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marginaletchings · 2 years

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Here’s my One Terror Fic Contribution (tm), all parts in one post. Enjoy.

Fandom: AMC’s The Terror (S1) Warning(s): All warnings for watching the mini series apply to this. But also, it’s a horror fic. Like straight up.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Part 1: Edifice

Notes: Part 1 establishes the setting and themes (or, tries to, anyway).

* * *

It had barely been a fortnight since Sir John’s death; it was a terrible and bloody vanishing down that accursed hole and all that remained of him was one of his legs.

‘Very kind of the Beast,’ the detached voice in Harry’s head muttered, ‘leaving us something to put in a coffin.’

As usual Harry pushed that voice away and went on with his daily rounds and careful, ongoing studies.

Following Sir John’s death, it hadn’t escaped Harry’s notice that some of the ship’s men had taken to calling him ‘Dr. Goodsir.’ In their grief and with ailments they came to him and Dr. Stanley alike, but seemed to be gravitating toward Harry’s more congenial bedside manner. Harry tried not to take too much satisfaction in this--he was, after all, not officially a doctor. He was a naturalist, an assistant surgeon, a scholar. He would give himself credit where it was due, but he would not suffer making himself a liar for the sake of his own pride.

Sat at a table in the ship’s infirmary in the quiet, dark hours, Harry’s eyes scanned over the notes of a textbook concerning the strange, peculiar effects of deep cold on living and dead tissue. His spectacles were perched on his nose, and all was relatively quiet around him as the men in the infirmary slept.

‘Yet you, or we, are the ones giving some relief to these men complaining of unusual headaches and potential auditory hallucinations?’

It was true that some of the men, especially those on watch above deck in the darker hours, had begun complaining--albeit in hushed whispers--of the distant sound of metal scraping and supposed creatures scuttling over the ice. And it was true that Harry had offered, in his own way, a gentle counsel to them as he discussed with them the unearthly sounds that could sometimes be heard coming from glaciers as they were ever-moving, even if slowly. Although they did not always seem entirely convinced of his rationale, the matter seemed to be more or less settled once they had seen him; whereas dissent had arisen resulting entirely from the indifference of Dr. Stanley.

Harry turned a page, intent on gaining a better, deeper understanding of prolonged exposure to such drastic conditions. It was all things he’d studied before the expedition in anticipation of it, but he still felt compelled to learn as much as he could--to be prepared, to perhaps even prevent further problems in his patients down the line.

‘We are helping these men, we are an anatomist, a naturalist, a surgeon. Are we not a doctor in all but name? We assist in the scientific endeavors on this expedition, we treat the men in ailments of body and matters of the spirit--does Dr. Stanley feel himself above such field work, such care for the men that look to him?’

Harry knew that Stanley cared. Or, he felt he knew. He had seen him treat the men, he was a capable doctor, if buttoned up and entirely unpleasant at times. Harry trusted Stanley’s expertise... if not necessarily his ability to carry out that knowledge in ways that were any real good for the men of Erebus. While he couldn’t possibly guess the man’s true motives for having entered the profession in the first place, he could at least surmise that if Stanley’s heart had ever been in it at all, something must have caused himself to shut himself away so greatly.

No matter--Harry would not let the dourness of Dr. Stanley drag him into the mire of melancholic thoughts. After all, he did have people counting on him--

‘That Eskimo man was counting on you though, wasn’t he? And you saw the way Sir John looked at you, knowing you turned your back on Graham--’

With a snap Harry shut the book he’d been reading and pushed it away, set his spectacles down on the closed tome and decided, perhaps, it was high time he silenced that self doubt by going to bed.

Part 2: The (Upward) Slide

Notes: Part 2 establishes that something is... off. (It also proves that I can’t remember if Erebus was closer to the hunting blind or not and no I will not check. Just let me have this.)

* * *

Harry found little useful to go on after speaking with Mr. Reid and Mr. Blanky, Ice Masters of Erebus and Terror respectively, except for one particular detail: The men of Terror hadn’t been hearing strange noises in the brief hours of low sun like the men aboard Erebus. Mr. Reid’s report, looked over by Mr. Blanky, confirmed that Mr. Reid had notated anomalies in the auditory behavior of the ice beneath Erebus, and Mr. Blanky had found no such instances under Terror.

Curious, Harry posited in his journal that the disturbances might be related to an animal--perhaps even a whale?--trapped underneath the ice, seeking the respite of air through the hole. He wondered, gruesome though the idea was, if the bodies of Sir John and Lady Silence’s father had attracted some forms of marine life. Regardless, his curiosity was piqued and he was keen to press forward.

Having received permission from Captain Fitzjames to do so, Harry decided to take his investigation a step further--while assisting Leftenant Vesconte and Mr. Collins with their routine scientific measurements out on the ice, he asked them if they might take the trek with him to the ice hole.

“--so that I might take several notes on my observations and have a better report for Mr. Reid,” he’d told them over the gathering, icy wind.

Mr. Collins seemed less than thrilled at the idea, but given that Harry had already cleared it with Fitzjames, Lt. Vesconte obliged.

They too had heard the odd noise now and then, and if it might help settle everyone’s nerves just to take a look around--weather permitting--there seemed to be little harm in indulging what Vesconte decided to call “scientific curiosities.”

For the sake of their toes and noses they returned to Erebus to deposit their equipment and warm themselves, then took Private Pilkington as an escort--Mr. Collins stayed behind to attend to his other duties. That left just Pilkington, Vesconte, and Harry to make the clumsy trek over the ice and snow under a darkening sky, all the way to that dreaded ice hole.

Storm clouds threatened in the far distance at the horizon as the men set out from Erebus, which meant time was of the essence to return before being caught outside in the hostile elements.

‘Won’t you feel silly when this is nothing at all?’ the detached voice warned Harry. ‘Though, that would be much better than if it were something, and you’re putting these men’s lives in peril. What if that Beast returns?’

Clearly, Harry thought, the potential for that occurrence was exactly why Pilkington was there to escort them.

Everything would be alright, he told himself.

It had to be.

Rather than focus on his fears and doubts, Harry did his best to concentrate on staying mobile as the three of them scrambled over the glacial fissures and ridges. While they slipped and slid, Arctic twilight began silently descending over them, low rays of sun glinting off the gouging ridges and pillars ice and snow making the crystals around them shine like brilliant, glittering gems. The dimming light grew softer, shadows grew long, and deep orange, blue, and violet hues poured themselves over the frozen landscape like a luminous shroud.

The world around them had shifted into a sea of heavy blue by the time the three men neared the ice hole. They took a brief pause to catch their breath amidst the last ridge of craggy glacial columns and lit their lanterns.

Gently, the quiet void of late Arctic evening began to settle around them and the lanterns bathed each man with their warm, illuminating glow.

“Looks like we made good time, lads,” Pilkington’s voice cut through the heavy serenity, “but I’m not keen on getting caught in whatever those clouds have in store for us.”

Harry nodded in turn, immediately rummaging for and retrieving a well-worn field notebook and pencil from his coat pocket. “I won’t be long, thank you Private, Leftenant,” he told them. And he could not be, lest his fingers, exposed tips peeking out from woolen gloves, became frostbitten in the plummeting temperature.

“Just do what you need to, Mr. Goodsir,” Pilkington conceded, taking his rifle from his back to have it at the ready.

“O-of course. And--the both of you,” Harry looked between the two of them, “please tell me if you see anything... out of the ordinary...”

Another silence fell as Pilkington and Vesconte raised questioning eyebrows at the assistant surgeon.

“What might you qualify as ‘out of the ordinary’, Mr. Goodsir?” Vesconte asked, somewhat bemused. Harry realized it was a fair question and saw Pilkington stifle a dry laugh out of the corner of his eye. (He chose not to dignify it with a response.)

“Ah, well... If you should hear any of the noises like what you’ve heard while on Erebus,” Harry clarified. “If you please, have eyes and ears open for anything at all, thank you.”

Harry made to push on but Pilkington piped up, causing him to briefly pause. “Wait, wouldn’t the hole be closed over by now?” the Marine wondered.

“I should say it’s very likely,” Harry speculated in turn and Vesconte nodded in agreement.

“Still,” Harry added, “This is such a foreign place to us. Who knows what we’ll find?” He smiled at the other two, who either could not or did not find any good reason to argue with such bushy-tailed optimism.

With that settled, they resumed their twilit journey onward through the glinting, frigid gloom to the hole carved deep in the ice.

Relative silence fell over the men again, only to be abruptly broken by a distant clap of thunder.

All three men flinched in surprise.

Part 3: Bright and Unyielding

Notes: Oh, that’s what that was!

* * *

Harry moved toward the ice hole, boots crunching frozen bits as he trod over them. He held a tension in his chest and a heavy sense of dread seemed to draw itself over him like a leaden cloak. Every cautious inch of ground he gained added more and more weight to his shoulders, until the very air itself felt terribly oppressive. He stopped, just for a moment, to glance over his shoulder at Pilkington and Vesconte who stood several yards away, the eyes of both men scanning the horizon as they quietly chatted. Somehow emboldened by the reminder of friendly human presence, Harry continued onward.

‘Let us hope we don’t find ourselves caught in that storm,’ his inner, detached voice unhelpfully offered. Harry ignored that little passive jab.

To be honest, the best case scenario, the true ideal, was for him to find absolutely nothing out of the ordinary--he could make his observations, then scurry back to Erebus with the others and be below deck before long.

Harry at last reached the edge of the ice hole to the applause of distant, rolling thunder. It was time for him to make his lantern-lit observations in shorthand--they would be transcribed in the safety of Erebus. With numbing fingers and pen and notebook at the ready, Harry inched toward the edge, peered down into the gap, expecting to see the thing frozen through.

His eyes locked onto the little abyssal gap and at once felt a pit of iron set down in his stomach. Heart racing and fingers twitching, Harry felt a dreadful sense of electricity course through his limbs. Fumbling, he stuffed the pencil and notebook back into his coat and stumbled back from that dreadful edge. The heavy cloak of oppressive air snuffed out any sound that might have come from his throat and he choked back a shout, his mouth open in shocked silence.

He trembled, and it took every bit of strength he had not to fall back.

The ice hole had closed up--

--at some point.

Harry swallowed heavily, lips moving wordlessly as only frosted, curling air left them.

“Goodsir?” Vesconte called. The Leftenant’s voice reached Harry’s ears muffled, and the world felt slow, like time itself had grown weary of fighting the cold.

‘Harry--you need to run,’ he told himself. And he tried, God, he tried to move his legs--

But as his eyes were fixated on the yawning icy entrance, so were his feet seemingly soldered where he stood. He couldn’t, he--!!

He could not bring himself to stir, eyes affixed on the Churning Abhorrent Thing that filled the fissure of Franklin’s grave.

Another clap of thunder broke like cannon fire, this time overhead, and lightning seared the sky like white fire.

‘It will pull us in!!’

Something within Harry suddenly broke and he began to scramble over the ice with a desperate cry.

And then he slipped. Fell.

He fell hard, body hitting the frozen and unforgiving surface with a thud overtaken only by the crash of his lantern dropping too--the light went out, leaving Harry in the dimly shining darkness.

Without warning, he felt his ankle seized by something made of icy iron.

Harry screamed.

It was a pale, white hand, skin decayed, stretched and twitching over its filling as though directed by the padding of some unfamiliar puppeteer.

It will pull us in--! It will pull us in! It will pull us in It will pull us in It will pull us in It will pull us in It will It will It will It will pull us--

Another dark shape loomed overhead and a gunshot rang out and the sky was again ravaged by white fire, the light piercing Harry’s vision more harshly than sunlit snow. Four hands gripped at his shoulder and fiercely hauled him up, up, upward onto his shaking legs.

The other two men had reached him, dragged him up away from the Abhorrent-Thing.

Don’t let it pull us don’t let it pull us Please don’t, please--

Blinded by lightning and terror, Harry, Vesconte and Pilkington scrambled and scraped against the fury of the whipping wind and falling hailstones above, and the fraught patchwork of ice below.

The storm had begun in earnest, and so had the chase to the looming shelter of Erebus before them.

#terror amc #amc terror #harry goodsir #goodsir #henry goodsir #the terror #henry collins #henry thomas vesconte #private pilkington #amc terror fic #james fitzjames

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ofsugarandsecrets · 2 years

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A Pontifex's Pondering

Okay, so, if I'm being honest, I made this blog pretty much exclusively so I could post my itty bitty Sweet Religion fic and possibly a couple of my other A Crown of Candy musings someplace that wasn't on main. There's pretty much nothing worth warning for here, other than a lot of repressed gay longing and some canon-compliant character death. I am not expecting notes, I just wanna contribute to this teeny tiny fandom. Please enjoy the sad food lesbians.

I used to dream of Saint Citrina. I would lay myself down to sleep, and I’d dream of taking off her veil and bringing her near. And we would sin together, and it was wonderful. I always awoke feeling filthy. I would go into the bath-house and cleanse myself to be purged of that feeling, that covetousness that ran deeper than words, but only in the scrupulous light of the Bulb did that last. When night came again, it would return to stain my soul.

I saw her without her veil in the waking world only twice. The first time was at confession. It was a typical thing for her to go to the nearest bishop or archbishop and bare her soul to them. Not mandatory for most, but mandatory in her eyes. There was something of her old pagan devotion in the way she went through that ritual, prostrating herself and waiting to hear that her sins were forgiven. It was difficult, terribly difficult, for me to proclaim that forgiveness. Not because I believed her beyond redemption, but because I believed myself unworthy to forgive.

The night after her confessional, I dreamt of her again. I awoke with my heart beating against my ribcage. I knew then that no amount of bathing would wash away this corruption, this pollution deep within me. Because I will tell you something. The Bulb-light did not protect me at confession. When I saw her before me, veil-less, kneeling, my terrible desires grew stronger than ever. I set a hand upon her head, ran my fingers through her sugar-spun hair. That was not part of the ritual. She knew it, and I knew it, but neither of us said a word. Did she fear me, or did I fear her? It did not matter. It has never mattered.

Half-dressed and dazed, I ran into the chapel and fell down before the altar. I did not pray so much as I begged, begged for this blight to be lifted from me. I wept. I had never wept before, not so wholeheartedly as this. She had left her shawl behind. I returned it. I confess, I didn’t want to return it. I didn't love her, not really. Love wants for nothing, so the holy book says, and I wanted her. More than I wanted anything.

The next time I saw her bared before me, ten bitter, bloody years had passed. She approached me, not as a penitent, but as a princess, one eager to protect her people. She was a vision. It drove me mad. I said some things that I regretted shortly after the fact. I do not regret them now. I said all I could have said. I was young. Too young to understand the burdens on both of our shoulders. We would have come to blows, had she not been too temperate to strike me and I too paralyzed by my own fearful feelings to strike her.

I made a decision that night. I could no longer be tormented by this. This loss of control over my own self would be disastrous. I must end it or die trying.

I made her an offer. Leave Castle Candy and follow me as I ascended the church’s ranks, or burn with the rest of the heretics. It was a cruel offer. I knew that then, and I know that now, but I made the offer anyway, because in my eyes it was my only choice. She chose death. I brought death. The dreams did not end. My pain did not end. I killed her for nothing.

#a crown of candy #acoc #a crown of candy spoilers #acoc spoilers #belizabeth brassica #saint citrina #citrina rocks #sweet religion

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ryukoishida · 3 years

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QianQiu/Thousand Autumns Fic: [Ch. 2] In which teacher!SQ and mafia leader!YWS talk for the first time.

Title: You’re a Problem I Encounter Fandom: Qian Qiu / Thousand Autumns Characters/Ships: YanShen Rating: NSFW eventually Chapter: 2/? Summary: Yan Wushi was the proud leader of Huan Yue Group, one of the most influential syndicates in the underground world, who wanted nothing more than to see the world burn. His accidental encounter with the pure-hearted school teacher Shen Qiao was a problem he didn’t expect to get entangled in. A/N: No more touching this fic until I’m done with the finals T.T List of Chapters: [1] [2] [3]

ii. No Saint

It was pitch black when Shen Qiao woke up. He blinked once, twice – endless black, deeper than the night — his breath stuttering in his throat and heart thudding against his ribcage in that strangely familiar, bitter taste of terror: the inability to perceive light, the anxiety of facing the unknown.

“You’re finally awake?”

A deep voice entered his consciousness like distant thunder, rumbling with warmth yet charged with danger.

A light to his left blinked on, cold white fluorescent flooded his peripheral vision and made Shen Qiao’s eyes sting from the sudden brightness. When his pupils adjusted to the light at last, he was able to make out a fuzzy outline of someone sitting by his bedside. The figure was mostly cast in shadow, but even in the best lighting, it would have been impossible for him to see anything further than half an arm’s length with any semblance of crisp clarity.

Driven by habit, Shen Qiao began to reach blindly to the side for his spectacles, which, of course were not there.

“Looking for these?” the man with the same deep, baritone voice asked, placing a piece of mangled metal that used to be his glasses into his hand.

Feeling the warped titanium remnants with his fingers, Shen Qiao heaved a soft sigh. He knew there was no way these could be repaired, so he’d have to endure the inconvenience of blurry vision until he could get new glasses or get his hands on some contact lenses, which had long fallen out during his rough scuffle with He Huan Group’s people.

Not that it was anything new – the cloudy eyesight – since he’d spent most of his childhood with his eyes in even worse state until he was in his early teens when Qi Fengge persuaded him to undergo surgery, which had improved his ability to see if only just slightly.

Wandering in his own thoughts though never allowing himself to be defenseless in an unfamiliar environment, Shen Qiao suddenly sensed more than heard the stranger invading his personal space – the surrounding air becoming too hot from the man’s exhale and body heat, too stifling from how close and physically intimidating the man’s presence exuded, looming over him like a hunter anticipating the taste of its prey — and Shen Qiao tried to back up as best as he could, given how parts of his body were too numb from sleep or too painful from the fight to move promptly.

The man chuckled but didn’t advance further upon seeing Shen Qiao trying to shuffle back to keep his distance.

“Are you sure you should be moving around like that?” the man sat back down in his chair, arms crossed over his chest as he continued to observe the injured man with an interested gaze.

“I’m sorry.”

Ever the polite gentleman, Shen Qiao realized that he was acting quite rude to the person who’d rescued him from a terrible situation that he very likely wasn’t going to get out of by himself. Still, his delicate frame, warm hazel eyes, gentle smiles, and soft-spoken nature all contributed to a first impression of a man who was agreeable and amiable, maybe even somewhat unassuming to the point of foolish naiveté, yet those who’d been acquainted with him long enough knew that beneath his kind and considerate disposition was someone constructed of steel bones and unyielding morals.

There was a reason why he was known to be an anomaly in the underground world, crawling with all sorts of criminals and infested with coldblooded monsters that found thrills in destruction and the fall of humanity. Shen Qiao was the adopted son of a once-famed assassin Qi Fengge, who’d retired for the last decade now but had since headed one of the largest and most formidable assassin organizations that employed the best professionals good money could hire.

“You’re a funny one,” the man commented, hint of amusement seeping into his voice. “What are you sorry for?”

“I just… don’t like it when people I don’t know well get too close to me,” Shen Qiao explained quietly, his body visibly relaxed a little once he knew the stranger had backed off. “I did not mean to be disrespectful to someone who’d saved my life.”

When the stranger didn’t immediately respond, Shen Qiao continued with hesitation, “may I know the name of my savior?”

“Yan Wushi.”

He seemed content enough to offer that, at least.

“Leader of Huan Yue Group?”

Shen Qiao’s slight frown didn’t go unnoticed by the ever-observant mafia leader.

“You’ve heard of me?” Yan Wushi leaned in just a degree.

“My father had told me about you.”

Also, Shen Qiao didn’t think it was a good idea to say it out loud, but he knew that in recent years, Yan Wushi – and really, all of Huan Yue Group – was infamous for being gutsy enough to be striding the border between the criminal world and the political sphere, and still benefit greatly from both.

“All good things, I hope.”

“Huan Yue Group mixes with government officials – specifically Yuwen Yong’s faction – and gets on their good side either by offering them financial assistance under the table or getting rid of any political opponents that stand in Yuwen Yong’s way through any means possible,” Shen Qiao recited the information like he was memorizing it from a textbook.

“It’s a mutually beneficial relationship,” Yan Wushi admitted.

Shen Qiao’s frown deepened when he continued, “several deaths and disappearances had been suspected to be connected to members of Huan Yue, but the police never found any solid evidence to arrest or lay charges on anyone.”

“You can’t possibly blame us for the police department’s incompetence. And here I thought you’re blissfully ignorant of how our side works,” one corner of Yan Wushi’s lips twisted upwards, his interest in this frail-looking man had been elevated from indifference to modest curiosity. “It seems Qi Fengge had taught you the basics after all, despite the fact that you’re not expected to be his successor. Fascinating.”

“Father simply didn’t wish for me to be completely uninformed,” Shen Qiao exhaled, letting his eyes fall close as if he’d suddenly become too tired. “Having knowledge is a kind of advantage, though it may not seem like it at the time. I didn’t want to take over the family business, and father respected my decision, but he said even if I have no desire to work underground, the underground world will still find its way to catch up to me eventually. He was right, of course.”

He sounded exhausted, like he’d been running and escaping for years, and every time he thought he’d gotten ahead of the bloody claws of the clandestine world, it came at him snarling with gaping jaws, a cruel reminder that no matter how far he thought he’d gotten away, no matter how hard he’d convinced himself that he wasn’t part of the bloodthirst and violence, the mere fact that he was the son of Qi Fengge, the prodigious assassin’s greatest strength and weakest link, had already sealed him to a certain fate.

Shen Qiao loved and respected Qi Fengge. When Qi Fengge found him beaten and half-starving on the street and took him in one rainy night, five-year-old Shen Qiao would have never thought he’d feel the warmth of family and safety of a home again after he’d lost his parents.

He wanted to repay Qi Fengge in any way he could, but when he was old enough to finally understand what kind of organization Xuan Du was and what Qi Fengge’s real identity entailed, Shen Qiao was torn: he could – no, should – accept the position, train hard to become Qi Fengge’s next successor, and take over Xuan Du and its commitment to only execute those who were deserving of it, if only for the sake of doing what he could to show his gratitude towards his adopted father, yet his righteous moral compass and absolute belief in humanity’s good nature – borne from his education and the teachings of his father – forced him to make one of the most difficult decisions in his life.

It was ironic, how the assassination group operated under Qi Fengge’s guidance: Xuan Du Group only accepted jobs whose targets were beyond anyone’s saving and the victims’ families’ reconciling, their crimes numerous or excessive, their sins unpardonable. But who were counting the number of lives taken away by the hands of Xuan Du’s assassins?

Yan Wushi’s baritone voice pulled Shen Qiao back to the present.

“Everyone says the adopted son of Qi Fengge is different – refined, pristine, pure-hearted, a white water lily untainted by the dirty muck that brought him up,” Yan Wushi watched him closely for any flicker of emotion, “but I don’t believe that a person can truly remain unaffected by the surrounding environment.”

Yan Wushi moved so swiftly that there was no way Shen Qiao could have dodged in his current condition, so when he felt strong fingers gripping his chin and forcing him in place while the mafia leader hovered close – terrifyingly close, breaths hot and vivid against Shen Qiao’s own lips – and the other arm trapping the injured man between himself and the wall, Shen Qiao froze, eyes wide open and the only thing he perceived was Yan Wushi’s eyes.

Dark brown, but almost glowing with the rusted red of blood.

“You’re exactly the type of people I’d like to see battered and broken.”

Shen Qiao swallowed, silently willing himself in his mind to keep calm, and when he was certain his voice wouldn’t shake, he asked while maintaining their shared gaze, “then why did you save me?”

A short pause as Yan Wushi regarded the composed expression on Shen Qiao’s face, and then he barked out a laugh, roughly letting go of the other man and stepping back.

“Don’t think too highly of me, Shen Qiao. I’m certainly no saint. You were in Sang Jingxing’s possession, and I just happen to hate that man and want to fuck with him. Besides, I enjoy having people owe me.”

From this distance, Shen Qiao couldn’t see Yan Wushi’s facial expression, but years of living with vision disability meant that he’d trained his ears to pick up on the smallest nuances in the rise and fall of a person’s voice. He could almost picture the man uttering the last phrase with a snide grin.

“Regardless, I’m grateful for what you’ve done,” Shen Qiao lowered his head in a nod of thanks, “if there’s anything I can do in return in the future, please let me know.”

“Anything?”

Shen Qiao could practically hear the smile in that purr.

“Anything within the legal and ethical realm,” Shen Qiao corrected calmly.

#qian qiu #thousand autumns #yanshen #yan wushi #shen qiao #bowie's crappy writing

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verytiredblob · 3 years

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You know something I have been thinking a lot about lately?

Mineta Minoru.

Why is the grape boy so hated even though there are a lot of other pervert characters in anime that are still loved and defended by their fandom?

Anyone that reads BNHA knows one of the most popular tropes in the entire fandom. Expelling Mineta, if not straight up killing him. And usually, replacing him for the Superior Purple Boy™ Shinsou.

And yet, this is literally never seen in Naruto fics with Jiraiya, or Dragon Ball with Master Roshi, or even the worst offender in my opinion, Meliodas from Nanatsu no Taizai.

Hell, even in the BNHA fanfics, Kaminari never gets punished, and he's pratically always with Mineta being a pervert, tricking the girls to wear cheerleader outfits and tricking Izuku into going to 'train' at the pool just so these two can ogle at the girls in bikinis.

I've seen people saying that it's because of the character design, since he is not a "bishounen" like Kaminari is. I've seen it's because he actually gropes someone once, and is always trying to be a terrible pervert, but then again so does Meliodas, and in even worst ways. I've seen someone say he was a pedophile for making that one infortunate comment about Eri on how she should contact him when she's older, which fair, but again, Jiraiya and his blatant gawking at a transformed 13 years old Naruto, even though he's like 50.

So what truly makes him that unforgivable? I think I finally got it.

He has no character other than being a pervert.

No likes, no dislikes, no dreams. The closest thing to a skill is that he is very academically inteligent. That's it. That's all there is to him.

Jiraiya, Meliodas, Master Roshi, Kaminari, all of them are not just "dirty perverts". They're people, cool people, that contribute to the plot and that have several good things attached to them.

Go on, try to think something about Mineta that isn't "Grape Nasty Pervert Boy".

Impossible.

And you know what? That makes me sad. Simply because he's such a wasted character. He's got a cool quirk, an interesting character design, and yet the only think he is useful in the story for is for you to laugh when he gets tied up by someone else for being gross.

So, I decided to give this poor bastard an actual character, and I'll strive to actually use him in all BNHA fics I post as much as I try to use the other background characters, like Tokoyami, Shouji, Hagakure, Kouda, etc..

I'll give him a backstory. A family. A dream. Likes and dislikes. Fears. Actual skills that aren't just a gag.

I'll try to write him growing up and learning and becoming better while still keeping him as in character as I can.

Because he, like all the other 1-A kids, is still a child that can become something good, and if this bloody fandom can make redemption plots for All for One, Overhaul and Muscular, then I can try to make one for this brat that was done so utterly dirty by Horikoshi.

#Boku no Hero Academia #My Hero Academia #There are few things that I hate more than wasted character potential #BNHA #bnha fanfiction #MHA

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mashounen2003 · 3 years

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Sonic opinions - 2

In large portions of every fandom, it looks like it prevails the idea that you can only take one of two positions: praising the story in every respect, including both the ideas themselves and their execution by the writers, or admitting not to like the story and not to praise any element of it at all. I think my ideas regarding the Archie-Sonic comics and the Sonic franchise in general cannot be pigeonholed into either of these two extremes.

More below the "keep reading" cut.

I loved all the world-building in Archie-Sonic, the elements the comic introduced, their many characters and the potential to tell stories about them; I also really liked much of the art and personal styles of several artists Archie-Sonic has had throughout its history, with very few exceptions (and such exceptions include Ron Lim, of course). That's why, of all the Sonic continuities, I often use the pre-reboot Archie-Sonic comic as the primary source for world-building elements and story ideas.

What really makes me feel bad about that comic, what motivates most of my criticism, is the ideas’ execution by the main writers, as well as aspects that I think are more linked to each writer as a person, the unique way in which each of them has written their stories.

Firstly, Michael Gallagher: the writer for the first few dozen issues of the comic had a terrible sense of humour, and this hurt the comic hugely since those first issues were fundamentally based on that low-quality comedy style. The characterization of the entire cast also suffered greatly from this; in Sally's case, something quite ironic happened too: Gallagher portrayed her as bossy, annoying, temperamental, usually bickering with Sonic, and now that's also how Sally is seen by many fans of the videogames’ continuity (at best). Other than this, not much more could be said about him.

Karl Bollers wrote quite decent stories with some nice comedy, with “Return to Angel Island” being his best work, one of the best stories in the entire comic and perhaps even one of the best in the franchise; but Bollers’s work was "torpedoed" by Ken Penders and then-editor Justin Gabrie, which ruined the stories’ final versions sometimes or led to elements introduced by Bollers being "retconned" and overwritten by whatever Penders smoked and decided to do when taking over. The characterization of Fiona Fox is one of the main examples, with Bollers's Fiona being a quite under-utilized character but with a great potential that would later be wasted by both Penders and Ian Flynn. Another similar case was Sally breaking up with Sonic: Bollers tried to give context to such a drastic decision by Sally and show how she was the one who was suffering the most at that time and also that both she and Sonic were partially right, but Penders and Gabrie didn't let Bollers develop this subplot properly and all we had was a quite infamous scene that unfairly made Sally one of the most hated characters. It’s also known of several plans Bollers had for future stories, and one of them was Antoine being corrupted by the Source of All and turning into a villain; this had the potential to be a good story by subverting the concept of the Source of All and making it an actual threat, but on the other hand, it’d have meant resorting once again to the resource of "this character isn’t doing anything, let's make them evil", something quite disappointing, which later would have disastrous results when Flynn did the same with Fiona a few years later. However, these plans of Bollers were just ideas, and the quality of a story created from them still depends a lot on execution. In the end, I can't say anything about how good or bad Bollers was as a writer, simply because I have no way of knowing what his stories would have been like if he had been given more freedom and had stayed as the writer longer.

There were two writers who influenced Archie-Sonic comics far more than any other writer in its history: Penders and Flynn. The first of them was a retarded pervert with an overly inflated and fragile ego. He became obsessed with the primitive, toxic ideal of "family" North-Americans have. He wrote nonsensical, contradictory stories, having already decided the end down to the last detail long before even thinking about how the story would come to that end (I also made this specific mistake a few times when I was just starting to write fanfiction, I must admit). He increased Fiona's age in order to be able to pair her with the Don Juan that Sonic had become, which also ruined Fiona's characterization forever. The issues 150s -right before being replaced by Flynn- were the worst part of Penders’s run, as Bollers was no longer there to put a stop to his madness in any way, and it was at this time when there was the most egregious case of Penders pouring into the comic his worst perversions and retarded ideas: he hinted at a sex scene in one of the most infamous cases in the history of the entire Sonic franchise, although it wasn’t infamous for the implied sex per se but rather because what happened was technically a rape by deception; to add insult to injury, the writer implicitly blamed the victim some years later when asked about it on Twitter.

I could go on talking about “Ken Perverts”, but I think that's not necessary and would be a waste of time since, as everyone here already knows, he's been the laughingstock of the entire Sonic franchise for years; @ponett even has a whole secondary blog, @thankskenpenders, mainly dedicated to this. On the other hand, there’s still another writer who has also contributed a lot and also made huge mistakes but is not criticized in the least by almost anyone, simply because he was better than Penders.

Ian Flynn usually reduced the characters to slightly oversimplified portrayals, similar to the personalities of the characters in the most recent videogames. Under his pen, Sonic was more sympathetic but his words sometimes sounded too empty and shallow, his apologies for past mistakes didn’t lead to genuine changes on his part, and sometimes he even seemed plain insensitive to all the tragedies happening around him, especially at the Mecha Sally Arc (I nickname Ian Flynn’s Sonic "Plastic Smile" for this). Admittedly, this had already happened several times with previous writers (Penders portraying Sonic as a Don Juan, as I already mentioned), and this is why I think the original Sonic from Sonic SatAM was always better for feeling more "genuine", less "empty", and more heroic and likeable as a result. Perhaps the only ones to escape the oversimplified portrayal have been Shadow and E-123 Omega, whose characterizations in Archie-Sonic were the best in the whole franchise.

Besides, Flynn had strong favouritism for Amy Rose, which only made things worse because this Amy was much more similar to the one in the videogames from Sonic Heroes onwards. Anyway, this also happened with previous writers, like when Amy wished to be younger at the cost of a chance to save Sally's mother and no one ever berated her for it.

Let’s look at the villains. Unlike the typical Eggman from the videogames, with his follies, eccentricities and other absurd aspects, the Robotnik “inherited” by the comic from Sonic SatAM was explicitly a genocidal bastard and crueller while at the same time being sane enough to realize everything he was doing (@robotnik-mun already spoke in detail about this once); however, Flynn tried to combine the two characters into the pre-reboot Archie-Sonic Eggman, and the result created some severe problems with the stories’ tone. Something derived from this was how Sonic let Eggman live and even felt sorry for his fall into madness, in addition to treating him as if they were the Sonic and Eggman from the videogames, Sonic X or Sonic Boom; it’s worth remembering this Eggman technically is a sort of reincarnation of the SatAM Robotnik (his exact nature is quite complicated and includes parallel universes, but yes, he’s supposed to be exactly the same as the SatAM Robotnik, with memories and everything) and this Sonic is supposed to have fought a bloody decade-long guerilla war against him just like his SatAM counterpart.

Scourge was turned into a massive Mary-Sue who achieved easy victories, as subtle as a huge neon sign saying "the bad guys win"; he was also an abusive manipulator towards Fiona Fox, and Flynn was unable to show that properly for fear of making his pet look no longer cool, which makes you wonder how alike Flynn and Penders might actually be in some ways. To clearly understand the horrible damage this has caused: it not only created a generation of young Sonic fans -mostly boys from the USA- who romanticize abuse either consciously or unconsciously, but also there are even women -including scholars, committed feminists and transgender people who are also activists for social justice- who either sympathize with Scourge or think Fiona made a right, wise, rational or informed decision by joining him in the story (I’ll not give names of those women, I’m not really eager to get into heated fallacious discussions about “the true meaning of Feminism”); to top it off, among the writers who started working with Ian Flynn either on IDW-Sonic or the last years of Archie-Sonic, there’s at least one person who got the job of writing official Sonic comics after gaining quite a bit of fame with a fan-comic where they used the pairing of Scourge & Fiona to inspire its readers to feel sorry... for Scourge. And speaking of Fiona specifically: the subplot of her career as a villain was ill-conceived, was built by using as a cornerstone the A-story of Issue #150 (that quite infamous and widely known story written by Penders where Scourge may or may not have raped Bunnie by deception), and was also seemingly "abandoned" as Fiona ended up merely being Scourge's new abuse victim girlfriend and her status as a traitor didn’t even have a significant emotional effect on the Freedom Fighters.

Flynn also followed something like a pattern of taking tropes from famous works and then using them when writing the comic but not actually understanding why those tropes had worked in the first place. Perhaps the prime example of this was Scourge giving Sonic the Joker's "One Bad Day" speech: it almost felt a bit like giving the same speech to the Batman of Batman vs. Superman, as Sonic had already had a whole "bad decade" and was still a hero despite it; also, Sonic's answer to that speech (telling Scourge it only takes a tiny bit of selflessness and decency for him to be a good person) wasn’t that great, not at all compared to the mildly masterful answer Batman had originally given to the Joker in The Killing Joke, and it even made Sonic look more like a bad judge of character.

Lastly, the entire Mecha Sally Arc was poorly planned, had some contradictions with itself and with previous stories, was stretched through dozens of comic issues no matter if that felt forced, and the main events and plot twists throughout the story arc were heavily based on shock-value without giving any substance to this or making it a bit more sense when putting it under scrutiny; meanwhile, Flynn always seemed to have quite a hard time when writing long story arcs, so these long stories looked like he was trying and outright failing to imitate Toriyama (someone quite known for putting together stories ad-lib according to what seemed most convenient at the time).

Despite this, it looks like those Sonic fans who are still interested in material outside of the videogames will keep buying and reading whatever Ian Flynn or one of his colleagues writes, simply because they’re better than Penders... even though it's been 15 years since Penders wrote something official about Sonic. Seriously, we should have gotten over it by now, instead of continuing to compare all material in the franchise with Penders's work, which sets the bar too low for any official content creator. Now that I think about it, Penders's work is to the North-American Sonic canon what Sonic 2006 is to the videogames: people can criticize the latest games all they want, and rightfully so, but if someone even casually mentions Sonic 2006, any Sonic game from 2010 onwards instantly becomes a masterpiece just for being marginally better than Sonic 2006; the same happens between Penders's work on pre-reboot Archie-Sonic and any other North-American Sonic comic written by Flynn after Penders left.

Right now it looks like it's also forbidden to criticize Flynn as a writer at all just because he's much nicer in his personal life and engages with fans more directly through his podcasts, or because Flynn is truly progressive while Penders claimed to be progressive and a feminist and was affiliated with the USA Democrats but his work showed how misogynistic, perverted, retarded, reactionary and downright sick he was. Also, now saying something about Flynn other than total blind admiration for him and his work, even asking for the Freedom Fighters to return in the IDW comics, has become synonymous with agreeing with those assholes who cry "Rally4Sally" or "Udon4Sonic" on Twitter: "nostalgic" fans of SatAM and Penders's work on Archie, in their 40s or 50s, deeply conservative and absurdly paranoid, who claim that those new inclusive cartoons such as Steven Universe or She-Ra "are ruining their childhood", are mad at Flynn just because he hinted Sally and Nicole may be a lesbian couple (and in a rather platonic way, not even romantic in the traditional sense), and try to justify their own warped ideas and fantasies about SatAM by ignoring any “liberal” political messages SatAM may have had at the subtext level.

#sonic fanfiction by mashounen #sonic opinions by mashounen #sonic #sonic the hedgehog #archie sonic #sonic comics #sonic satam #michael gallagher #karl bollers #ken penders #ian flynn

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rametarin · 3 years

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I didn’t want to reblog another long post, so I’ll just say my own thing here.

Gatekeeping fandom is good, ackshully.

Especially since we have a certain pattern of person, call them, “SJWs” if you want, that deliberately creep into a fandom with their values and shamelessly, deliberately, use it as a platform. They CONSCIOUSLY do this. They DELIBERATELY do this.

And then they have the audacity to see false positives and imagine dog whistles everywhere of things outside THEIR orthodoxy in the fandom being -isms, or -gnies. Accusing the people already there of being “out of date” and “toxic”, when it’s neither toxic nor uninclusive- it just isn’t rearranging itself to accommodate Intersectional Feminism or giving Intersectional Feminists voluntary control over everything from how something works to how it’s defined.

That to them is tantamount to being Nazis. And that’s kind of how you can tell they’re the same sort of daft, disingenuous fucks that wrap up socialist or ancom shit in supposed social progress. And if they could they’re reshape EVERYTHING to match their sensibilities, because their sensibilities are, “our way or you die.”

If you spend enough time peeking through academic papers and colleges you even learn there’s a thing many of them do. Which is, “Queering,” characters on purpose, to make them unpalatable or untouchable to cis/het people. That’s culturally like raising a flag on something to annex it and landgrab it.

And if you say, “hands off, this character isn’t gay?” They pivot and declare you’re just a homophobe whom is afraid of change, tell other people that and then talk in the broad bruckstroke about, “society is really so homophobic/afraid of new ideas. :c”

These people don’t even want to be part of that fandom for the sake of being in the fandom. They just want it because they want the fandom to perpetuate their values and parrot their beliefs and spread it to everybody else that wants to participate in that fandom. Do you like this popular thing? Okay, you can have popular thing, but only if you hug this Courtney Love doll and buy it and pet it and love it as part of the package deal!

And as part and parcel of the demanding to not just define the fundamentals and parameters of a fandom, they also demand to reinterpret the history of said fandom based on how out of orthodoxy to their values they find it to their own beliefs. So, was the hobby primarily done by white men in the past? Then naturally they’ll automatically paint it with a broad brush and say, “this hobby was very unwelcoming to non-whites and women in the past because of icky homophobic and misogynistic men!” Regardless of how many authors were beloved by the fandom that were female, regardless of how many women were equal fandom members before- they weren’t the Intersectional Feminist types of fans, so clearly they were “closer to the Daughters of the Confederacy than real people,” right? That’s how that works, apparently.

So yes. We had a taste of this in the 90s, but the feminists/radfems at the time weren’t trying to infiltrate the fandom and take it over to be about feminism. They were shaming boys and other girls for liking the big booby comic book girls as sexist and objectification and trying to get comic fans to abandon comics in order to pressure the companies economically into changing.

“These comics are written and drawn by MEN! MAAAAALE GAAAAAAAAAZE!!! Sexualized girls are only okay when WOMEN are drawing them and writing them for the authenticity!” And there were not many women that either liked comic books or wanted to BE in them, so they’d maintain that impossible standard to try and coerce the boys to FIND women for the sake of having a woman on staff, just to assauge their, “icky boys aren’t allowed to do this without me declaring it wrong” qualm.

And true to form for Progressives, give an inch and within a short period of time they just want more, and declare what was offered before was just to mollify or patronize them. “Oh so women can tidy up and do the low work. Why no female CEOs in the company yet? Why not Editor in Chief?”

But the way the Intersectionals do it is new. Rather than just stay outside the fandom because “yuck it offends my sensibilities, it shouldn’t exist,” they try and appropriate the fandom and then contribute rules and policies for it.

We saw this in the years leading up to Gamergate. The Subverters infiltrated video game journos, got incestuous and buddy-buddy with both Triple A industry people and independent game creators and traded favors, financial, sexual and other, for good reviews. Folks like Anita Sarkesian trying to make a name for themselves by already being insiders and getting plugged by the conspirators to LOOK like she was anything more than a plant for that cause, using other peoples video game playing footage in her critique videos, styling herself a holistic “girl gamer” and waxing poetic about “those awful neckbearded dudebros questioning my gamer cred! Tch!”

And so that romantic boogyman became a thing that they perpetuated. “The gatekeeping, woman hating, manbaby Gamer.” Where they then added in racism and male chauvinism and traditionalism and transphobia because you know you can’t just leave it at “misogynist.” Not, “in this society.”

Gamers protesting and demanding that game journalist magazines state their relationships to the creators for full disclosure got them retaliating asymmetrically, though. The FBI investigated all those, “threatening and trolling social media messages” that supposedly got Zoe Quinn and Sarkesian to leave their houses, “for fear of an attack,” and they got nothing. A few of them were caught doxxing themselves on purpose on 4chan. Quinn herself being part of the SomethingAwful’s Crash Override forums, where they’d do shit like this to troll and harass people for fun. They KNOW how to false flag and make it look like a bunch of angry dudebros did it.

Statistically the number of harassing egg names was far lower than the messages either girl received that was NOT harassment or threats, merely replies they didn’t agree with or didn’t appreciate. And yet they still ran around screaming about “all those misogynistic dudebro gamers” that were “harassing and doxing them.” And that boogyman became the party line. That Gaming and Gamers were full of toxic, misogynistic, racist manbabies SOooOoOooOO intimidated by, “women finally in what they feel are THEIR spaces,” that they’d try to run them out.

That’s how they interpreted it and that’s how the history books they write will repeat it.

They try and make a great big public show about “entering this toxic space” to flip it and civilize it, but what they’re really trying to do is officially own it. As a fandom, as a space and as a culture. And that entails being able to say what goes, what’s acceptable and what’s not, and set the tone and culture for that space. Meaning, to be able to gatekeep the product.

Rather than just decry the product, they decide they’re just going to mutate the product by slow assimilation, until the product doesn’t even resemble the original product anymore. They do this shit with comic books, videogames, and now they’re working on doing it to beloeved novels and their fandoms. It’s like forcibly marrying them to terrible people, so you can never have a fandom WITHOUT those people in your space trying to insist their interpretations of things are original canon, ever again.

And the sickest part is, these people DO NOT stop at fiction. That’s why this shit is called Cultural Marxism. Because it’s not much different from the way communists and socialist guerillas act and operate when it comes to land, resources and industry. They take over public spaces and forums and use a combination of instittional corruption, terrorism and violence and vandalism in order to destroy or silence competition.

They’ve even infiltrated the Linux community and taken over most of that, via Linus Torvalds’ daughter. You can’t have ANYTHING around these people, because they just sit and wait and conspire to come in and make even a simple community mural to revolve around whatever social issue and specifically their philosophy’s take on it being THE only valid take on it that everybody else must now interact with, good or bad, but they can’t ignore it anymore.

This is, also, partially why they hate it when fandoms are gatekept by singularly powerful individuals. Like say, authors of their own works. They don’t like singular owners of enterprise and property, because it prevents the mob from taking them and then dictating TO the creator, “this is the PEOPLES property now. WE decide, as the most powerful clique, what is true and real with it and what isn’t.”

Because like what happened with Frank Oz of Jim Henson Studios. An activist gay writer declared that Bert and Ernie’s relationship was “canon gay,” because he wrote them as canon gay lovers. There was a great big information cascade as all these affiliated journo companies published articles about how “happy they were to see Sesame Street and the Children’s Television Workshop as representing LGBT people in public!”

Frank Oz spoke up, set the record straight, “These characters were made by me and a friend and were meant to depict a platonic male-male relationship. They aren’t gay but I’m glad you could identify with them.”

That poor old man caught so much shit. They called him a homophobe, said he was, “stealing Bert and Ernie from them,” that he should just shut up and “let people have this.”

No. Fucking no. These people are fucking conspirators, believe wholly in dominating and taking shit over by moving their people into a thing until they have the warm bodies and the institutional authority to crowd out oppositional voices, then have the audacity to SCREEEAAAAAAM bloody murder about the dangers of anybody else organizing to contest them because, “The Nazis are gathering to attack us poor innocent minorities!!” Counting on the ignorance and unsuspecting nature of people to not know such a thing is fake or the totality of the situation.

That’s why they’ll keep this shit on the downlow and call anybody that accuses them of doing shit like this a liar or a tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist. Demanding evidence, in bad faith, knowing there’s little to no way to PROVE any of this UNTIL they’ve done it, and then declaring you to be invalid since you can’t prove the conspiracy.

Because if you can’t prove it with evidence, they’ll simply say you’re a Nazi trying to smear “good people.”

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blueskywater-happiness · 3 years

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”He never asked to be a generic anime boy anyways.”

So it has been a looooooooooooooooooong time since I last lurk in the undertale fandom. Have yet to fully contribute though hahaha

So I was just scrolling and it is when I found Axetale (credits: @ataleofaxes, @uhhbananafrappe and @azulandrojo) and I gotta say, the story, premise and the au intrigued me.

To be honest, this character was only meant for Axetale, to give Aliza a relief and a companion, but I then decided to make him my Frans child for any Frans AU.

So this is Arial, yes the font under Sans-serif, and he is half monster skeleton half human.

For Axetale, he is Aliza’s younger twin brother.

His hands, feet, and lower jaw are all bones. On his back, his spine is exposed, it is quite hard. He has no right eyeball in his eye socket but he can still see. Morbidly he can not feel any pain when his limbs are ripped as he can reattached it... a bit bloody to observe. Unlike Aliza, he is unable to call Ruby and his magic isn’t as powerful as hers. To make it up, he is quite a fighter and very agile. He can still use magic to temporary cloak his lower jaw with “skin”. His right eye socket has a red glow, perhaps a “gift” from.... C̸̜͙͉͉͉̦͐̃̊̀̓̑̃̌͛̒̂̿̃͘͠ȟ̵̨͇̭͎͓͓͍̱̟͂̾̾̃̑́̀â̵̖̩̺̙͓̩̐́͘͘ŗ̷̛̫̹̭͚̭͖̙̎̋͑͐̕͝á̶̙̣̦͚̻̼̳̋̾̍̽̆̇̿̓. In regular Undertale Timeline, he is raised in the surface. He is a troll, using his good looks (hiding his boney jaw with a mask) to trick people for a scare. He is very lazy when it comes to his schooling, much to the dismay of his grandmother Toriel, Uncle Papyrus, and mother. His father on the other hand is amuse. “Oh? You want me to be your prom date...?” grins and pulls his mask down, ketchup drips out his mouth “Are you REALLY sure-- hahaha why are you running?” Arial’s favorite pastime is singing and dancing, perhaps influencing his “kpop” hairstyle. A bit rough around the edges, with the way he speaks can often offend a person but deep down he is a good child. He dreams to be an traveller, wandering aimlessly. Like his father, he has an easy going expression on his face, charming and chatty. Unlike his mother however, he isn’t entirely that merciful or forgiving, will throw hands with you forever if he has to. Though he is also as sweet, will not say no if you ask his help, albeit he will tease you for it. In Axetale, he was born 20 minutes after Aliza. Frisk’s entire energy is needed for Aliza’s survival especially with how the asylum treated her, so how was he able to survive? As stated in Axetale, Gaster is unable to directly interfere. In an attempt to help his grandson, he asks Asgore’s soul for help in the void before it returns to the cycle, who immediately accept as atonement, whether for himself or for Flowey, nobody knows. When he was born, he was weak. Doctors and nurses were horrified at his skeletal features before a weakened Asgore left an illusion to cover his boney parts with skin. Majority took it as a joke, a symptom of their lethargic. There is no way a baby could be born with skeletal features. Every morning he has skin but at night, his true face emerges. As a child, he and Aliza were treated terribly and while he has no learning disabilities, he was a sickly child. He wears a mask to cover his boney feature, least his grandmother would direct her ire at him, calling him an abomination. His bangs cover his right eye. Unlike his spunky, positive, kind and adventurous sister, he is a pessimist, his jokes are quite cold and his language is more offensive than his Undertale self. He is quite cold and uncaring to strangers, only to his sister and those who managed to win him can see his kinder side. Only successfully making more enemies than friends.

“It was us against the world, my big sister and I are on our own" In an attempt to buy his sister and himself some toys, gadgets and what not, when he got older and less sickly, he turn to street fighting and often terrorize fellow peers. The glow on his right eye gets brighter at every fight he is in, making him stronger... He goes to the library at random times, to further his knowledge and help his sister. Currently he is saving for his sister’s glasses... Until they fell.

#undertale #undertale oc #frans #oc child #axetale #sans x frisk #sans #frisk #aliza

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queencarolinemikaelson · 4 years

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Beyond Mikaelson

Klaroline Bingo as hosted by @klaroline-events Prompt // Dagger

This is set early season three, and is fairly canon compliant until then, except Caroline is an Original. Very Mikaelson heavy, and a little bit gruesome/gory in parts. It’s also very long.

This will be my last contribution to KC Bingo, thank you so much to the team at @klaroline-events! I wouldn’t have got any of these out without prompting, and I’m glad to have participated in another fandom event! xxx

“Rebekah, where are you? Pick up the phone darling, daddy’s dead. It’s time for a family reunion.”

Klaus Mikaelson’s phone beeped quietly, signalling he had a call waiting on another line.

The hybrid couldn’t help the smug smirk that crossed his lips as the name Stefan Salvatore flashed on the screen.

This was going to be fun.

“Stefan! Miss me already?”

“I’m just calling to thank you for my freedom,” Stefan said on the other end of the phone, sounding far too sardonic.

“Well I like to believe I’m a man of my word… more or less,” Klaus smirked.

“The thing is,” Stefan continued. “It came at too high of a price. You took everything from me, Klaus.”

“Let bygones be bygones, trust me. Resentment gets old.”

“You know what never gets old?” Stefan asked, in a tone that had alarm bells ringing in Klaus’ mind. “Revenge.”

As the line went dead, and Klaus opened the back of his van, only to reveal nothing, Stefan’s words truly sank in.

And Klaus felt a white-hot rage bubble through his veins; a rage unprovoked in centuries.

It would be weeks until Klaus’ coffins were returned, and when they were, Klaus’ shoulders sagged in relief.

They were safe.

They were home.

They could be whole again; all five of them.

Wait… five?

Any shred of tension that left his body instantly returned.

There were five coffins, five.

Klaus often thought of there being only five in his family, which was likely why it took him so long to cotton to the fact he shouldn’t have five coffins.

He should have six.

Quaking with unparalleled rage, and a panic long lost to time, Klaus tore at the lids from the caskets, flinging each open so roughly he nearly destroyed their hinges.

Elijah.

Finn.

Rebekah.

Kol.

Klaus squeezed his eyes together for a moment, as he stood before the final coffin, knowing everything had a fifty-fifty chance of being okay. If they were together, they would be okay.

But as Klaus tried to open the box, he was met with complete resistance.

And he knew, that box belonged to his mother.

And he just knew, they had her.

His hands shaking, Klaus pulled his phone from his pocket, dialling Stefan’s number.

“Hello there Klaus, not the family reunion you were expecting?”

The young vampire sounded so gleeful that Klaus mentally signed his death wish then and there. Their history be damned, there was no repenting for this.

“Where is the sixth coffin, Stefan?” he asked, his voice shaking as much as his hands.

“Well, see, the thing is Klaus, we found your little cave paintings. We can account for everyone in the coffins, except for this one. She’s quite beautiful, isn’t she? I’m not letting loose an unknown entity in my town, Klaus. Not now. Not ever.”

“Stefan, I suggest you listen…”

“No, Klaus, you listen,” Stefan interrupted. “You’ll get a map. You’ll be able to find at least some of her. And that’s a promise.”

“Stefan, if I do not have her back before sunset, you will regret it.”

“You took everything from me, Klaus,” Stefan cried, his gleeful composure making way for his true anger. “I can’t regret anything anymore than I already do.”

“You have five hours, Stefan. For the sake of this town I hope you hand over my box,” Klaus said, coldly. “The consequences of this will be yours, and yours alone.”

Klaus hung up. He didn’t need any more of Stefan’s amateur postulating.

Nothing mattered, not without her.

Without much more than a heartbeat, Klaus circled the room, removing each dagger from the chests of his siblings.

He couldn’t worry about how they would react to him.

Not now.

It took nearly three hours before all his siblings were awake, each waking in their own time; Bekah first, Finn last.

And during that time, it had become quite apparent that, Elijah and Finn at least would not be easily swayed into helping him.

“I don’t much care that you finally killed our Father, I will never mistake our brotherhood for trustworthiness again, Niklaus,” Finn said, in the old, awkward tongue they all once spoke.

“I’m afraid I may have to agree with our eldest brother,” Elijah said, coldly, true betrayal shining in his eyes.

“I never trusted any of you,” Kol said melodramatically, eager to stir the pot. Yes, he was a little miffed that he’d been in a box for about 200 years – but had daggered and undaggered his brothers (never Bekah though) many times himself over the years. Who was he to judge?

It was Rebekah – of course it was Rebekah – who first noticed Klaus’ haunted expression.

“What is it, Nik,” she whispered, fearing the answer.

“It’s Caroline,” he said.

Her name dropped from his lips like a secret, and immediately every Mikaelson ear was tuned in, and listening.

“They have Caroline.”

Caroline was a name buried by time. It was a secret more fiercely protected than any other the Mikaelsons’ held. For she always was their saviour.

“Who are they?” Finn asked.

“The vampire who has her is named Stefan Salvatore. I need your help. We can’t let him hurt her,” Klaus explained, his sparing vulnerability revealed, even if fleetingly.

Klaus’ vulnerability, coupled with their love for their baby sister, steeled the nerves of the Mikaelson siblings. Klaus may have long since given up his right for family trust, and may have done vile and cruel things to each of them over the years. But then they all had.

Except for Caroline. Her unwavering support and love for them transcended the centuries they lived together. She would care for them, laugh with them, cry with them. And through it all, she brought a sparkling joy to their lives.

Until one day, the horrors of being a Mikaelson caught up with her, and she tried to leave. She did it with such grace; such respect.

But they had not taken kindly to her desertion, and had laid to to rest because of it.

There wasn’t a waking moment since that day, when each Mikaelson hadn’t felt their guilt keenly.

“I hope she forgives us,” Kol said quietly.

“Let’s just… get her back first,” Finn said.

“What do you need us to do?”

Caroline’s eyes were shut as she began wriggling her toes, revelling in the feeling of stretching through the awful stiffness. In her first moments awake, she felt dread and betrayal, though she couldn’t for the life of her work out where those emotions came from…

Birds were chirping in the distance, the air was fresh, and it seemed like an all-round good day to be alive.

Though she was almost instantly disabused of that notion, as she made a move to roll over, and was met with searing pains shooting through her body.

Her eyes flew open, and her heart raced, as she took in her unfamiliar surroundings; very low light, menacing stone walls, vervain soaked ropes and chains firmly tying her to a jagged wooden table. A bloodied silver dagger was on the ground, not too far from her, as though it had been pulled from her and tossed away.

A dagger.

And suddenly, Caroline’s agonised confusion made way for terrible remembrance.

“I want to travel alone for a while.”

Caroline spoke so softly, but so resolutely, that the light mood around the table seemed to still, as her statement was met with looks of confusion.

“I beg your pardon?” Elijah said, incredulously, breaking the silence after a moment.

“I want to travel alone,” her voice was steady, but she dared not meet anyone’s eyes just yet. “I love every single one of you, more than my heart can bear. But families are meant to go their separate ways at some point, to live as their own souls.”

Caroline began fiddling with her fingers nervously, but continued to speak, knowing this was her only chance to convince them of her pure intentions.

“And we are a family cursed with eternity. Yes, we are sometimes stronger together, but we’re also angrier, bloodier, more terrifying. I want to discover a world beyond our existence, we have eternity to be together, what will a few decades, maybe a century, of time alone mean in a thousand years?”

“It’ll mean you left us for a few decades, maybe a century,” Finn said, coolly. “Are we not enough for you, little sister?”

“No, it’s not…”

“Caroline, you can’t leave,” Rebekah began.

“You are our sister,” Kol pleaded.

And thus, the damn of silence was broken, each sibling layering their own heartbreak and panic over the next.

“How could you possibly do this?”

“Are we that horrible a –”

“What did I ever –”

“This desertion is –”

“Please, Caroline, please.”

The only to remain silent was Klaus, fury and fear etched in every line of his face, choosing instead to regard her with the coldest of eyes – silence had always been his knife of choice with her.

“We’ll be better. I’ll try and –”

“Who on earth will –”

“You are to leave us, just like them, and –”

“ENOUGH!”

Her own anger and frustration at their judgement of her bubbled over and she couldn’t help the as the scream leapt from her mouth, her eyes turning dark, veins snaking up her face.

“Would this have been easier if I left with absolutely no warning? If I just snuck off in the middle of the night? Without saying goodbye?” Caroline asked, disbelievingly, into the silence her loss of control had created. “I love each and everyone of you, and we will see each other again. But I just want to live, for myself.”

There was silence for another moment, until Klaus finally spoke up.

“And what if Mikael finds you?”

His voice was frank, nearly nasty, and Caroline wished her husband could understand.

“He won’t, I will be less conspicuous on my own,” Caroline replied softly, the sad truth of her statement wracking through her family.

Klaus glared at her, the fear of losing her slowly seeping from his body before their very eyes, making way for only fury.

“Oh yes, Caroline, run away like the little girl from the village who could never see me with Tatia. Run away like the true Forbes your blood says you are. Remember when your parents ran from you? Because you were a monster? You will always be a monster, Caroline.”

His voice was malicious, cruel, but Caroline knew him, she knew him better than anyone, and she knew this was his way of making it hurt less.

It didn’t make it okay, but it did steel within her that this was the right choice for her.

“It won’t be forever, Nik, I promise,” Caroline said, gently placing a hand over his. “Just a little while.”

And with that, and all the grace in the world, Caroline rose, and smiled wanly at those around the table.

“I’m going to bed for the night, we can resume this discussion in the morning.”

As she retreated, she thought she heard Elijah say, “what are we to do about this?” but she blocked it out. Her mind was made up, their pleas and arguments for her to stay would not sway her.

The next morning, Caroline woke just after daybreak. She felt somewhat numb, as she relived the previous evening, but relieved that she finally shared her desires.

She rose quickly, and decided to prepare a meal for them all to share; a last supper of sorts.

As she bustled to the kitchen, she was surprised to find Rebekah already there, as the other woman usually liked to stay in bed far later than dawn.

“Good morning, Bekah,” Caroline said, softly smiling at her, as she leant against the bench next to her sister. “You’re up early.”

A flicker of something unreadable flashed over Rebekah’s face before it was extinguished with a warm smile.

“I feel awful about last night, I couldn’t sleep,” Rebekah said, real sorrow in her eyes, as she took Caroline’s hand. “You’re my sister, Caroline, and I don’t want you to leave.”

“I know, my love,” Caroline said, resting her head on Rebekah’s shoulder. “You could come with me, you know, the Mikaelson girls against the world.”

Rebekah frowned, and Caroline’s face lit up excitedly.

“Yes! Just imagine, we could go wherever we want, love whomever we please,” Caroline’s face fell a little before continuing. “I love Nik, always and forever, but it’s been over 200 years since our wedding. I think I’ve seen him share his love with dozens upon dozens of others, because I understand that life for us is different. But he’s never shown me the same mercy. Not once.”

“I could come?” Rebekah said, her mind racing with the possibilities. “What about wanting to leave us?”

“It’s not about leaving you, or any of you, it’s about living beyond this family. Living as Caroline, not as a Mikaelson. Don’t you ever want to just live slowly? Where the day is cherished, and longed for, rather than feared?”

“We have to fear the day, Caroline, we are vampires!”

“Yes, the original vampires that can only be killed by our deranged father! Living slowly means we won’t have to fear Mikael’s retribution, because he will never be able to find us!”

For a moment, Rebekah let herself dream of a life beyond the Mikaelson name. A life with only Caroline by her side, as sisters. Her sister had always been the best of her family – the most compassionate, the gentlest, the kindest.

But she shook herself; that life could not happen. That life belonged to a girl who died many years ago.

“Caroline, it is a life I do not want, I love my brothers too much.”

The two blondes looked sadly at each other, until Caroline squeezed the hand still holding Rebekah’s and sprung into action.

“Well, let us not waste this day then, my dear sister!” she said brightly. “I was going to cook a feast for our family, care to help me?”

Rebekah smiled, and nodded. Caroline once again missing the flash of guilt across her sister’s face.

It was a few hours before the two women finished their creation, and Caroline sent Bekah away to gather their brothers for the meal, as she picked up the final dish for the table.

It was a beautifully decorated ceramic dish her family purchased her as a gift, even before the six of them turned. She had treasured it and cared for it ever since. She would undoubtedly miss this place, her family, and all the adventures that came along with them – but she hoped it would do some good; learn that a family can exist as individuals.

“Good morning,” Caroline said cheerfully, as she made it to the dining area where each of her siblings were awkwardly standing around waiting for her. “Where’s Niklaus?”

She peered around, trying to find the eyes of her husband. In her distraction, Caroline didn’t notice the predatory ring her family was making around her, until she heard a light ‘whooshing’ sound, and suddenly her husband was in front of her, a glinting silver dagger in his grasp.

“I’m sorry, Caroline,” he whispered, as he plunged it into her chest.

As a reflex, Caroline’s hands flew to grasp her husband’s arms, her beautiful dish falling from her hands, becoming a mess on the tiles below.

“Please, have mercy, Niklaus,” she gurgled, as the ice cold pain worked its way through her body from her heart outwards. Her eyes flicked to the faces of her siblings, and it absolutely shattered her heart to see them watch this happen – knowing they knew this was coming.

Her eyes flicked back to Klaus’ in her last moment, and she didn’t see regret or remorse or love. She saw only fear.

Caroline let the memories and pain wash over her, and cursed herself for not being more like her family.

For if she had listened to their scheming that night, had been more mistrustful she would have learned that fleeing in the middle of the night is what she should have done.

She let out a desolate sob.

She sobbed out of fear of not knowing where she was, or when she was. She sobbed out of utter desperation for the pain shooting now constantly through her body. And she sobbed out of deep, deep betrayal at the hand of those she so loved.

“Oh, you’re awake.”

A snide voice came from a shrouded corner of the room, and Caroline was immediately silent. Her grief was for her alone, not this stranger.

“Torture time!”

The man moved from the shadows, to reveal a sadistic, smug smile – that was not dissimilar to an expression that was common on Niklaus’ face – and within an instant, had buried a jagged-edged knife into her side.

Caroline winced at the pain, but did her best to remain silent and defiant, unwilling to give this cretin the satisfaction.

“I’m going to chop you into little tiny pieces and make a scavenger hunt for the Hybrid that wants you back so desperately.”

He continued speaking as he stabbed her, and cut chunks from her flesh, but Caroline couldn’t decipher any of his words, the language he spoke far different from any she recognised.

So she did what she did best, she remained silent, and somewhat calm throughout terrible violence.

She nearly chuckled to herself at how compliant she had always been with her family. Letting them destroy towns and lives, for no reason other than the sport of it. And for them to repay that loyalty with a silver dagger, and goodness knows how many years in a coffin…

She was sickened with herself.

Klaus’s leg was twitching anxiously, waiting for the communications to come from his siblings.

The minute he had the green light, he would tear Stefan’s world down, piece by pathetic piece, for even considering toying with Caroline.

His phone buzzed with Rebekah’s name.

“Little sister?”

“Hello brother, almost every thing is in place. Finn has the quarterback and the teacher, I’ve got the doppelganger, thank you for lending me you electric razor, by the way! Kol has the witch and the doppelganger’s brother. The only issue is Elijah can’t find Damon.”

Klaus gritted his teeth.

“I think we might just start without Damon, then; we can’t wait any longer. Have Elijah help Kol instead,” Klaus said.

“And have you done your part, brother?”

“Of course I have,” Klaus snapped.

It was agreed that to lure to bait out, unfamiliar faces would be best – giving Finn, Kol, and even Elijah to an extent an advantage over Rebekah and Klaus. Though, Rebekah had put her foot down, saying she ‘dibs-ed’ the doppelganger.

And thus, Klaus’ task was to line the perimeter of the Salvatore estate with gasoline, and maybe something explosive, then dig a fire break around it, so if Stefan decided not to talk, they could control burn his life around his wretched ears.

“Are you on route?”

“Yes, we’re about five minutes away, I suppose,” Rebekah said.

“Make sure you all stagger your arrival for maximum impact,” Klaus ordered. “I want Stefan to feel hope until the very last moment.”

Without another word, Klaus hung up his call to Rebekah, and sprang into action.

And before those five minutes were up, Klaus was pulling up outside the Salvatore boarding house. He knocked commandingly on the front door, and was infuriated when he was met with a smug smirk from his former friend.

“Stefan, lovely to see you mate, I’m here to collect my prize.”

“Your prize, Klaus, isn’t here. As I said, you will never see her again, not in one piece anyway.”

For Caroline’s sake, Klaus did everything in his power to keep his calm.

“Well, in that case, perhaps we can remake an episode of This Is Your Life?”

As if on cue, Finn arrived, flashing to the front and dumping the unconscious bodies of Alaric and Matt at Stefan’s feet.

“Finn, brother, apparently Mr Salvatore here has plans to mince our darling sister, perhaps you could show him the same courtesy, using these two as surrogates of course.”

“With pleasure.”

Stefan looked between the two brothers, confused and wary, having been unable to decipher much of what they were saying.

But the meaning of the sentence wasn’t missed, as the brown haired Mikaelson bent down, and ripped the finger encasing the Gilbert ring clean from Alaric’s body, before turning to dislocate Matt’s shoulder, leaving it pointing in a wholly unnatural direction.

“Now I will ask again, Stefan, where is she?”

“I will never tell you,” Stefan spat, coldly disregarding the suffering of his friends.

“On your own head,” Klaus said, taking a step back, as Elijah and Kol, arrived on the scene, each restraining a struggling body.

“What would be the best way to torture these two?” Klaus mused aloud to his brothers.

“This one’s true torture will come in due course,” Elijah said, nonchalantly, his vice grip clamped around the muscular arms of Jeremy Gilbert. “However, I suppose I could inflict some physical torture. For effect, of course.”

“Well it’s easy for this pretty little thing,” Kol said, grinning wickedly, biting into his wrist, as forcing it to the mouth of Bonnie Bennett. “Break that connection with nature, become that disgusting creature she reviles so much.”

“Please, stop. Let me go,” Bonnie said, weakly, struggling meekly against Kol’s strong grip. “Stefan please, I can’t turn.”

“Tick-tock, Stefan, time does march on,” Klaus said. “Where is she?”

“I will not tell you,” Stefan said, furiously ignoring Bonnie’s whimpering pleas, or Jeremy’s grunts of pain.

“Fine then. Rebekah!” Klaus hollered over his shoulder.

Stefan furiously hoped they hadn’t found her. He’d told her to stay inside, to not come out for any reason. Surely she would be safe, surely she had –

But he was cut off mid-thought as a swath of brown hair was thrown in his face, and Elena’s perfect face came into view.

Stefan’s knees nearly buckled, taking in her appearance. Her face was tear-streaked, yes, but that was hardly noticeable through the blood dripping down her face from her mangled head, large chunks of skin ripped from her skull.

“I thought I would arrest her of that horribly boring hair of hers,” Rebekah said, poisonously. “It was just so straight all the time.”

“Stefan,” Elena snivelled. “Please, just tell them what they want, please.”

Stefan’s nostrils flared, and fury, and agony coursed through his veins.

“I will kill her Stefan,” Rebekah stated, her hands placing her hands on either side of Elena’s garbled face.

“What about his hybrids,” Elena said, desperately trying to bargain for her own life. “Without me, you don’t get anymore hybrids.

“You broke the curse, brother?” Kol asked.

Klaus smirked in replied and flicked his eyebrows.

“Well, congratulations!”

In lieu of responding, Klaus menacingly strode toward were Rebekah suspended Elena by her head in mid air.

“Without Caroline, hybrids mean nothing to me,” Klaus spat in her face. “So someone tell me, or all six of your pathetic little lives will be snuffed out in the most horrific way possible. And then I will find that horrendous brother, and snuff him as well. Then burn this town, and all its residents to the ground.”

The four conscious Mystic Falls residents stoically kept their silence, for a few moments, until Klaus said, “Fine then, Elijah!”

Before anyone could blink, Elijah had broken Jeremy’s back, and the young boy gargled out a cry of pain.

“No!” Elena shrieked.

“He has approximately a minute left, we can still heal him,” Klaus said, in a sing-song voice, radiating a wrath Stefan never thought possible. “Bonnie is next on the menu, and if she dies, well, we all know her fate.”

“She’s in the Lockwood cellar! With Damon,” Elena sobbed.

“Elena, no!”

“Please just help Jeremy, I need Jeremy.”

“Well, then, that wasn’t so hard,” Klaus said, as he narrowed a smirk at Stefan. “Heal the boy, Elijah. Then make them unable to follow us.”

Each Mikaelson sibling delivered a blow to their charge, and suddenly all was silent, as the whimpers and grunts of pain made way for heavy breathing.

“Does anyone actually know where this ‘Lockwood cellar’ actually is,” Kol said, letting Bonnie’s body flop unceremoniously to the dirt below.

“Well, no but I’m sure it can’t be that hard to find, given that there is a ‘Lockwood Estate’ only a few miles from here,” Klaus said. “Uh-uh-uh.”

It was at that moment Stefan attempted to run, though he made the mistake of passing Klaus, who stuck his hand out and grabbed the young vampire by the neck.

“You took everything from me, Klaus, and now this?”

“I warned you very clearly, Stefan,” Klaus said, coldly. “You and your gang have been quite lucky with your upper hand over me during the sacrifice. But I don’t fight with vigour much anymore, nothing is worth it. But you reunited the Mikaelson family, but kept one of our own to do with as you please.”

Klaus dug his fingers into Stefan’s neck, puncturing hole straight into his windpipe, and watched avidly as the blood drained from the wound.

“But Caroline, she is worth fighting for.”

Klaus dropped Stefan to the ground, only to stake him twice a moment later, one through each leg.

“Can’t you kill him already?” Rebekah whined.

“No.”

“Can we still set the fire, at least?” Kol grinned, his eyes lighting up.

“Why not,” Klaus mused.

It had been over an hour of this man striking and maiming her. And she desolately thought that perhaps in whatever time it was now, not even her family were there for her anymore.

Throughout the hour, the man, who had identified himself as ‘Damon Salvatore’ – what a strange name – had moved her from being tied to a wooden plank, to being hung from the ceiling on suspended metal hooks.

“I had these installed, just for you,” he simpered, at some point or other, though Caroline still did not understand the language he spoke.

She was in desperate agony, as this man had arrested her of her fingers, then her hands, and now he was working on her legs. She still refused to give him the satisfaction of showing him how pained she truly was, but even she wasn’t sure why she was trying to be so stoic.

Damon raised a wooden knife to her face, and was just about to drag it across her cheek when there was a violent crash from above.

He whipped around, but before he could do anything, a figure flashed into the dark dungeon and slammed his body into the stone wall.

In her haze, she couldn’t quite make out the face, but at that moment, she lost her battle with consciousness and fell back into blackness once more.

“I know it’s impossible for her to be dead, but do you think she’s dead?”

“Shut it, Kol, she’ll be awake soon.”

“She’s had blood though, why isn’t she stronger?”

“The magic literally had to heal a foot, hands, fingers and ear that was cut off, obviously that’s going to take longer than a little gash in the palm.”

The first thing Caroline registered when she began to regain consciousness was the unmistakable sound of her siblings having a whispered argument. She’d heard similar conversations many times over their lives; outside doors they shouldn’t be outside of, over someone who was sleeping, in a crowded room of too many prying ears.

Though, unlike those times, she couldn’t understand what they were saying, for they too spoke in the same foreign tongue the man in the dungeon had spoken.

She nearly shuddered as she remembered the ordeal in the dungeon, but she didn’t want to reveal her consciousness just yet.

Though it didn’t seem as though she had a chance to rest any longer, as she felt a soft hand pick up her own and squeeze it.

“Caroline,” he said. “I know you awake.”

He spoke in a tongue she recognised, and that, more than anything, compelled Caroline to open her eyes. Her gaze was met with Klaus, his own eyes filled to the brim with love and care – very much at odds with how they looked the last time she saw them.

“Hello Niklaus,” she said, her voice small and delicate.

“Caroline!”

In an instant, each of her siblings were crowded around her, all of them vying for her attention; all of them saying how much they missed her, how sorry they were, making excuses for what they did to her.

“What year is it?” she said, ignoring their words, her voice trembling a little.

“2011.”

It was Klaus’ admission, not too small to take responsibility of his actions, though each sibling had nearly a thousand years’ worth of guilt on their face.

“2011?” she repeated. “So, I’ve been daggered in that box for…”

“Nearly nine hundred years,” Elijah finished.

“If it makes you feel any better, Caroline,” Finn said. “They got me only about 200 years after you, and I was only woken a few days ago.”

“Yes, and me and Bekah have been in and out of the boxes since about then as well.”

“Is this a joke to you?” she levelled Kol, who at the decency to look a little ashamed.

Caroline’s cold gaze moved to her husband – though it nearly revolted her to call him that now.

“And you… you’ve been living… awake… that whole time.”

“Yes, my love,” Klaus said, his deepest shame staring him in the face. “I will do anything to ensure your forgiveness. I love you, Caroline.”

Tears began to well in Caroline’s eyes at his proclamation. For he, still, after over 800 years apart loved her – or so he said.

And for Caroline, her love for him, and for her family, had not been time-tested. She had fallen asleep what felt like yesterday, and then woken up today, no time having passed at all. She loved them all like she loved them then – though their deep and unjust betrayal of her battled to be acknowledged.

“How is one supposed to live in 2011,” she asked. “You all seem to speak the same strange language that the man in the dungeon spoke.”

“It’s called English,” Kol said. “Old Finn over hear isn’t very familiar with it either, though he’s taken to it quite quickly.”

“There’s really a lot of things you would need to catch up on…” Rebekah said.

“Clothes, cars, television.”

“Electricity! The internet.”

“Hot showers – I guess, showers at all.”

“Flushing toilets.”

“Shorts and jeans!”

“Western medicine.”

Caroline listened closely as her siblings listed off so many words she never heard of, nor could even conceive, and it made her blood boil with anger.

“I think you all need to go,” she said, so quietly, they could barely hear her.

“But Caroline…”

“Go!” she spat. “Find something that will teach me this English, then stay away from me for a few days.”

Later that day, Caroline heard a knock at the door of her room.

The knock was light but firm, and Caroline just knew that it was Rebekah on the other side. Apparently some things hadn’t changed over the years.

Without waiting for Caroline to invite her in, Rebekah opened the door and stepped through it, a burly, unshaven man following her in.

“This is Alaric, he’s a teacher,” Rebekah said. “He’s going to teach you modern English. You shouldn’t have too much trouble with it, when you… left… we spoke what they now call ‘Middle English’. There is overlap with root words, and sentence structure. And in any case, you were always the best of us at picking up new skills.”

“I didn’t leave, Rebekah,” Caroline snapped. “The five of you put me down. For 800 years.”

Rebekah flushed furiously, but didn’t say anything, just left the room.

“Uh hi,” the man named Ric said. “I know you probably can’t understand what I’m saying, but I have no idea how to help you… I’m a history teacher, not an English-as-a-second-language teacher. But is there a difference to a thousand-year-old vampire who won’t take no for answer? No there’s not.”

Caroline smiled tight lipped at him, not catching a word more than ‘vampire’.

“This is a chair, I guess,” Ric said, pointing to the chair.

“Chair,” Caroline repeated.

“Yep,” he said, popping the ‘p’ awkwardly. “Chair…”

Six weeks later

It had been over a month since Caroline and the rest of the Mikaelson’s had been reunited, and she was still with them in Mystic Falss.

She had been living quite the wild crash course in modern day life, and she was annoyed to admit, she was slipping back into old patterns with each of her siblings. Joking with Kol, reading with Elijah and Finn, giggling with Rebekah. She had even kissed Klaus a few times.

She was now pretty fluent in modern English, and knew about showers and the internet. She refused to get behind the wheel of a car, because she didn’t see the use of them at all anyway.

She was tentative friends with Ric, who she learned only yesterday had been compelled to teach her – a compulsion she freed him of immediately.

She was regaled with many things the family had done other the centuries, and had been given the run down of what went on in the little town of Mystic Falls, during the sacrifice, and the aftermath, as well as what had taken place to get her back.

And through all of this she had not left the Mikaelson Estate alone. It wasn’t that she felt trapped there, as such, but she also knew if she tried to go anywhere, she would be sent with at least two of her siblings, and it irritated her somewhat that even now they were holding her as a bit of a hostage.

“I am going to the village,” Caroline said, now trying to speak only modern English, where possible. “Alone.”

“No you are not,” Klaus spluttered.

“Yes, I am,” Caroline said defiantly. “I am an adult woman, Niklaus, and you will not tell me what I can do. Goodbye.”

With that, Caroline turned on the heel of her very new boot, and flashed away.

Once in the centre of town, Caroline actually didn’t know what to do with herself.

But was spared the trouble of coming up with an idea when someone walked into her.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” she said, apologetically. “I am very clumsy.”

“Don’t worry about it,” the man said. “It’s – it’s you.”

“Do I know you?” Caroline asked, peering at the tall, dark haired man with interest.

“I’m Stefan Salvatore, maybe you’ve heard…”

“Oh… yes… I’m Caroline,” Caroline replied, awkwardly. “I’m really sorry my family were so awful to you… they can get pretty protective.”

“I’m sorry I told my brother to chop you up into little pieces…”

“Your brother?” Caroline said, incredulously. “Yes, you should be sorry, that hurt.”

Caroline let out a tinkling laugh, unable to hold much of a grudge against the man before her. Sure, Niklaus hated him, but didn’t mean she had to. In fact, it would probably irk Niklaus greatly if she were to befriend this young vampire.

And boy Caroline would love to do anything to irritate Klaus.

“Do you want to get a drink? I’ve been in that box for almost 900 years, I have five friends in this time, and they put me there. I could use… someone new.”

Stefan frowned, sensing it was a bad idea.

“It’s not a trap, I promise.”

Caroline gave him her most sunny smile – it was a smile that got her in and out of trouble a lot of the years – and Stefan relented.

Stefan led Caroline to the Mystic Bar and Grill and Caroline took a seat awkwardly, while Stefan ordered for the two of them.

“So, who are you to the Mikaelsons?” Stefan asked.

“Niklaus and I married when I was quite young, so he’s my husband, and the rest are my siblings.”

“By marriage?”

“Yes, but I grew up in the hut next to theirs. They’re more my family than my blood family ever was.”

The two of them chatted away, Caroline learned a lot about Stefan’s life as a vampire, as well as his life in Mystic Falls over the last two years. She couldn’t always understand the words he used, but he was kind enough to stop and explain whenever such a word came up.

Caroline couldn’t help but feel at ease talking to him, despite his obvious unstable side, she could sense there was a lot of goodness in his heart – even if it had been poisoned somewhat by time and sadness.

It was a familiar sense – it was what happened to her family.

“May I ask a personal question?” Stefan asked, to which Caroline nodded. “Why did Klaus dagger you?”

“It was not just Niklaus,” Caroline said, sadly. “We were all living together, and they all liked being vampires, the murder and the power. I didn’t want that. So I told them I wanted to travel alone for a while. None of them wanted me to go.”

“I see,” Stefan said, shrewdly. “That’s why they were so willing to band together to save you, when they should have been angry with each other.”

“I suppose, plus I am the best sibling.”

“I can see that,” Stefan replied, slipping the lightest of flirts into his voice. “I guess you’re lucky I came into your life. I freed you.”

Caroline stiffened.

It was a thought she’d had a few times since waking, though it was one she always pushed to explore later. But having it so casually raised with her, she realised she couldn’t deny the question anymore.

“I’ve got to go.”

Klaus was sitting agitated in his study.

It had been six whole weeks since his family had been reunited, and there were times when it felt like nothing had changed. But there were also times when he could set fire to west wing of the house and still would receive no attention from any of them.

He supposed that was fine. It wasn’t an unfamiliar dynamic.

But, he reasoned, he was the only one of the six of them who remained awake the entire time. He guessed he wished they needed him more, the way he needed them.

Suddenly the door to his office flung open, and there stood Caroline.

Her eyes were full of tears, her cheeks flushed from what he could only assume was the run home from town.

“Would you have woken me if Stefan hadn’t kept me?” Caroline asked, in a strangled voice, reverting back to their old tongue for her own ease.

“What?” he asked, defensively.

“Stefan just said to me that maybe it was lucky he took me, because he freed me from your betrayal.”

“Stefan just said to you, Caroline? Your friends with Stefan now?”

“Don’t avoid my question, Niklaus,” she said, dangerously. “Would you have woken me now? Would you have woken any of us now?”

“Mikael is dead, Caroline, it was my plan to insight a family reunion.”

“That still doesn’t answer my question!” she sobbed. “If Stefan hadn’t woken me to torture you, would you have woken me now? You reasoning has always been Mikael would have killed me if I was alone. So, now he’s dead, would you have woken me?”

Klaus mouth stayed tightly shut, unable, or at least unwilling, to answer her.

“How could you?” she asked, her voice so broken.

“Caroline, you have to understand, you –”

“Understand what, Niklaus? That I wanted a life beyond this family, beyond you?”

“I was –”

“I don’t care, what you were,” Caroline cried, tears freely pouring down her face. “You robbed me of eight hundred years of life that you got to live. You got to live beyond me! Why could you never offer me the same kindness?”

“What if I lost you?”

“What if you lost me?” she shrieked, the words tearing her throat. “Your sense of love and loyalty to me is completely insane if you think keeping me dead in a box wasn’t losing me, Klaus.”

“Caroline, please, I –”

“Don’t you dare say you love me, Klaus,” Caroline spat, the tears on her flaming cheeks mixing with the sweat and mucus dripping down her face, forming a grotesque imprint of the Caroline he’d loved and lost so long ago. “I could have been there in 1492 when you tried to break the hybrid curse the first time, I could have been there when you adopted your son in New Orleans, I could have raised him with you! I could have been there to cheer you on when you finally succeeded in breaking the curse this year! I could have been around for all of it!”

“But you were leaving!” Klaus said, finally beginning to match her level of rage. “How can you not see how ridiculous your notions of ‘being there’ are, when you were – by your own admission – trying to not be there!”

“You’re unbelievable, Klaus,” Caroline scoffed. “That you still fail to see my side of this at all, proof that I was right back then.”

“I can’t stand you when you’re like this, Caroline,” Klaus muttered. “Just get out of my sight.”

“No,” Caroline said, giving Klaus a look of pure petulance. “What did you do with my stuff?”

“What?”

“Way back then, what did you do with my stuff? My books, my dresses, my everything!”

“I packed them in a box and it travelled with us.”

“Good, where is it?” Caroline asked, petulantly. “I want it.”

“Cellar.”

Klaus grunted the last two syllables as he brushed past Caroline, and stalked away from her.

She rolled her eyes, but made her way to the cellar instead of engaging him further.

Elena Gilbert was sitting on the couch in her home shaking intermittently.

The past year had taken its toll on the young woman, and the events of only the last couple of days had served to shake her more deeply than she thought possible.

She refused to see Stefan, or Damon – both complicit in disregarding her life, and the life of her family for their own revenge fantasies. She ordered both Jeremy and Bonnie be in her vicinity at all times, though she rarely spoke to them. Matt and Ric were allowed a little more freedom, but had to call or text her every couple of hours.

Despite the fact she was completely healed, thanks to vampire blood, Elena could still vividly feel the vicious and cold pain Rebekah inflicted upon her. And every time she looked in the mirror, and saw her bare head, her eyes would fill with tears, for her scalp was just a visual representation of all she lost since turning sixteen.

She flinched as there was a sudden knock at the door.

She knew Bonnie and Jeremy were upstairs, and Matt and Ric were at school, and surely Stefan and Damon knew better than to come grovelling for her forgiveness so soon?

Trying to pull herself together, she bravely stood up, wrapped her cardigan more firmly around her, and answered the door.

“Hi,” the blonde on the other side of the door said softly. “I’m Caroline. Are you Elena?”

Elena nodded jerkily, but didn’t say anything.

It was at this point, Bonnie came down the stairs, and, recognising Caroline, pulled Elena from the door.

“Elena, don’t, she’s one of them.”

Caroline smiled sadly – that was a line she heard frequently her entire life. She was one of them; a Mikaelson. Once she vowed her life and heart to Niklaus, she doomed herself to an eternity of spite and shame.

“They don’t know I’m here,” Caroline said gently. “I don’t even want to be invited in.”

“What do you want?” Bonnie said, tersely.

“To apologise; my family betrayed me, and I guess they thought their saving me this time would make up for that. I’m sorry for everything they’ve undoubtedly done to you. My husband, especially.”

“Which one’s your husband?” Jeremy asked, from his position behind the two girls.

“I’m sure you can guess,” Caroline huffed. “Niklaus is a brutish man, and I am loathed to admit regret for anything, but now…”

She left her sentence hanging in the air, leaving all four of them to contemplate the terrible twists and turns their lives had taken.

“It is strange,” Caroline said. “I feel as though, perhaps in another life, another universe, I could be a close friend to you three. But I don’t believe that’s for this life.”

For the first time in a few days, Elena gave a small, guarded smile to the blonde at her doorstep, and it was enough for Caroline. It was all the solace she would get from this particular encounter.

“I brought you this, I used a photocopier, whatever that is, to make you a copy from one of my old books.”

Caroline placed an envelope at the foot of the door, and took a step back, gesturing for them to take it.

“What is it?”

“It’s a spell I weaved myself, back when I was a girl, I was a witch, you know,” Caroline said, wanly. “It should spark hair growth. Over night, you should be able to regrow all the hair my brat of a sister stole from you, in any style you want. There’s also instructions on how to spell your hair to different colours, lengths etcetera.”

Elena’s eyes widened, and tears filled them.

“I know it’s not much salvation from the destruction that tends to follow my family, but hopefully it’s something. The world needs pure souls like the three of yours, and I want you to still believe there are good people out there.”

Without another word, Caroline turned and left.

She heard a quiet ‘thank you’ when she was half way across the street, and she smiled sadly again, unsure of where to go now.

It was a few days later, as that sun began to peak its beams through the trees, and Klaus was quietly reading when he heard a heartbroken wail, that was unmistakeably his little sister.

“Rebekah!” he called, jumping from his armchair and dashing toward her.

She was crumpled in a heap on the marbled floors of their kitchen.

“What’s the matter,” Klaus said, alarmed, as the rest of their brothers joined them.

“It’s Caroline,” she cried, barely audible through the choking sobs ripping through her. “She’s left us."

It was then Klaus noticed the the thick paper clutched in Rebekah’s hand, and the matching envelopes addressed neatly to each other them on the kitchen bench.

“I don’t know if she’ll want to come back this time,” Elijah said.

“Of course she will,” Finn encouraged.

“She can’t keep away from us forever, she won’t be able to help herself,” Kol joked, weakly.

Klaus reached for his own letter, dread coursing through his veins.

And, as he read both letters she left for him, he couldn’t help but think maybe he would never see her face again.

Hope you enjoyed! I also hope there’s not too many mistakes, I couldn’t bring myself to read this monster again!! Much love xx

#klaroline #klaroline fanfiction #klaroline fanfic #kcbingo2020

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forestwater87 · 4 years

Text

Tales of Fandom Past: Harry Potter and the Shipping Slaves

So, in my spare time I read a lot, lot . . . lot of fandom_wank. A lot. More than should be possible, considering it’s a dead website linking mostly to other dead websites, but I’m a woman addicted to drama who has the gift of long periods of quiet at work, so I’m working my way through almost 2 decades of fan history and it’s just fascinating.

Fandom, back in the ‘00s? Was so much more wild than it is now.

Plagiarism! Fake suicides! Fraud! Theft of real people’s actual money! Stalkers, both real and made up! Fanfic writers so popular they finagled it into mountains of free stuff and a book deal! Everyone was really gross and homophobic!

There were no rules, and that made it a terrible and incredibly fun time to be part of a fandom.

And we’re not talking enough about it. I guess that’s where I come in.

I’m interested in telling these stories -- not in the incredible level of detail of the MsScribe Saga or the Cassie Claire Plagiarism Debacle, but enough for us to all have a moment to think: Hold on, what the fuck was fandom doing during the entirety of the Bush administration?

A lot, it turns out. Much of it totally wild.

Today’s topic: Shipping wars are as bad as slavery

Date: August 2005

Fandom: Harry Potter

Supposed topic(s): Shipping, canon

Content warning(s): Accidental and ironic diminishing of slavery, complaints about political correctness and free speech, racism in general, lots of hurt feelings and drama

"Now, I'm not black, but boy, do I feel for the black people. If I lived in the 1800's, I wouldn't keep slaves, and if someone has a difference of opinion than me now, that's fine, believe what you want."

Background

In August of 2005, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince had been out for a little less than a month, the film version of The Goblet of Fire wouldn’t come out until November, and the last Potter movie had been released over a year ago. In terms of shipping, fans had just discovered, to either their delight or horror, that Harry/Ginny and Ron/Hermione were canon; while some would continue to hold out hope that there would be a last-minute reversal of expectations, most of the fandom both on and off the internet was in agreement:

The shipping wars were over, and the Harry/Hermione fans (a.k.a., H/Hr fen, or “Harmonians”) had decisively lost.

The Harmonians’ ire seemed to have been pretty evenly split between J.K. Rowling -- who they felt had let them down -- and the R/Hr and H/G shippers (a.k.a. “Herons” and “Chocolateers,” respectively, though I’m not sure anyone actually used those terms for themselves; they appear to have been given from without), who were taking a victory lap. Depending on one’s perspective, this was either a long-overdue celebration by two groups of shippers who’d faced the fandom’s ire for approximately 5 years and were now vindicated, or it was the tactless gloating of sore losers who were thrilled to get one over on their hated enemies. Either way, tensions were no lower just because canon had decided the victors, and the battleground seemed to shift from the books to the movies -- where shippers of all kinds were in debate over which romance would win out onscreen.

Enter Emerson Spartz, a teenager in charge of one of the most popular fansites at the time and king of creating controversy . . . who had very strong opinions about shipping, and Harmonians in particular.

The Inciting Incident

Emerson had already incited the ire of Harmonians by calling them “delusional” in an infamous interview with J.K. Rowling. The wound was still raw, having come shortly after the release of Half-Blood Prince, and in some circles Emerson was already Public Enemy #1.

Therefore, when Emerson was one of two “anti”-Harmonians interviewed in a San Francisco Chronicle article about the shipping wars, some fans cried foul.

More responses can be found in a summary of the incident here, but personal favorites include a letter sent to the author of the SF Chronicle piece:

The majority of Harry/Hermione shippers are not merely upset that we didn't get what we wanted in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. That makes us sound childish. While I'm forced to admit that there has been much bile and vitriol posted on various H/Hr shipping sites, the majority of us are reasonable people. What really hurt our feelings was the way the Mugglenet/TLC article made it seem as if J. K. Rowling herself felt we were really dense, missing her "anvil-sized clues." Emerson's subsequent "apology" for the harsh words directed at the Harry/Hermione 'shipper community was a non-apology, which you [the author of the SFC article] would have known if you had done more than just take his word that he apologized. He simply used the "apology" as an opportunity to issue another dig. I suppose not much better can be expected from a child of 18 who has suddenly become a bit of a celebrity. But I do expect better from a colleague; a professional writer. ...

You have assisted one side of the argument and failed to represent the other. Did you attempt to interview the webmasters of any Harry/Hermione shipping sites or did you merely cut and paste posts that were pointed out to you by Emerson and Melissa? Your article shows no evidence that you made any attempt to give the other side equal time, so to speak, and as a result, you have contributed to the perceprtion [sic] that ALL H/Hr 'shippers are irrational, bitter, spoiled brats. And that's quite unfair. (Hughes, 2005, paras. 13 & 18)

Or this comment in a Harmonian forum by a disappointed reader:

History is written by the victorius [sic] (or something like that), isn't it how the saying goes?. I'm afraid we are witnessing it firsthand. Herons feel they are the winners on this war, and as such, they feel they have a right to treat us anyway they want to, and they think we have no weapons to defend ourselves since even J.K seems to have sided with them. Even if most of us are pretty reasonable people, at this point anything we say in regards of J.K's apparent disregard for our feelings (thoughts, opinions, whatever), will be gladly taken as the lashing out of sore losers. ::sigh:: I say, just ignore Emerson, he's just some lost kid desperate for attention. And how good can the guy who wrote this article be if he didn't bother to check the facts before he went slandering us?, not much me thinks. (Remolina, 2005, para. 21)

These responses, while perhaps silly or overblown, were not enough to make history. That honor belonged to a Harmonian going by the username Panther.

How, one might wonder?

The Blowout

Ya know, come to think of it, people like Emerson were probably the kinda people that started slavery. I mean, think about it, they thought the slaves were animals, just because they had different colored skin. Emerson thinks we're stupid and delusional for having different beliefs. Get the similarities here, people? Now, I'm not black, but boy, do I feel for the black people. If I lived in the 1800's, I wouldn't keep slaves, and if someone has a difference of opinion than me now, that's fine, believe what you want. (Panther, 2005, paras. 23-25)

The reaction was immediate and explosive from Panther’s fellow Harmonians. Some understood and empathized with Panther’s view; they saw it as a bit hyperbolic, but agreed with the underlying point being made.

I can see where they were going with this...a different analogy would probably have been better. Maybe the religious persecution during Mary Tudor's reign, or the Salem Witch Hunt/Trials, the religous [sic] crusades, the wars in Bosnia etc. We harmonians are being "persecuted" for our differening viewpoints/perspectives. (Anndee Granger, 2005, paras. 30-32)

The belief that H/Hr shippers were being persecuted for their beliefs was a pervasive one, and extended to fans, Emerson and other fandom “authorities,” and the author herself.

No, what we are experiencing is not at the same extreme level because of the world we now live in, but the base level is still the same. The base level taking us back to different beliefs and views without the ability to be heard in the correct manner, and yes it does feel like a form of persecution. (*Under your Skin, 2005, paras. 36-37)

While not on the same level as slavery, the intolerance of their ship did call to mind other examples of discrimination and bigotry:

Of course no one is dying because of this, but all in all we are being persecuted for our different beliefs. "Bloody" Mary Tudor, killed Protestants because she so hated their different views on Christ. This is an extreme indeed, but the mentality behind it, the vitrol [sic], is the same. (Andee Granger, 2005, para. 38)

This extreme point of view, while widespread, was not universal among the Harmonians. Many of them were . . . understandably appalled by the comment and those agreeing with it:

No wonder other people find it easy to portray us as reactionary and vicious. Some of you bloody well are. (jane99, 2005, para. 43)

I agree that it is very vicious and out in left field . . . Slavery was an oppressive movement for hundreds of years, resulting in the deaths of millions. I would hardly regard that with 'shipper treatment, nowadays. However, the schoolyard bully is a very appropriate analogy, in my opinion. Hopefully you understand the difference. (myrhlyn, 2005, para. 52)

The Response

NarcissaM brought the subject to the outside world by posting it in fandom_wank -- a defunct LiveJournal specializing in fandom drama, which now exists primarily in archives -- and the result was universally disbelief and amusement. The responses ranged from insightful, if crass, commentary . . .

Emerson did not kill your dog, tell you that Santa wasn't real, and touch you in your swimsuit areas. And the more I read the more I'm convinced that H/Hr fans aren't angry because what he said was insulting, they're angry because what he said was *accurate*. (iczer6)

I'm also wondering where keeping slaves was a matter of, y'know, people having different beliefs, and not the subjugation of an entire culture by another which had more money and more powerful weapons, and needed a lot of manual labor but didn't want to pay for it. (slackerbitch)

To good old-fashioned sarcasm and snark:

That's not the stupidest thing I've ever read, but it's in the top five. (Anonymous)

That's right. There is a conspiracy, Hermionians! The world is against you and want to take a shit on all your fan fiction! XD (Anonymous “Mary”)

QUICKLY! SOMEBODY CALL A WAAAAAHBULANCE! WE HAVE INTERNET PERSECUTION! (aerobot)

F_W, known for good and ill as a site that takes nothing seriously except the desire to laugh at themselves and especially others, took the slavery comment and ran with it:

So how much does a healthy H/Hr fan with good teeth go for these days? (xero-sky)

Which H/Hr's are in the big house and which ones are working in the fields? ... We didn't land on Plymouth rock, Plymouth rock landed on us! *throws up the fist* (prettyveela)

If we're going to start enslaving delusional people, I want to start with the scientologists. Who's with me? (ladybirdsleeps)

Big Daddy Heron:*hits the H/Hr fan with a whip* Your ship name is H/Hr, H/Hr! Say it! H/Hr shipper: H-Harmony (sewingmyfish)

Bully for the slaves! In fact they would have been sooo much better off if all we 21st century people could trade places with the whites that lived back then. Not only could we tell them to get a life, none of us would have kept slaves! (chief)

You know, just like slaves, they have to work out in the hot sun for no wages and be beaten and whipped and raped and sold like cattle deal with an author not writing the fictional pairing they wanted. (slackerbitch)

Mere hours after the controversy was reported to F_W, a user named ahiru created some icons to celebrate the controversy:

And with some more chuckles about the inherent ridiculousness of such a claim, the fandom and its onlookers dropped the subject.

For a few months.

The Aftermath

In November 2005, some users rediscovered the icons made by ahiru and found them insensitive and racist. This is immediately reported to F_W not once but twice, and the folks there were no longer entertained, responding with less amusement than outright hostility. A couple of F_Wankers understood to at least some extent why there might be people who didn’t love the icons, though they did generally come down on the side of parody and feel those upset were missing the point of the joke. A lot of F_Wankers were upset about political correctness and free speech, and were eager to point out the oppression faced by other groups of people.

Someone anonymous entered the fray with racist guns blazing, and was summarily eviscerated by gleeful F_Wankers.

After that, the dust settled, and all was quiet on the fandom front . . . at least, until the next inevitable disaster.

Further Reading

The Interview that sparked the Emerson outrage

An offshoot of Harmony that believes in Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson’s undeniable chemistry and romance

A collection of Harmonian controversies, 2006-2010

Other HP controversies

#harry potter #hp #jkr #rowling #fandom_wank #f_w #shipping wars #shipping #fandom history #tw: racism #long post #very long post #this is mostly a rounding up of quotes and summarizing the wank report #i do realize that #but this stuff deserves to be remembered #cut out some editorializing in the aftermath section about how f_w kinda come across as super huge dicks #but i'm trying to be objective here so #i got out of my way to say 'wank' as little as possible #it's one of those words that hurts to type #proving that i am not immune to finding something cringeworthy either #i don't have a consistent tw tag I'm sorry #no one is going to read this but i think it's interesting #i love fandom history and i'm not the best person to tell these stories but here we are #i guess i could just link to the wank wiki and let people read it for themselves #but that's a lot of link hunting and it's easier when it's all in one place i think

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lassluna · 4 years

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CSJJ 2020 Day 1: Good Times, Bad Decisions

Emma Swan was supposed to go to a Halloween party. It was a set up and she knew it. Honestly, the last thing she wanted to do was go to this party. She was not supposed to end up sleeping with a pirate.

AN: This is my contribution for @csjanuaryjoy 2020! I'm so happy to be apart of this event for the third year in a row. I can't wait to see all the amazing creations this fandom can create! (Title from Bastille, Quarter Past Midnight)

Ao3 FFN

The last thing Emma expected to do was spend Halloween with a pirate she met at a bar.

It had begun with a simple idea, get a drink and text Mary Margret with a quick excuse as to why she wouldn’t be going to her Halloween party. It certainly had nothing to do with the neighbor her childhood friend invited that would supposedly be perfect for Emma.

No not at all.

But it wasn't the first time she'd done so, and Mary Margret had pretty bad taste in men when it came to Emma. Emma had initially reasoned that enough of their friends were going to act as a buffer for whatever low life she'd invited.

But honestly, the last thing she wants to do is spend her evening engaging in small talk and finding delicate ways to let both the guy and her best friend down easy when it came to romance.

Emma didn’t even want a relationship. She'd tried it. Once. It didn't take.

Her plan was going well. She'd gotten her drink, so she was halfway there, but the text message wasn’t going so well. She kept seeing her ecstatic face, how excited she’d been at the prospect and- well she didn’t have a good reason.

Emma had just caught her last skip yesterday, so she had the money to relax for a few days, a fact she'd mistakenly told her friend’s husband, David. She couldn’t help it. He was the cop she handed all her skips to.

So she got another drink, then another, the third purchased by a hot pirate who also seemed to be avoiding something.

(She distantly remembered his phone going off a few times)

By the fourth and fifth, well Emma Swan did have a good reason. She was too busy making out with the hot british pirate in the corner of the bar.

Not that she told Mary Margret that. By that point the keyboard was just a blur. She’d tried sending something, but she knew that whatever garble of a message she concocted was terrible and she deleted it.

"Want to get out of here, love?" He'd whispered in her ear after he'd made her see stars just by sucking at that spot below her collarbone."A nightcap perhaps?" She saw his eyes, blue and absolutely staring right into her soul.

She'd nodded and gone with the pirate to his apartment just down the block.

Sleeping with the pirate on Halloween was one thing she did not regret.

It was filled with more searing kisses and probably was the best sex she’d ever had.

Waking up the next morning with said pirate in his bed was absolutely not the plan. Like, not even remotely in the plan. She didn’t remember how she planned to get home last night, but sleeping over is never the plan. She usually makes plans to avoid that option.

So, in typical Emma Swan fashion, she grabs her clothes, thrown around the room at drink six or seven.

Emma barely takes a glance at the sleeping man in the bed, eye liner running over his face, and still somehow looking too fucking good, before heading towards the exit of the apartment.

She was well prepared to do the walk of shame back to her car, then back to her apartment where she would beg her friend’s forgiveness for completely standing her up.

But well, that was not in the cards because Emma got blasted in the face by gusting winds and snow.

"Fuck." Emma cursed, pulling the door closed as fast as she can. The storm threatened to rip the door off the freaking hinges with its howling.

There was no way in hell Emma was going out in that.

Which led her to her current situation sitting on the bottom of the steps, still in her jeans and hoodie. Clothes not at all appropriate for an absolute blizzard.

Who the hell heard of a blizzard in freaking october?

Climate Change!

The news articles announce as the cause, which honestly more people should pay attention to, but that doesn't at all help Emma's current predicament.

Staying the night was bad enough, but being trapped here was beyond bad. It was terrible. What the hell was she going to say to a man that she'd just slept with and had planned to run out of without a word?

Her phone buzzed in her hand from all the unread text messages.

Emma can you pick up beer?

Don't worry, got some.

Are you coming?

What time are you arriving?

He's here if you're wondering. I promise he's a good guy.

All from Mary Margret. Emma sighs; feeling guilty for not responding.

If you're on your way, don't bother, there's a freak snow storm coming in. We're snowed in, everyone is crashing on the couch, or in our spare bedroom.

This was from David. Emma sighs, knowing that if she was half the friend they were she wouldn't be in this situation.

But at least I'm not bunking with the rando Mary Margret found. Emma thinks.

She's a terrible friend. Absolutely terrible.

"Bloody hell." Says a voice behind her. Emma turns around, and the pirate is there on the bottom level of his apartment bleary eyed and in skull and crossbone boxers. The smeared makeup is mostly gone, as is his shirt.

(even like this, he was absolutely as attractive this morning as last night)

Emma raises a brow. "Seriously taking the pirate thing all the way don't you think?" She asks.

He smirks at her. "I pride myself on my commitment." He tells her. "And I assume you got the same weather alert as I did." Emma nods. "18 inches of snow, who'd a thought?" He asks.

Definitely not her.

"Then let's go back to my apartment to ride it out." He offers. "According to the news, it won't be clear until tomorrow; which means a whole day in the home of a stranger.

Emma hesitates.

"I promise love; I'm still a gentleman, even without the leather." He says with a teasing tilt of his brows.

Emma sighs, because she honestly doesn't have a better option. So, she makes her way back to the apartment she woke up in.

Silently, and still without putting more clothes than his boxers, he proceeds to his kitchen and puts on a pot of coffee.

Next, he goes to his fridge and pulls out a carton of eggs. Emma watches in silence as he methodically makes them both scrambled eggs and toast.

"Cheese?" He asks like it's the most normal thing in the world.

"I typically don't do this you know." Emma blurts out.

"The one night stand?" He asks, glancing back at him.

"The staying the morning after." Emma clarifies. "So don't think that this." She gestures between them and at the eggs for good measure. "Means anything. I would've been gone if it there wasn't a blizzard outside." She assures him. “This is just a one time thing.”

The last thing Emma needs is him getting the wrong idea.

He nods, looking her solemnly. "Of course." He says. Even without the alcohol, Emma swears his blue eyes can still see into her soul. Emma wonders what he sees.

"But that doesnt tell me if you like cheese in your eggs love." He's smirking now. Emma rolls her eyes.

"Who doesn't love cheese?" She asks. Putting her stuff down on the couch nearby. "Now where are your mugs, I think the coffee is ready."

Breakfast is surprisingly easy, the eggs taste good, he has a varied collection of jellies for the toast, and the coffee is already doing its job to combat the hangover induced headache she had woken up with.

"So love." He asks as she stuffs a fork full of eggs in her mouth. "I regretfully have forgotten your name." He says, scratching behind the ear. Emma can already tell that the guy does that when he's embarrassed.

Not that it matters of course.

"Emma." She replies. "And I probably didn't give you my name, or ask yours, I think we had better things on our mind..." She trails off. God she'd been so drunk.

“Or bigger.” He says with another waggle of eyebrows; it makes Emma flush brightly.

“Oh my God.” She moans at his joke. “Do I have to call you Captain Innuendo now?” She says.

"Killian will do just fine." He says with a laugh, standing up to clear their plates. A silence takes over the room, because of course it does.

Because what does one say to a stranger you met in a bar and properly slept with?

"What made you dress like a pirate?" Emma blurts out watching him wash the dishes.

She instantly regrets her question when she sees some serious scarring over his left hand. She vaguely recalls that one of his hands had a hook. It feels insensitive all of a sudden.

It catches him off guard, but that might just be the fact that he’d caught her staring at his hand. He instantly hides it from sight. "I was supposed to go to a costume party." Killian says,

"But soon after I arrived, I learned the hostess was trying to set me up with someone and well..." he says trailing off. "I’d prefer not to have others interfere with my life so much." he reasons, another sheepish smile.

Emma nods in agreement. "I feel the same way. Would you believe my friends were doing the same thing?”

His eyes widen in surprise.

“I’ve always been a bit of an outsider, I’m a glass half empty kind of person. But my friend is convinced that there’s someone out there perfect for me, that I should open my heart to love and romance and all that stuff she loves but...” She trails off.

“Love has been all too rare in your life hasn’t it?” Killian asks. He’s doing it again, that looking-into-your-soul thing. It makes Emma feel a bit exposed. But at the same time, she sees something reflected back to her. A familiar gaze she’s seen all too often.

He laughs, breaking the odd tension.

"Bloody hell, looks like we both dodged a bullet then." He says. "Because as odd as this current situation is, I’d much prefer this than rebuffing the attention of someone while also not insulting my friend..." he says trailing off.

His phone buzzes on the counter. He reaches for it.

"If you excuse me." He says disappearing into the bedroom with his phone. She can hear him talking with his friend, it seems a bit tense if Emmas honest, but thats none of her business.

Rather than eavesdropping Emma surveys the room. Considering Emmas been in Bail Bonds as long as she has, she can tell quite a bit about a man by the condition of his apartment.

Its neat. That’s the first thing she notices; neat and organized. Everything has a place, and everything is returned to its place. His bookcase is full, she notices most of his books are worn from frequent use.

They had eaten on a kitchen island with three chairs, not a dining room in sight.

His couch is of moderate size, but the reclining armchair has more use.

Emma takes him for an orderly person who reads quite frequently; he must even reread his favorites when he’s stressed, cooks for himself but not often for a group. He’s a loner. But not alone.

"Turns out the girl didn’t show either." It makes Emma jump in surprise to see him standing behind her as she snoops. "Sorry love, didn’t mean to spook you." Killian says with another sheepish expression.

It makes Emma wonder about the swagger he had last night. She chalked it up to the rum.

"Wanna watch something?" Killian asks, gesturing to the Tv. Emma nods her head.

“Do you have Netflix?”

They put on a rom-com. Something light and funny, How to lose a guy in 10 days, one of Emma’s favorites.

“Honestly.” Emma says. “They’re both trying so hard to be people they’re not. She’s trying to be terrible, and he’s trying to be perfect.”

Killian shrugs. “It’s definitely funny.”

Once it ends, Killian makes them a frozen pizza while they put on the next movie. Stardust. Emma had never seen it so Killian had insisted.

It was about a boy who was alone, an outcast and a girl desperate to get home, hunted by absolute nutjobs but risk it all for each other.

Honestly, Emma kinda loves it. It also definitely confirms what Emma thought she’d seen in him.

“You were alone too weren’t you?” She asks. He’s not surprised by her comment. Not in the slightest.

“Lost sees lost. That’s what my brother always says.” He murmurs. “My mother died when I was six, our father walked out on us soon after and my brother and I were put in the system until we aged out.”

Emma nods. She understands his lack of details. It’s not someone anyone wants to talk about. “I was abandoned as an infant, maybe hours old.” She replies. “Love’s been all too rare in your life hasn’t it?” Emma repeats. It brings a sad smile to his face. “What are the odds that we’d meet last night?” She asks.

“Perhaps we saw something in each other?” He wonders.

“I’m pretty sure you just thought I was hot.”

“Still think you’re hot.”

Emma laughs, easing back into his couch. It’s comfortable, both the couch and hanging out with this man. It was nice in a way Emma didn’t expect.

They move on from movies to books and he had a lot of books. Emma had fallen a bit behind on reading lately, but considering she had nothing but time today and Killian’s massive library, it felt like a good use of her time.

“How do you have time to read all these books?” Emma asks, flipping through a few to try to decide what to read first. She had Pride and Prejudice in her hand currently.

“I’m a librarian.” He replies with a smile. “So being well read comes with the job.”

She nods. A librarian makes sense for him, considering his books, his quiet sheepish expressions, and his way with words.

(But it didn’t explain the scar on his hand, that was not from a papercut, not that it was any of her business.)

She ends up reading Pride and Prejudice for a bit. She’s definitely beginning to enjoy it, when her phone buzzes in her lap.

Emma, are you alright? The snow is clearing and David’s heading over to you’re apartment. Considering the drunk text you sent me last night, I have a feeling they’re not finding you there...

Emma grimaces. She didn’t remember sending Ruby a text... She scrolls up to see it.

sLeepin wt pirates no paty don be ma.

Yup. Pretty bad.

Instead of replying, she decides to call her friend.

“Well the dead arose.” Ruby snickers as she answers the phone.

“Ha ha.” She says standing up to go to Killian’s bedroom for privacy. “Was Mary Margret mad?” She asks. “I honestly was going to come but...” She says trailing off.

“Nah. You know how she is, forgiving as always. David was a little peeved, the guy left a few minutes in but damn Emma, he was hot with a capital H.” Ruby says. Emma can practically hear the wolfish smirk that was characteristically her. “But what about you? Spend the night with a hot pirate?”

She hums in agreement. “I’m still at his place.” She says. “Got snowed in.”

“Dang! You never stay the night.”

“I never get that drunk. But honestly Ruby, I’m having a good time. It’s strange.” She says. “Like really strange.”

“Oooh.” Ruby says. “What his name? Tell me everything.” She says. But Emma’s not sure. She’s scared that voicing her thoughts into the universe would ruin whatever it was.

She thinks maybe that this isn’t a one time thing.

Then of course, she sees something that ruins everything. Because on Killian’s nightstand was a photo. A beautiful woman with Killian. She was in a wedding dress, he in a tux.

It was a wedding photo.

“Ruby. I have to call you back.”

“You’re not married right?” Emma blurts out. Because there’s no point beating around the bush.

Emma refuses to even consider fantasising about a married man, not that she was fantasizing of course.

She would rather walk back home, than be here another minute if he truly was-

“I was.” He states, not looking up from his book. “She died.” He responds. “Which is why I don’t want my friends to set me up with anyone. Because I know that I won’t find her. The perfect person they want me to find. Because she’s gone.” He’s looking at her now.

All the anger fades from Emma at his words. Because of course he’s not married, or cheating. Of course this good man wouldn’t do that. Not to her, not to the woman that he obviously loved so very much.

“I’m sorry.” she says softly. All of a sudden feeling like the biggest ass in existence.

“Car accident, if you’re wondering, that’s how I got this.” He says lifting his hand, showing off the jagged scar that starts at his wrist and goes up his arm. “I was lucky.”

He says lucky like he doesn’t believe it. “Tell me, have you ever been in love?”

“Yes.” She says softly.

“Then you know that I was anything but lucky that day.”

“I do.” She replies. Because she knows that pain, knows a pain so very similar it hurts just to think about. Like touching an old scab that still stings.

“I was in love once.” She says. “He was everything to me, but it wasn’t-it wasn’t real. He didn’t-” She loses the words. “He didn’t love me like that, he left me and I was...”

Broken

“It’s not the same thing. I know that.” She says. “I know my friends mean well but I can never let anyone hurt me like that again. Ever. But they’re so sure that there’s someone out there, someone who will never leave me, not like everyone else has.”

“But you’re not so sure.” Killian says, he’s standing now and Emma’s not sure when he did that. “I assure you Emma, take it from someone who’s known you only a short time. You are not someone who deserves to be left behind.”

She bites back a gasp at his words.

“And maybe there’s hope for us yet?” Emma responds. He reaches out and hugs her. Then he kisses her and well...

They end up in bed together once more.

The storm stops and reality settles in. It’s time for Emma to go home.

“I never did get to finish this.” She says, putting the book back in his shelf.

Killian smirks at her, he’s in real clothes now, she has on a band T-shirt and sweats. It’s a size too big on her, but it’s a lot warmer. “Keep it.” He assures her. “Keep it as a reminder, that if we can cohabitat for a day, then perhaps...perhaps someday...our friends will no longer need to play matchmaker.”

She smirks at that.

He looks at her for a moment and Emma thinks he's going to ask for more. He's going to ask for something stupid and romantic like an actual date or a kiss in the rain, or any of those chic flic things.

But after everything, a part of Emma wants him to. She wants him to want her to stay, to tell her it wasn't just her, that he felt it too.

The spark, the connection, a kindred spirit in her that just wanted something. That it wasn’t just drunk sex, that it wasn’t just two ships in the night.

And yet, all Killian does is put on a smile, offer out his hand and shake hers.

"It was nice riding out a blizzard with you."

Emma smiles back.

Because of course he doesn't say any of those things. Emma had said herself, that this was a one time thing.

Emma Swan doesn’t do relationships. She'd tried it once and it didn’t take.

It wouldn’t take here either. Not that Emma thought it would.

She walks away from Killian Jones, prepared to never see his smiling face.

The last thing she expects is to see him again on New Years Eve.

Part Two to be released January 30th

#csjj #CS fanfics #captain swan january joy #csjj 2020 #Good Times Bad Decisions

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mermaidxatxheart · 4 years

Text

The Queen of Wishful Thinking

Ok. So, this is the start of a new series that I’ve been working on for a couple years. This is the prelude to my teen wolf story. It’s an OFC. If you’d like to be tagged, let me know. send me an ask. I’m not stopping my other works. I’m still continuing all of my Bucky stories and the requests that I’ve received. I haven’t forgotten about them. But I’m struggling with the toxicity of the Marvel fandom at the moment. I won’t be tagging anyone from my Marvel tag lists specifically because they didn’t sign up for this genre. If you want to be on both, let me know. Here we go. Also, thank you to everyone who read this for me and encouraged me to post it. You guys have been sent by the gods. I love you so much.

Pairing: OFC X Derek Hale (future)

Word Count: 6732

Warnings: abuse, mentions of blood and violence. descriptions of pain and torture.

Summary: Aryanna was a special girl. Her parents got exactly what they wished for. But she’s the one paying the price.

My birth should have been the best thing that ever happened to my parents. They had prayed to the gods for so long to bless them with a special child.

Be careful what you wish for.

I tried to be normal.

I tried desperately to be like everyone else.

And the reality was that I wasn’t that different. I didn’t have extra arms, or a second belly button or anything weird. What made me special wasn’t visible. I don’t know what made him choose me, all I know was that it made my life miserable. Lord Apollo, the god of music, poetry, prophecies, light and truth, had picked me to bear the gift of foresight. Apparently, he was also the god of stupid decisions.

Ever since I was a little girl, I knew I was different. It was supposed to be a special gift, craved by many. I was to be the next Seer. It was a popular practice in those days, most every village had one, as long as it was large enough. The one in my village was useless. He was called Aischylos. It should have been an obvious tell to anyone who spoke to him, seeking advice and consul that he’s a liar and a fraud since his name means ‘shame’. But, as usual, people see and believe what they want to.

The very first vision I had was of my father when I was four years old. I had stayed home with my mother while she prepared her wine to sell. I was playing on the floor next to her and my sight disappeared. I blinked several times, and when it cleared, there was something strange about it. It was in front of me, but I could tell it wasn’t true. If I were to reach out and touch it, my hands would pass through air. It was rounded, and not all together clear, like I was looking at it through water. My father walked through the door with a large sack full of fish, a magnificent catch for the aging fisherman. I shook my head and my father was gone. I looked up at my mother and she smiled down at me.

“Papa did good today, Mama.” I said simply and went back to playing with my wooden centaur figure. My father returned home soon after just as I had seen it in my mind. My mother looked from my father to the little girl sitting at her feet and she smiled wide, clearly happy but I was too young to understand what it was.

I didn’t see anything for a long time after that, I was close to my fifth year, I spoke to my mother of a time of man that was far away. A time when houses and structures soared high into the sky and horses were no longer used for common travel. I had seen it in a dream and it fascinated me. I had made the mistake of telling my mother in the market place and people overheard. Word spread like wildfire through our village about what I said, and the Seer, Aischylos, realized what it meant. That I was to take over his position. He no longer would get the respect and honor and good treatment that came along with his title. It would be handed over to a little girl and he would be cast aside, forgotten and forced to return to the status of everyone else in the village. He had spent countless years forging his ability that he didn’t have to get the status he didn’t deserve. He couldn’t just allow some stupid girl to take that away from him. But he bided his time, knowing I would not be eligible until my twelfth year. He watched me carefully, finding chances to whisper lies about me. He was a master of patience and manipulation.

Living in a coastal village, there wasn’t much to do. But I was an adventurous girl, always finding places to hide and run off to. The other children would ask me questions to watch me predict the future, but I wasn’t allowed to give too much away. So, I enjoyed playing in the woods with the nymphs and satyrs, they didn’t care about using me to see the future. But they usually avoided the humans unless to tease them, so they were never much help in defending me. He would follow me, see that I was alone and go back to the village, whispering tales about witchcraft and evil. By the time I was nine, no one in my village trusted me. I was all but shunned. My mother and father were having issues at market, no one wanted to buy from them and it turned them bitter, turned them against me.

My mother raged against me. Always berated me for any task that I did. No matter how well I did it, no matter if it was perfect, she would destroy it and shout at me, hitting me. My father couldn’t stand the sight of me. He would hit me for no reason at all. He encouraged his friends, our neighbors to hit me. They made me believe that I was a mistake, and the only way to make it right, to get them to love me, was to pray to the gods, begging Zeus and Apollo to take away this curse and make me like everyone else.

Every night I would make the very long trip to Zeus’s temple, light candles and make offerings for the gods. Then I would pray with all my might that they would relieve me of this burden, so that I may be accepted. Every night, praying until I was numb with exhaustion. But I received no answer to my prayers, no matter how hard I muttered them and shouted them. No matter how many years I prayed, or food I sacrificed.

When it became obvious that the gods weren’t going to answer my prayers, my father blamed me. He would hit me senseless and tell me I wasn't praying hard enough. There was no point in trying to hide the cuts and bruises on my skin, no one cared about me enough to even ask if I was okay. The villagers would even contribute at my father’s encouragement, throwing stones and rotten fruit at me, whatever they could find.

One day, in the darkness of the early morning during my fifteenth year, I was roused out of a deep sleep. My father demanded I attend him on his boat with my mother. It had been a long time since they've wanted me on the boat, or even anywhere near them.

I had a terrible feeling as I blundered around on the deck. Nerves racked my body, a heavy pit settling in my stomach. It had been so long since I handled the nets, my fingers had forgotten what to do. My mother was staying up by my father on the helm, speaking so quietly I had no chance of hearing. I stumbled over the ropes and crates littering the deck as we sailed smoothly out further into the vast expanse of Lord Poseidon's realm. Finally, I gave up on trying to move around and sat towards the front, watching the horizon grow lighter with Apollo rising the sun. I had a knot in my stomach-fear that they were going to bring me someplace to leave me, finally to be rid of me. But that seemed to not be the case as my father called across the boat for me to cast the nets.

A few hours later we were finished, sacks of fish crowded the deck and a bloody spear was propped up against the mast. My father used it to defend the boat from the vicious sharks. We were headed back to land and I was starting to feel the knot in my chest loosen and relax. Maybe they really just needed my help. I was carrying a length of rope across the boat when it jerked suddenly. I lost my balance and fell forward just as the spear tipped towards me. It pierced my skin as easily as a knife through goat cheese and pain flared, burning my side. I cried out, flinging my hand against the mast to keep myself upright. I looked up at my parents for help, but they just stood at the wheel, watching my lifeblood pour out of my side.

"Mama! Papa! Please!" I called desperately. I tried to pull the spear out of my side, but every time I touched the wooden handle, the pain only got worse. Tears spilled down my cheeks as I watched my parents turn their gazes away from me, pretending I wasn't dying. The boat bumped against the harbor dock and I scrambled away towards the side, frantic to get away before they finished killing me.

The spear got tangled on a rope and fresh blood ran out. I clamped my jaw shut and yanked it out. The pain nearly made me pass out, I swayed slightly and pressed my chiton against my side, hoping to stop the loss of the precious red liquid. The sight of it was making me dizzy as I struggled up over the side and up the dock. I barely managed to make it to my feet as I wobbled back towards the center of the village.

I knew by now that it was useless to beg anybody to help me, I would have to do this on my own. I stumbled into my home, crashing into the walls as my vision swam. I gathered my mother's bone needle and linen threads from the loom where she crafted our clothes. I shook my head violently to clear my vision, but I only succeeded in losing my balance and falling against the door. I forced my way outside and headed for the tree line, able only to focus on managing that.

The forest floor crunched beneath my feet, pine needles breaking and the noise was deafening. Branches whipped at my face as I ran, looking for privacy to stitch myself. I had heard of soldiers doing this in battle from the men at market. I just hoped I knew what I was doing. I found a large tree and slumped against the base, exhausted. My hand was covered in red as I numbly lifted the bone needle and the thread. I tied the thread through the hole and made a knot at the other end. It took me a dozen tries, my hands shaking and my vision blurring. My fingers were losing feeling and the linen kept slipping out of my hand, but I had to do this. I refused to let this be how I die.

Somehow I managed to get the knot finished and I raised my arm, preparing myself to pierce my skin once more. The needle was thick, and long; and I had no sort of numbing agent to dull the pain.

This would not be pleasant.

I stabbed the needle through my skin, just below the wound and my vision clouded over, going black. The scream was unstoppable as burning hot pain spread across my chest. Everything in me begged me to stop, but I knew I couldn't. I needed to keep going, even though everything would be easier if I just let go. But that wasn't who I was. I didn't give up. I didn't quit even though the gods ignored me, I didn't give up on my parents - and I still wouldn't, even though they just tried to kill me. And I refused to give up on this, even though it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt before.

I dragged the large needle through my skin, pulling tight and closing the wound. My lifeblood was already slowing down, becoming stickier. I pulled the needle through one last time and let it fall against my skin. I was exhausted both mentally and physically and I just wanted to sleep. My eyes fluttered closed and the vision started.

A little boy of about three was running around a room. I couldn't see the details of the space, they were blurred, but I could hear his laughter, his tiny giggles. He ran around a table, his jet black hair blown back out of his face as he ran, his eyes green and bright. I saw myself chasing after him and I was laughing, looking truly happy. I could feel vision me, her happiness and contentedness flow into me and I felt at peace as I watched that little boy laugh. I didn't recognized the clothes on my body, they were foreign and unfamiliar but they weren't the important part. The little boy, he would be special, I could feel it in my bones.

"Perseus!" I called to the little boy. He laughed hysterically and dove under the table, hitting his head on the bottom. He began to cry and I picked him up, comforting him as he clung to me. He turned around in my arms and seemed to look right at me.

"Get up!" He said loudly and my eyes flew open.

I groaned as I realized that night had fallen. I would have to walk back in the dark. I gingerly finished with the thread and began making my way back to the village. I would not give up, if only for the sake of seeing that little boy. I was determined to be that happy and content one day. I wouldn't stay here and be miserable forever.

* * *

On the night of my eighteenth year, I was in the temple by myself, crying as I prayed. That day had been an exceptionally difficult one. I should have been Seer by then, but I wasn’t given the position because of people’s continued hatred of me. Aischylos was making a mess of everything. A little girl had gone to him with her mother for consul and he failed to warn them that the little girl would be hurt. A boy driving his father’s chariot had nearly run them down in the street, but I saw it before it happened. I pulled them out of the way and saved them, but my thanks was being screamed at that I was a monster and being pelted with stones. They hit me all over my body, cutting my skin and breaking my chest bones.

So here I sit, on the temple floor, crying my eyes out, praying for relief. I want no part of this curse anymore.

The candles had long since melted low, burning at the bitter end of their lives, and the sacrificial fire was all embers now. My head sank low on my chest with exhaustion from crying and shouting at the gods. I had run out of tears hours ago, but I had also run out of energy to make myself get up and go home. My eyes fluttered closed, blocking out the flickering light and the stone floor. The noise of the wind and sea outside dimmed remarkably as I drifted to sleep. I found that I preferred it here lately, no one to hate me here.

I don’t know how long I slept there before a massive bang woke me. I fell back with a shout of surprise as I stared up at two figures standing twenty feet tall. I screamed and scrambled for the exit, tripping slightly over my chiton. One of the figures moved so quickly that I barely had time to blink my eyes before he was between me and the way out. I slid as I tried to stop, falling to the hard ground and hurting my wrist.

“Is that any way to greet the Lord of Olympus?” The figure behind me growled. I looked between the two menacing figures and forced my pounding heart to slow.

“L-Lord Zeus?” I stammered.

“Obviously, girl. Use those eyes of yours.” He huffed. I quickly stood and bowed low. Zeus was not a figure to make angry.

“Um, Lord Zeus, what are you doing here?” I asked, glancing at him as the other figure moved back beside Zeus. I recognized him as Apollo. He was very handsome with blond hair and deep blue eyes, tanned skin and a lithe muscular build. Zeus grunted and looked at Apollo, who tilted his head and raised a shoulder.

“These mortals.” Zeus sighed. “You prayed to me, didn’t you, girl?” He snapped. I flinched back as his voice rumbled around the temple. Thunder clapped loudly outside as his anger flared. I clenched my jaw in annoyance.

“I’ve prayed to you every night since I was nine!” I snapped back. “What are you doing here now?” He raised a dark eyebrow at me. I sighed and sat down hard, crossing my legs and holding my head in my hands. My forehead still stung where rocks had hit it, reminding me just how much of a horrible day I’ve had.

“When you live for forever, girl, a few years means nothing to a god. You’ll understand what I mean.” He said, raising his hand. I snapped my head up, having to almost look straight up at him.

“What?”

“Your punishment.” Apollo said, looking down at me.

“M-my punishment?” I shrieked. “For what?”

“Your punishment.” Zeus said coldly. “You were given a gift and you want to throw it away. You think it’s a curse, well-I’m going to give you lifetimes to learn to appreciate your gift.”

“No! You don’t understand! They hate me!” I shouted, tears filling my violet eyes once more.

“They can’t hate their Seer.” Apollo said, frowning down at me.

“I’m not their Seer! I’m not anything.”

“What did you just say?” Zeus demanded, thunder clapping loudly outside.

“They refused to give me the position.” I said, the tears spilling down my flushed cheeks. “They kept the fraud.”

“That’s not possible.” Apollo said, sharing a look with his father.

“But it’s the truth. Please don’t do this to me, I’ll never survive. They torment me and abuse me day after day. My parents have already tried to kill me. I won’t make it another year!” I pleaded. Apollo shrank down to regular mortal size and moved in front of me, kneeling down to be on the same level. Not something gods usually do, but I must have looked extra pathetic so he took pity.

“What did they do?” He asked gently, putting his warm hands on my face.

“They call me a witch and throw stones at me. My parents told me I was cursed, that I should never exist.” I said, my breath coming in ragged gasps. “Please? I won’t live a day if you do this.” I whispered, choking on tears.

“My father has already made up his mind. But you’ll have other gifts to help you survive. I promise.” Apollo said softly, pressing a warm kiss to my forehead. It felt like soft sunshine on a warm summer’s day. “Close your eyes. It will be over soon.” He said, helping me stand up and hugging me against him. I hadn’t realized how cold I was until I touched his body. He radiated heat that warmed me from my head to my toes. I shivered slightly and squeezed my eyes shut, just as he said.

“Is it going to hurt?” I whispered, my face pressed against his robe.

“I don’t know.” He answered honestly. Even though my eyes were shut tight I saw a blinding flash and an intense, white hot pain racked my body. I screamed in torment, pushing away from Apollo and stumbling backwards. I felt like my skin was peeling off my body, layer by layer. The pain was too much, I was sure that nobody could take this much pain and survive. I could feel my muscles pulling apart the way a rope untwines. I could feel every fiber detaching from my bones and then separating themselves. I felt like I was burning hot, but I couldn’t make it stop. I couldn’t do anything to block the pain.

Then the worst part came. Every bone in my body was ripped apart, dislocated and shattered into a thousand pieces like broken pottery. I should be dead. There’s no way I could survive this, but here I was, feeling every single second of it. My organs melted and my brain boiled as they destroyed me. I staggered backwards, completely disoriented, my throat raw from screaming. Suddenly my feet weren’t touching the stone floor anymore, there was nothing but air under them and I was falling backwards, fifteen feet to the hard packed earth below. I stretched my hand out, searching blindly for Apollo, the closest thing to me, but came up empty.

* * *

The first thing I noticed was the sunlight warm on my face. I blinked my eyes open slowly, hoping that I had just had a dream; a really, really bad dream and I could pretend it never happened. I was lying flat on my back, looking straight up and that’s when I first noticed that something wasn’t right. Instead of the thatched roof of my sleeping room, or the cold marble of the temple, I was looking at the green leaves of trees with sunlight streaming through casting a green color on my skin. I looked around me, finally realizing that I wasn’t at my home. I was lying on the floor of a forest, and not one that I recognized. I rolled over to my hands and knees, expecting my whole body to ache.

There was no way I could have experienced that amount of pain and not feel any the next day, but I felt completely fine. Even my wrist, which I had hurt when I fell, had no pain. I stood up, brushing the fallen leaves and twigs off me and glanced around. I didn’t recognize these woods at all. It didn’t even smell the same.

I heard noises in front of me, it sounded like women talking. There must be a road close by. I took a deep breath and headed in that direction. Maybe there’s a sign telling me which way is home. I ran through the trees, tripping over fallen logs before finally reaching an empty pathway, just wide enough for a cart to get through. I saw the ladies just down the road and I hurried after them.

“Excuse me.” I said, reaching them. The three older ladies turned and looked at me expectantly. “Can you tell me which way it is to Akoluthos?” I asked politely, praying they would have heard of it. The tallest lady pointed behind me and I glanced. “Do you know how far?”

“Three days by this road.” The woman to her left said. I nodded.

“Thank you.” I turned and headed back towards my home, not looking forward to the three day walk. I took my time, not rushing my pace, keeping it slow and steady. I knew I was in big trouble for not coming home last night. My father was sure to punish me. Not to mention the fact that I will have been missing for days. This will be the worst punishment I’ve ever had.

* * *

I crested the top of the ridge that borders my village and looked out over it. I don’t know what I had been expecting, some sort of urgency that I had been missing for three days. But, probably I should have seen this coming, everything was going about as it normally would. The sun was setting low in the sky as I hurried down the slope and headed for my home. It was almost night.

I glanced around as I walked, feeling a strange sensation on the back of my neck. I saw people I recognized, people I had grown up with, but none of them looked the same. The streets smelled different and I felt like everything had been replaced by duplicates that were the same, but different.

This wasn't home anymore.

“Mama? Papa?” I called as I ran inside. My mother was in the kitchen, getting the evening meal ready. It was as if nothing was amiss.

“Where have you been, you wicked child?” She snapped, turning around with the wooden spoon already in her hand. I flinched back instinctively, but I had to answer.

“I was at the temple praying, like you told me to. Lord Zeus and Lord Apollo came to me and they said I had to be Seer. They said I was going to live forever.” I rushed, getting my story all jumbled in my anxiousness to explain. “Then,” I heard my father moving behind me and I backed into the wall with a quiet whimper, trying to make myself as small as possible.

“Girl.” My father said, his hard voice quiet.

“Papa, the gods said that I was to be Seer. That I had to be Seer. They were so angry that I didn’t want their gift, that you didn’t want me to be Seer. They said that I’m your gift.” I said, looking at him with pleading eyes. I should have known it wouldn’t have done any good.

My father’s hand flew before I ever even saw it move. It cracked hard against the side of my face, sending me sprawling into the eating table and wall. I cried out in pain, feeling a crack in my chest. After a few seconds it was gone. I looked up at him, tears filling my eyes.

“Papa,” I started to plead.

“This was not a gift, girl. You were not a gift to us. You are a curse on this land, on these good people. And I’ve had enough of it. I won’t have a monster like you terrorizing us anymore.” He growled, reaching down and grabbing a fistful of my hair. Strands ripped out painfully under his rough hand and I cried out in protest, my hand reaching up to grasp his wrist, hoping to lessen the pain. He started dragging me towards the door and kicked it open out of his way.

“Papa, please don’t! You’ll make them angry and they won’t forgive you!” I cried, kicking my legs out to get caught on anything. “Papa!”

He didn’t reply, he just marched towards the center of town, dragging me along.

“Mama!”

She was following behind, a torch in her hand. It was unlit, but ready for use. I cried and struggled against my father’s hand, but his grip was too tight. I couldn’t get free. The other townsfolk were starting to gather at the center where the home fire was burning, the hearth fire for Lady Hestia. One of my father’s friends, who greatly enjoyed beating me, was piling a few bundles of sticks and twigs around a large pole just a few feet away from the home fire. My mother’s sister was holding a few lengths of rope as my father jerked me upright and shoved me against the pole.

They already planned all this.

I tried to step away as he took the ropes from her, but he grabbed my arm and twisted it at an odd angle, making a loud snapping sound. I screamed as pain rushed through my body. He tied me to the pole, making sure I wasn’t able to escape.

“Papa, please. I’m your daughter.” I sobbed.

“My daughter is gone. She died a long time ago.” He snarled, standing back as my mother lit the pitch on the torch, using the flames from the home fire. That was against the rules. You weren’t supposed to use the home fire for anything besides making a new one in a new town and sacrificing food to the gods. My mother looked at her husband lovingly, holding out the torch towards him. I watched in terror as his hand covered hers and they lowered the torch to the pile of sticks at my feet. I struggled to get out of my bonds, but they were tied too tight and soaked with saltwater so they were swollen and unforgiving. The whole village was gathering around as the sticks took the fire, spreading around the base to surround me. I struggled harder against the ropes, but it was no use. The flames licked up the pile, flickering around my feet. I clenched my teeth, determined not to give the satisfaction. If I was going to die, I wasn’t going to die making them happy.

The base of the pole caught the fire, the heat becoming unbearable now as the flames danced around my feet burning my skin. I closed my eyes, forcing my mind to calm down, to think of something else besides the fire. I focused hard on something else, anything else. I found myself wishing, for the first time ever, to have a vision, something to see other than the faces in the crowd of my family as they watched me die.

Maybe it was because I was wishing for one to happen, or focusing so hard I made it happen, but I caught the first flicker of a face. It was handsome, tanned and a little narrow, but still square at the same time. Green eyes and dark hair with a neatly trimmed beard. He was muscular and tall. I tried to stay focused on him, trying to see more of his surroundings, more of the vision but the pain of the fire was making everything fade away. The flames were up to my thighs now, melting my skin. I gritted my teeth, but I couldn’t hold it back anymore. I screamed, struggling harder against the ropes, but I was stuck there. The fire started to travel faster up my body. I let out a continuous scream of anguish, wishing I would just die already and get it over with. I wondered how Zeus and Apollo would keep their promise that I would live forever, if my parents had just killed me.

The flames reached my neck and that was just about all my body could take. I felt myself drifting, only half feeling the pain as I slowly slipped away. The last image I had was of my parents standing in front of me, in the glow of my flames, smiling and kissing each other, so proud of themselves for getting rid of the big scary monster.

* * *

I gasped loudly as air flooded my lungs. I opened my eyes, staring up at the sky, confused as all Hades as I tried to remember what happened. I slowly sat up, looking around and seeing my village. It was full dark, the middle of the night. I stood up, starting to dust myself off as I turned towards my home, only my hand didn't touch cloth, it touched bare skin.

I was naked, my clothes were missing. I took a step towards home to get a new chiton, but then my memory came back, and I remembered what my parents did to me. I covered my mouth, feeling like I was going to be sick.

“No. They wouldn’t do that.” I gasped, falling to my knees. “Mama and Papa, they wouldn’t.” I breathed. I looked around and saw the pyre where I had been tied up when my parents set me on fire. It was burned beyond belief, still smoldering in the night air. The comforting sea breeze blew through the village, lighting some of the faded embers to a slightly brighter glow. Where my body had been was just a pile of ashes now. Nothing resembling a human remains. I covered my face in horror, feeling my hands get wet from tears I didn’t know were falling. My stomach crawled into my throat as I remembered the pain. I retched but nothing came up, my stomach was empty. Lightening flashed and I looked up at the dark sky, noticing the thunder clouds rolling in.

“What do I do?” I asked quietly. “They still don’t want me.” Thunder rumbled, low and menacing. Lightening flashed brightly across the sky and I got the warning. They were going to be punished, and I shouldn’t be here when it happens. I stood up and forced myself to move. I hurried through the houses, grabbing a chiton that was hanging out to dry. I clumsily tugged it on, fastening it as I ran. Rain started to fall, slow at first and then more heavily as I half ran and half stumbled to the ridge overlooking the village. I managed to make my way up in a reasonable amount of time as the rain became a downright deluge. I paused at the top, turning back to watch the home fire, which was visible from my location, flicker and die out. Also against the rules. The home fire was always supposed to be kept burning.

Thunder crashed loudly, angrily and the waves could now be heard crashing against the shore, sending the fishermen’s boats into the docks. I could hear the waves getting larger as they came further inland. I turned my head towards the sea, my eyes widening in horror as a massive tidal wave, taller than the gods themselves, surged up and crashed over the land, covering the entire village.

Only, it didn’t fade away, like a normal wave. It held over the village, drowning everyone down there, asleep in their homes. They didn't even have time to scream.

“No!” I cried out, taking a step towards the edge of the ridge. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I had to do something. I couldn't just let them die. Two strong arms caught me around the middle, holding me back. I fought against them, trying to pry them off me; I had to try and save them. This was all my fault. “Let me go! They’re dying!” I cried.

“So? They killed you first.” The man said. I faltered, looking up at him, seeing Apollo.

“That doesn’t mean I want them dead!” I protested.

“It’s not your decision, Aryanna. They made my father angry. This is their punishment.” He said firmly. “I suggest you get over it quickly, because they’re gone. They’re not coming back.” He moved his arms from my waist to my arms. “And honestly, you deserve better.” He said.

I shook my head. “They’re my family.” I said, my voice breaking as I looked pleadingly at him.

“I hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but your family just murdered you.” He said, his mouth twitching up in an apologetic smile. “I mean, my family is nuts, but yours takes it to a whole new level. I mean, they even asked for a special kid. It doesn’t get a whole lot more special than a Seer.” I hung my head, my shoulders shaking as I cried. This was all so overwhelming. I had so many questions I didn't even know where to start. “Oh, um. Hey, it’s okay.” He said awkwardly, patting my back.

“How is this okay?” I snapped, looking up at him. He jerked his hand back as if I might bite it off.

“Oh, well,” He paused, thinking for a minute. “Because now you don’t have to be stuck with them forever. Consider yourself lucky, trust me. I’m stuck with my family forever, literally, and we actually sort of like each other. So, you’re much better off.” He said, smiling brightly and the dark receded ever so slightly.

“No disrespect, Lord Apollo, but you don't know what you're talking about.” I muttered, turning to look out over the flooded village.

"Maybe, you humans are strange things to us gods." He shrugged.

His words rang in my ears and I turned back to him, my temper flaring. "What did you do to me?" I demanded and he took a cautious step back.

"What?"

"I was just burned alive. What did you do to me?" I didn't care that he was a god and that I might be offending him.

"Zeus and Hades, they cursed you. You're forbidden from entering the Underworld when you die." He said softly.

"Why did it hurt so much?"

He flinched slightly. "You had to be unmade."

"Unmade? What does that mean?”

"You had to be pulled apart layer by layer to be rewritten the way my father wanted." He explained.

"So, I'll die but not stay dead?" I asked, feeling my horror rise again.

"I'm afraid so. And I'm sure you'll find there are some other things you'll be able to do and other things you can't."

I blew out a sigh, wiping my face dry. "What about this place? The next people who settle here?" I asked.

"Nobody will. This place will stay barren for eternity."

I glanced back as the water started to recede. "Demeter, I assume?"

"Yes."

I grunted. It seems all the gods had a hand in this. "Terrific."

“Where will you go?” He asked.

“Crete, most likely. That's where it's all happening these days. Big city, I can blend in.” I said quietly. He nodded thoughtfully.

“Good luck.”

“I’m not supposed to be anyone’s Seer anymore, am I?” I asked.

He shook his head. “You’re past the age.” He said apologetically. “That’s not to say you won’t have visions anymore. You need to keep them to yourself. Humanity isn’t supposed to know too much. It’s a punishable crime against the gods.” He said seriously. I snorted and moved to walk past him. “I’m serious, Aryanna.” He warned, grabbing my arm as I passed. I faced him and squared my shoulders, deciding then and there that I was done being afraid. I had just survived being murdered by my parents. If I could come back from that, relatively sane-I had nothing else to fear ever again.

“What else could the gods possibly do to me? I’m already cursed to live forever.” I said. “What are they going to do? Kill me?” I laughed morosely. “You’re not going to make me stop having visions because that would give me what I wanted in the first place.” I said.

“There are other things we could do.” He said, trying to sound mysterious. I started laughing even harder.

“Like take my sight? I would just heal. I was just burned alive, Apollo. I really don’t think there’s much you can do to me.”

He was quiet for a long time. “We could make you relive that moment over and over until eternity ends.” He said quietly. I froze, staring at him.

“You would actually do that to me?” I asked.

“If you need an incentive to keep what you see quiet, then yes. We would.”

I bit my lip and nodded. “Good to know. It’s not like I have anyone to tell anything to, anyways.” I said, backing away from him.

“Aryanna.” He sighed.

“You should go. Get back to your family. I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble on my behalf.” I said quietly, turning and walking into the woods.

“Be careful, Aryanna.” I heard him whisper before there was a pop and he was gone. I stopped, staring straight ahead of me. I didn’t know what to do now. I have never been on my own before, I had never really even been away from home. I felt myself starting to shake from nerves and uncertainty. I took a second to look back at my home, at everything I knew.

The last of the water was receding, fading back into the ocean, leaving behind a ruined town, houses washed away. A broken reminder of what happened, to never make the gods angry. This ghost village would remain here, dead and in pain. A reminder of all the bad things, barren for the rest of eternity. It would never sustain life again, the waters would be empty, the soil ashes.

A cursed land.

I bit my lip to force back the tears. I was going to be fine. I didn’t need my parents around yelling at me. I could have my own life and be happy. I took a deep, settling breath and turned back towards the road to move on to something better.

“I can do this.” I said to myself, taking the first step towards freedom and towards my new life.

Tag List:

@everythingisoverrated @thiccbinch @wkemeup @imanuglywombat @thewolfsenate

#teen wolf #mermaidxatxheart-writes #new story #greek mythology #derek hale #derek x ofc #ofc #tragedy #series #romance #if hearts should tear

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anodyne-sunflower · 6 years

Text

Coming home-Alistair x Warden Reader

A/N: My first ever Dragon Age fic. Oh, how giddy I am. Lol This little idea came to me while playing inquisition again, so I’m using my world state as a background for Alistair. To whoever reads this, hope you like 🤷🏻‍♀️

MOOD MUSIC: Island by Svrcina

***

Before the Wardens, life seemed to stumble along over various obstacles. Dragging by and reminding you how long one’s life could actually be, in spite of what others would tell you. You believed that fully, thinking you had every second in the world to sit back and merely enjoy whatever fate threw at you. Then, of course, the Blight happened...changing everything as you knew it. It was hard to pretend your life was going to be long now, if you didn’t die by a darkspawn’s hand, the taint would be more than happy to do the honor.

Living this way wasn’t ideal, but you knew the consequences of your choices. For whatever it was worth, at least facing your destiny wouldn’t be done alone. If the blight had brought you one blessing, it was Alistair. That handsome, cheeky bastard of a man. Even the simple thought of him brought a fond smile to your lips, his charming voice already replaying itself in your mind until he had the chance to return to you.

It had been so long since you set your eyes on him, and it was only his letters that made the months easier to deal with. You missed him terribly, some days it was so painful you’d trade the heartache for an end in the Deep Roads. Knowing he was safe though, that was the part that kept you sane. Even when that word came from someone else’s lips, or writing...it was still a heaven sent for you.

“Oh, hush, you!” You playfully snapped at your mabari, clicking your tongue and winking at the large beast of a dog as he hopped around the field. It was difficult to concentrate on chopping firewood with all the fuss and bother of the creature around you. Not that the chill in the air had helped the mood, your fingers were practically frozen in place around the axe by now. However, living far from civilization, it was worth the cold of the mountains if it meant peace, and once your beloved came home it would all be worth it even more. “I said hush!”

You couldn’t comprehend what had gotten the dog so unsettled, or excited judging by his small, wagging nub of a tail. He rarely made a fuss up here, only barking at the occasional bird that flew this far or darkspawn that was left wandering aimlessly from the blight. This, though, was a reaction you hadn’t seen in quite some time. “Hey, settle-“ Before you could finish scolding him, he bolted off down the small hill, large paws crunching effortlessly over the snow and mud. It took you a moment to understand his excitement, but then you saw him. Casually trekking up the rocks, shield at his back, sword dangling from his side. He was just as you remembered, so very handsome, tall, with that casual demeanor in his every step that somehow brought a comfort to you.

You always wondered how he managed such an attitude. After all the horrors you both faced, still faced, he never once sat and complained. He took it all in stride, with that same cheeky smile of his.

“Hello, dear-oof!” Alistair grunted loudly at the force of your mabari knocking him back, it’s paws eagerly stomping over his armor as it bestowed a very honorable greeting upon him. Most would take fault with that, but Alistair was gently cooing back at the dog and rubbing it’s monstrous neck as he humbly greeted it back. “Look at you! Did you get bigger?! Of course, you did, mangy little beast!”

“Alistair...” You almost didn’t believe he was here, wrestling around with the dog and trying to keep him from slobbering on his face. It was too good to be true, because certainly he would have gone off with the other Wardens after the entire fade incident. “Alistair...?” It came out weakly, conveying your disbelief and longing for him. The waiting never got easier, and truth be told, no matter how hard you tried to fight the tears, they still fell.

Alistair gently pushed the mabari away, finally able to return your gaze with equal adoration. It felt like ages since he last saw you, and the very sight was enough to bring him this endless merriment he didn’t think was possible anymore. It was no wonder he needed you in his life. To remind him of why he was doing this still, and that beauty could exist in all the chaos that enslaved the world. “Maker’s breath...I have missed you...” He mumbled elatedly, still enchanted by your presence being so close again. If he could just reach out, pull that bewitching body of yours to him and never let go for the rest of his days, he’d be the happiest man in all of Thedas. “My dear-“

“Alistair, you maddening, foolish-ugh! Have you any idea what you’ve put me through!” You, as gently as you were able, kicked him square in the chest, throwing the warden back down to the snowy terrain and spewing out a string of curses and sweet nothings that sent all the mixed messages to him. “I had to hear from this inquisitor, that you nearly got yourself killed in the bloody Fade! Andraste’s tit, Alistair!” You seethed out to him, trying to refrain yourself from giving in and dropping to the floor with him in your arms. “Sacrifice yourself, will you? I’ll have you know I’d march right into the Fade and drag you back out just to knock you back in again myself!”

Throughout your entire tirade, all Alistair could do was grin stupidly, knowing the second he set foot back home he’d get one hell of a discussion from you. Granted, he’d not be lucky enough to get a single argument in, but he was happy and willing to allow you the vent if it meant having you near once more. “My dear, if I could just-“

“What were you thinking?! I venture out for ages looking for a way to cure the calling, to save us both and you just go and try to get yourself killed! Alistair, I swear-“

“My dear, please-“

“You cause me grief, do you know that?!” You pressed your foot deeper into his armor, earning an amused laugh from the man as he lovingly cupped his hands around your boot.

“All good grief, I hope?” He worked his way up your leg, smile growing sweeter by the minute until he harshly drew you down on top of him. His strong arms encircled your body, nose diving into your hair and inhaling the scent he had so strongly missed. “I promise never to enter the Fade and offer myself to a demon again....is that better, my dear?”

“You’re an idiot...” You softly replied, freeing yourself of that pained breath you felt you had been holding in for months. Alistair was many wonderful things, and then at times, he was your personal headache. One you would forever be happy to have.

“Yes,” He smiled coyly, gloved fingers happily dancing down your back as he inched closer to you. “But, I’m your idiot.” It was an oddly smug remark, but it was one you joyously accepted, because the minute his lips descended on yours, the entire world was set right again.

***

A/N: 🤔 Here’s to hoping I made a decent contribution to the DA and Alistair fandoms lol It was fun to write, regardless!

#dragon age origins #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #alistair theirin #grey warden #alistair theirin x reader #alistair x warden #alistair x reader #alistair fanfiction

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softnorwegians · 6 years

Note

Hi Top, how nice to have you back with us! Has your apartment situation improved? I just wanted to ask your opinion on something- I saw your old post about the first Isak Even scene in season 4 and how happy we all were to see the change in Isak. But then I read a discussion on Twitter where everyone was talking about Isak being ooc in season 4. And in my opinion, he is not?! He is just in a much better place, and that can do a lot to a persons character. The only (part 1)

action I could agree seems a bit occ is the fight, but I could even see that happening along the line of Michael approaching Even, Even reacting badly/scared, not wanting to talk, Isak being full of adrenaline after the karaoke pushing him away hard, Elias reacting impulsively, and presto, a bloody nose. It’s like those Twitter people don’t take into account character development. (Part 2)

Wow, thank you for remembering my personal drama, I’m sorry I’ve made all the people just wanting to talk Skam follow along, ajshfjkdfh! But yes, how could you tell things were going better! 😄 I really did think that maybe I had skammed for the last time but one photo of them in-character and I’m on quite a kick again~

Hmmm, yeah, that’s such a good question and one I’ve asked myself about season four too. I think it’s tough to answer because what’s the line between ‘ooc’ and ‘character development’? Basically, if you don’t buy something new based on what you’ve seen of a character, that’s going to be what you feel is ‘ooc’ and if you do buy it, great, the character has been expanded. That really is subjective. For me personally, it kind of goes:

Okay, I can definitely get behind Isak and Even living together because home and belonging are both long-standing themes with him. I can definitely believe he’s a lot happier and therefore more chill about things and I think it makes sense for him to be snarkier again because that weight is off of him now. So yeah, I agree that I think people don’t allow for how much his personality was altered and smothered by his circumstances (and his insomnia, possibly his own mood disorders) when we knew him in s3.

The problem is that when Even’s plotline in season four starts to go off the rails, it brings Isak’s characterization with it. Because they set up this whole thread of Isak wondering about Even’s past and Even being scared of him finding out… and then never emotionally resolved it. It’s the worst because of the climax of that ends up being the fight and ajkshkjdh! The fight is just unforgivably bad writing because they never do what you just did, they never explain and justify what happened. We’re left instead with “I got jealous” which, for me, is straight up character assassination because way to throw Isak’s character under the bus?? As well as Elias, by letting Sana think it could have been motivated by homophobia this whole time?? Listen, they never even bothered to sell us a story about the fight, so no wonder I just do not buy it. It wound up being there for the shock value. They skip straight from “this fight just happened!!” to “oh yeah, it was for this vague reason, I guess, let’s forget it my bad”. It’s not like they couldn’t have sold me on something like you said, something where Isak got super in someone’s face because he perceived them as pushing in on a vulnerable Even. That could have fit in with the protective role Isak took up in the last ep of s3 and even continued the thread left open that he might have trouble navigating those boundaries. I could have bought it. But they didn’t use it to develop any of the characters, other than putting this so called “jealous to the point of violence” on Isak and imho, that’s the most egregious thing they did to him. If anything, we did have evidence in canon that Isak doesn’t like physical confrontational from him standing in the back yelling during the whole Yakuza thing so like… we needed to be sold on how this diverged. Instead we get ‘jealous’ hammered on not once but twice and this odd assertion that Isak has anger issues lingering and reinforced by the last clip with them.

And then I haaaated the conversation with Sana on the bench but that’s a case where maybe I might hate it but still buy it? Because ultimately Isak is a young white guy in a country that prides itself as being very progressive (and therefore above issues sometimes, imho), so… it’s a believable thing for him to fuck up and whitesplain racism. I mean, I still find it a bit of a disappointing choice for his character because a big part of his growth in s3 was him saying something and needing to be educated (with Eskild in ‘Pride’ and with his statement in ‘Pause’ and general attitude towards mental illness having huuuge consequences with Even) so it kind of felt like it might have been a nice progression to see him having learned from that and not stick his foot in his mouth this time! But yeah, I don’t think that necessarily means he wouldn’t have done it, my main issue with that scene is that the show itself clearly thinks he’s in the right. It just sucks we already had one unbelievable negative trait just added to his character and now the unfortunate-but-believable one just really sends the bus rolling over you again and… ouch.

My only other thing is that, personally, I found some things this season a little too fanservice-y and therefore ooc. Like, I’m not a huge fan of ‘gul gardiner’ as the wifi password or putting so many fanart references. It just added to the feeling of unreality, that they didn’t break out enough and paint Isak/Even in their own colors. I don’t have a huge issue with it (I like a lot of it, those two things are the only ones that are really too far for me) but I could see how that would contribute to the niggling feeling of ooc. Plus that terrible party at the end of ep 8, lol

But, yeah, ultimately I think we’re mostly on the same page? I don’t think that Isak is ooc throughout the season, I just really cannot accept the rationale for the fight at all. And then there’s other patches where I’m ehhhhhh on the choices made for him or a little put off by the fanservice but I can kind of skate past them. But when you stop trusting the writing, like what happened with s4 and a lot of the Skam fandom, you stop trusting them to be the characters you know. And that was a problem with more than just Isak for me. It kind of felt like I had locked blades with Julie Andem sometimes and there was all this grinding tension as she tried to get me to see things as she did within the show. Which makes it a little easy to label things as ‘ooc’ and want to split off the character from themselves-as-you-later-know-them.

#anon #replies #skam #isak valtersen #criticism #okay I stayed up too late writing this and am going to SLEEP #hopefully people won't hate me in the morning lol #as I queue this to post #who knew I even still had this much to say about this show!!#it's because I usually hold back on my negative opinions in the moment and am only honest about them later #s4 7.10 part 6 #s4 5.10 part 5 #s4 6.10 part 5

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thetourguidebarbie · 7 years

Text

Just a Bloody Rib

I wrote this for the 2017 Vacay Exchange. It has been revised since I first posted it on Ao3, and the smut is about 1k words longer and much better. The replaced version is now on Ao3, and you can find it here. This was written for @klarolinedrabbles, and it also happens to be her birthday today, so I highly encourage all of you to go wish her a very happy birthday. She is a gift to this fandom and a lovely human.

Thank you again to @garglyswoof & @goldcaught for their help with this.

Whitmore seemed pretty normal at first glance. Students walked to their classes in tight clusters, went out to the small town nearby on the weekends to drink and let loose. There were loud complaints about professors and difficult classes and debates about whether you could murder your RA and get away with it.

Then again, at Whitmore getting away with murder was basically the entire point.

Below the surface of the school’s charming southern exterior something far more sinister lingered. When students weren’t focused on homework and who was eating their yogurt from the communal fridge, they were practicing weapon skills and subterfuge. Crime. Murder. Espionage. Etcetera.

Caroline fidgeted with her class ring as she stared at the plaster wall in front of her, the lump under the fabric of the chair back pressing uncomfortably against her spine. The receptionist was shuffling papers at her desk, the sound oddly harsh in the otherwise silent air. Caroline was understandably on edge; the possibilities for her final project had been weighing on her mind all summer. Every part of her was humming with energy, though she wasn’t sure whether it was out of anticipation, terror, or excitement.

She tried not to show it, though she’d always been terrible at keeping her face blank. She’d learned that she was much better at completing the practice missions when she embraced her inability to inhibit her facial expressions rather than trying to fight them off.

Her first step on campus felt like home. She’d always known what her father did for a living, their father-daughter bonding sessions mostly involving practicing observational skills and occasionally weapons training once she was old enough. She originally hadn’t wanted to go, thinking that it would be nice to have a normal life with a liberal arts degree and boring, non-violent afternoons, but her father had asked her to go to his alma mater when he was on his deathbed, and she hadn’t had the heart to say no.

Now, after four years of hard work, she was ready to take her diploma and the dangerous, adrenaline-spiking missions that came with it. The only problem was her final project.

The goal always seemed simple at first look - they were paired with another student with complementary skills and given a target or task. Though they could ask their class advisor for help or recommendations, the majority of the mission was supposed to be planned by them, from constructing the plan to getting away with the crime. Whitmore did not allow hand-holding. Caroline was pretty sure she knew who her partner would be. She excelled at subterfuge and luring her targets into a false sense of security before striking, her ability to plan the perfect heist one of her best assets. Enzo, her best friend, wasn’t great with preparations but was brilliant at thinking on his feet, his instincts superb. There had been rumours of one pairing being tasked to steal a painting from the Louvre, and she was so up for it.

There was only one person in the whole class who she absolutely did not want to be paired with. So when Sheila stuck her head out of the office to beckon her in and she saw who was sitting at the desk, her heart dropped to her stomach, her insides twisting.

Klaus Mikaelson was reckless and dangerous, known for his charming dimples and lack of empathy, and she knew from personal experience that he was the actual worst.

Just by looking at the way his nails were tapping on the desk, the other hand absently spinning a short, sharp knife between his fingers, she knew that her assignment wouldn’t have anything to do with high-stakes thievery. They were clearly going to be working together to murder someone. She wasn’t surprised that he was tasked with it, since heartlessly hurting people with no regrets seemed to be what he was good at, but she had no idea why she would ever be paired with him.

“Hello, love,” he said, his eyes slowly dragging up and down her body in a way she knew was meant to bait her, head cocked to the side. “So pleased to see you again.”

She was tempted to let out a string of expletives and unflattering names, but she settled for a saccharine smile and a venomous, “Wish I could say the same,” before sitting down, crossing her legs at the ankle. She felt nerves build in her stomach when she saw him shoot her a searching look out of the corner of her eye, but she viciously pushed them away. Klaus had ruined enough for her, and she wouldn’t let him do it again.

The first time she’d stepped on campus it felt like home. Her parents had just been buried and her life changed, and it was the only connection to her family legacy she had left. She held on to Bonnie, her best friend and the only other person she’d grown up with who knew what Whitmore really was, like a lifeline. Still, her long-held insecurities popped up unwelcome, and the first few days had been hard.

Then she’d met him. He’d looked at her like she was enough for the first time in so long. He’d given her genuine-looking smiles and spent a good month popping up everywhere she went, charming her with his willingness to banter and tease, his accent and heated gaze. She was almost as ashamed that she’d fallen for him as mad that he’d fooled her. He’d lured her into his trap, enticed her with pretty words and looks, and despite the warnings from everyone around her that he was manipulative and skeezy and terrible, she’d fallen into his bed willingly.

Now though, she would show no weakness. If anyone was going to back down, it would be him.

“Is this pairing going to be an issue?” Sheila asked lightly.

After lying to their advisor’s face that they were both going to be grown mature adults when dealing with each other, Sheila explained their assignment. Caroline felt excitement buzz through her as her confusion was wiped away. Sure, murdering people was wrong, but Stefan and Damon Salvatore were basically walking examples of people who theoretically deserved to die. If she squinted hard at her damaged moral compass and tried to ignore the voice in her head that sounded suspiciously like her mom telling her to maybe not kill people, she would probably be okay with pulling the plug herself.

When Bonnie’s mother died, she’d spent weeks watching dumb movies and holding Bonnie while she cried. She’d planned Abby’s funeral so that Bonnie and Sheila wouldn’t have to think about it, had been the only one Bonnie knew who understood.

No one could prove it, but everyone knew who had been the one to kill Abby, and Caroline knew that Sheila had probably been itching to take revenge for the murder of her daughter ever since. Since Bonnie didn’t enter combat (she didn’t like blood and was much happier hacking her way into what were supposedly the best security systems in the world), it made sense that she’d assign the Salvatores to the two other students who would be the most likely to make revenge long and painful.

Caroline because Bonnie was her best friend, and Klaus because he was a sadistic monster.

“You’re two of the best we have, and I know you’ll follow through,” Sheila said, her voice businesslike, the only hint of the pain she still held present in her stiff posture and the hitch in her voice.

“Yes ma’am,” Caroline said, looking her straight in the eye, and Sheila gave her a small smile.

“Do you have any recommendations?” Klaus asked quietly, and Caroline raised an eyebrow.

From what she remembered, he wasn’t usually one to ask for others opinions, preferring to make the plan by himself and trusting no one else to have anything meaningful to contribute. She doubted that he was emotionally attuned enough to realize that Sheila’s personal preferences might matter to her, and Caroline thought it most likely that he wanted to get back to what he considered the subject at hand rather than the pesky feelings of decent human beings.

Sheila seemed to consider the question for a few moments, looking between them before speaking slowly. “They know you two, so luring them into a false sense of security will be difficult. I recommend that you utilize your respective specialties into organizing an ambush.”

“But luring them into a false sense of security is all I know how to do,” Caroline pointed out, frowning. “Subterfuge is like, my thing. I don’t do missions that involve straight-up ‘hi, nice to see you again, here’s my gun’ murder.”

“But Klaus does,” Sheila said. “And you’re an excellent planner, Caroline. You know how to predict your targets’ next moves and have excellent observational skills. I do recommend that you brush up on your hand-to-hand combat, but Klaus can easily help you. I put you together because I believe that you complement each other. Don’t make me regret my choices.”

There was a threat present in the words that sent a shiver down Caroline’s spine. Sheila might look like a harmless grandmother, but Caroline knew quite well how ruthless she could be.

“I’d be happy to help you practice, love,” Klaus cut in with a smug smirk, and she gritted her teeth.

“No pet names,” she bit out, tempted to tell him that she didn’t need his help but knowing that Sheila would take that badly.

Maybe she’d get to punch him in the face. That would be immensely satisfying.

“I suggest you begin with creating a timeline for your project, and meet three times a week to refresh Caroline’s combat training. I’ll obviously be here to help should you have any questions, but you’re both immensely capable,” she said before giving each of them a stern look. “This wasn’t an uninformed choice. I know that you have a history. However, I think that if you can act like the mature adults that I know you’re capable of being, this mission will go more smoothly than those assigned to the majority of your classmates. Are we clear?”

“Yep!” Caroline said, wanting to get out of the office as soon as possible.

Klaus nodded as well and followed her out, and Caroline rounded on him as soon as the office door closed behind him. “I hate you and you’re a sadistic, heartless bastard,” she said bluntly. “You’re a disgusting sleaze and I hope you burn in hell. That said, I’m willing to put aside what a terrible person you are to guarantee that Stefan and Damon are given a slow and painful death.”

“That’s rather harsh for someone who never let me explain what actually occurred,” he said, his voice mild, though she could see the genuine irritation in his eyes.

“I know what I heard, Klaus,” she said, the memory still painful despite how long it had been since it happened.

She had been on her way to his dorm to meet him to finalize their plans for the summer. She’d just entered his building when she overheard him and Tyler ‘Douchebag’ Lockwood talking in the hallway. The words were still burned into her memory, stubbornly sticking, validating all of her insecurities that she’d never quite been able to shed.

“--going to let her go yet, not until I get what I want. The chase is too much fun, and I want to see the light fade in her eyes when she figures it out.”

All the breath had left her lungs, her eyes burning with tears, and she’d wanted to march in, wanted to punch him in his stupid smug smirky face, but she didn’t want him to see her hurt the way he clearly wanted. She swore she’d never let him or anyone else make her feel that way again.

She’d waited until the next time they saw each other, told him curtly that she’d overheard his conversation with Tyler and if he was just taking advantage of her she’d decided that this just wasn’t going to work out. He’d asked her to let him explain, but she’d ignored him, walking away with a sinking heart, tears in her eyes, and the determination to never talk to him, look at him, or acknowledge his existence ever again.

“I judge harshly and don’t like bullshit excuses,” she said with a shrug. “Are you free Tuesday night?”

“I can make time,” he said dryly.

“Good. I’ll brainstorm a few ideas and meet you in the study in my dorm suite at eight. We can talk about how you want to do this.”

“It’s a date,” he said with a mocking smile, and she resisted the urge to drive her heel into his foot.

“Can’t wait,” she muttered, and he tilted his head to the side, eyeing her with an intensity that she wasn’t used to. She suddenly felt almost unbearably uncomfortable and transparent, like he could see the inner workings of her mind, the vulnerability and hurt she still held despite her best attempts to fight it off. Even after he’d given up on reeling her back in and eventually retreated back to his mask of cold indifference that he aimed at everyone else, she occasionally thought she saw hurt in his eyes, defensiveness in his posture, but she knew she must be imagining things.

“I’m looking forward to it,” he said, and she was upset to find that it sounded completely genuine. She knew it wasn’t, though. Sure, he could be charming when he wanted to be, but he was a manipulative ruthless asshole, and that would never change. Now that she was forced to be near .him, she had to keep up her guard. He’d wasted almost an entire year of her life, and she couldn’t let him near her heart again. Their relationship would be strictly professional, and that was that.

XXX

Of fucking course he’d get paired with Caroline Forbes.

Caroline Forbes, the only person he’d ever felt a single flicker of affection for in his four years at Whitmore. The only woman who had been able to make a genuine smile bloom on his face, had made warmth melt at the walls of his heart. Had made him weak.

He tried not to stare as she bent over the paper in the common room of her dorm suite, her lips moving as she talked about some sort of security system nullification program, and she glanced at him mid-sentence, her eyes narrowing. “What did I just say?”

He had no idea, and his silence seemed to show that because she huffed, curling a piece of hair behind her ear. “If this is going to work you need to actually listen. I doubt you’ve ever cooperated in your life, but can you please stop staring at me and do your work?”

“My job is to follow your directions and murder the evil-doers.”

“Well, follow my directions now and pay attention, okay?”

“Happy to follow your directions any time, love.”

She shot him a look so filthy that he almost felt proud, and she sat up a bit, poking him in the chest with a pencil. “New rule: no flirting.”

“Who said I was?”

She didn’t seem to have an answer to that, just rolling her eyes and turning back to the paper. “Ready to pay attention or do you need another minute to prepare your goldfish-level attention span?”

“Ready, love.”

She started talking again and he hung on every word, noticing the slight tilt to her body as she relaxed, her words speeding up excitedly as she talked through a strategy she’d clearly been having trouble with, and he felt an unwanted warmth bloom in his chest.

He’d been taken with her since the first time they met. Her hands had shaken nervously the first class, her tongue darting across her bottom lip as she dutifully took notes until they had broken off for small group discussions about the pros and cons of untraceable poisons. He’d said something she disagreed with and she pointed out calmly that he was wrong and hadn’t he done the reading, earning a rare smile from Professor Shane, who had been walking around asking prompting questions.

Over the next week he’d had fallen hard for her well-thought out answers, quick wit, and clear relish in ‘I-told-you-so’s’. She was beautiful and fiery and self-righteous and loyal, had a clever barb for every doubt thrown at her, and he’d wanted to memorize and hold every piece of her. He’d finally won her over after a month of his best efforts, and once she was his he couldn’t remember the last time he felt so whole. It was new and exhilarating and he’d hated how weak she made him, how vulnerable, but every moment of that year with her had been worth it.

She’d never given him a chance to explain what she’d overheard. Seeing Katherine Pierce squirm as she awaited the execution she knew was coming had been deliciously satisfying, but if he’d known that his conversation about it with Lockwood would lose him Caroline he would have tracked her down and slit her throat.

Caroline had captured his heart and then mercilessly crushed it with a cold smile that didn’t conceal the betrayal in her eyes. Her walls had unexpectedly slammed up in front of him. He’d known that she was as stubborn and vicious as she was bright and tempting, but her abrupt cold shoulder was nonetheless a kick to his gut, a prick to his admittedly over-inflated ego. Since she’d let him go without so much as a moment to listen to him, he’d developed a resentful dislike for her, had tried to push away how fascinating he found her.

It hadn’t quite worked.

His interactions with her were now reduced to casual observation and second-hand accounts of her behavior, facts he absorbed with a blank face and eager ears. He was careful to stay subtle, to not show too much interest. He remained cold and distant, too uncomfortable with the knowledge that he genuinely felt something for her after all this time, that he still wanted her so much after she’d left.

“So, I think we should exit through entrance B then,” she finished, circling a marker on the map she’d constructed. “Does that make sense?”

“I still think exiting through the roof would be better.”

“I know,” she said with the air of someone who was desperately trying to be patient as they explained to a toddler that they weren’t allowed to have another piece of cake. “But I think it would be best to use entrance B.”

He knew how to pick his battles.

“All right.”

“Wait, really?” she asked, her eyebrows raising. “You’re okay with that?”

“I trust your instincts, love,” he said, his voice unintentionally serious, and he was faintly surprised as a light pink flush creeped up her neck. She hurriedly cleared her throat, bending back down over the paper, and though he was tempted to comment he decided to stay quiet, knowing that teasing her would most likely scare her off even more.

He’d always been good at reading people. It was part of what made him so good at what he did. He knew how to cajole the most stubborn people into his clutches, to manipulate and take advantage and then finally pounce. The chase was satisfying, seeing the realization in the eyes of his victims just before he slit their throats. It was a rush that he didn’t try to fight down.

Caroline was different. She’d somehow pushed him off-kilter, had realigned the axis on which his world rested. It was infuriating and humiliating, the way her wide eyes and bright smile had punctured between his ribs to his racing heart. The way she’d looked at him when their hands brushed, the way she subtly inhaled his scent and had a forced bite to her tone, told him that she might not be as hostile as she pretended to be. There was a small, petty part of him that didn’t want to make amends out of spite, but he knew that if he let her go he’d never forgive himself, and he hated himself for it, hated her for making him feel like this. Her abrupt dismissal of him from her life had made him bitter for the entirety of the years they spent apart, angry at himself for being unable to fight down the pain whenever he saw her face.

Still, he tried to pay attention as much as possible, giving his genuine opinion whenever she asked (and sometimes when she didn’t), and she seemed to respect his willingness to contribute, giving him a small smile that he suspected wasn’t intentional as she packed up her things a few hours later. “That was really productive.”

“It was,” he agreed, standing up as well. “First sparring session tomorrow?”

She wrinkled her nose but nodded. “Gym at eight, maybe? At night, I mean.”

“See you then, sweetheart.”

She didn’t seem to notice the endearment he’d always reserved exclusively for her, or if she did she didn’t comment, just nodding and slinging her bag over her shoulder. “Let me walk you out.”

He followed her to the door, running through all of his possible next moves.

He was opportunistic by nature, wasn’t one to throw away an opening when someone had so kindly provided it, and this mission was definitely an opportunity to win Caroline over.

The question was how.

XXX

“Let’s take a break, sweetheart.”

Caroline nodded, rolling her shoulders before reaching up to tug the elastic out of her hair and re-doing her ponytail. She tried to be subtle as she admired Klaus’s shirtless back when he walked to the minifridge they kept by the stereo equipment, bending to get out two water bottles and closing the door with his foot. He tossed one to her and she caught it, sinking down on the mats cross legged and eagerly taking a few gulps.

They’d been sparring three times a week for the past month, and though she’d taken all of her hand-to-hand combat classes in her first two years to get them out of the way, she was starting to get back to the level she was at when she finished them. Klaus was an annoyingly competent teacher, and she hoped that he’d deem her good enough for them to stop soon.

He was so gentle when he touched her, his palms hot on her hips or waist when he corrected her posture, and she’d begun to wear a tank top over her sports bra to fend off the electric brush of his skin on hers. She hated how much she loved the way he pressed his front against her back when he guided her through different kinds of strikes, his breath hot on her neck as he explained every detail. She knew that the touch was completely unnecessary, but for some reason she hesitated to fend him off, found herself craving the scent of him cloaking her, the feel of him against her. It was nice to have a justification, to allow herself the freedom of giving in. She soon found herself questioning why she’d never let him explain himself, wondering whether she could have been wrong.

She knew it must be his goal, to slowly pique her curiosity until she asked for the explanation. He’d had two years to come up with an adequate one, and she had no doubt that whatever it was, it would be completely believable. It was dangerous to start down that path, but as they spent more time together it became more and more tempting. She’d never quite forgotten how fun it was to banter with him or the way he made her feel when he looked at her, but she had been hoping to get through the project without being reminded.

She snuck a glance up at him and found him watching her with heat in his eyes, and she flushed and stared determinedly at the cap of her water bottle beside her on the mat. She hated how he could make her feel sexy when she was in tight sweaty lycra and flushed with exertion, but when they’d been together he’d never failed to make her feel special and wanted when she doubted herself the most.

She could still feel his eyes on her and she cleared her throat, looking up. “Ready?”

“Of course, love.”

The way the endearment fell off his tongue made her skin pebble, her nipples tightening, and she was thankful that the thick fabric of her sports bra was obscuring her reaction. He stretched, the muscles of his abdomen tensing, and she couldn’t resist licking her lips as she watched, the urge to refamiliarize herself with his taste a siren call that was difficult to resist. She realized that he was watching her with an amused smile, though he didn’t comment on how she’d drank him in, instead setting down his water and walking towards her, assuming a sparring position.

She matched him, bouncing on the balls of her feet, trying to judge his first move. He didn’t have tells, never gave a single hint as to what he was going to do, and it meant that she had to be aware every single second. His fist shot out suddenly and she easily ducked it, narrowly avoiding the hit to her shoulder and shifting to hook her foot around the back of his ankle. She knew he wouldn’t fall, his balance was too good, but he did stumble. She used his new position to punch his shoulder, hoping to knock him down. He dodged, rolling easily to end up behind her, and before she could turn to face him he’d grabbed her around the waist, pinning her arms to the side.

She could feel his hot breath on her neck, and she knew that the position wasn’t supposed to be comfortable, the scent of him not supposed to send heat underneath her skin, but she somehow couldn’t resist leaning into him.

He seemed to stiffen for a moment as though he wasn’t quite sure how to respond, but before he could she’d lifted her legs off the ground to try to wrap them around his legs, the sudden change in the weight he was supporting making him stumble.

She didn’t want to hurt him, so she rolled off as soon as they fell to the ground, his body cushioning their fall, and turned to pin him when she realized that he was on his feet again. It happened in an instant, one moment she was sitting on her knees and the next she was flat on her back, their noses barely an inch apart.

She hadn’t realized how hard she was breathing, her eyes widening as he pinned her wrists to the mat on either side of her head, his breath hot on her lips. His body fit on top of hers perfectly, the hard angles of his body pressing deliciously against her curves. In a normal fight she wouldn��t be tempted to wrap her legs around the waist of her opponent and pull him down by the hair to taste him, but she and Klaus had never been normal, their respective quirks and hangups a perfect clash, and she knew in her heart of hearts that Sheila had known quite well what she was doing.

She wanted him so much, had never stopped wanting him, and...

“I was scared,” she blurted impulsively.

“Beg pardon?” he asked, though he was alert, and she could tell that he knew what she was talking about, that he was hanging on every word, desperate for the truth.

She took a deep breath. “I...Everyone kept telling me that you were terrible and that I should stay away, and I knew that you weren’t exactly the most morally upstanding person in the world. It scared me that I liked you anyway, that I wanted you. And it scared me that you wanted me.”

“Caroline--”

She shook her head, cutting him off with a huff. “No, like...I’ve never been someone’s first choice. Even when I was in high school and had boyfriends they never really wanted me. I was worried that I’d just jumped on the first person to look my way and that you actually wanting me was giving me rose-colored glasses. I was scared that you were manipulating me and I’d fall in love with you and you’d just ditch me.”

“I would never,” he whispered, letting go of one of her wrists to cup her cheek, the tip of his thumb stroking her cheekbone, and she leaned into his touch, closing her eyes.

“How was I supposed to know that?”

“You can’t know for sure, I suppose. I understand why I’d be a difficult man to trust,” he said, still stroking her face. He rubbed the thumb of his other hand against her pulse, the motion against the sensitive skin making her shiver, and she opened her eyes slowly to meet his. “But Caroline...I had no intention of letting you go.”

“What happened?” she asked softly, wanting to believe that he was telling the truth so badly, needing to hear it.

He shifted on top of her as he seemed to choose his words before he spoke. “I had been chasing Katherine Pierce for two years. I always let her escape by the skin of her teeth, and she was always ready to flee at a moment’s notice. It made me feel powerful, to hold her life in my hands, to know that I could take it at any moment. I liked making her live in fear. What you heard was me telling Tyler that I wasn't ready to give up that rush just yet.”

It took Caroline a few seconds to process his statement. “Wow,” she drew out slowly. “Seriously?”

His lips twitched. “Seriously.”

“God, you’re a terrible person,” she huffed, letting the back of her head fall against the mat. “How do you live with yourself?”

“Like everyone else does, I suppose,” he said, and she could hear the amusement in his voice.

“How did I ever fall in love with you?” she grumbled, and she felt Klaus freeze on top of her. She looked up to meet his eyes, realized what she’d said, and felt her heart drop. “I mean, back then, obviously. I don’t mean, I’m not saying... Stop looking at me like that!”

He flashed her an unashamedly smug dimpled grin, bending to brush his nose against hers. “So, you love me, then? Still?”

She huffed, glaring in the general direction of the wall. “No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yep.”

“Now, it’s not nice to lie, sweetheart.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster, turning to look at him and a bit shaken by the openly affectionate expression on his face, trying not to lean into his touch when he tucked a curl behind her ear.

“I think you do,” he said, and he was way too pleased with himself. “I think that you’ve been knowingly lying to yourself about why you left. Perhaps you were terrified that what you overheard applied to you, but you never asked. But tell me, sweetheart, was it because you were afraid it did, or that you were afraid it didn’t?”

Her breath caught, her heart pounding, and her teeth sunk into her lower lip. She knew that her hesitant silence was enough of an answer for him, but she took a shaky breath to answer anyway. “Both.”

“And are you still afraid?” he asked, his tone changing from infuriatingly smug to a tenderness that she knew no one else would ever associate with him, that he saved only for her.

“Yes,” she breathed. “But...”

“But?” he prodded once she trailed off, looking at her with badly concealed apprehension.

“But I think...I think we’re worth it.”

She’d never seen him smile so brightly, her body shaking with anticipation as he drank her in before bending to press their foreheads together. Their breathing mingled for a moment as they stayed that way, savoring the closeness, and she took a shaky breath before she spoke again, her lips barely touching his when she formed the words.

“Don’t make me regret falling in love with you.”

“I don’t intend to,” he said quietly, pulling back to search her face for just a moment, and then his lips were on hers.

It was slow at first, their lips meeting in lazy, drugging strokes. She closed her eyes as he gently tugged the elastic out of her hair to bury one of his hands in her curls, cupping her head as he sucked her bottom lip, nipping it before soothing the sting with his tongue. She felt her nipples tighten, an ache beginning to stir at the apex of her thighs, and she couldn’t help but arch her back to rub against him, her need for friction building with every second. He pulled back to look at her through heavy-lidded eyes, his lips slightly parted, cheeks flushed.

“I missed you, sweetheart,” he said softly, his forehead dropping against hers.

“I missed you too.”

The moment was almost too much, blood rushing in her ears, her heart pounding so harshly against her chest that she felt like it should be loud enough to hear. She reached up with the hand he wasn’t holding to the mat to run a finger down his jaw before freezing at his chin, lingering at the scratch of stubble before tracing his lips with her fingertip. He let her, his body tense, eyes closing, and she felt his cock twitch against her thigh. She smiled at him, lifting her hips just slightly to tell him that she’d noticed, and his dimples flashed before he took her finger between his lips, sucking it into his mouth. His tongue lightly flicked against the pad of her fingertip and she shivered, her breath catching at the nip of teeth. He fiddled with the strands of her hair he held to untangle them from his hand before grabbing her wrist, holding eye contact with her as he gently tugged her finger out of his mouth and kissed her palm. She moaned softly when he flicked his tongue against the creases where her fingers met her palm before dragging it along her lifeline, and he grinned, pressing a final soft kiss to her skin and pressing it down against the mat beside her head, both wrists pinned down.

The connection between them crackled as he held her gaze, and she always felt like he could interpret the inner workings of her mind, like he got her the way that no one else seemed to, always knew what she needed even if he wasn’t quite sure how to give it.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally, the phrase cutting through the charged silence.

“I mean, it was a misunderstanding. If it was anyone’s fault it was--”

“I should have been clearer back then,” he interrupted, and it was a rare moment of nervousness, the apprehension he clearly had over what he was about to say telling her that he was about to give her a rare moment where he purposefully let down his guard for her, where she didn’t have to fight to break through the facade of a heartless monster they both know she could see right through to find the (honestly still pretty terrible) man beneath.

“What do you mean?”

“I love you, Caroline,” he said, the words so soft that she barely heard. “I would never knowingly do anything to cause you pain.”

It was nice to hear, but she’d known that deep down. Through every fear and insecurity, every logical thought that he was dangerous and the reality of what she’d overheard and the insistence of everyone else that he was a mistake, that they were a mistake, she’d always known that he was in it for the long haul. It had been a scary conclusion to come to, and she’d done her best to lock away that instinct once she’d overheard him, needing to justify walking away, but she knew that she was just as deeply connected to him as he was to her.

It had been a heady dose of power that she knew she shouldn’t focus on, knowing that one of the most dangerous men she’d ever meet had a soft spot for her, only her. She liked that power, but more than that she liked him. She liked knowing there was someone who got her, who wanted her, that she was his first choice. Self-sabotaging because of a misunderstanding had been the only way she knew to try to forget what the cost was to be that first choice.

Now, though...Now that she’d lived without him and been bitter about every second of it, she was willing to pay it.

He had been watching her process what he’d said and seemed to be growing more nervous by the second, and she abruptly realized that she’d never answered. “I know you wouldn’t,” she said. “And for the record, I would never want to hurt you either.”

He smiled again before bending down to take her lips, this time with a clash of teeth and tongue, the urgency filling her with a heat that made her pulse rush, the ache between her thighs growing stronger. She tried to tug her wrists away from his hands to rake her nails through his hair, to fist his shirt, but he pulled back with a smirk, his forehead pressed against hers. “I quite like your wrists where they are,” he said with a wicked grin, stealing another kiss before she could reply before dragging his lips along her jaw.

“Yeah?” she asked breathlessly, her hips rolling naturally when he pressed his thigh between them.

He hummed, bending to nose her jaw before dragging his tongue along the hollow of her throat. “If I do recall correctly you didn’t used to mind.”

She flushed, memories of his cock filling her as he pinned her wrists down, her legs in the air as she moaned and writhed beneath him, his low voice murmuring in her ear about how good she felt and how he loved the way she said his name, how he could listen to her moan for him all night, liked the reminder that she was his. His movements were always deliciously rough as soon as he’d figured out she liked it, his nails biting into her skin like a brand, and she had responded in kind when his hands were occupied on other parts of her, drawing nonsense patterns on her lower back or dipping into her back entrance just enough to make her shake beneath him.

Just him bringing up those memories made her wetter, the reminder of how she used to demand that he go harder or faster, how her demands turned to begging if he felt like being mean and she felt like indulging him, and her pussy throbbed as she realized how unbearably empty she felt.

His lips curled in a smile against her skin as she moaned, his teeth dragging along her jaw before he nipped her ear, and she hooked her legs around him, grinding her hips against the bulge behind the thin barriers of cloth separating them.

“Keep them there for now, love,” he murmured before running the tip of his tongue along the shell of her ear, and she shivered. She was vaguely tempted to ask what he would do about it if she didn’t, but when he pulled back she felt like her breath had been stolen from her lungs.

His eyes were dark and greedy as they drank in her form, and she squirmed underneath him as he rubbed the hem of her tank top between his fingers before moving down to press kisses up her abdomen as he inched the cloth up her body, dragging his teeth along her clavicle after he tugged it over her head before popping open the front clasp of her bra, bending to take a nipple in his mouth. She swore, trying to keep her hands where they were, longing to run her fingers through his hair and tug at his curls.

His touches were frustratingly light as his palms skimmed her hips through her yoga pants, the scrape of his teeth infuriatingly gentle. She doubted that he wasn’t completely aware that the touches weren’t quite enough, and she squirmed underneath him, trying to find friction.

“Klaus...”

“Yes sweetheart?” he mumbled, dragging his tongue along the underside of her breast.

“I need you,” she said, her voice shaking, and he chuckled, not responding, though she felt the tip of his finger edge under the waistband of her yoga pants, stroking her hipbone. She lifted her hips, trying to encourage him, but he didn’t pull them, simply scraping her skin with his fingernail. “Klaus...”

“I want to take my time.”

“You can take your time later.”

“I have been fantasizing about this for years, Caroline. I came on my palm to the vision of you like this, flushed and desperate for me as I teased you until you were on the brink. You’ve made me wait so long and though I have no intention of holding out, I admit it will give me an immense amount of satisfaction to watch you beg for it.”

Of fucking course. “I’ve been waiting too, and I don’t think your ego needs stroking considering that I’m flat on my back letting you fuck me in the middle of a public gym. In case you haven’t noticed, I want you.”

“I know,” he murmured, laying wet, open-mouthed kisses to her abdomen above the waistband of her yoga pants. “Good things come to those with patience, sweetheart.”

“Unless those ‘good things’ are either your tongue or your cock between my legs in the next thirty seconds I don’t really have any incentive to be patient.”

He laughed quietly, beginning to peel the tight cloth down her lips little by little. “I do enjoy it when you tell me what you want, love.”

She was about to respond when the breath left her lungs, shivering as he made eye contact with her when he dragged his tongue along her hipbone. She moaned his name softly as he pressed kisses to the skin just above the waistband before he edged the fabric down her thighs. She nearly laughed at his low groan when he saw that she wasn’t wearing anything underneath, his forehead falling against her thigh, breath hot against her skin. “Fuck, Caroline...”

“You get lines when you wear them under tight pants,” she said defensively, fighting down a smile.

“Worried that I’d stare at your pretty arse, sweetheart?”

“Knew you would.”

He grinned, pressing her palms to her inner thighs to nudge her legs apart and bending to press soft kisses to her sensitive skin just a few centimeters away from where she desperately wanted his touch. “I’m going to taste you, make you squirm,” he said quietly, his eyes flicking up to watch her face as he spoke. “I’ve missed it immensely, sweetheart. I’ve stroked my cock so many times desperately trying to remember how your pussy tasted against my tongue, the way you used to moan for me. I want to hear it again, to rememorize it. It’s haunted my dreams for too long.”

“Dream about me a lot, then?” she teased, but the look he gave her was serious in a way that made her breath catch.

“Yes. I have so many things I wanted to do to you, Caroline. So many things I wanted to give you, but never got the chance.”

She wanted to ask, wanted to know the no-doubt filthy scenarios that he’d come up with while they were apart, but she cut herself off with a moan at the first touch of his tongue to her clit, the flick making her entire body quiver. It wasn’t a hard decision when the fantasies were at odds with coming on his tongue, but she fully intended on interrogating him later.

Her hips jerked when he swirled his tongue around her entrance before slipping a finger inside, and her mind went blank after that, too occupied by how much she’d missed this, missed him. No one but him had ever been able to make her feel like this since she’d left him behind. He knew exactly how to touch her to make her shake, had memorized her tells so completely that he’d gotten her off in the computer lab in the fifteen minutes before the next class came in more than once. and she moaned his name as she rolled her hips against his face. Every touch of his tongue and curl of his fingers was a reminder of how he used to make her a desperate mess beneath him, and it wasn’t long until she tipped over the edge.

She watched with hazy eyes and ragged breaths as he sat up, licking his lips before bending down so that she could taste herself, his tongue stroking the roof of her mouth. She moved her hands between them to tug at the drawstrings of his sweatpants, gasping when he grabbed her wrists and set them back by her head, his eyes flashing. “I told you to keep them there,” he said, pressing another soft kiss to her lips, the tenderness a direct contrast to the way he was pinning her down. “I told you, sweetheart, I remember all those times you let me tie you to the headboard of my bed and spread your legs for me, the way you begged for it. You want my cock to fill you hard and fast, for me to groan your name as I feel you clench around me. When I stroked my cock thinking of you it was a frequent staple in the memories of you I conjured up.”

She gasped as he ground the bulge of his hard cock against her soaking core, her eyes rolling back in her head. “Klaus...”

“Caroline.”

“Please,” she whispered, lifting her hips, her oversensitive skin still throbbing. It had been so long since anyone had touched her like this, her short flings and one night stands not even close to comparing to how good he felt, and he grinned.

“Please what?”

She’d never felt comfortable being vocal with anyone but Klaus, but the way his eyes darkened with lust when she confessed what she wanted, how much he paid attention, hung on her every word, had always made her more willing to. “I need you to talk to me,” she said quietly, swallowing when he smirked. “And I want your cock inside me.”

“I know,” he said quietly, and she felt his hand brush against her pussy as he pulled his sweatpants off, giving her a warning look when her hands twitched as she fought the urge to reach to help, needing his skin on hers as soon as possible. She felt the head of his cock against her entrance and whined out his name to encourage him as he pressed inside.

The first thrust of his hips was heaven, the second even better. He dug his fingernails into her hips to pull her against him again and again, taking her rough and fast, exactly how she liked it. “Tell me the things you wanted to do to me,” she breathed, her voice shaking as she looked at him through heavy-lidded eyes, and he gave her a wicked grin.

“I want to take you from behind in front of a mirror,” he began without any introduction, his hands sliding under her ass to change the angle, her head tipping back as he fucked her harder. “I want you to see your face when you come, the way your lips form my name. I want you to watch yourself as you fall apart around my cock. Would you like that?”

She swallowed, nodding, and he bent to bite her lip hard, making her moan. “Would you like that?” he repeated, his voice sharp and demanding, and she breathed out a faint ‘yes’.

“I want to bend you over my bed, to tie you up just the way you like and fuck your pretty arse. I do love the way it looks framing my cock, how you squirm and moan for me as I take you in the most primal and filthy of ways. Perhaps I’ll put a toy in your pussy as well, fill you completely while you writhe beneath me. Would you suck it clean after you come around the toy, Caroline? Would you let me use it to muffle your moans as you taste yourself? Desperately wanting to rub your clit for some friction but unable to give yourself relief? Your hair looks so lovely wound between my fingers, you know, and I recall that you love it when I tug it just the right way. You’d make such a pretty picture with my hand in your hair and your wrists bound, taking my cock as you moan around a toy that’s covered with your own arousal...”

She nodded frantically, meeting every thrust of his hips with her own, her breathing growing more ragged. They’d never quite gone that far kink-wise, but she couldn’t help but be excited by the idea, her mind racing to all of the possibilities it opened up. She wondered how much his fantasies had wandered from things they’d already done, the things he desperately wanted that he’d never had enough time to confess.

It was so difficult not to claw at his back, not to touch him, but she knew that choosing to give herself to him, to let him have this control, was what he wanted, what he needed. He needed to know that she was serious, that she was willing to trust him, and she needed to know that she could. His cock filled her so perfectly, his low groans making her clench around him as he managed to change the angle, hitting her perfectly with every thrust, and she was so close to the edge, just on the precipice of tipping over...

“Tell me again.”

She knew what he meant and she gave it with no hesitation. “I love you, Klaus.”

“Yes. You love me. You’re mine, sweetheart. Aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she hissed, nodding, completely lost in the way he was touching her, how close she was, how much she needed him.

“Mine,” he repeated, bending to kiss her roughly as his thrusts sped up. “I’m never going to let you go again, Caroline. You’re a weakness I’ll never be able to shed.”

“You’re mine too,” she breathed, and she saw him smile through heavy-lidded eyes, his satisfaction from her simple statement bleeding so clearly from the smirk he wore.

“That’s right, love,” he murmured, kissing her surprisingly gently despite his rough thrusts. It wasn’t long before she was coming around him again, his name falling from her lips in between ragged breaths and creatively-combined expletives, and he spilled inside her soon after, rolling off of her to pull her close, burying his nose in her hair.

They laid there in silence for awhile, their breathing calming. She had forgotten how safe she felt in his arms, and she’d almost drifted off when he spoke, the words so quiet she barely heard them.

“I love you too, Caroline.”

She smiled.

#klaroline #klaroline smut #klaroline drabbles #klaroline drabble #klaroline fanfiction #klarolinedrabbles #my fanfiction #mydrabbles #klarolinevacay #klaroline vacay #otp: annoyingly perfect

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the-clueless-philosopher · 4 years

Text

Magical Creatures:

Baz POV - Whole Fic.

November 20, 2015

Dating Simon Snow is not the erotic gropefest of my fifth year fantasies, but it is wholly as eventful as I thought it would be. Him, being the thoughtful, terrible, boyfriend he is decided to take the whole gang out for a midnight picnic just outside the Wavering Woods. He even invited my aunt Fiona. Yeah, we got taken by the Humdrum.

I didn’t realize what was going on for a while. One minute we were sitting around by candlelight, laughing and talking, the next I felt an unmistakable emptiness in my stomach. The feeling, however, was gone as soon as it came, for soon, we were back in the Wavering Woods as we had been before, only something was different. Everything was under a mysterious blue hue, as if we had been submerged underwater.

Fiona pulled out her wand and started towards the entrance to the forest, ushering for us to follow. Gripping Simons hand, I followed her down a mysteriously lit path. The whole world seemed to be parallel to the one I’ve known, nothing is specifically different but it’s as if my center of gravity has shifted. I take a minute to look around at forest creatures which seem to be scuttling across the branches, circling us. I hear a girlish scream that could only belong to Agatha Wellbelove and Simon tightens his grip on my hand. Looking around, I spotted the face of an eleven year-old Simon Snow. My heart clenches with the memory of that lost, beautiful boy that made a young Baz feel things he was very afraid of. I’m snapped out of my reminiscent haze as I realize why a distant memory has suddenly manifested itself in front of me. The Humdrum. The first to speak is Fiona.

“What the - who the - fucking hell”

“Its the Humdrum” Simon answer her stammers, with a fearful quiver in his voice.

“More magic?” The Humdrum asks.

“No no no no” Simon stammers, rocking back and forth. I pull him into my side.

“Very well then” The Humdrum declares.

We all feel a very distinct shift as the blue shifts to purple and the trees join together. Blocking the path out of the forest.

“Very well then” Fiona says as the trudges down the path.

“Very well then” Bunce says, taking the lead.

We walk down the path through the forest. The stars above us seem to create a dome, boxing us into the area. The path opens up into a clearing we are surrounded by very orthodox, generic trees that are eerily uniform. Dev walks forward, for some inexplicable reason. Then I see it, a towering form. A brown grizzly bear presents itself in the clearing. Devforward.

“What the fuck, Grimm?” Fiona fruitlessly questions.

The bear bends down to to meet his hand, its antlers becoming visible. Dev has a satisfied smile on his face, all of us watching the two of them in awe. The bear opens its mouth and whispers something inaudible to Dev as I watch the color drain from his face. Just when Dev looks like he’s about to cry, the bear dissolves into purple dust, leaving his hand hanging out in the air.

“Dev?” Niall questions.

Dev simply turns around and collapses into his best friend. We all stand there for a moment, unsure whether or not we should comfort our friend. He doesn’t seem to be crying, he’s just...deflated. Once he detaches himself from Niall. He enlightens us.

“I...I think they’re like spirit animals”

“Spirit animals?” Wellbelove questions, seemingly curios.

“Yeah...um...like dark spirit animals that prey on your fears”

“Morbid” Fiona says jauntily. “Let’s get the fuck out of this place!”

“This is interesting” Bunce thinks out loud as we walk.

“If these animals, prey off of our weaknesses then they must be a corporeal part of our soul...” she starts as I turn towards Simon, who still has a death grip on my hand.

“Are you okay, Love?”

“Yeah...I um...I think the Humdrum is my so called spirit animal”

Well, shit. There’s nothing I can say to comfort him, so I wrap my arm around his waist and let him lean his head on my shoulder as we walk.

The next time one of these “spirit animals” appears, its for Fiona. We were walking through the forest, watching the sun rise and the purple shift to red. Not, light red like a romantic hue. More like the color of blood. Its suffocating, like the whole world exists in a realm between life and death. The light is still dark and ominous. Above us, there’s a bridge created by the branches of different trees growing over each other. Under different circumstances, it might be quite the beautiful canopy.

Fiona has usurped the lead from Bunce and has her teeth clenched so tightly, I can feel the tension in her jaw. We hear it before we see it. The sound of sparks broke the heavy silence. Above us, we see a sparkling orange ball, attached to the tail of a white fox. It flips in the air a few times before diving through the canopy, appearing to make itself smaller in order to squeeze through the layered branches. It lands, on a branch just ahead of Fiona’s eyes. The fox narrows its eyes to slits and leans down to whisper something to Fiona. I see her fists clench and her posture go from defensive to mutinous but her hard exterior can’t stop the tears from welling up in her eyes. When its speech is over the fox transforms into blue swirls of powder and streams upwards, reabsorbed into the dome of stars above us.

“Fiona?” I say.

“It told me I’m disappointing Tasha, and failing you, amongst other things, do what you will with it Bunce” She says nonchalantly, continuing on.

Bunce writes down what Fiona says in a notebook none of us were aware she had.

Dev decides to open up

“It told me that I’m a side character, in Baz’s story” he says, looking at his feet.

“I told you that” I say, kicking myself.

“Yeah, when we were twelve”

An uncomfortable silence settles between the group, all of us standing around, unsure of what we should do, until Simon saves us.

“So how about that airplane food?” Simon says sending us all into fits unwarranted laughter.

After that, the tone stays relatively light given the circumstances. We idly chat about school with Fiona as the light shifts from dark red to a bright, but still somehow dark red. A while back, Bunce convinced Simon to give her a Piggyback ride, forcing our hands apart, but I keep a close watch on him. I don’t think his spirit animal is the Humdrum, but I don’t think Snow would be able to handle it if it was. Bunce conjures a whiteboard in the air above Simon’s head and she and Simon take the lead, so the rest of us can see what she’s writing.

“Okay we really should sort this out” She states, rather matter-of-factly.

Bunce draws three columns ‘what we know’ and ‘what we think we know’ and ‘what we don’t know’.

“Okay” starts Dev, ready to participate “We know that the animals prey off of fears and insecurities”

“Good”, Bunce says as she writes it down.

She draws another arrow and writes ‘magical animals’ and ‘whispers to individual’

I decide to play along and contribute, “We don’t know why we’re here, where we are, or why the fuck the light keeps changing colors”

Bunce writes it down, swears and all.

She pushes the board to the side and we continue on.

A few meters down the path I spot a pitch black creature, with a hollowed out rib cage. Its two front legs are made of...lava that flows from its chest.

“Well this one’s here for me I suppose, it can’t do worse than what I do to myself,” I say marching towards my adversary. I reach out, and the dog-like figure disappears, into thin air as if it had never been there at all.

“Huh” Notes Fiona.

“Baz’s spirit animal doesn’t like him” Bunce says as she writes it on the whiteboard and we continue on as if nothing had happened.

The seven of us march down the path as the light shifts to a bright orange and the trees morph from tall trees of a forest too flatter, more sparse trees of some kind of grassland or savanna. Bunce has long given up a ride on Simon’s back and the group has returned to the comfortable silence we’ve spent most of our journey in. I couldn’t say how much time has passed, perhaps hours, more likely days. My feet have become numb to the pain of walking such lengths and I can see the droop in the shoulders of my comrades. The air is thick, it’s like trying to breath with an elephant on your chest.

In the middle of the grass on which we’ve been walking, a lake opens up with crystal blue, perhaps even sparkling water.

“Here we go again” Fiona sighs.

The water starts forming up until the outline of a horse can clearly be seen. It stretches like clay and you can even see the stretch lines as if gel is constructing the creature before us. The form takes the shape of a horse with rainbow hair curling and twisting in every direction. Its breathtaking. Wellbelove steps forward, and makes her way into the lake, eliciting surprised gasps from the onlookers. Tears are already streaming down her face. The horse leans down resting, it's head on her shoulder and whispers something. Wellbelove nods and walks back towards the group. She silently watches the horse morph back into water and collapse into the lake. The lake closes up and returns to grass as the light shifts from orange to an ominous, golden-yellow.

Having plodded through the savanna, we find ourselves in the most fairytale book land I’ve ever seen. We are surrounded by mystical waterfalls and strange looking plants, even I can’t help but be in awe of the place we’ve found ourselves in. The air isn’t thick, rather, thin, like there isn’t enough for all of us. No matter, I’d give my last breath to Simon bloody Snow. We reach a cave draped in leaves and vines. Niall automatically steps forward. He sweeps the vine aside and we see the eyes of some kind-of age old turtle. It moves its mouth and Niall simply hangs his head in sorrow. The turtle, pays no attention and launches itself into the air, soaring like a dragon with scaly wings. Niall takes the pen from bunce and writes under ‘what we think we know’, ‘animals want to take away an individual's will to keep going’

“Damn, Kelly” Fiona says, not realizing she said it out loud.

Through the jungle trees, I spot another one I assume is for me. A black cat with an elongated nose sits, head hung under its own rain cloud, its chest is engraved with a gold pattern, and the Pitch family crest.

“I think you’re up, Baz” Niall says.

I walk forward, but the creature runs away, into the jungle.

I guess mine really doesn’t like me.

Bunce draws an arrow from my name and writes ‘takes more than one form’

As we trudge along the path, we come to a cliff. No bridge or anything , just a cliff. Fiona sits down and dangle her feet, the rest of us follow. The light switches from a bright yellow to a forest-green color. Simon leans his head on my shoulder and I wrap my arms around him. This past...however long it's been...has felt like a haze. Like the act of waiting but I don’t know what I’m waiting for.

Suddenly, a red...figure launches out of the water into the air. The leathery, light red color stands out against the green background. The front of the figure is a horse but the back has the tail of an eel or a fish. Its perhaps the most striking out of the creatures we’ve seen. Just like Penny. The face of the horse has some kind of crown or tiara dipping between the two eyes and planting a purple stone on the bridge of its nose.

The creature dips and floats in front of Bunce as she reaches her hand out and strokes the stone with a dumbfounded look on her face. The creature’s gemstone glows as the ring on Bunce’s finger glows and she looks like she suddenly understands the secrets of the universe. Tears stream down her face.

Before any of us can fully comprehend the events that had just taken place, a winged lion springs up from nowhere and scoops up the seven of us onto its back. Simon is holding onto its neck leaning forward. We travel as the light turns back into the blue it had been when we arrived. The lion is covered in adornments, like the vines of silver of gold winding around its tail and the earrings in its ears. The wind whistles in my ear and I can hear my friends laughing and shouting. It's the most carefree I’ve seen Simon in a while. The creature carries us over the water and lands in a cloud of purple dust. All of us dismount except for Simon, who appears to be in a heated conversation with the lion. Eventually, he dismounts but I can feel his magic in the air between us. I turn towards the cloud of purple. On a pedestal, lays a black horse with a mane and tail of purple dust streaming into the cloud. I’m pulled by the same force that the crucible pulled me to Simon with. I face the creature, with my hands shaking, afraid that it will leave.

It whispers in a voice I can’t quite place.

“You can’t decide who you want to be, you are the villain playing hero” it starts “you’ve sacrificed everything, your family, your power” it spits the word power, the word striking me in the chest “for a boy that will never truly love you the way you love him�� I let out a sob “You are trying to be everything, Basilton Pitch, in the process you have become nothing”. Uncontrollable tears stream down my face, though I’m not sure why all of this is I have said to myself before. Then I realize, it’s my mother’s voice. I collapse on the ground, Simon collapsing next to me catching my tears on his shoulder.

I feel another pull and the sky is black again.

“Welcome back,” says the Humdrum.

#carry on countdown 2019 #simon snow #agatha wellbelove #penelope bunce #fiona pitch #snowbaz

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