and cruelty, fictional or otherwise, all the way back to the days of kings and queens. Travel through time as you are haunted by the dead and hunted by the deranged. What will it be: slaughtered in an alleyway? Cooked into a meat pie? Or perhaps, beheaded for crimes you never committed?

#I'm sorry if some of the mazes you're looking forward to aren't on here #halloween horror nights #HHN 32 #my HHN event #ideal HHN event #fan wishlist #HHN #universal studios #answered asks

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tentajack · 1 year

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I think i figured out what the core of my current mental state is coming from.

Whenever I have a major life shift, whenever from my frequent severe illnesses or mass irl re-shifting or an unfortunately timed wombo combo of both, my priorities and time management and brain worms and even my tastes in media and creation will shift, sometimes a little, other times a fuckton.

That's not even going into some minor personality changes, which is why I've dubbed this kind of event an ego reshuffle. It's occurred many times, and it fucking sucks, sometimes occurring at the same time as either a partial burnout or a full one (never want to live though that again). The most severe one was when I had moved and had to adjust to working life... resulting in taking a four year hiatus from almost all art, which at that time had all been traditional with a little training in how to use ps and illustrator to supplement.

By the time I did get the spark back, it was nothing like what it had been before: drawing reverse centaurs and ponies on /mlp/ with only a mouse and GIMP and writing some smutty greentext on the side, almost nothing to do with how I had created previously aside from some side screenshot edits, back around about 2014 or so.

Time has come and gone,and I've had lesser versions of this kind of shift, but for clarity I'm just going to focus on what I've been making, more so what I haven't been making.

I've made lots of things that I love, and I don't regret taking over writing updates for Royal Quest, or any of the lovingly gay ass shit I've written elsewhere, but in the shuffle I forgot I was supposed to be working on game development this whole fucking decade.

It was easy to lose sight of that goal right from the start, especially with the fatigue issues I discovered after a few years at a desk job. I'd try to make sure I was making some sort of progress, either learning blender or setting up documentation for how to set up an alpha version of a game idea. But between constant and chronic health issues, a marriage to my loving wife that I must confess is much more co-dependent than I should allow, employment upheavals, and growing as a person outside of the shadow of my upbringing, shit got a little too chaotic, and my goals and dreams and everything about myself that wasn't tied to either survival or pleasure (I like to entertain a crowd with my art and writing and I'm not ashamed to admit that, but the chase of serotonin really backfired for focusing on long term projects... or all the gratuitous smut, again not sorry at all for that) simply got buried and forgotten.

I remembered just today that I yearn to participate in game dev in some form, any form, and it would explain why my ambition would burn me up despite doing what I could, given I was not making any progress in making an actual game. Strengthening my skills and making wonderful friends, yes, but if I'm not making tangible progress I feel like I'm dying. My ambition is a living flame, and if i do not feed it, it will find something to burn. It does not help that thanks to my irl commitments and chronic fatigue that my ability to draw and write and make has become painfully slow, and that's really really bad for making a game with no outside help.

I can already see what I need to do:

>Properly cancel Royal Quest

This one will be hard to walk away from, but it's been nearly five years since I hijacked it, and I need to move on no matter what before the five year mark. It's a shame I never got around to the three or four scenes where all the consequences of player actions came to bloom, but I can at least write up a short summary of what those would have been in multiple places and hope my players see the announcement on /cyoag/ to know I'm not coming back for a long while. QM'ing has been such a fun experience, but writing daily updates where pacing suffered due to my own fatigue isn't a great way to finish that story. Maybe I'll remake the whole thing in rpg maker someday in the far future, I still love the setting and characters too much to let them go for good. This will hurt me to do, I do not abandon any project lightly.

>Force finish all my don't starve WIP's

This one is more so the fault of an extended busy season and a bad illness, but I am way past overdue to finish A midwinters nightmare, and the two remaining chapters are not something I want lingering in my work queue. I'm going to need to finish both chapters by the end of February at the latest, even if it winds up being a shitpost-like version, I hate abandoning projects once they're in the public view and it is not an option for something I want to finish like this. I think the only other 'expected thing' was some out-of-season kinktober stuff that I'm going to try to do in February if I can balance my time well in the coming weeks

>Wrap up any other side projects and start daily dev progress

Once I have no promises hanging over me, I'm going to start some pre-production stuff on one particular game idea I had for a hunting/fishing/horror game, so that even if I need to fall back to a more 2d/sprite oriented game later on I'll still have solidified what I need for that main project. I know nobody's first game goes as first expected, but it won't mean anything if I never have a first game in the first place. I'll likely be posting those updates one way or another here or on pillowfort, so I can keep myself accountable (except on days I get sick).

That's all I have to say on the topic for now, it's late at night but I feel my ambition being fed again with this rediscovery. I still want to do fandom stuff, but it might become more and more of a backburner thing until I can manage time for all projects again.

#tentatext #vent #weh #kind long

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frostahesmegabite · 3 years

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The Judgement of Carrion

@daily-writing-challenge - Day 4 - Accomplish/Macabre [ Content warning: Blood, Guts, Gore, Bits of Torture, That sort of stuff. While there aren't pages and pages of it, it is present in this short story. I tried to find a balance of detail and keeping things light without going into ‘Hostel’ territory. ]

Human forts were a dime a dozen, easily found and half of them forgotten or falling to ruin due to the numerous war fronts that were constantly moving across the face of Azeroth to fight one force or another. Some lost to time, others to ruin, some to marauding forces and others simply abandoned because they were no longer needed. It was one of these Forts that Megahes had put to use for himself and probably his most comprehensive and long lasting pastime.

Clever little devices put into play to keep things looking abandoned and misused, neglected and falling to ruin. The place had not only been repaired but also reinforced with Magical and Mechanical Goblin ingenuity that was built upon with knowledge gained over the past several decades.

Inside of this fort, despite the fact it was never intended to receive an actual willful audience, was decorative furniture made of fine dark woods embroidered with rich velvets, soft silks and the finest wools and cottons coin could acquire. Tables stretching about with plates and goldware that no man or woman other than Megahes would ever see sat to present an atmosphere of riches on display. Trophy cases and stands line the walls with numerous weapons of both magical and mundane descent that perch over Armor Stands holding protective metal layers meant not just for Goblins, but all races.

If any ever came to somehow find the place and took the time to inspect any of it, they’d find that all of these items weren’t as ‘pristine’ as they may appear at a distance. Damage came to them all at some point or another. Blunted blades, shattered axe heads assembled to look presentable. Armor with gashes, pierced helmets or chest pieces, greaves with shorn metal by the thighs that most likely led to bleed outs.

The more one could look, the more they’d note that all of the gear was like walking through a museum of deathly wounds. All that stood or hung from the walls had a story of defeat and loss and probably before then, great triumphs, valor and victory… just to have their stories end here.

Megahes pays no mind to these things now though as he walks with his back rigid and straight, his arms back behind him with hands clasping the other arms elbow in some overly formal glide across the stone floor. His bright white and gold attire is a stark beacon amongst the dark colors and atmosphere of the room that one should have found comforting, but for some reason, only brought worry and dread with it as he moves about his untold business.

[ Artwork by the Magnificent Fishadee. No Fire or Light Shards floating about in this scene, purely put for clothing example. https://twitter.com/fishadee ] He stops, not worrying to look around for any watchers, for he knows there are none as he stops at a small wall just behind a staircase. “Rehorur decno Kudex.” A series of flashes occur around our Goblin and once completed a small stone panel slides off to the side and Megahes puts his hand into the slot. A sudden sharp ‘shing!’ sound is head and Mega’s neck tenses but for a moment before his hand is withdrawn. A mechanical but feminine voice perks up from the slot. “Welcome back.” “Hmm.” The only sound Megahes makes before he takes a step back and then to the left. The stone wall jars forward at an alarming speed, spikes erupting from her stone crevices meant to impale and kill any would-be intruders while giving Megahes the solitary moment that was needed to pass behind the crude defense into the wall beyond. Whether by measured practice or perhaps sensors, the trap quickly retreats and returns to normal, giving off no telltale signs of a hidden door or of Mega’s earlier passing.

The reason for all this secrecy? Hidden at the end of the staircase Mega was already descending. Humans had their specialties sure, jacks of all trades those people. But the one thing they never fail to make well?

Jail Cells and Prisons.

It was this singular reason that Megahes took over this once ramshackle Fort for himself. Though there weren’t many cells, there was no need. Three of them sat in a row at the bottom of the stairs, each outfitted with custom Arcano-tech that allowed for the arrival of a singular occupant that was soon set to magical and electrical suppression to keep them docile and incapable of action while time slowly allowed them to become dehydrated and starved to where strength or speed was no longer an issue either.

The work put into this place was one of Mega’s hidden creations of pride and in the past, its use went towards a sorted pastime of torturing whoever was unfortunate enough to get caught by one of his traps. Times change however and with Mega’s newfound religion, came the need to change how and why he did things while applying them to old hobbies. Today’s hobby however, only involved one other person beyond himself and Mega comes to stand right before him as electricity pulses through his frail, nearly starved frame.

“Brother Abacus.” A stupid name, false to be sure, but one that Megahes didn’t really care about either way. “I realize you don’t know who I am and that’s quite alright.” He leans in, voice dialing down as he speaks through the bars just as another tide of electricity bombards the ‘Brother’, causing him to whimper and whine in pain. “You have been found guilty of being a member of a Twilight Cult, one in fact, that was run by Dinthoqaf the Defiler.”

The cultist looks up, arms shaking in heavy tremors as he tries to look his would-be captor in the eye. They give out however, causing him to hit the ground with an exhale. His cracked and bleeding lips wobble, trying to say something, but the lack of strength made their efforts near useless. It was sad really, or at least it would be if Megahes cared about the man's condition in the slightest.

Megah glides over to a control panel on the wall and proceeds to flip a series of switches and dials which cause several mechanical tendrils to tear from the wall in Abacus’ cell that soon lash him to the same wall they originated from. His body was quickly drawn into an ‘X’ shape with limbs pulled tight and to their limits.

“You see. Your former… Employer? Boss? Leader.” Megahes hands lift and tumble in slow methodical circles as he tries to find the right word, but leaves it be. “Him and I don’t get along very well and thanks to his efforts, I find myself needing to improvise my tactics a bit. While I know he’s dead, face turned to slag and glass, I wanna make sure I get the job done correctly, meaning none of his followers try to take up his mantle. I’m sure you understand.”

He turns around and heads into the cell, worry of electrocution now gone thanks to the current state of affairs. “You see. I have this…” He pauses. “...Macabre little ritual I have to do every so often and believe me.” The Goblin laughs while looking up at the man while proceeding to straighten up his clothes, as if it mattered. “As much as people might want me to say I hate doing this… I don’t. I’ve been doing this to people way before you all found me and now. Now I get to put my hobbies to better use.”

Megahes’ hand comes up, his index finger pressing to his lips to tell Brother Abacus to be silent. His smile fades with the gesture and he reaches up, pressing his black and gold painted claw against the clothing of this man's thigh. Downward, slowly, it runs. Fabric quickly turns from a peasant-y brown to a heavy red and brown as flesh below seems to split before the clothing itself can.

Magic? Possibly. Insanely sharp claws? Not likely. But whatever it was, the man's thigh split open as if by scalpel and despite his starvation, he thrashes weakly in an effort to pull away. The machines holding his wrists tighten and continue to do so until the sound of bone is heard crunching.

This process continues on not just for mere moments but stretches of hours, lines drawn across flesh like sand. Megahes had nothing else to say and so, despite the protests and pleading, begging to let him go and he’d tell no one, Mega continued.

Soon, details were carved away, facial features, scalp and its rooted hair, ears. Nearly anything that could be taken and removed without outright killing this poor cultist was taken in some macabre movie of silence and torture and finally, when the man was nearest his end, Megahes opens his own shirt.

The metal embedded into his Chest that shines with the Light like a beacon in this squalor, practically vibrates as Mega runs his blood coated hands across its surface. Red blood made semi-translucent by the sheer shine, soon was baked and cooked black, all Vitae devoured, leaving Megahes to sigh in relief.

“I would ask you to tell the Defiler thank you for giving me this. But… we both know you’re never going to have that opportunity.”

Megahes runs his hand up from Brother Abacus' groin clear up to his collarbone, shearing clean through flesh and muscle alike. What came next was a grotesque shower of innards that began to fall and slop to the floor, leaving our would-be cultist inanimate and lifeless.

“Now to clean up and go home. Tonight’s my date night and I have so many things to accomplish before She gets home…” Soon, the jail cells were left dark and eventually the slow trickling of blood and various other liquids came to silence in the dark, waiting to be cleaned up and for a new subject to be taken.

#blood #gore #gif #warning #torture #goblin #daily-writing-challenge #Megahes #Day4DWC #Macabre #murder

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harringtonstudios · 4 years

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dusky pink.

plot: you’re called in for an emergency photoshoot, not really knowing what to expect, things can surprise you. part 2!

A/N: holy moly this is the most i’ve written! glad i got back in a mood. this is for the anon that asked about a model!au earlier, i hope you like it.

taglist: @iamdorka @no-shxt-sherl @bakerkells @findingmyth @rosegoldrichie

When you had gotten an emergency casting call from Galore Magazine, you hadn’t expected all this. YBeing an established model, you were known for your unique photoshoots and uprising through runway walks. You had been in the industry for almost a full year now, feeling like a veteran when you were constantly being booked by different agencies.

Galore Magazine was one of your first employers. They had allowed you to explore your creative side while posing for the camera, launching what the industry called your ��brand.” You had developed a strong, personal relationship with the executive assistant of the magazine, and she would always offer you jobs when you felt like you needed something to do in order to keep busy.

The phone call came in at 3am, disrupting a night out. You had immediately picked up, walking to the outside of a club after seeing her name flash on the screen. Within minutes, in a slightly tipsy haze, you had agreed to a two-day long shoot, confirming that you would be able to fly out in a few hours.

The alcohol had settled into your bloodstream when you rushed to your apartment, throwing clothes into a duffel bag. The flight you were supposed to be on was scheduled to leave soon, and you knew that check-ins were going to be a bitch, so you grabbed a bagel from the 24/7 corner deli before setting off to get to the airport.

It was only after you had settled into the airplane seat that you realized you weren’t exactly sure what you had said yes to. The alcohol from last night had drained out, leaving you with a pounding headache and you grimaced as the plane started lifting off. Pulling out your phone, you texted the editor of Galore, shamelessly asking what you had signed up for the night before.

There were a few emojis exchanged and then finally, you got the creative plan for the shoot. It was supposed to be a Romeo-and-Juliet aesthetic, inspired by the 90s Leonardo DiCaprio version. You grinned, remembering how fully obsessed you were with that movie in your teenage years. The vibes had always seemed so beautiful, popping shadows and gold chains, it was something you were eager to emulate.

As you read through the notes, you realized that they had a rapper coming in to play as Romeo. This threw you off, there was a certain way you modeled and when collaborating with others, you liked to be prepared beforehand. It wasn’t anything bad necessarily, you just liked to know your partners so that you could tweak your methods to their needs better. You took a breath before opening up Google to search up “Machine Gun Kelly.”

There were a shit-ton of articles to sort through, mostly relating to his new album release, “bloom.” Scrolling through the different new posts, you bit your lip. He seemed nice enough,a few things catching your eye straight off the bat. The tattoos that lined his skin were amazing, creating a tinge of jealousy as you looked at all of them. Tattoos were your weakness, having about ten smaller ones yourself. This was going to be interesting.

Landing at the airport, you caught a Lyft straight to the set. Since this was an emergency fill-in, you didn’t have time to do much else, sighing as the Galore studio came into view. You loved being in California, the sun shining down on you, cobbled streets, lazing living and you really wanted to enjoy all of it.

Right away, the front desk assistant shuffled you off to the hair and make-up room. The team had a very specific vision to execute and you smiled as their creation came to life. Putting on a natural, dewy look, you sat up straight, trying to make this process as easy as possible for everyone.

Picking up tweezers, they aligned gems under your eyes, making the color pop. Lightly dusting some shimmery powder on your cheek, they moved on to your hair. Straightening it, they applied some sleeking oils before tying it back a little. All of a sudden, one of the top makeup executives came rushing in, holding a swatch of eyeshadow.

“Put this on her! And make sure her lip color matches. Let’s go, hurry it up,” he clapped, throwing the palate to the artist working on you. You shut your eyes, letting fingers run over your eyelids. The color was a dusky pink and as you looked at yourself in the mirror, you felt good.

Applying some Vaseline on your lips before the pink gloss, you pursed your mouth together, blowing a kiss at the mirror. Glancing up, you caught the eye of someone standing behind you.

Turning around, you looked up to see none other than Machine Gun Kelly, leaning against the doorway. His makeup seemed to be already done, matching the glow of yours. His hair was done up, looking soft and sharp at the same time. There was a scar on his cheek, cut open and you saw the eyeshadow shade splotched around it, creating dusky pink on top of his cheekbone. He was smiling at you and you felt a blush start to rise on your cheeks.

“Promise I’m not that cocky. Ever,” you muttered, trying to avoid his warm gaze.

“Cockiness is sexy,” he laughed, leaning over to reach out a hand, “I’m Kells.”

“Y/N,” you responded, giving him a loose handshake.

“Oh c’mon, I know you can shake harder than that,” he grinned, gripping the tips of your fingers in his hand.

“I mean, I could. But why would I want to?” you responded cheekily. Raising his eyebrows, he smirked, dropping your hand.

“HEY YOU TWO! GET INTO COSTUME,” the executive assistant shouted as she passed by. Walking behind you, she leaned in to whisper, “Looks like someone’s getting along,” before going on her way. Feeling the blush climb just a little higher, you got up off the chair.

“Costumes that way,” you murmured, pointing down the hall as Kells followed behind you.

“So, you know a lot about Galore?” he asked and you smiled thinking of all the memories you had in these very rooms.

“Yeah, they gave me my first big break yanno? I’ve been eternally indebted to them since,” you explained, letting your fingers trail over the walls covered in autographs.

“Wow, big ups to you. Most people forget where they come from, glad to see you sticking to your roots,” he spoke as you turned into the room.

“Mhm,” you whispered, immediately getting distracted by the racks that hung around the room. Colors popped out from every corner, complementing the golden shades on your faces. Reaching out to touch one of the satin shirts, you felt Kells nudge your elbow from behind.

“I don’t think we’re supposed to touch those,” he murmured, nodding to the sign that the costume designer had hung up.

“They’re beautiful, I have to. Fuck the rules,” you muttered, picking up one of the hangers off the rack.

He gave you a look before mumbling, “That’s what I like to hear,” and then both of you were grabbing hangers, pulling clothes off of the racks.

“Where do we change?” he asked, hands bunching up the expensive silky shirts. You knew the changing stations were next door, but you didn’t want to really walk over.

Looking up at Kells, you smirked before going, “Right here?”

“Oh? Don’t have to tell me twice,” he said, throwing the shirts on one of the chairs in the room. Reaching to pull over his white t-shirt, he laughed, seeing your gaze on his bare torso.

“Sorry, I um, haven’t seen so many tattoos on somebody,” you stuttered out, hands itching to reach across and touch.

“I think that’s what they all say,” he said, running his tongue against his teeth.

“Shut up, get naked,” you scoffed, turning around to hide the red of your cheeks.

Pulling off your top, you reached for the first shirt you had grabbed, a deep blue button down. It wasn’t meant for you, reaching down to the tops of your thighs as you closed one of the lower buttons. The shoot was going to be in lingerie anyway, and you knew Kells would see your body, so there wasn’t any reason to hide it right now. Turning around, you presented yourself, throwing up jazz hands.

He guffawed, palms reaching up to cover his mouth. Widening your eyes, you leaned over, putting your hands on top of his.

“Stop, are you trying to get caught?” you shushed him, looking at the door for the costume director to walk in at any minute.

“I’m sorry, you just look great, I. I can’t even come up with words,” he snickered as you moved your hands back.

Flipping him off, you took a step back, admiring his look. He was wearing a deep pink suit, jacket open to reveal all his tattoos, pants tailored to his exact body shape. Looking him up and down, you wet your lips, tongue reaching out involuntary.

He opened his mouth to say something, but suddenly a shout came through the door. “What is going ON? Y/N you know better,” came rushing out of the mouth of the director. Snapping at you, she pointed over to a rack filled with satin lingerie.

“Get the white one on now. Take this shit off,” she said, reaching for the blue shirt you’d done up. Huffing, you shrugged it off, before walking over to the clothes for you. Out of the corner of your eye, you could see her fussing over Colson’s fit, playing around with the buttons on his jacket.

Shrugging off your sweatpants, you pulled on the white outfit. It fell to the bottom of your legs, slits done meticulously to show off your legs. The lace on it was beautiful, and you hesitated before stepping back around, suddenly getting a little bundle of nerves in your belly.

“Perfect! Come here,” she muttered, reaching for something on the table. Picking up a set of angel wings, she turned you around, snapping them over your back.

You saw Kells staring at you from his spot by the door, and the heat in his eyes was unmistakable. The bundle turned into a flutter and you swallowed, trying to calm yourself down. This was just going to be another shoot, nothing special.

Oh how wrong you were. Right off the bat, the director asked you both to go across the street, in the mansion they had booked for the day. This was your first time exploring and you had quietly marveled in the grandeur of it all. There was a high wall, taller than you were, but coming to right around Colson’s chin. The director lifted you up, and then you were posing on top of the wall, bare legs soaking in the sun as Colson played with your hand, standing right below you.

For the first few shots, you looked out in the distance, trying not to catch his eyes. It had gotten intimidating to make eye contact, especially now that you were in the headspace of Juliet. After a couple of takes, you got pulled aside, softly told to “Act like you’re in love, dammit,” and then popped back up on the wall.

Taking a breath, you steadied yourself as Colson put your palm in his, and made eye contact, softly smiling as he looked up at you. The pose felt like forever, eyes boring into each other, and then the director shouted, “Amazing! Ok next,” and you were being pulled down into the next area.

A few solo photos later, they put you back on the wall. Colson stood in between your bare legs, leaning into you. His arms braced on either side of your hips. The close proximity made you nervous, and you let out a soft laugh as his hair brushed against your cheek.

“Shhh,” he whispered, barely moving his mouth.

“You shhh,” you whispered back, leaning your shoulder against his.

Instead of responding, he simply reached his hand over, putting it slightly over yours. Tapping his thumb against the back of your hand, he slowly moved it into a stroke and you pulled your legs together instinctively, forgetting he was in between them.

You saw the smirk build in his face and you let out a breath, trying to not let him get to you.

“What’s wrong,” he murmured, still moving his thumb agonizingly slow on your hand. Nudging him with your thigh, you tried to shut him up as the camera flashed.

“Done. Okay, both of you. Take a break, go change. We need to get a few more shots in before the sun goes down,” the photographer shot out and you pushed Kells back a little, throwing him a grin before sauntering back to the studio.

Switching into the green lingerie suit, you looked at yourself in the mirror. This one was a smaller one-piece and you glanced at your booty, making sure it looked good for the pictures. Pulling the suit up a little, you admired the way the lace cupped your boobs, perfectly covering your nipples. Picking up a towel from nearby, you wrapped it around before crossing back over to the mansion.

Kells was standing there in the blue shirt from earlier, and you let out a laugh, seeing the perfect way it hung off of him. You reached up, adjusting his collar, smiling as you saw him gulp.

“I think you look better in this,” you murmured, fingers delicately running right over his neck.

Stepping back before he could respond, you took off your towel, putting it on the desk nearby. Turning back around, you saw his face, eyes eagerly running up and down your exposed body.

“I think you’d look better in nothing,” he mumbled, hand rubbing at his chin. You felt yourself get warmer at his comment, and you threw a wink at him, before walking over to the director who was setting up a beautiful red car.

“Game plan?” you asked, clapping your hands together.

Ten minutes later, you were balancing on Kells’ thigh as he sat on the car’s hood. One leg hitched over him, the other extended as you stood straight. You pressed your torso against his, arching into him, throwing your head back so you could bare your neck.

Placing both hands on his chest, you laughed as the director yelled at Colson, placing him into position. He wrapped a hand around your back and you felt yourself naturally lean into the touch. His other hand came to rest on your bare thigh, pressing in slightly, fingers barely there. He looked straight at you, and you feel your heartbeat pulse as the camera started clicking.

“Y/N! Wrap your arms around his neck. Yes, now look right over at the camera,” came the shouts from the director. Colson pulled you closer, bringing the arm around your waist closer. He turned to face the camera too and you watched the director falter for a second before rushing over to take the picture.

“Holy fuck! That was incredible,” she yelled from behind the screen, and you giggled, letting your head fall on his shoulder.

“Y/n, you’re free to go for tonight,” the executive director said, pointing around the rest of the crew to pick up different set pieces. You nodded, grabbing your duffel bag as you turned to face her real quick, “Uh, what about Kells?”

He was across the room, getting more eyeshadow dusted onto his cut, typing away on his phone. The director looked over at him, before looking at you, eager to get away with him.

Rolling her eyes, she went, “Listen, I need him for a few more shots tonight, but he’ll be done in half an hour if you wanna hang around. I know Gina’s been dying to catch up with you.”

Grinning, you dropped your bag on the seat. Pulling your hair up into a ponytail, you walked past Colson to the hair station. Gina had been the first friend you’d made modeling and she was incredible at her job, a creative visionary when it came to not only styling hair, but keeping it protected when crazy things were happening too.

Leaving the room, you heard Colson go, “Hey, wait where’s Y/N going?” and you smiled, knowing that you weren’t the only one feeling the heat building between the two of you. As you got out of earshot, you could still hear the director yelling, “Don’t get your panties in a twist!” and you almost walked smack into Gina herself, snickering at his panic.

Half an hour later, you were clinging onto Gina’s words as she told you the latest horror story of a terrible famous client. She had broke out a bottle of rosé, sipping on bubbles while you picked at the platter of fruits you had stolen from the front desk. There was a knock on the door, and you hopped off of the counter, pulling it open. Kells stood there, back in his regular clothes, Converse knocking against each other as he stumbled a little.

“Hey,” he mumbled.

You lifted your cup up, taking another sip, raising your eyebrows, urging him to continue by nodding slightly.

“So, I’m kinda stuck in the area for the next two days for this terrible photoshoot I’m doing with this horrible girl -” he started, and you interrupted him, choking on the rosé as it hit the back of your throat, laughing.

“Sorry, uh, you were talking about this awful girl?” you continued, getting most of it out of your system.

“Right, yeah. Would you wanna get dinner with me?” he finished, making that eye contact again, creating a warm fuzz in your tummy.

“Yeah, yes. Yeah,” you blurted out, rosé and nerves rumbling within you.

“You said that already,” he grinned as you went over to pick up your bag.

“Shut up,” you grinned back, trying to hide your smile.

“Bye Gins, I’ll catch you tomorrow,” you said, leaning in for a hug. Kissing your cheek, she whispered in your ear, “Get some please. I need to know, for science,” and you let out a belly-laugh before following Colson out the door as he waved goodbye.

It was all in the name of science right? No harm, no foul.

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kingkatara · 3 years

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Girl Meets Waitress: Opening Up

Disclaimer: I don’t own Waitress. I don’t own Girl Meets World. This is a fanfiction written just funsies.

Looking around, seeing the same things every day brings

Maya woke up to darkness every morning. Her eyes peeled open after a mere six hours of sleep and were met with nothing. For a split second, there was only darkness in front of her, around her, within her. It was then that she and the world had their daily battle of wills, the war over who would break the stillness first and stir the other into motion. And always it was Maya who surrendered. Her eyes would adjust to the low light and a hot puff of breath would warm her face, still partly under the covers to avoid that first shiver of a New York morning that was always chilly no matter the season. She sat up in bed and surveyed the smoking battlefield of her bedroom, taking in her losses from the night before and wondering which of them would show on her face for the rest of the day. Beside her, the world’s weapon lay dormant, harmless unless she were to challenge the demands for peace. If she came quietly as the world beckoned her, he would slumber on. She didn’t look at him as she swung her legs over the bed and tapped her toes against the smooth hardwood floor beneath her. Her white flag of surrender was the tug on the long curtains that shielded the sunlight from shining into the apartment through the wide window on her side of the bed. This was her cry out into the world that she would not fight. And then the day would begin.

Wake up, use the toilet, brush the teeth, comb the hair. Put the hair up. Makeup over the dark circles and fading yellow-green lump above the eyebrow. Panties, bra, uniform. Socks, then shoes. Purse. Nametag out of the purse and on the uniform. Every day, the routine was the same. There was ease to it, but it would be a lie not to admit that it was also repetitive. She didn’t know what her life was supposed to be like, but she couldn’t help feeling that it wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was as though there was some missing ingredient that she had long ago forgotten to include in the recipe, which always left the dish edible, but unsatisfying. A ritual she had not shared with anyone in the six years of living in her Lower East Side apartment was that the last thing she did before giving in to the reality of her life was standing at her window and waiting for the first rays of light to peek over the buildings in her neighborhood. She never watched the sun fully rise up into the sky. She simply waited for it to appear and then raced it to work. She never won.

The ride across town on the subway would have been daunting at best for a tourist, but for a born New Yorker like Maya, the odd little scenes playing out right before her eyes, even as early as six in the morning, were just as natural to the routine as tying her shoelaces. On the way to work, swaying gently along with the subway car, Maya would pull out her sketchbook (which wasn’t a sketchbook at all, but a pathetic server’s pad on which she took down her orders) and mimic the likeness of what she saw and sometimes, on her lowest days, what she felt. Today, there was a particularly amusing picture of an eccentric woman with some sort of hat, though Maya couldn’t quite bring herself to call it that. It was tall, a violent shade of purple, and topped with hot pink feathers. These feathers were of great interest to a small little girl, whose mother, wearing the scrubs of a nurse, was snoozing against the window of the subway car. The little girl was standing up on her seat, using the handrail for balance, and blowing on the feathers of the woman’s hat. The woman gave no indication of noticing this invasion of personal space and was instead muttering to herself about some sort of building with her name on it. The two of them were immediately transcribed into her notepad in short, quick lines of ink.

From the subway, she made her way through the streets of the Lower East Side, weaving in and out of passerby with an expression that was as equally bored as it was underground. She didn’t look up at anyone and instead chose to keep her eyes down on her white sneakers. The less she looked open to communication or interest, the greater chance she had of making it to work having avoided any unwanted attention—because yes, some men really were in the mood before seven in the morning. Then finally, there was the diner. Where her life played out day by day, where the routine really began and always finished; the diner was more of a home to her than her own apartment, which, of course, wasn’t really hers at all. But the diner? It was the closest thing to belonging that she felt since being held in the arms of her mother so many years ago. She entered through the door in the back of the building that led to the kitchen.

“Is it a woman thing?”

“Excuse me?”

“The being late. Every damn day. Is it a woman thing?”

“Oh, shove it up your—”

“Good morning! Who’s ready to start the day?”

Of course, no home was complete without its inhabitants. Maya supposed she could have had it much worse when it came down to the universe selecting her partners for this life thing. She didn’t hate the people she worked with every day and she guessed that they didn’t hate her either. With that being said, however…These partners were no picnic either.

There was Zay Babineaux, the cook. All Maya knew about him was that he was from a small town in Texas and he came to New York when he was a teenager. He still had a slight drawl to his snarky voice, the stubborn southern streak within him that refused to be beaten down by the hustle and bustle of the north. He never offered any detail into his personal life, like why he chose to be a cook or how he ended up at the diner, and Maya never asked. When he wasn’t flipping pancakes on the griddle, he could be found grumbling to anyone who would listen (and that was exactly no one) about how nothing in his life made sense and why women were the reason for that. Though he was technically her boss, he and Maya had an ongoing feud over who should be giving who orders within the unhallowed walls of their place of employment.

Riley Lawrence was a young woman of thirty who was made up of sunshine and daisies. She married her high school sweetheart right on the heels of graduation and went to NYU for a degree in political science. A year into law school, she dropped out to start working at the diner in order to care for her husband, Charlie, who had suffered severe brain injuries in a freak bus accident. Though all of her dreams were now wasted, she still smiled like sunshine in the rain and danced like a daisy in the wind. It was for Riley’s sake that squabbles between Maya and Zay were quickly put to bed—neither of them had the gumption to disappoint a soul like Riley’s, who had endured so much already and never uttered a single complaint.

“Me. Thirty minutes ago. Why are you women always late?”

“Perhaps it’s because we know you can’t afford to fire us.” The newest addition to their band of misfits was Isadora, who for some reason allowed them all to address her by her ridiculous surname: Smackle. Even her nametag introduced her as such to the customers. She was a twenty-three year old grad student living the dream that Riley had once chased and for that reason, Maya and Zay tolerated her. It wasn’t that she wasn’t likable; she was nice enough. It was just that Maya had never met anyone who was more tightly wound. Smackle had a particular way of doing things and though the diner had never been cleaner, more organized, and more efficient than when Zay took her on, Maya simply didn’t appreciate changing her way of doing things just to fit Smackle’s compulsive need for order.

“Actually, I can. I don’t own the place. I just run it. I wouldn’t lose anything but the weight of carrying this business if I had it my way and kicked you three to the—"

“Business? It’s a diner. And it didn’t miss us for the fifteen minutes that we were late. But it will miss us for thirty if you keep us from actually doing our jobs with your whining.”

“Alright, you know what? Get out of my kitchen. Get out.”

Snickering, Maya led Riley and Smackle through the swinging door that led into the dining area. Though Riley sighed unhappily as they left Zay to his dramatics, the girls easily fell into their habitual duties for opening up. Riley got to work on the register, counting bills and setting up the front desk. Smackle wiped down each table and sorted the condiments in whatever order made sense to her otherworldly brain. Maya got to work on the pastry display case. The first thing she did every shift was rearrange it so she could display her creation of the day, which was dreamt up sometime before going to bed every night and arriving at work each morning. What made all the elbow grease she put into the job worthwhile was found underneath the diner in its basement: the bakery. Each dessert, particularly the pies, was made from the imagination of her mother. Every dressing coating its recipe, particularly the cakes, was designed from Maya’s. Serving the sacred combination to the diner’s patrons, who had no idea that they were seeing into the very essence of her being with every bite, was the most gratifying thing Maya got to experience in a montage of diner meals that left her secretly hungry for something more. In another life, perhaps Maya would have liked to be an artist. But she was living in this life and if she couldn’t be that, she supposed being a waitress that got to bake the cakes was the next best thing.

“What’s the special today?”

Maya’s fingers twitched towards her apron’s pocket where the sketch of her subway ride lived frozen in time between the pages of her server’s pad. She was planning on using it as inspiration for some kind of cake resembling that crazy old woman’s hat, but Riley’s hopeful expression was especially sweet this morning. Her brows lifted in the direction of her hairline ever so slightly, creating the barest traces of wrinkles that were not yet etched into the still youthful skin across her forehead. Her lips parted in a preciously premature smile of delight. Maya never wanted Riley to know the harsh truth that she did, that hope was for suckers, and so she never let Zay put Riley’s pie on the menu even though it was continuously requested by the regulars. As long as it wasn’t on the menu, Riley still got to hope every morning, for just a minute or two, that that would be the day that her pie was the special of the day.

“Why, Aren’t You a Peach Polka-Dot Peach Pie, of course.” Maya painted on an indulgent smile and admired how Riley beamed sunlight at her.

“Peaches, you shouldn’t!”

“Too late, I already did. Today’s a good day to serve everyone a little Riley, I think. I know I could use a little of whatever it is you got.”

“Well, I’m happy to share.”

“Go check the stock downstairs and make sure we have enough kosher salt. We were running a little low the last I checked and I don’t think Zay is ordering new stock until tomorrow.” Riley abandoned the hostess station where she was organizing the trio’s sections as if they ever changed and raced downstairs into Maya’s sanctuary.

“When am I going to get a pie made for me, Maya?” Smackle asked without accusation, just curiosity.

“Maybe it’s not a pie. Maybe it’s a cake. Or a cookie.” The blonde answered thoughtfully, to which Smackle snorted and shot her a grin from across the room.

“I am at least a brownie by now, thank you very much. How did Riley end up with a peach pie anyway? Because she calls you Peaches?”

“Nah, she calls me peaches because that’s what the pie is.” Maya explained, “I don’t know, she’s just so nice. It kind of threw me off when we first met, being New Yorkers and all. When she learned about how I make the desserts and dress them up, a peach pie is the first thing I thought of when she asked me what kind of dessert she would be. The polka-dots came later when I thought about how she dresses out of uniform. That’s what makes it Riley.”

Smackle hummed in understanding. “And what makes it yours, with that kind of personal touch. No one can bake like you can, huh?”

“No one but my mother. I just try to do it like she would.” Maya answered with a casual shrug and brushed her hands against her apron as she finished up with the display case. Smackle was obviously done with the condiments as she had moved on to adjusting the number of napkins at each table. Maya regarded her for a moment. She wasn’t sure how to say so, but the spectacled girl had unwittingly stirred a feeling of warmth in her chest at the astute (and the very gracious, at that) compliment—the kind of warmth that spread slowly, like a pie crust in the heat of an oven. So she said nothing at all. Maya got through each day by watching the people she saw and jotting her notes down into her art, be it on the dish or on paper. She had never considered that Smackle might do the same. Dimly, she wondered where her coworker took her observations. Perhaps a scholarly notebook; that was presumably what a good NYU student like Smackle would use in her classes at school. Or maybe she just kept it all in that great big brain of hers. It probably was time for Smackle to get her own dessert by now, wasn’t it?

Without Riley around to peer over her shoulder and ask questions, Maya pulled out the server’s pad from her pocket and flicked through its pages until she found her sketch from the subway ride. Some of her glimpses into inspiration never quite revealed their whole picture and without that, she couldn’t transcribe their stories into a cake. Maya had a gnawing ache deep in her gut that this lady and her crazy hat were one of those torturously brief peeks into something special that she would only ever wonder about for the rest of her life. Sighing, she walked over to the hostess stand, tore the sheet from the pad’s binding, and slid the sketch between the thick cardstock page of a menu and its plastic cover. This was the eulogy of all the subway sketches that never went on to become something more. The idea of one of the diner’s patrons finding it out of the blue and seeing what Maya saw, even if it was only for an instant, was exactly what Crazy Hat deserved. She deserved the chance to connect with a stranger who was not looking for her and make them wonder just like Maya did; if she was lucky, that stranger could do something to tell her story more truthfully than Maya ever could.

Riley had returned from the bakery downstairs. “I think we should have enough to get through the day!” She announced joyously, waving a carton of the last of the kosher salt they had left over her head just to show them she was sure.

“Great, but why did you bring it up here?” Maya chuckled, sliding the menu back into the stacks that would be passed around to the customers throughout the day. Riley’s smile faltered for just a second as realization came to her. As quickly as it left, her smile sprung back into place as if it was never gone, albeit the accompaniment of sheepish awkwardness was an endearing new factor in Riley’s sunshine.

“I…I just…I’ll go put this back.”

“No need.” Maya offered her a gentle look of reassurance, the expression well-rehearsed for the times that Riley, feeling especially Riley, looked to her for permission to go on exactly as she was. She did this as though Maya would ever want her to change. “I should probably get started anyway before the morning rush gets in. There’s some crust defrosting in the fridge, but I’ll have to make the filling from scratch. I’ll just bring it back down myself.”

“Well, then get to it! I want my pie!” Riley pitched her the kosher salt that was not even in the same vicinity as her direction, which Maya had to scramble to catch in an almost cat-like maneuver. Smackle made a move to shoo her away in jest, but she was already hurrying along down the narrow spaces between tables to get a move on. She skipped the stairwell leading to the bakery and headed straight for the single bathroom in the back of the building.

She couldn’t get the door open fast enough and she still had to find the dexterity in fingers that were not so nimble as they were when baking to lock it. The kosher salt was forgotten, carelessly thrown to the floor and forced open upon impact with the ground. Hard flakes of it dug into her bare knees as she dropped and flung her head into the waiting toilet bowl. It was the fourth time this week that Maya had emptied her insides at work. She didn’t think that anyone had noticed this theatrical display of her stomach’s hysterics, but if it went on, it would be impossible to keep hidden. She didn’t want to deal with that intervention, because that’s exactly what it would be with those two goofballs for coworkers, and she certainly didn’t want to have to deal with Zay. She didn’t want to deal with any of this, not at all. She didn’t know how. All she knew was the diner, the customers, the girls and the cook. The desserts. All she knew was being a waitress. If Maya added anything more to her plate, it would not be a matter of whether she would break, but when.

#girl meets waitress #girl meets waitress chapter one #girl meets waitress opening up #lucaya #lucaya fanfiction #lucaya fanfic #smarkle #smarkle fanfiction #smarkle fanfic #rilay #rilay fanfiction #rilay fanfic #maya hart #maya hart fanfiction #maya hart fanfic #kingkatara #thekingkatara

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auditionsuggestions · 3 years

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Show Breakdowns - Little Women: The Musical

Here’s a new thing I’m trying! Basically breakdowns and descriptions of characters in a show along with the audition songs I suggest for them! I figued I’d start with a show I know inside and out. Below the Cut for length. This is specific to the 2005 Jason Howland/Mindi Dickstein version.

Josephine “Jo” March

Playing age: 15-22 (character ages through the show)

Lead. A Star Vehicle role. Jo barely leaves the stage (I should know, I’ve played her before).

Range: E3-A5, Belt to E5. Mezzo Belt (or strong mix)

Dance Requirement: Some movement

Jo is fiery, exuberant, and passionate. All her emotions are extremes which can lead her to be rather blunt or brash and very headstrong. She starts as a complete tomboy and keeps a lot of that as she grows up. The show begins with her in her 20s living in a boarding house in New York City and then Act I flashes back to her teen years in Concord, MA with Act II coming back to her 20s. Her journey is tied to finding her own unique voice as an author rather than just writing what she thinks will sell.

Suggested Songs:

Uptempo: Spark of Creation, Children of Eden; Watch What Happens, Newsies; I’m Your Man, Meet John Doe; Times are Hard for Dreamers, Amelie; The Writing on the Wall, The Mystery of Edwin Drood; Live Out Loud, A Little Princess

Midtempo: Journey to the Past, Anastasia;

Ballad: Woman, The Pirate Queen; He Threw Me, Meet John Doe; A Change in Me, Beauty and the Beast

Theodore “Laurie” Laurence

Playing age: 15-22 (ages through the show)

Supporting Character. Doubles as Roderigo I

Range: Bb2-Bb4 (A youthful, contemporary high Tenor)

Dance Requirement: Some movement

Laurie is the quintessential boy next door. He lives with his grandfather and his cat across the way from the March sisters and quickly becomes enthralled by the love, warmth, and joy in their family that he feels lacking in his own house. He and Jo are best friends and almost too alike. After Jo rejects his proposal, he goes away to Europe where (after reuiniting with a now grown up Amy) he matures and he and Jo are able to resume their friendship (now as brother-in-law and sister-in-law). As Roderigo I, he starts as the generic hero of the story Jo is writing.

Suggested Songs:

Uptempo: Top of the World, Tuck Everlasting; Partner in Crime, Tuck Everlasting (Originally duets, can be arranged as solos)

Midtempo: My Petersburg, Anastasia; Corner of the Sky, Pippin (overdone)

Ballad: Proud of Your Boy, Aladdin; I’ll Be There, The Pirate Queen

Margaret “Meg” March

Playing age: 16-23

Supporting Character. Doubles as Clarissa

Range: Bb3-B5 (Legit Soprano)

Dance Requirement: Some movement

Meg is the eldest of the March sisters and takes it upon herself to try and teach her younger sisters how to act like a proper lady--though she’s still really a kid herself . Meg is the only one of the sisters with a solid memory of what it was like when the family was wealthy and often finds herself yearning for the ease the money would bring to her life. She wants to be accepted and admired in society, but learns that her own happiness is much more important than status or money. As Clarissa, she is the heroine of the story Jo writes growing with Jo’s skill as an author from a generic damsel in distress to her own knight in shining armor.

Suggested Songs: Till there Was You, The Music Man; I’ve Never Been in Love Before, Guys and Dolls; Goodnight My Someone, The Music Man; I Saw Him Once, Les Miserables; I Could Have Danced All Night, My Fair Lady

Elizabeth “Beth” March

Playing age: 13-21 (character ages through the show)

Supporting Character. Doubles as Roderigo II

Range: A3-G5 (Mix Soprano)

Dance Requirement: Some movement

Beth is the third-born of the March sisters. She is the peace-maker of the family and can always be counted on to support or uplift her sisters whenever they need it. She is constantly willing to go out of her way to help those who need it (such as their poor neighbors, The Hummels) and has a deep love of music through which she bonds with Grandfather Laurence. As Roderigo II, she is the twist that shows Jo’s unique flair as a writer, turning out to be the heroine’s sister in disguise rather than another generic swashbuckling hero.

Suggested Songs: How Could I Ever Know, The Secret Garden; The Girl I Mean to Be, The Secret Garden; Much More, The Fantasticks (overdone); Far From the Home I Love, Fiddler on the Roof; The Secret of Happiness, Daddy Long Legs; In My Own Little Corner, R&H Cinderella

Amelia “Amy” Curtis March

Playing age: 12-20 (sometimes cast with 2 actresses as younger and older Amy)

Supporting Character. Doubles as Troll

Range: G3-G5 (Bright, Disney-esque Soprano or Mezzo)

Dance Requirement: Some movement

Amy is the youngest of the March sisters. As a 12 year old, she longs to be grown up and elegant. She normally feels forgotten or left behind as the youngest. Very feminine Amy often butts heads with tomboy-ish Jo as they’re both headstrong and impulsive--two sides of the same coin. As a 20 year old, Amy has been chosen by Aunt March to accompany her to Europe to become cultured and (ostensibly) to be educated in painting (though it’s really more that Aunt March wants Amy to find a suitable husband). Amy returns still headstrong and impulsive, but also now the refined lady she dreamed of being as a child. She eventually falls in love with Laurie as their personalities compliment each other where Laurie’s and Jo’s clashed. As the Troll, she is an obstacle for Clarissa to overcome, representative of conquering materialism.

Suggested Songs: Love is an Open Door, Frozen; That’s How You Know, Enchanted; A Lovely Night, Cinderella; I Could be Happy With You, The Boy Friend; Follow Your Heart, Urinetown; Beyond My Wildest Dreams, The Little Mermaid; Much More, The Fantasticks (possibly overdone)

Marmee March

Playing age: ~42-50 (Flexible as Marmee’s age is never given)

Supporting Character. Doubles as Hag

Range:D3-E5 (a warm Mezzo or Alto)

Dance Requirement: A little movement (one number).

Marmee is the mother of the March girls. With her husband away at war (and not featured in the show at all), it falls on her alone to raise the girls to be strong, brave, and compassionate young women. Marmee is wise and loving, but not overly indulgent or lenient with the girls. She hides much of her grief and struggles (and temper) from her daughters so that they feel they can always lean on her. (Fun fact, Meg and Amy are both named after Marmee, whose given name is Margaret and maiden name was Curtis). As the Hag, she is an obstacle for Clarissa to overcome, representative of conquering vanity

Suggested Songs: Back to Before, Ragtime; What Kind of Woman, Ragtime; Sensitivity, Once Upon A Mattress; When There’s No One, Carrie: the Musical, Close the Door, Anastasia

Aunt March

Playing Age: ~65-73 (Flexible)

Supporting Character. Doubles as Mrs. Kirk

Range: D3-E5 (Character Mezzo or Alto)

Dance Requirement: Optional (Possible in “Could You”)

Aunt March is the girls’ formidable, crabby, and very wealthy Great Aunt for whom Jo was named. While she is stern and rigid, she genuinely does love her great nieces and wants to see them succeed in life (granted: “succeed” by her definition). Jo works as a companion for Aunt March, reading to her and fixing things around the house. Amy later takes over this job as she gets older. Mrs. Kirk is Jo’s landlady and employer in New York. Jo is governess to Mrs. Kirk’s daughters. She can be a bit of a busybody, but is overall very kind to and supportive of Jo.

Suggested Songs: Perfectly Nice, Jane Eyre: the musical; A Slip of A Girl, Jane Eyre; Liaisons, A Little Night Music; So What, Cabaret; Brimstone and Treacle, Mary Poppins; Haven’t Got a Prayer, Sister Act

Professor Friedrich “Fritz” Bhaer

Playing age: 34-35 (but looks older.)

Supporting Character

Range: G2-F#4 (A high Baritone/Baritone with a strong upper extension--should sound older than Laurie and Mr. Brooke)

Dance Requirement: None

Prof. Bhaer is another tenant of Mrs. Kirk’s boarding house in New York. Originally from Germany, he emigrated to America upon his sister’s death to raise her two sons. He and Jo strike up an odd friendship and he becomes her beta-reader. He is nonconfrontational by nature, but will give his honest and blunt opinion when asked (much to Jo’s chagrin at times). He finds himself fascinated by the adventurous young author and eventually they fall in love--a union of equals rather than simply being in love with the idea of Jo as Laurie was.

Suggested Songs: Some Girls, Once on this Island; I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face, My Fair Lady; Love Sneaks In, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels; Emma, Emma the Musical; Charity, Daddy Long Legs

Mr. John Brooke

Playing age: 20-28 (Flexible, no age is given in the story).

Supporting Character. Doubles as Braxton

Range: C#3-Gb4 (A darker tenor than Laurie, but sitll lighter than Prof. Bhaer).

Dance Requirement: None

Though he starts off as Laurie’s rather stiff tutor, Mr. Brooke is a romantic at heart and a big dork. He and Meg are immediately smitten with one another. He later shows off his latent courage by joining up with the Union Army and endears himself to the other sisters (Jo was not particularly keen on his and Meg’s relationship) by escorting Marmee to Washington DC when her husband falls ill. As Braxton, he is the classic over the top melodrama villain in Jo’s story who Clarissa vanquishes with the help of her sister.

Suggested Songs: Everything To Win, Anastasia; There She Was, The Scarlet Pimpernel; Her Voice, The Little Mermaid

Grandfather Laurence

Playing age: ~65-73 (Flexible)

Supporting Character. Doubles as The Knight

Range: C#3-D4 (Gruff Character Baritone or Tenor with a strong lower extension)

Dance Requirement: Optional (possible in “Off to Massachusetts”)

Laurie’s distant and rather foreboding grandfather. Mr. Laurence took Laurie in after the boy was orphaned and is very strict with him. He originally sees his grandson’s involvement with the March girls as an unnecessary and detrimental distraction from Laurie’s studies, but is won over by Beth with whom he bonds as she reminds him of his dead granddaughter in both demeanor and love of music. He eventually becomes a surrogate grandfather to all the March sisters. As the Knight, he is the final obstacle for Clarissa to overcome, representative of accepting self-sacrifice and putting the needs of others first.

Suggested Songs: A Sentimental Man, Wicked; No Matter What, Beauty and the Beast; Something Was Missing, Annie

#Little Women #little women the musical #Jo March #Broadway #Musical Theatre #March Sisters #Show Breakdowns

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unwiltingblossom · 3 years

Text

Queen's Favor (Mysme Jumin/MC AU 11/?)

Summary: Being a maid would be much easier if the cat would just let her do her job.

AU - Instead of joining the RFA via random text, MC is hired on as one of the maids assigned to Jumin Han’s penthouse. Nothing else about the setting has changed, the messenger and the RFA still exist, only the MC’s position has been altered.

Arguably, she was too distracted to do her job properly...but 'I'm too distracted thinking about the wallet I lost and then found again' wasn't really a valid excuse for leave no matter who she spoke to about it. Even she wouldn't approve of it.

"Ow-!" She hissed as she yanked her hand back and immediately stuck her finger into her mouth - as if she hadn't just stuck the handle of her duster there five minutes before and her mouth was a sanitary sanctuary untouched by bacteria.

Maybe it was her own fault for losing focus, but she still glared at the previously jammed vacuum anyway. The blood sacrifice of biting her finger had apparently sated it, and this time when she put it back together it started and spun its brushes freely. "I'm not resetting the calendar for you, we're not counting this one."

No one was in the room to hear her admonish the equipment, but that worked just fine for her: it meant no one was in the room to see the injury, so she could claim she slipped going up the stairs before she got into the penthouse at all. If anyone asked. Though the bigger concern was that she couldn't exactly bleed all over Elizabeth, and her boss didn't want her to handle the cat with latex on her hands. Technically that probably applied mostly to the dish gloves and other things she wore, not a simple band-aid, but there was always the chance that the cat was just so pampered it'd never encountered latex before and might even have an allergy. Or maybe Mr. Han did?

Well, the important thing was, she'd have to handle the cat with one hand today.

"Next time don't sit around fantasizing about pretty boys while you work, and you won't make it harder on yourself, now will you?" She scoffed at herself, shaking her head as she turned and made her way to her equipment back to dig out the necessary bandage.

Really, though. It wasn't the first time she'd messed up something that day, just the first time she'd injured herself. Arguably, she was too distracted to do her job properly...but 'I'm too distracted thinking about the wallet I lost and then found again' wasn't really a valid excuse for leave no matter who she spoke to about it. Even she wouldn't approve of it.

It's just...

Why had her wallet been in the middle of the floor? She never carried her purse over there, so how did it even get there? Between going to the convenience store for a late night snack a couple of nights before that and her near-death walletless encounter, how had it moved from the purse she kept by the door to the floor several feet away from it? It was even in the open, and sure she wasn't getting that great sleep but did she really miss it that many days without even looking at the floor? Was she becoming a slob in her own house as a consequence of being a hyper-vigilant maid elsewhere?

But she never took her wallet out of her purse in her home, and she always took her purse with her...

A rolling 'mrew' broke through her thoughts and she blinked, looking up at the still sealed bandage in her hand. "Ah-"

Elizabeth sat next to her, blinking up at her with those curious blue eyes. Rather ominously close to her cut hand. Before the cat could get any ideas - and she find a way to end up in the hospital for something even more embarrassing than last time - she quickly pulled her injured hand up out of reach of the cat. "Don't look at me like that. You know, I have fifteen more minutes of me time before it's your turn."

She blinked, and then gingerly reached out to pat the cat on the head with her uninjured hand before standing up. "Don't tell you father about what I just said." As far as she was concerned 'focus on work, not cat' counted as 'her time', but she doubted her employer would feel quite the same about her referring to her actual job as something like 'me time' - especially while she failed to actually do the job properly.

She managed not to drift off into pointless thoughts through the rest of the day, and therefore not injure herself further or mess up entertaining Elizabeth with just one hand. Still, she'd wasted some precious time early on and had to hustle to catch up to her schedule. Rather than have a decent chunk of time left before the owner of the penthouse got back, she was left with only a few minutes before her deadline when she was finally done. She'd blame it on the fact that it was Monday...but she knew full well Mina did the penthouse on Sunday. She had no one to blame the rough day on but herself and her own ridiculous imagination.

At the end of the day, there really wasn't any other answer to how her wallet got to the middle of the floor from her purse than that she somehow spilled it out of the purse at some point. Maybe when she was tired and frazzled on Saturday night after she'd walked all over creation chasing that one street jerk. It was possible, at least, and that was better than literally any other idea that came to her.

She flumped over onto the couch in the most dramatic way possible - knees on the rug, face and arm buried into the leather cushion. She could technically leave right now, but she didn't have to, and if she was going to catch her breath after a harrowing day of being her own worst enemy, it was much more comfortable to borrow the penthouse to do that than wait until she could lay on her own threadbare bed to do it.

A soft thump and shift of the cushion told her the cat followed her.

She peeked up from her arm to the cloud of white and two bright blue eyes looking down at her. Ordinarily, she'd use the hand her face wasn't pinning to the couch to pet the cat with, but that one happened to be the no-no latex one, so staring contest it was. "I know, he'll be here any minute, but I think we both can agree this isn't the weirdest position hes walked in on me in."

Elizabeth meowed directly in her face. It smelled of fish.

"Yes, well, you'll have to pet yourself with my hand, because I'm not getting up yet."

The cat flopped to the side, head on her wrist.

"That's just lazy."

Elizabeth huffed and twisted onto her back. And bapped a cat paw directly to her cheek. All pad and no claw, at least.

"That isn't a counter argu-"

The door choose precisely then to open. Which didn't mean Elizabeth won. They could continue the conversation next time. The cat rolled itself right off of the bed and sprinted over to the legs of the penthouse's owner, and she spared a glance over her shoulder up to meet his. She didn't know if she should feel ashamed over the complete lack of surprise or intrigue in his eyes, considering she hadn't moved at all from where she'd been.

One day she'd get him to look surprised at what he walked in on, and on that day she'd probably die from whatever it was she'd have gotten herself into.

She really was tempted to just put her face back into the couch and stay there for a while, but while her employer gave no sign of disapproval that she'd yet to leave - she was pretty sure they'd long ago crossed the line to where her being literally present in the penthouse at the same time as him wasn't really a concern - that wasn't exactly an open invitation for her to remain, either. She was the help, not a guest. Alas, she had to bid farewell to the comfortable sofa and rug, and go collect her things. She brushed off her pants - no matter how much effort she put in, there was always cat hair to be brushed off - and gave her employer a small nod as she strode across the room to get her bag of stuff.

"I'm already finished, so I'll be off."

"I won't be working tomorrow." His voice was smooth and matter of fact, but still somehow managed to startle her.

"Huh-? But my schedule said-"

He nodded, casually undoing the buttons of his overcoat, before reaching down to collect the cat in his arms. He didn't even bother to take the coat off before picking her up. The words his dry-cleaner must have had about him... "It is uninterrupted, yes." He tilted his head slightly, and the rare flicker of a smile passed over his lips. "I believe...I may be able to avoid getting in the way for one day, at least."

She wasn't even sure herself if her brief laugh was out of amusement or disbelief.

"I'll be sure to report any unruly disturbances to you immediately."

His eyes squinted, just slightly, in what she chose to assume was amusement, rather than disbelief. "Do so."

–

The springs of her bed - which doubled as her couch - squeaked in protest when she settled down on it, and...yes, it really wasn't anywhere near as comfortable as the one in the penthouse. Somehow, the apartment wasn't that big and yet the remote for the television was still out of reach from where she sat. Did she really toss it that far away last night, or had she turned into such a zombie in the mornings that she kicked it across the room just getting ready and hadn't noticed it?

Really, it wasn't that strange to work with the owner present. Many times that was just part of the job, actually. Only Jumin Han's own eccentricities made it feel like something strange to work in the house when he was present. Well, that, or she still nursed some suppressed trauma over the time she got a concussion. One of those, anyway. Though it did make her wonder if she'd walk in on him doing something strange for once this time.

Granted, if she did, she couldn't help but expect there'd be an immediate NDA or something slapped down right in front of her face immediately after. Somehow he'd still manage to be the one who came out on top, even if she walked in on him half dressed and covered in strange tattoos, hunched over a pile of burning books and eating half of a rabbit or something.

Wait, no...

That image was just terrifying.

The phone lit up as she shuddered.

She glanced down immediately, train of thought broken from the sudden burst of light in the darkness of her apartment. That actor, Zen, had sent her a friendly text the night before to test whether her number actually worked, so if he put in that much effort he probably hadn't done it just out of some kind of weird sense of politeness. Follow up texts were always possible.

-No, it was just some unknown number. Really, who gave her number away to some spam company? She just kept getting random phonecalls from weird numbers recently! And they were mostly late at night, too, so probably some foreign based companies.

I bet it was that glasses jerk...

She clicked her tongue and tossed the phone to the nightstand next to her bed, flopping back onto the mattress lengthwise. "I didn't almost die today." That was an improvement over the weekend. If she managed not to injure herself in front of her boss tomorrow, she might actually be set for a completely normal day - nay, perhaps a week even.

Her own laughter cut through the rare quiet of her room. "Thinking about attractive men at work and then about your employer at home, really? You really are a mess."

Ah, yes. Her thoughts were full of a random man who rescued her from death, a ridiculous self-created mystery about her own wallet, and about her work. And she talked to herself when she wasn't talking to a cat. Her social life was in shambles.

#mysme #mystic messenger #mysme fic #jumin x mc #elizabeth 3rd #mystic messenger fic #ooc

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punishedalexandar · 4 years

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so the organized Belarusian opposition has recently published a list of demands and i thought they’d be worth going over in addition to everyone who is covering the protests themselves.

the manifesto can be found here in russian (archive.org link as i’ve started getting a 508 error in between compiling this and writing it as a tumblr post). i will not go over every word there but i encourage you to read it yourself if you feel my summary is incomplete.

the second paragraph of the introductory section starts out saying “To create a modern labor market with low unemployment, opportunities for young people, economic potential for investors and entrepreneurs, it is necessary to establish a new balance of interests.” here it bears emphasis that according to the world bank belarus’ unemployment rate (source, world bank) is 4.5%, putting it on par with Austria. remember that low unemployment is the first thing listed by opposition economists, as this will be relevant later. when they tell us they are looking to reduce unemployment and create opportunities for investors in a country with regionally normal unemployment rates, what they mean is they want to create opportunities for investors only.

we now move on the the first bullet-point in the section “Problems to be Solved by Our Reforms”

“The labor market is over-regulated. Difficulties in hiring and firing employees“ this is for sure an odd criticism to make considering we were just told unemployment is apparently the main problem. i don’t know about you guys but i sure wish the labor market here was over-regulated and it would be more difficult to fire people. im not one to use reaction gifs but this would be a great place for a confused sassy black woman.

the bullet-point list is concluded by a repeated statement of grievance against the state for overstepping its bounds in determining the terms of an employment contract “reducing the incentive to work.” if your employer was lobbying for their right to increase the “incentives to work” in their contract with you, what do you think that’d look like ? what does that term mean in a practical sense, would your employer have to lobby the government to offer you lucrative overtime pay or would they rather lobby to reduce your base wage and then add a performance-adjusted “bonus” ? the second point simply states that “The government's job creation and retention policy focuses on maintaining large state-owned enterprises through cash infusions, though the resources of the state in the economic crisis are declining.” again as if a job retention scheme is inherently a bad thing.

on to the next list, “Goals and Objectives of the Reform”

“Development of a promising system of full and productive employment based on the priority of generally recognized principles of international law.“ it would be nice to know what is meant here by “recognized principles of international law” unless of course that means selling off of the before mentioned state jobs to international businesses at below-market value as was done in virtually every country in eastern europe in the last 25 years, in that case i would not like to know what they mean by that expression.

“support for the unemployed and workers at risk of job loss” just seems further contradicting all the previous grievances of how hard it is to let people go, so is your plan to jeopardize their position and then give them training and assistance to make up for the loss of job security you caused or ???

(TOP - “5. Modernization of infrastructure (roads, electricity, thermal energy, telecommunications, water supply, waste collection and environmental protection”

BOTTOM - “to attract investors”)

the rest of the list is really just more repeats or meaningless terms like “fighting corruption”

now we’re getting to the meat of the reforms: how they are proposing to realize them. in order to generate employees, they are proposing to: support the liberalization of hiring practices (most likely meaning introducing zero hour contracts), threefold reducing the individual tax rate, adoption of the patent (as a practice), threefold reduction in rental rates for objects owned by the state, reducing administrative burden by half.

as a result of these changes, 300k jobs will be created in the next two years. the plan says verbatim “These places will be occupied by both young people and workers dismissed from state-owned enterprises.” now i must confess i did not go to business school but i feel like if you fire 300k people, and then re-hire (most of) them with worse contracts, while paying less to rent the factories or land they worked on before anyway, you really cannot say you “created” 300k jobs. idk tho just how i see it.

other highlights include “we should be allowed to sell you shittier quality products so you have to buy more of them”

gotta have a section on Small Businesses. everyone loves mom and pop stores and cool startups, best not think about how its precisely their smallness that makes it so easy for large (foreign and domestic) companies to buy them because they don’t have the overhead to withstand larger companies operating at a temporary loss to compete. precarious small businesses trying to not be pressured into bankruptcy are going to be an excellent sponge to soak up all those employees we dismiss from state-owned enterprises and force to move cross country to get jobs (it literally says labor migrants from other regions and cities in belarus will fulfill this demand for workers. why do they have to migrate ? i dont know)

ok now that we’ve fried the small fish here comes the big boys. “3. Take all possible measures to attract foreign investors, including transnational corporations (TNCs).” finally a chance for the proud and appropriately-valued youth of belarus to work in call centers and machine tool manufacturies owned by T-Mobile and Volkswagen.

here’s what they simply have to do to get those charitable transnational corporations to toss these cold slavs a penny: large-scale privatization, land market (ie. privatizing forests or areas with natural gas or mineral deposits), creation of legal guarantees for property rights, acceptance of EU-given standards for goods an services (shout out to the real ones who know the EU literally has regulation allowing the use of cheaper and more dangerous pesticides and perservatives on goods meant for export to the eastern part of the EU “in order to be able to sell at competitive prices in countries with lower relative value of the same currency we forced you to use”)

im gonna start skipping around more because there’s a lot of repetition, a lot of “once we fire all these people we can re-hire them, and that means we’ll create another 100k jobs” but this phrase specifically stands out and demands having attention called to it. detoxification of assets is business talk for when you steal something and then just say it wasnt stolen and everyone agrees that was very cool actually.

and here we have the experts who developed this proposal.

Lev Margolin - a Belarusian economist who regularly prostrates himself in public begging the IMF to impose privatization, even calling for public unrest in 2016 in order to force the international community to intervene and force those measures.

Yaroslav Romančuk - a libertarian politician, president of the Mises Center for Scientific Research thinktank. in an interview with Radio Free Europe - Georgia published Aug 15th, openly stated that there were interests in ukraine associated with the pro-EU euromaidan movement interested and willing to oversee transition to a free society. he also named Mikheil Saakashvili as someone who he would like to be a mediator between the opposition and president lukašenka. Saakashvili is the former president of Georgia, having come to power during the 2003 Rose Revolution (hi mr Soros), whose tenure is highlighted by a strong push towards NATO membership, increasing the military budget by a multiple of 30, and starting joint drills with the US Army. he also privatized georgia’s healthcare system, leaving a great deal of the population without healthcare as they were stranded between being able to afford private, but not being poor enough to qualify for the public option. a short five years after becoming president, allegations of corruption, money laundering, extortion, and abuse of power were made against him, in response to which he had early elections which he won amid widespread accusations of voter fraud. hmm. later he would be so popular he had to flee to ukraine in 2014 after euromaidan where he was appointed governor of odessa and given ukranian citizenship (yes, in that order). crazy how ukraine doesnt allow its citizens to be extradited or something. anyway yeah thats the guy the opposition wants to be the mediator between them and lukašenka

Stanislav Bogdankevič - former chairman of the Belarusian National Bank ousted on suspected embezzlement and money laundering charges and also an IMF beggar. hobbyist advisor to ukrainian politicians and belarusian politicians acting in ukraine.

Mikhail Čigir - former prime minister of belarus, seems to be household name soft opposition, has interviews with RFE Belarus but doesn’t seem openly linked to the IMF or calling for widespread privatization like the rest on this list.

if you’ve made it to the end or this is the last thing you see before scrolling by, i want to emphasize that i am in no way contesting the accusations of voter fraud. there is not a chance lukašenka got 80% of the vote as he claims, nor am i defending treatment of the protesters. the people in the streets are overwhelmingly participating an organic social movement against the government. however it is rarely the people in the street who get to make the decisions following this sort of toppling of a system of power, rather well funded and well organized groups with ties to foreign interests who have something to offer to the international community (political and financial) in exchange for approving and orchestrating regime change. it is worth talking about what their plans are, and how similar plans have affected people in neighboring countries that were in similar situations. what i wish for the people of belarus is the ability to pursue fulfilling personal lives that are not marred by choices like “can i afford to start a family ?”

#belarus #alyaksandr lukashenka #yaroslav romanchuk #sviatlana tsikhanouskaya #will prob edit and add tomorrow luckily im being paid big lukašenka rubles so i can say whatever as long as it ends with IMF kill yourself

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rovingsolitarything · 3 years

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Major Arcana Grand Tableau: 2021.

Apologies for my long absence. I hope everyone has been enjoying a safe and happy festive season, and that the New Year brings you everything you may need. As this is the beginning of a brand new year, I wanted to share and record my first reading of 2021, a Grand Tableau completed according to this post. I thoroughly enjoyed this reading, and hope to come back to it throughout the year to review my initial thoughts.

1. The Fool: What will begin in your life? Queen of Wands: Aries. Emotionally and otherwise, the Queen’s personality corresponds to that of the King, but is more magnetic. A dark woman or country woman, friendly, chaste, loving, honourable. Love of money. Courage, confidence, independence, social butterfly, determination.

- This card could indicate a number of things; for example, a new relationship with someone with cardinal fire energy. Perhaps it signals the development of this energy in myself, and I will be able to demonstrate a new sense of confidence and passion.

2. The Magician: What dream will manifest? Two of Wands: On the one hand, riches, fortune, magnificence, and on the other, physical suffering, disease, chagrin, sadness, mortification. Future planning, progress, decisions, discovery.

- Time will tell, but I am quietly hopeful that the Two of Wands here means that 2021 will bring me closer to my goals for the future, especially in terms of career and finances.

3. The High Priestess: What secret will be uncovered? King of Cups: Scorpio. Fair man, man of business, law, or divinity, responsible, disposed to oblige the querent. Also equity, art and science, including those who profess science, law, and art, creative intelligence. Emotionally balanced, compassionate, diplomatic.

- I’m unsure what the King of Cups may mean in this position. Perhaps something will come to light regarding a Scorpio in my life, like my sister, or even in relation to my creative pursuits. However, the secret is likely to concern relationships or feelings and strike an emotional chord.

4. The Empress: What will you harvest? King of Swords: Aquarius. Whatsoever arises out of the idea of judgement and all its connections - power, command, authority, militant intelligence, law, offices of the crown, and so forth. Mental clarity, intellectual power, authority, truth.

- An interesting card to draw in this position, but it could be that 2021 will enable me to cultivate a sense of power and clarity, perhaps literally in a position of authority, for example at work, or through intellectual ventures.

5. The Emperor: What will you have control over? Three of Cups: The conclusion of any matter. Plenty, perfection, merriment, happiness, victory, fulfilment, solace, healing. Celebration, friendship, creativity, collaborations.

- Hm, relationships, celebrations... I look forward to seeing what my social calendar looks like this year! Perhaps I ought to try my hand at event planning, or start a cult book club. Hopefully I will feel empowered to take charge of my own well-being as well as that of others.

6. The Hierophant: What will remain unchanged? Four of Swords: Vigilance, retreat, solitude, hermit’s repose, exile, tomb, and coffin. Rest, relaxation, meditation, contemplation, recuperation.

- Oh dear. This reinforces my feeling that 2021 may not bring an end to the isolation we all faced last year. I may need to be patient, and it seems I will remain an introvert at heart. On a more positive note, this year may allow for a generally relaxed pace and mindset.

7. The Lovers: How will your love life be? Eight of Wands: Activity in undertakings, the path of such activity, swiftness, as that of an express messenger, great haste, great hope, speed towards an end which promises assured felicity; that which is on the move, also the arrows of love. Movement, fast paced change, action, alignment, air travel.

- Ooh, ok. I admit it, I’m intrigued, and a little amused. A whirlwind romance? A fling, or two, or eight? Long-distance flirting? Perhaps a run-as-fast-as-you-can, so-glad-I-dodged-that-bullet scenario - or maybe it’s simply the year of... interesting online purchases and post.

8. The Chariot: What will make you victorious? Page of Swords: Authority, overseeing, secret service, vigilance, spying, examination, and the qualities thereto belonging. New ideas, curiosity, thirst for knowledge, new ways of communicating.

- In 2021, the active pursuit of knowledge and learning is likely to serve me well, as is a proactive, enthusiastic nature. I would do well to be keen and observant.

9. Strength: Where will you find strength? Page of Pentacles: Application, study scholarship, reflection, news, messages and the bringer thereof - also rule, management. Manifestation, financial opportunity, skill development.

- On a similar note to the above, it seems I would do well to remain focused, and above all dedicated to learning and honing new skills in my professional and intellectual pursuits.

10. The Hermit: What will you need to reflect on? Six of Swords: Journey by water, route, way, envoy, com-missionary, expedient. Transition, change, rite of passage, releasing baggage.

- Hm. Is it naive of me to hope this means I aill spend time mulling over travel plans and luggage? 2021 could be the year I address less pleasant baggage and embark on more difficult journeys. Onwards and upwards... eventually.

11. The Wheel of Fortune: Where will you find luck? Knight of Pentacles: Virgo. Utility, interest, serviceableness, rectitude, responsibility. Hard work, productivity, routine, conservatism.

- Late August/early September could bring a spell of luck. If I remain consistent and dedicated in my professional and personal pursuits, I may be rewarded this year. In 2021, commitment, structure, persistence, and hard work could pay off.

12. Justice: Who will avenge you? Four of Cups: Weariness, disgust, aversion, imaginary vexations, blended pleasure. Meditation, contemplation, apathy, reevaluation.

- Another card I find difficult to interpret in the context of this spread. I may have no willing avenging angel. There may be conflict or reluctance in giving/receiving aid. Perhaps I simply will not need to be avenged.

13. The Hanged Man: What will you have to sacrifice? Six of Pentacles: Presents, gifts, gratification, attention, vigilance, now is the accepted time, present prosperity. Giving, receiving, sharing wealth, generosity, charity.

- This card may mean that in 2021 I need to change my attitude to my finances; present prosperity and generosity may need to be sacrificed in favour of future goals/stability. I should perhaps be less indulgent.

14. Death: What will be reborn? Ace of Wands: Creation, invention, enterprise, the powers which result in these, principle, beginning, source, birth, family, origin, the beginning of enterprises, money, fortune, inheritance. Inspiration, new opportunities, growth, potential.

- Alongside the court cards drawn earlier in this spread, particularly the Queen of Wands, this card could mark my own personal renasaince of sorts. Sparks reignited. Passions awoken. New financial or creative ventures.

15. Temperance: What will bring balance into your life? Eight of Pentacles: Work, employment, commission, craftsmanship, skill in craft and business. Apprenticeship, repetitive tasks, mastery, skill development.

- Secure employment, dedication in creative and professional pursuits, and routine could help to create stability and harmony throughout 2021.

16. The Devil: What will you be most passionate about? Nine of Swords: Death, failure, miscarriage, delay, deception, disappointment, despair. Anxiety, worry, fear, depression, nightmares.

- Oh dear. Is 2021 going to leave me with a death wish? This is what I get for making Suffering™️ my brand as a teenager. Another interesting draw in the context of this spread. This could indicate a number of things, from a focus on my mental health or a fascination with all things morbid and gothic, to a resurgence of my ‘emo’ phase. I will have to wait and see.

17. The Tower: What will trigger a profound change? Ten of Wands: Oppression simply, but also fortune, gain, any kind of success of these things. A card of false-seeming, disguise, perfidy. Burden, extra responsibility, hard work, completion.

- Increasing my workload/responsibilities in 2021, could cause a surprising shift - multitasking and taking on as much as I can could be the name of the game. False alarms can also disturb the peace.

18. The Star: Where will you find hope? Nine of Cups: Concord, contentment, physical bien-etré; also victory, success, advantage, satisfaction, gratitude, wish come true.

- Seems fairly self explanatory - we shall see!

19. The Moon: What will stay clouded? Five of Pentacles: Material trouble, destitution, love and lovers, concordance, affinities. Financial loss, poverty, lack mindset, isolation, worry.

- Suffering will stay hidden? Well. Ignorance is bliss I suppose.

20. The Sun: What will bring you joy? Two of Cups: Love, passion, friendship, affinity, union, concord, sexual relations, that which nature has sanctified. Unified love, partnership, mutual attraction.

- In 2021, I will find happiness in my relationships.

21. Judgement: Which of your oppressors will be punished? Nine of Pentacles: Prudence, safety, success, accomplishment, certitude, discernment. Abundance, luxury, self-sufficiency, financial independence.

- Another one that I find difficult to interpret at present - though I can’t say right now that there is anyone I would genuinely wish punishment on, so I am content to let the universe handle this one. You know that really smug, posh, snob? Your rich neighbour with the exotic bird and perfect garden? Yeah, this probably won’t be their year.

22. The World: What will give you a sense of accomplishment? Two of Pentacles: Gaiety, recreation and its connections, news and messages in writing, such as obstacles, agitation, trouble, embroilment. Multiple priorities, time management, prioritisation, adaptability.

- 2021 looks set to be a juggling act, but an interesting one! Seems if there’s any time for a side hustle it’s now.

Identifying Court Cards:

- King of Swords: Aquarius, Fixed Air (January 21st - February 18th).

- Queen of Wands: Aries, Cardinal Fire (March 21st - April 20th).

- Knight of Pentacles: Virgo, Mutable Earth (August 24th - September 22nd).

- King of Cups: Scorpio, Fixed Water (October 24th - November 22nd).

Determining the Dominant Suit:

- Pentacles: Finances will be bright.

- Can’t say I’m disappointed. Interestingly, all three remaining suits were represented equally, suggesting that my passions, emotions, and mind will each play an equal if not dominant role.

Identifying Numbers that Appear at Least Thrice:

- Twos: a year of dilemmas.

- Nines: a year of completion.

- Hopefully this is indicative of a difficult but ultimately satisfying year; perhaps a sense of closure, decision making, or an end to certain challenges? Struggles you can overcome and draw a line under.

Highlighting the Ruling Colours:

- Blue, White, Green: spirituality, logic, innocence, intuition.

- Safe to say my little INFP/Ravenclaw heart will be more than happy if these prove to be the overarching themes of the year ahead!

Initial Thoughts:

I’m definitely intrigued to see what 2021 brings, and am feeling cautiously optimistic as so much of this spread tallies with my existing intentions/predictions for the year - though that could be bias/wishful thinking. There may be false starts and snags, but if I remain positive and work hard I may be in for pleasant surprises too! Time, as always, will tell. For now, I will take each day as it comes and try and enjoy the ride!

Intentions for 2021:

In all honesty, with the world in such an uncertain state at the moment, I’m reluctant to go into 2021 with any specific expectations or goals, and for now plan to take things one day at a time - I can’t say for sure if this will be a year for major life changes. However, there are certain things I would like to focus on that I can realistically incorporate into my current routine and I would like to hold myself accountable so here, in no particular order, are some of my ‘resolutions’ for this year:

Read at least one new book a month.

Create and follow a more structured training plan and diet to improve my running, and help me feel stronger.

Listen to new music.

Continue learning French.

Make it a priority to allocate time for creative pursuits - painting, drawing, writing (blog posts, poetry, stories, anything!).

Continue saving as much as possible.

Create and follow a monthly budget.

Keep an eye on career and housing opportunities.

Make my mental health a priority, starting by speaking to my psychologist.

Be more proactive in reaching out to friends and family and keeping in touch with people.

#01/01/21 #major arcana grand tableau

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jensincometeam · 3 years

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pengychan · 4 years

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[Good Omens] Winging It - Genesis 4:9

Summary: Shockingly, attempting to destroy an angel without consulting God first comes with consequences. There is more than one way to fall, and a thousand more ways to inconvenience an angel and a demon who just wanted to be left in peace. Characters: Gabriel, Crowley, Aziraphale, Beelzebub, Michael, Uriel, Sandalphon Rating: T

Prologue and all chapters are tagged as ‘winging it’ on my blog.

A/N: Uncomfortable realization time? Uncomfortable realization time. But at least this supernatural version of Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego is drawing to a close.

***

For a time after the War, Gabriel - as well as everyone else, apparently - failed to truly realize what was happening.

Part of the reason, he supposed, was that they were all busier than they’d ever been. The war had been exhausting but, once it was over - the rebels cast down, out of paradise, away from God - they had very little time to rest. There was so much to do, so much to fix: entire galaxies had been turned to dust as the War raged on, and the Heavenly host had been reduced by half.

Which translated to a lot of work… and very little desire to think of what had become of the other half of them, for a lot of excellent reasons.

Anger was one, of course. How dare they turn against God, against them? How dare they believe they were above their creator, and throw everything in such chaos? They deserved their punishment, certainly, and they shouldn't waste time thinking of them.

Another reason was pain. Few of them would acknowledge it - surely they were not supposed to grieve the loss of traitors - but it was there, a constant ache previously unknown, worse even than the sting of betrayal. They had lost half their brethren, after all, corrupted beyond salvation, they who’d never known loss before. They weren’t meant to know loss, not built to withstand it.

But the busier they kept themselves the less they thought of the Fallen, and the less they thought of the Fallen the easier it became to bear. So they chose, collectively, not to think of them at all.

Until the day Gabriel tried to, and found that he could not. Names, faces and ranks he’d known as well as his own were beyond his grasp, or at least the vast majority of them. There was a name he could recall, a name he clung to.

Ba’al.

He didn’t remember their face, nor their rank, or much of anything about them at all, and yet the last scraps of a memory remained, lingering stubbornly-- Ba’al was stubborn, too -- and refusing to fade away.

Part of him wanted to hold onto those memories, of course; try to remember the Ba’al he’d known and cared for, before he was lost along with countless others. Only that it was a small part of him, somewhere behind his left knee, while the rest was desperate to be rid of them.

“I tried to warn you.”

“Join our cause.”

“Abandon this folly!”

"Next time you cross my path, I shall take you down."

Certainly, if the memories were fading it had to be God’s will, and he had no reason no intention to defy it. So he let it happen, allowing himself relief before he carried on with his duties, determined as ever to serve God and the Great Plan. They knew there had been a War, of course; they had vague recollections of the fight, clear memories of the victory.

As time passed, they learned to know their adversaries - the demons the Fallen had become, not the same beings anymore - and it was easy, so very easy, to see them as the enemies and nothing more.

Knowledge of the fact they had once been part of them meant little, with no real memory of it; no angel regretted forgetting them, or at least none of them said as much aloud.

In Heaven, many things go unsaid.

***

“Archangel Gabriel asked you to find Alison.”

“Yes. He did personally request we seek your sister, and as it is proving more difficult than expected we would appreciate your cooperation--”

“Archangel fucking Gabriel.”

That, Uriel thought, was the reason why no high-ranking angel had ever willingly taken on duties in the lower spheres of Heaven, where good mortals resided after death. Dead or not, virtuous or not, they were still humans. And humans could be… unnecessarily crude.

“Such language is entirely uncalled for in Heaven, and I’d appreciate you minding it,” she said. Had she remembered that Gabriel had referred to himself precisely that way not too long ago, she might have thought otherwise… but she did not, in fact, remember that.

The formerly-mortal, now eternal soul Daniel Brown didn’t even seem to hear her: he just rubbed his face and turned to look, wide-eyed, at the woman beside him. His wife - Liv, he called her. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered.

Uriel frowned. “There is no need to involve him. As I was saying--”

“It was really the Archangel Gabriel! The guy from the Bible! And-- shit, that song-- Sting-- he got all weird listening to it, I didn’t-- I had no idea--!”

Having been dead and in Heaven for several years now, said wife seemed less surprised by the notion of an Archangel walking on Earth with a dislike for Sting. She patted his shoulder.

“I heard you, darling. Mind your pressure.”

“Liv, we’re dead. I just-- I thought he was just fucking around!”

“Mr. Brown!” Uriel protested. “Archangels - even former ones - do not… do that,” she muttered, despite not actually remembering whether or not Gabriel did have the habit to, quote, fuck around. She would just assume he did not, as it would be beneath his status.

Since when was it normal for a human soul to speak like that in front of an angel, anyway? Uriel’s experience in dealing with humans was rather limited - on top of her mind she had told a fellow named Noah that rain was coming, and checked Egypt’s doors for lamb blood on one more memorable occasion - but she was rather sure they used to be more polite than… that.

“How did he even-- how do you become a former Archangel?”

“... His employment was terminated.”

“Ah. All right, that’s… pretty much what he said. That he was cast down - I thought he meant he’d been sacked, you know, walked out with his stuff in a cardboard box or something.”

Was Gabriel given a cardboard box prior to being cast out? Uriel didn’t quite remember, so she decided not to remark on that. “Well, either way, what I am here to talk about is your--”

“I thought he was just drunk. I mean, he was, but what he said - off with his wings - was… real?”

It was, of course. Uriel knew Gabriel’s wings had been torn off by Michael while she and Sandalphon held him down, but only because they had written it down and talked about it. She had no memory of the event itself. “I am afraid this is a metter I cannot discuss. Now--”

“Why cast him out?” Daniel Brown asked, refusing to drop the matter. “What did he even do?”

Nothing we did not do as well, Uriel thought, but did not answer. In the back of her mind, a tiny voice murmured that maybe he had done something to deserve it - he must have done something to deserve it. It was the only thing that made sense. They had just… forgotten it.

“... What he did or did not do is not for me to discuss, much less with you,” she finally said, and straightened herself. “Now, Mr. Brown, about your sister…”

***

“... So you couldn’t find anything.”

“Unfortunately not, but we’re not giving up just yet. We will find out where she is. Uriel went to speak with the mortal, to see if he can tell her anything of use.”

Michael’s voice was collected, perfectly professional. Sitting across the table with a mug of hot coffee in his hands - he’d almost offered Michael some, before remembering that with one notable exception angels did not, in fact, consume human food or drinks - Gabriel nodded.

“I see. How… how is he?” he asked, gaining himself a slightly confused look.

“Well, I have not met him, but-- he’s in Heaven. Certainly he’s doing well.”

Ah, of course. How could anyone possibly be in Heaven and not be doing well? Beyond its gates, there was everything a soul could possibly ask for… but maybe not everyone. Their loved ones may be in Hell, or… wherever in creation Alison Brown even was.

Is it really paradise if those you care about are missing? He’d never wondered such a thing until now, and suddenly he found he couldn’t stop thinking about it. “He had a wife,” Gabriel found himself saying, looking up. Seeing Michael made the scars on his back ache, but his hands were not shaking anymore and his voice was firm. “She died some ten years ago. Is she there?”

To his relief, Michael nodded. “Yes, I did see that on his papers. He has been reunited with her.”

“Ah. That’s-- good. He missed her a lot.” It should have been enough, knowing he was well, but somehow it was not. He was well, yes, but he was not there. Gabriel had never known an absence could take up so much space, and make it so empty.

There was a silence, a bit too long not to be awkward. Gabriel focused on Michael’s face, on the way she avoided his gaze as she busied herself with her notes on the case. It was almost eerie; Michael had never before, since the very beginning of everything, averted her gaze from anyone but God. As far as he could remember, at least: there were holes, of course, where memories relating to any of the Fallen had simply… gone.

Why did we forget the Fallen? Why am I recalling things now that I could not before?

The thought was sudden, and it caused Gabriel to frown. Something else whispered in the back of his mind, a voice that had spoken to him in his dreams and which, he suspected, belonged to a certain Prince of Hell.

They will forget you. Maybe they already did. They have all forgotten you. Forget them, too.

“... Gabriel? Is something the matter?” Michael’s voice caused Gabriel to recoil. He realized only then he’d been staring for entirely too long, eyes wide and mouth agape, probably looking quite foolish. He cleared his throat and opened his mouth to say it was nothing, that she may go.

What actually left him was a question. “How much do you remember about me, Michael?”

It struck a nerve, Gabriel could tell: Michael stiffened, pressed her lips, and was quite a few moments “... I do know who you are,” she replied, and stood. “I ought to go back--”

“But you’re forgetting me, aren’t you?”

Another pause, then a sigh. “We won’t. We have notes about you to-- remind ourselves.”

The notion he was being forgotten about in Heaven hit him hard, but until not too long ago a part of him - the part that every night, as he dreamed, cried and screamed and begged uselessly for his wings not to be torn out - for he would at least have found some relief in the fact those who’d cast him out would have no reason to seek him out ever again.

Now, however, there was no relief to mitigate the hurt but rather something else - confusion and something warm in his chest that he dared not name. “Notes to remind yourselves?”

A nod. “So that we don’t entirely forget you.”

“... Why?”

“No one knows. We forgot the Fallen, of course, but this is different. You are no demon, and--”

“No, I mean-- why fight it?” Gabriel cut her off. “If it’s divine will that you forget the Fallen--”

“You are not Fallen, Gabriel,” Michael cut him off right back, frowning. “You were--”

“Cast out,” he cut her off, again. “Some difference.”

“We refuse to forget you.”

“If God wills it--”

“We don’t know if God wills it,” Michael retorted, cutting him off again. It was turning into a habit.

“Everything happens because God wills it,” Gabriel replied, but his voice lacked conviction. Something whispered in his mind that perhaps - just perhaps - forgetting the fallen had less to do with God’s will and more to do with their need to take the path of least resistance, to allow themselves no doubts or regrets that might weaken their faith in God’s plan.

Aziraphale had been no exception then, but he was now. Aziraphale, who had defied the Great Plan. Who had strayed from the path, allowed himself doubt, and… remembered him well.

“Gone native,” they had muttered. More human than celestial, trading a world of easy order and certainty with chaos, second-guessing, twisted paths shrouded in mist.

“How will I know I’m doing the right things?”

“You won’t,” Metatron had said.

“You figure it out, Gabe,” the demon Crowley had sneered. “It’s the gift of free will.”

A long breath, and Gabriel stood, looking at Michael in the eye. “Was it hard?” he asked, already knowing the answer. “Carrying out the order to cast me out.”

She avoided his gaze. “... The hardest thing I ever had to do. It haunts me. Haunts all of us.”

“You cast out many of the rebels.”

“That was different. They rebelled - you were one of us.”

“... They were part of us, too.”

“They rebelled. You were punished for something we all took part to,” Michael almost snapped, finally looking back at him again. “You were trying to do the right thing.”

“Good intentions. What was it that paves the road to Hell again?”

A scowl. “This is ridiculous. I know you’re nothing like the Fallen we--”

“How would you? You don’t remember what they were like. None of us did. It was easier not to.”

Is it really paradise if those you care about are missing?

You can’t miss someone you don’t remember.

“What…?”

“Could you - or Uriel, or Sandalphon or anyone else - carry on with your duties as easily if you thought of the enemy the way you think of me?”

For several moments, Michael stared. Then she spoke slowly, as though letting the words sink in as she uttered them. “... You don’t think it was God to will us to forget,” she said. “You think it was our own doing. Then with the Fallen, and now with you.”

Gabriel nodded. “The path of least resistance. No reason to doubt. Nothing to regret.”

Michael slowly sat. She looked… lost. That was new. “I can’t be. We don’t want to forget you.”

“... I know. But old habits are hard to die,” Gabriel replied, and managed a smile, sitting as well. His hands went back to the cooling mug of coffee. “Believe me, I found out the hard way.”

***

It wasn’t often that Beelzebub, Prince of Hell and Lord of the Flies, asked to view the file of a mortal. It was even more unusual when said mortal was already deceased and in Heaven; the few times it had happened, it had been because they believed there was a chance a mistake had been made and that the soul was deserving of Hell.

In very few occasions - Dagon could count them on one hand, and a mutilated one at that - they had even won that argument with the Archangel that wasn’t an angel anymore.

But judging from Beelzebub’s expression as they stared at the file, sprawled on their throne, that probably wouldn’t be the case. They were glaring at it as though they were trying to make it catch fire with the sheer force of will - which happened just now, as the folder burst in flames. The Prince of Hell extinguished them with an impatient wave of their hand and kept reading. The scowl kept deepening.

As the Lord of the Files, Dagon couldn’t stand by and watch a… well, a file risk being destroyed in a fit of anger. “... Perhaps I can help, my Lord. Is there any information you’re looking for?”

“Yes. Anything about this mortal’s sister,” they snapped, turning the pages. “Anything of use.”

“If both our men and Heaven confirmed there is no file to be found about her, then perhaps she really never exist-- huh. My Lord?”

No answer. Lord Beelzebub - Prince of Hell, Lord of the Flies and so forth - had stilled entirely staring at the file, the scowl replaced by a stunned expression that was, in turn, slowly replaced by something else. Comprehension.

“... Lord Beelzebu--” Dagon began, and trailed off with a wince when the Prince of Hell tore off one page and let the rest of the folder fall unceremoniously on the ground. A sudden flare of fire, a cloud of sulphur, and they were gone - leaving yet another scorch mark on their throne and a smoldering pile of ash where the folder containing an accurate list of Daniel Brown’s sins had been only moments earlier.

***

"GABRIEL!"

The mug of hot cocoa Gabriel had just picked up - a gift from Aziraphale, that cocoa, and he had to admit it was growing on him as a substitute for the fifth mug of coffee - fell from his hands to shatter on the floor, splattering hot liquid across his bare shins. He yelped, both at the sting and out of surprise, heart jumping somewhere in his throat. A ball of fire suddenly erupting before you while someone bellows your name will do that.

"Jesus Christ!"

"No, it's me-- don't you ever insult me like that again," Beelzebub said, scowling, and slapped something down on the kitchen counter - a piece of parchment burnt at the edges. "I know why we couldn't find the mortal's sister."

Gabriel looked back, stunned, the scowl gone and the sting already in the back of his mind. "You do? How? What did you find out?"

"He never had a sister."

That... made no sense. "Are you sure? Daniel said… but why? Why would he lie--"

"He didn't lie. He just thought he had one."

"... I'm afraid I'm not following. Are you telling me he hallucinated her, or--" Gabriel began, only to trail off when Beelzebub quite literally slapped him with the piece of parchment.

"Shut your mouth and just read this, idiot. Daniel Brown’s sins. Well, the relevant part.”

He did shut his mouth, and he did read. It was indeed a list of sins - a young boy’s sins, small things, irrelevant things - lied to his mother over a broken window, copied his math homework, chased pigeons - up to one that was bolded and underlined, a serious sin for that young age. Gabriel read it, and his eyes widened. He read it again, just to be sure, mouth falling open.

Homophobia, hateful speech and rejection of his brother.

For a few moments, Gabriel stared. He suddenly felt… rather stupid for not thinking of that possibility. It made so much sense, now that the key piece of the puzzle had fallen into place. Daniel had thought he had a sister; what he truly had was a brother who hadn’t stuck around to make him aware of the mix-up.

Daniel never knew. He was looking for someone who only exists in his memories.

“... His name is no longer Alison Brown,” Gabriel muttered, looking up. “That explains everything. But… shouldn’t former names remain on record?”

“Former names, yes. Deadnames, no. Those vanish from the records the second they are abandoned - we have standards, you know,” Beelzebub said, looking slightly offended. “It’s the same in Heaven, I assume? They couldn’t find any records of this Alison, either. We were searching for a mortal woman, after all, while we should have been looking for a man all along.”

“Ah-- right, yes. Yes, it is,” Gabriel said, and looked down again. It had been him, after all, to insist that the forms matched in Heaven and Hell. “All right, this is… this is something.”

“Just something? This changes everything.”

“We still don’t know his name, though, and--”

“The surname might have stayed the same. I shall task Dagon to search the archive for every man born in Plymouth in the time frame you provided whose surname was Brown.”

“... I understand it is a common surname.”

“No matter. We’ll find him, so he can know his stupid brother was sorry, get his stupid closure, go to his stupid funeral if he wants, and you can get your stupid conscience to shut up.”

That seemed… a solid plan, Gabriel supposed, at least on account of being the only possible plan. He smiled. “That would be very kind of yo-- ow!”

“If you know what’s good for you, you will not dare finish that sentence.”

“Right, right. My apologies,” Gabriel muttered, rubbing his arm. “Oww, that hurt.”

“Good,” Beelzebub replied, sitting on the table. “For the record, I am obviously not doing this for free - let alone out of kindness,” they spat out the word like it left a rotten taste in their mouth. “I still expect you to hold your half of the bargain. Speaking of which, was there any progress?”

“I… well… the thing is...”

“I tried to warn you.”

“Join our cause.”

“Abandon this folly!”

You can’t miss someone you don’t remember.

Ah, but would bringing back the memories be the wise thing to do? It was a can of worms Gabriel wasn’t sure he was ready to open, a truth he wasn’t sure he was ready to acknowledge. Would it not be easier to let the sleeping dogs lie? Take the path of least resistance once more, as he’d always done, letting all uncomfortable thoughts sink into oblivion before they could breed doubt in his mind?

Old habits are hard to die.

“... All right, I’ll bite. What’s with the face journey?”

Gabriel recoiled, looking up. Somehow, he’d managed to pretty much forget that the Lord of the Flies just so happened to be sitting on his table. “Huh?”

“You changed expression six times in less than twenty seconds, and each one was dumber than the one before. What’s going on?”

“Ah, er-- nothing. Nothing at all.”

Somehow, Gabriel suspected that was not the most convincing lie he ever told. To be entirely fair, he had… very little experience telling straightforward lies. At most, he would simply… omit information that wasn’t strictly necessary. Or tell a lie that wasn’t even a lie, because the person he was speaking with knew exactly how things really were

I'm sure there's a perfectly innocent explanation.

Would you have any objection to me following this up using back channels?

There are no back channels, Michael.

Beelzebub’s eyes narrowed. “You are going to hold your half of the bargain, are you not?” they buzzed, a handful of different threatening notes to their voice.

Gabriel held up his hands in a defensive gesture. “Of course, of course! I just-- apologies. There has been a lot going on, and--” he cleared his throat. “I will keep my word,” he added, trying to to evaluate whether trying to lie to the Prince of Hell was a wise option - or even an option at all.

At least for the time being, however, it seemed to work: Beelzebub nodded, placated.

“Very well. I’ll get to the bottom of this, and then I will expect you to keep your word. And if you so much think of taking it back--” a snap of their fingers, a burst of flames, and they were gone. Gabriel wasn’t sure whether the fire was meant to be a threat or simply their normal way to leave, but he supposed it was probably both.

Well, decision time was delayed, at least.

With a sigh, Gabriel looked back down at the piece of parchment Beelzebub had brought him, read it over again, and finally put it down. He wondered what Daniel would think once he knew. All those years looking for a sister he rejected, without knowing that the person he remembered was no more - maybe had never been. Gabriel would find his brother for him, but it wouldn’t be the person Daniel thought he was. Then again, after a lifetime apart, he would have found himself facing a stranger either way. Unlike angels, who always remained true to themselves, a notable exception aside and Fallen notwithstanding, human beings changed. That, he’d learned.

Would Daniel be happy to meet his brother? Or would he be disappointed? Gabriel wasn’t even certain Daniel’s brother would want to be found, that he would want to come to his funeral at all. Maybe he’d burned all bridges behind him, and had no intention to waste time on someone who rejected him and whom he only remembered as an angry boy. It had been so long since they last saw each other.

“I know you,” he’d said once to a Virtue known as Ba’al.

“No,” they had replied. “You do not.”

Why bring back those memories? Why now? There was no point to it, nothing it could possibly change. What if there had been someone named Ba’al, a long time ago, whom he’d cared for deeply? What if they had cared for him? That was then and this was now. Ba’al the Virtue was no more, and neither was Gabriel the Archangel.

They were not the same beings anymore.

***

(Okay, so I lied. It wasn't Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego. It was Where's Wally all along.)

***

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel, your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” -- Genesis 4:9

***

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icarus-the-eternal · 4 years

Text

Apothecary Clash Part 2

Ahlseth was good to her word. The Webway portal held firm as Jaego stepped through, accompanied by Furio, Kaven, and his mutants as well as Dracon Iyshak and a squad of kabalite warriors. The portal was ancient, buried deep in the foundations of the ruins and forgotten. It was doubtful the current masters were even aware of it’s existence, or if they did they simply did not care. Distant rumbles of explosions told them that the forces of Ahlseth and Fuuko were begging the assault. It was up to them now. Iyshak gestured ahead with the barrel of his splinter rifle. “After you agaith.”

The fortress had been hastily constructed, slab walls of titanium and adamantine sunk into the foundations of the old ruins. With most of the masters facing the main assault, the most they had to deal with were slaved gun-servitors and maddened slaves. Jaego’s mutant fodder proved itself useful, slaughtering the foe and saving valuable ammunition. As their numbers dwindled the fighting became more involved, gland hounds and kabalites picking off targets in brief firefights as the Space Marines smashed through with ruthless efficiency. The druchari were reluctantly following orders and restraining their hedonistic desires, much more effectively so after Kaven gutted one with his lightning talon for choosing torture over efficient movement. As they pushed deeper in their opponents got more dangerous, slab muscle mutants driven by pain engines forced into their skulls, mortals with bladed instruments for limbs, rabid slavering canids hungry for flesh. They encountered their first Space Marine not soon after. The World Eater came hurtling at them in the midst of a horde of slave flesh, chain axe revving as he howled to the blood god. He cut down two gland hounds in a spray of gore, their last-fire scorching lines in the crimson paint of his armor. A druchari warrior darted forward, driving a sword into the exposed joints at the elbow. His howl of triumph rising into a shriek of rage as the maddened berserker twisted and crushed him beneath armored weight. Furio moved in then, hand held out like a spear as he drive pointed fingers into the weak throat seal. The World Eater’s war cry was cut off as he choked on his crushed larynx before the Night Lord finished him off by driving a combat blade through an eye lense. “They’ll know we’re here. Move!”

By the time they breached the blast doors they had lost several others. Contained inside was similar to Jaego’s own laboratory, a room filled with all manner of machinery, bubbling tubes of fluid, and large nutrient tanks along the walls. Standing in the center of it all was a warrior clad in the bloody crimson of the World Eaters. He was bare headed, revealing the scarred and broken features of a pit fighter against heavy augmetics, the Butcher’s Nails rattling against his bared scalp. The warrior snarled at them, an action mirrored by the horde of abominations behind him. Welding torches, spinning blades, aggression enhancers, all stitched and fused with grotesque steroid enhanced musculature, these things were restrained weapons of war. “Intruders! I hadn’t heard of any getting this far in!” Jaego motioned for all to hold fire and stepped forward, a hand raised in greeting. “Really Azariah? Is this any way to greet an old friend?” The World Eater blinked in surprise before his face convulsed in ticks of pain. The Butcher’s Nails were biting deep, demanding he fight and kill and destroy, but he’d always been strong willed. “Jaego? Jaego Nul? I heard you were dead, especially after that incident with the Black Legion.” Jaego allowed himself a chuckle. “I think you off all people should know I’m rather difficult to kill. I simply found employment under a.... less restrictive patron.” Azariah cocked his head, hand clenching as the ticks hit again. “Why are you here? Why are you attacking my warband?”

“I thought it would be obvious. I’m here for you. I’ve come to take you with me, just like we planned.” Axariah laughed then, harsh and rough. “Really? You came all this way just because of some fantasy long dead?” Jaego prickled at the insulting tone. “And so what? You have resigned yourself to be Angron’s ghost? Always pushing the nails into your brothers brain meat for all eternity?” Azariah threw his arms out, gesturing at the many tanks. “The truth was always there Jaego! The Butchers Nails were just a footstep to what I could create! Weapons of pure aggression, enslaved to the will if the blood god, even binding demons of khorne’s own rage into their flesh! Just look at the wonders I have made of my brothers! You always were among the best at making monsters brother, surely you can understand!” Jaego drew and leveled his bolt pistol, his words as cold as ice. “The only thing I understand is that I will free you from this madness brother, even if I have to kill you.” Azariah barked out a command and his creations attacked.

Jaego fired but his shot was off, smacking into a hulk of muscle instead. He cursed and fired again, aiming for the blue of movement that was the World Eater. The kabalites and gland hounds wasted no time, spraying fire into the oncoming horse. Very quickly it devolved into a melee of screaming, stabbing, shouting, and screaming. Jaego darted past Furio wrestling with something with snapping metallic jaws and rolled aside as Kaven landed bodily on something with too many thrashing mechadendrites. He fired as he moved, emptying the pistol into weak points and sutures he could see. He caught a flicker of red movement, barely jerking aside as a chainsword came slashing down. Instead of cleaving his skull the whirring teeth scored across his helm, crunching through ceramite. Jaego lashed out blindly, knuckles cracking into something soft and giving him space to tear the helm away. Azariah grinned and spat blood as he looked on the complexion of crisscrossing suture scars and hydra tattoos. “Blood for the blood god!” Jaego lunged in this time, momentum carrying them to the ground in a tumbling heap. Fingers dig into nerve centers, forcing the chainsword to drop uselessly. Azariah roared spittle as clawed at Jaego’s face, seeking to gouge vulnerable eyes or strangle him. He would never overpower the World Eater but that was not how he fought. Jaego spat and his opponent cried out as the acid ate at his eyes. There was a whir of servos and sparks as the narthecium drill spun to life, pushed down into th armor. Again and again Jaego drove the drill down, punching through ceramite and reinforced bones to the meat beneath. An armored fist crashed into his head, throwing him aside. Azariah staggered to his feet, one hand pressed to his leaking torso but Jaego was already moving. The renegade apothecary seized his old friend by the head, his jaw stretching unnaturally wide to reveal pulsing organs nestled in the pink throat meat, and he screamed. A wave of sheer sound sent all in range reeling, clutching their ears even as they bled from their orifices. Azariah had it the worst, the blood pouring from his eyes , ears, and mouth as he struggled. Then it was over and Jaego dropped him, falling to his own knees his throat feeling like he’d swallowed burning promethium. A hand clasped feebly at him, Azariah’s voice barely a whisper. “Brother.... brother are you there? I can’t see.” With great effort Jaego pulled himself upright, cradling the World Eater’s head. “I’m.... here.... brother.” Azariah sighed and relaxed, like a child sinking into bed. “It’s gone brother, it’s finally gone. I can’t feel the pain anymore....” He gave a great sigh then he was gone, sightless eyes gazing at nothing.

Jaego was so tired but he looked up as bootstraps approached. The battle was over, the abominations slaughtered though they had lost many of their own. Dracon Iyshak spat on one of the corpses before turning to look at the mostly intact equipment. Already his scheming brain was planning how to turn this to his advantage, sequester some away for his own use. If he could reach a homonculus perhaps they would craft him an army of his own, strong enough to dispose of Ahlseth and her mon-keigh allies. He grinned down at Jaego over the barrel of his splinter rifle. “Not a bad fight mon-Leigh. But I’m afraid it ends here. You fought bravely but were killed, despite our greatest efforts. I will relay- AAAAGHH!” The Dracon drooped his weapon, muscles locked in agonized spasms as Furio loomed over him. The Night Lord smiled cruelly as he prepared to drag his prey away, screams echoing as Kaven and the glands hounds fell upon the few remaining kabalites. “Fool. Why do you think your Archon sent you with us?” He glances down at Jaego. “Ready to go?” The apothecary shook his head as his narthecium chainblade spring to life. “I’ll catch up with you.”

As they slipped back into the webway Jaego stared at the cryo tube in his hands. He’d left the lab in ruins, scavenging any data he could find and destroying the rest. But he couldn’t leave without this, he just couldn’t. A delicate hand brushed his face and Jaego looked up from Azariah Kell’s progenoid glans to the kind face of Fuuko. Somewhere in the background he could hear Zelda screaming and cruel nostramon laughter. She didn’t say anything, she didn’t have to, the words just came tumbling out. “At one time he was my brother. I fought alongside him in the heresy. He was brilliant, driven, dedicated to finding a way to save his primarch and legion from the Butcher’s Nails. He saved my life and I swore I would help him. I tried and I tried and I tried, I hunted every scrap of knowledge, I made deals with demons, I sought the mind of Fabius Bile himself. But he lost himself in the rage and pain. I’d hoped that he would come with me, that with your power I could save him......” Jaego trailed off as Fuuko lightly kissed his forehead, one delicate finger tapping the cryo tube. “You did. With your actions your brother will live again, in some small way.” Then she turned and left the renegade apothecary to his thoughts

@fuukonomiko @nosy-night-lord

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