#But I think Florence hunt can work for either girl?

[valiantroyalty]

I know there’s already live actions of Peter Pan but I’ve stumbled across She and

Wendy??

or even Schneewittchen?

#out of coronation; #Not that I use fcs or icons but I like pairing them together #But I think Florence hunt can work for either girl?

[medeafive]

Blood and Stone - 20

Masterpost

"I don't like this," Bruce mutters. "Your blood pressure dropped again. Blood sugar probably as well."

Natasha groans, mouth full. "Come on! I'm eating all the goddamn time!"

"Looks like that's not enough," Bruce replies, unwrapping the thing from her arm. "I'll give you the blood transfusion and… more vampire blood again, I guess. God, I wish Bobbi were here already."

"Is it so bad?" Natasha asks.

Bruce gets the clipboard. "We tracked your calorie intake and if you're at more than double the normal, without burning any because you're just lying around, and you're still low on nutrients… that's very bad."

"Speaking of," Natasha remarks. "I really need to pee."

"Only now?" Bruce frowns. "When was the last time- oh, forget it."

Natasha snorts. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Could you unplug me for a second or do I have to drag that around the whole fucking time?"

"Oh, definitely not," Bruce returns. "The former. Do you know how many bacteria that could introduce-"

Natasha groans.

  "Just let Bobbi take care of it," Pepper encourages. "She'll be here soon and then it'll all be fine."

"Last time you gave her vampire blood, her heart stopped," Clint remarks sourly.

"She was doing way worse last time, though," Sam points out quietly, not looking her way. "Before."

"I don't want it to get back to that," Bruce mutters, sinking the needle into her arm. "So I'd rather do it now."

"Oxygen is fine?" Fury asks.

"You know what, I didn't even worry about that," Bruce says. "Should be fine. Or do you feel like you're not getting enough air?"

Natasha shakes her head. "Feels okay. The air quality in here is not the best, though, is it?"

Tony snorts. "Yeah, this room was never meant for this many people."

"You mean, because you all stand around all the time?" Natasha remarks.

"You really appreciate us, don't you," Clint returns.

"No, of course I do," she replies. "Just, you know, it's not really helping…?"

The door upstairs slams shut. Pepper jumps up. "Oh, that must be Bobbi. I'll go get her."

Sharon giggles, slipping off a table. "Wait for me! I really wanna meet her."

"Wow, Clint," Tony remarks. "You look thrilled."

"Fuck off," Clint counters. "Guess I should just go. Not like I'm needed here anyway."

Bruce breathes out deeply. "Oh, man, finally. Uh, Nat, if she says I fucked up, I'm sorry."

"Aw, come on, you definitely didn't fuck up," Natasha replies. "I'm totally alright. You did everything you could."

"So, the vampire blood," Tony remarks curiously. "How's that feel? Your arm? Burn or anything?"

Natasha raises her left arm, studying it. "Not really. It feels a little… empty? It's not spectacular, really."

"That's disappointing," Tony decides. "I was hoping for more insight into life and death and the great beyond. But then again, this guy doesn't know shit either."

She's not sure James listens to any of them, he certainly doesn't react. Clint, despite his announcement, still hasn't moved an inch. She shakes her head. "Yeah, sorry. I got nothing."

"Eh, it's fine," Tony replies. "Do y'all ever wonder what women talk about all the time? Cause I do."

Sam snorts. "All the time, yeah? The two minutes since Bobbi arrived, after they haven't seen each other in two years?"

"Sharon doesn't even know her," Tony points out. "And still they flock together instantly. There's something there and I don't understand it."

"Something being the refreshing absence of any kind of machismo?" Natasha suggests.

Tony snorts. "Come on, you don't get it either. You're not in that circle, you're not - you're not that kind of woman."

Somehow, that really stings. "What kind?"

Tony rolls his eyes. "Come on, you know what I mean. The woman kind. The womanly kind of woman."

She's about ready to throw something at him when the door opens and Pepper and Sharon come back, with them a tall blonde woman Natasha's never seen before. Sam gets up, grinning, and hugs her. Clint clears his throat, looking down.

"Ah, long time no see," Bobbi sighs. "You look good."

"You too," Sam replies. "Is it possible you've grown even taller?"

Bobbi snorts, letting go and slapping his shoulder. "Shut up. Hey Fury. Tones, how ya doin'?"

"Excellent," Tony replies. "Nobody listens to me, but other than that, excellent."

"So nothing new there," Bobbi remarks. "Hi Clint. Sorry I didn't call."

"That's alright," Clint replies, though he doesn't look alright with it. "How's Italy?"

"Well, the weather is great," Bobbi points out. "You know, it's got flair, hunting vampires through Florence."

"Oh, we're not talking about that sort of thing anymore," Tony remarks. "Since, ya know, we got a guest."

Bobbi's eyes flit over to where James is standing, practically immobile. "Oh yeah. Fury said."

"Uh, I put all the information together here," Bruce remarks, holding up a thick folder. "I hope that's all."

Bobbi rushes over to hug him. "Oh, hey Brucey! Sorry, didn't mean to leave you out."

Bruce blushes, tentatively hugging her back. "Uh, no problem. It's fine. Hey."

Bobbi snorts, pulling back. "Oh man, you haven't changed at all. Okay, now I got everybody, right? Just making sure."

"Unless you wanna hug the vampire," Tony suggests. "Not sure I'd recommend. Haven't tried, either."

James bares his fangs before catching himself. Bobbi stares at him, eyes narrowing, like a cat about to pounce. "Yeah, so, I'm Natasha," she interjects. "Which you probably already know. And… uh, that is James. Doesn't bite."

Tony snorts. "You know what, that was one of your better jokes."

"Yeah, okay, let's get to it," Bobbi replies, dragging a chair next to Natasha's bed and opening the folder. "Well, let's see… Y'all should probably get out."

"What are you going to do?" James asks quietly.

"I'm going to discuss that with her," Bobbi replies evenly, though the tension in her shoulders betrays her. "No offense."

"And you're a doctor?" James questions.

"Gynecologist," Bobbi explains impatiently. "Formerly. Don't worry about it."

James evidently worries very much about it. "Just want to get it right. You're a hunter as well? And you were here before Natalia?"

"Until about two years ago," Bobbi confirms. "Yeah."

"And you were with Barton before he was with Natalia?" James questions.

"Before he was what ?!" Bobbi interrupts.

"Oh, I thought you… knew," James remarks uselessly. Natasha groans.

"I fucking knew it," Tony jumps in. "So you were just lying the whole time-"

"It was one motherfucking time!" Clint defends. "One! Do we really have to-"

"Wow," Bobbi remarks, rubbing her eyes. "That's really fucking low, Clint."

"You were gone," Clint spits out. "I don't owe you-"

"Why does the vampire know all the interesting stuff?" Tony asks.

"Wait, you two had a- a thing?" Pepper pulls a face. "Urgh."

"Come on," Natasha tries. "It's really not a big deal."

"That was almost two years ago-" Clint adds.

"Oh, so right after I'm gone, you screw the-" Bobbi hisses. "Come on! Is she even 21 yet?!"

"24," Natasha remarks sourly.

"Oh yeah?" Clint asks sourly. "So what have you been up to, since-"

"Come on," Pepper interjects. "It's not about her! I just find that really- oh, come on."

"I hope you're not talking about screwing colleagues," Tony remarks. "Cause I got news on that, cupcake."

"That's very different," Pepper rejects. "Just the- Bobbi was here for years, you were together for years, and then you turn around and this girl you barely know- Urgh."

"Okay, you know what, let's postpone that," Bobbi interrupts. "Work to do. Everyone except Natasha out. And don't you think you're in the clear, you're absolutely not."

"You're not my fucking boss," Clint remarks coldly before striding out, slamming the door.

"Well, Natasha," Tony comments. "Looks like we learn something new about you every day."

"Leave her the fuck alone," James hisses.

"Okay, okay, we really should get out," Sam puts in. "Let Bobbi do her job."

"Yes please," Bobbi mutters, thumbing through the folder.

They slowly stream out, one by one, even James. Bobbi keeps going through the folder. Natasha doesn't really dare make a sound. "Bobbi?"

"Hm?"

"Are you mad?"

Bobbi smiles without looking up. "At you? No. I mean, you never even met me. From Clint's part, though, that's very midlife crisis."

Natasha sighs. "Really wasn't a big thing. Just tried it out, you know, and agreed it wasn't right for us."

"I don't want him back," Bobbi states. "I'm not jealous. It's just… disrespectful of what we had, I guess."

"So is it true?" Natasha asks. "You got a new guy?"

Bobbi snorts. "Oh yeah. Not sure about it, though. He's… pretty much like Clint, except he doesn't expect us to have a family. So that's an advantage. Wait, Bruce did an endovaginal scan on you?"

Natasha closes her eyes. "Yeah. Though Sam did the… you know, the fingers up my vagina part."

"Not sure that couldn't have waited a couple of days, but okay," Bobbi remarks. "Good to have it. So, Fury said you want to keep the baby."

Natasha hesitates. "I'm… not so sure about that anymore."

"Well, I'll take a look myself then," Bobbi suggests. "If you even can have it."

  Bobbi does every check imaginable, or so it seems, and somehow none of it is a big deal. Just routine. Couple of moments and then it's done. "So, you really like the vampire, huh?" she asks absentmindedly.

Natasha sighs. "I don't know. It was never meant to be… this serious, you know."

"Does he want you to have it?" Bobbi adds.

"Absolutely not," Natasha replies. "To the effect that he can't be a good father. I don't think it… means anything to him, other than a danger to my life."

"I mean, you don't need him," Bobbi remarks, taking notes. "He's out now. The rest is between you and God. If you're into that."

Natasha snorts. "Right. That."

Bobbi drops the pen, looking up. "Seriously, did he ever try to kill you? Suck your blood?"

"No," Natasha replies quickly. "No. Never. Not even in the very beginning, really."

Bobbi frowns. "And the... bite wound on your shoulder… is…?"

Fuck, she totally forgot about that. "That's… not that. Very recent."

"Sexual," Bobbi states.

"Sort of," Natasha allows. "I don't know, it just… it wasn't a thing, it just… sorta happened. Kinda weird."

"That's probably worse," Bobbi remarks.

"I trust him," Natasha defends. "It wasn't… I don't want to go into it but… it wasn't that. He wasn't trying to turn me, or drink me. Just- dominance. Sexual. Just don't read into it."

Bobbi raises an eyebrow and goes back to her notes. "Okay. Your call. Just, you can tell me. I'm not here to judge."

"No, I can tell you are," Natasha replies. "Even if you try. I'm good, really. That's not the issue. The issue is, well, this."

Bobbi snorts softly. "I'll tell you in a second. Really, though… how did this happen? Not the magic regrowing of your uterus, that's a different can of worms, just… this."

"I don't know," Natasha repeats. "I wasn't looking for this. Just… I never even realized how awkward I felt around everyone else, like I… Over the years as a hunter, I developed this really dark side and… he just understood that and I could just tell him about- stuff I did, that I didn't really like what I was turning into without having to hide- and I understood that he's also trying, that he's captive, that we're quite alike in- I'm sorry, I'm rambling."

"So you like him as a person," Bobbi remarks.

"Yeah," Natasha agrees. "What else?"

"Vampires were always a sexual fantasy," Bobbi replies. "And there's still plenty of would-be monster fuckers out there, believe it or not."

Natasha snorts. "Look, the vampire thing is- a little disgusting, sometimes, frankly, mostly very useful in a fight and… I like him despite it, I guess."

"Okay, I have a last question that I don't usually ask." Bobbi closes the folder, crossing her arms over it. "You need to pinpoint exactly when you conceived, or when you could have conceived. I need to know how long it took to get this big."

"I don't know," Natasha replies. "You got the end of my last period, in there, and-"

"26 days ago," Bobbi replies. "Yes. Every single time you had unprotected sex with him after that."

So all the times. "Look, none of this should have ever been possible-"

"I know," Bobbi interrupts. "It's not about judgement. The thing is, you have a foetus of over 20 weeks in your belly and it matters a great deal whether it grew into that over 25 days or 15 days."

20 weeks. It's a lot scarier when Bobbi says it, rather than Bruce. "I guess… right after. 25 days or so. Then two days after that and… when I killed the black cloak, I guess, though I'm not sure that- wait, I remember the black cloak said I smelled weird. James too. Is it possible they could smell that I was pregnant?"

"Hormonal change, definitely," Bobbi replies. "Ask him sometime whether pregnant women smell special to him. So, to sum up, right after your period, not very likely, you wouldn't be very fertile. Two days after that, still early but possible, especially if your hormones were off. Now, before you killed the black cloak, you injected a lot of vampire blood, right?"

"Right."

"Which is what you take now to keep up with the massive growth of the baby," Bobbi remarks. "Sorry, foetus. So you wouldn't have noticed adverse pregnancy effects until after, which is exactly what happened. That plus the smell. If you conceived about 23 days ago, a week's worth of normal foetus growth would happen in about a day for you."

"And that would mean…"

"That would mean you'd give birth in about two weeks," Bobbi concludes. "I mean, if you decide to. That's up to you."

"But I could?"

"It looks remarkably good, all things considered," Bobbi states. "Your body adjusted well to the current size of the foetus. I can't see anything that would prevent you from having a regular pregnancy, at least right now. Now, there are some caveats."

"I'm listening." Natasha sits up slightly.

"First thing, I cannot make any guarantees for the next two weeks," Bobbi starts. "It looks normal right now but that could change any day. So really can't promise you'll get to carry this to term, or what comes out then. Second thing, I'm absolutely morally okay with aborting up to the day of birth in this case. It's gonna be messy, given the size and possible complications, but if it's necessary, I'll absolutely do it. And I want you to consent to that right now, in case the complications are so severe you wouldn't be conscious. Is that okay with you?"

"You mean, if it's literally killing me?" Natasha asks.

"That," Bobbi confirms. "Or posing a severe risk to your health. This is already pretty risky, of course, but you get the idea."

"Okay," Natasha remarks. "If you're not opposed in principle to me having it… I trust you."

"Thank you." Bobbi opens the folder again. "Now, third thing… you injected a lot of vampire blood already and you're probably going to need more over the next two weeks. I'm really not an expert on that, better ask Bruce, but… it's gonna have long-term consequences. I have no idea which but this will affect your body somehow. Maybe it will weaken your bones, lead to organ failure, increased risk of stroke, cancer, impact your auto-immune system, who knows, really, but something's going to happen. Now, Fury said the Red Skull is hunting you, so your life expectancy is not that high anyway, but if you live for a few more years or decades, there'll be consequences. Do you understand that?"

"I'm already in for that, right?" Natasha shakes her head. "I stopped thinking about the long term long ago."

"Haven't we all," Bobbi mutters. "Okay, one more thing… maybe Bruce already told you."

"What?"

"Your ovaries look really bad," Bobbi states. "You already had damage to them, according to Bruce's notes, but they've shrunk even more. I can't predict it with certainty but it is very likely you will go into menopause right after this, never have your period again, never have another child. I'd assume that factors into your decision."

Natasha swallows. "So this… window I never thought would open just opened, and if I don't jump through right now, it's gone again. This is the only shot."

"The only shot for biologically having your own child," Bobbi specifies. "There's always the possibility for adoption, so you shouldn't feel too pressured by that. Just laying it all out."

Natasha snorts, letting her head drop back, eyes towards the concrete ceiling. "I feel pretty pressured, though."

"Sorry, but in the end, it's your choice," Bobbi replies. "I won't object from a medical standpoint if you decide to continue, at least right now. It may be dumb but this desire to procreate, to have your own child is deeply ingrained. I'd understand if you want to continue, and I'd understand if you don't."

"Let's assume I change my mind in a few days," Natasha suggests. "Would you… even if there's no medical emergency, would you still… do the abortion?"

"Absolutely," Bobbi replies without hesitation. "Told you. This is a vampire baby, so all rules and procedures are off. Also, you've known you're pregnant for a couple of days now, that would be ridiculous."

"If I decide to continue, I can change my mind later," Natasha sums up. "And if I decide not to, I can't."

"Really can't put it back in, no," Bobbi confirms with a grin. "So yeah. If you've got a real interest in having this child and you're willing to take the risk, it makes most sense to wait and see how it goes. Then you can also talk it over with, you know, whoever you want to talk it over with."

"I think… talking to you…" Natasha shakes her head. "I think that already helped me a lot."

"That's part of my job," Bobbi replies, pushing her chair back. "Or it used to be, before. Okay, then I'll go and tell the others you're keeping it for now, and then I'll probably go to sleep. Had a long drive. But I'll be back tomorrow, don't worry."

"Yeah, okay." Natasha closes her eyes. "Thanks, really. I know that's a lot to ask from you as well."

#blood and stone #buckynat #vampire au #natasha romanoff #bucky barnes #black widow #winter soldier #my writing #fanfic

[breaniebree]

Talking about my love for my OC with @xxqueenofdragonsxx​.  This is my Zahira as best as I can make her, though someone awesome may be drawing me some amazing fan art of her so fingers crossed. 

ZAHIRA ZELENA ZACARIAS (ZEE):

Magizoologist, works for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures for the Ministry of Magic.

Born 9th April, 1964 to parents Michael Ivanovich (Misha) Zacarias and Magnolia Jackson Zacarias.  Misha, a Muggleborn Russian Auror who is following the trail of a dark wizard and finds himself in Paris where he meets the American witch Magnolia Jackson.  They fall in love and get married and Magnolia moves to Moscow to be with him and then when Zee is six, her mother is killed.  

I think that it was a gruesome death, a curse that tortured her for days before she finally succumbed to her death.  They were living in Russia at the time and Zee was with her Baba and Deda, as she was only six, and her mother had gone into town to do some shopping.  The dark wizard was stalking her and cursed her.  She was left alone in an alley to die and wasn’t found for almost six hours, by then, the curse had taken over too much of her and any attempt at saving her life was impossible.  She’d lost her mind and Zee was never able to say goodbye.  Magnolia didn’t even recognize Misha when he found her which was part of why it hurt Misha so much to lose her in the end.

Misha meets Sorcha Brown when Zee is eight, a freelance journalist from Scotland. Zee grew up travelling between Scotland and Moscow and she always loved animals.  She spent her summers visiting her American grandparents on their ranch in Toccoa, Georgia where her grandmother owns a 50s diner called Flo’s and her grandfather is chief of police.  Her stepmother is the mother she grew up with.  Mama, seeing Zee’s love for animals always allowed her to bring home strays.  Her father continued to work in Russia, travelling back and forth via international portkey every day when they spent time in Scotland.  And when it came time for her to go to school, they decided to send her to the wizarding school in Russia — the Koldovstoretz School of Magic because it had such an amazing Care of Magical Creatures program.  She speaks fluent French, Russian, and Mermish because of her upbringing and her career and a little bit of Greek.

She has 4 tattoos:

Gold and green tribal elephant on right side of ribs

Red and gold dragon across spine

Black niffler on back of her neck

Zee tattoo over scar - deep green vines with bright blue orchids scattered from the top of her left hip down the side of her thigh, wrapping around her knee, Lady Godiva hidden in the vines covering her scar lying on a bed of blue orchids ending at her ankle.  I AM WOMAN written on one side, HEAR ME ROAR, written on the other.

Zee found him napping on the sofa and she smiled at the sight of him, bending to kiss his forehead.  Her curls tickled his face, a small smile on his lips.  Not wanting to disturb him, she hurried upstairs to pack the rest of her bag.  She changed into a short halter dress over her new bikini and was admiring her calf in the mirror when he came in.

His eyes met hers in the mirror and the look in them sent desire raking through her.

“When did you get home?”

“Maybe fifteen minutes ago?  You looked so peaceful having your nap.”

“I was resting my eyes,” he said, making her grin.

“Right.”

Sirius moved towards her, his eyes trailing down her body.  “You look fucking gorgeous.”  His gaze stopped on her leg, a brow rising.  “You got a new tat?”

Zee held onto his arm as he picked up her leg to examine the new tattoo.  She had gotten Lady Godiva.  She’d done her panther’s sleek form in a dark black outline but other than her golden eyes, she’d coloured the panther in with flowered camouflage.  Purple perennials and pink tulips, red roses and blue lilacs that brightened her leg and covered every inch of the ugly burn scar to the back of her knee.  Deep green vines and leaves surrounded the outline of the panther, framing the words written down either side of the panther in cursive: I Am Woman and on the other side it continued with: Hear Me Roar.

“Fuck, that’s sexy,” Sirius murmured, his fingertips tracing the words. 

“Yeah?”  Zee said.  “I didn’t want to look at my burn anymore so I wanted to cover it with something beautiful.”

“And the Reddy lyrics?”

She grinned.  “Points to you.”

Sirius let go of her leg and bent his head to kiss her.  “I love it.  But you were sexy with the scar too.”

Zee slipped her arms around his neck.  “And that, Mr Black, is one of the many reasons why I love you.”

Sirius slid his hands up her back into her hair.  “Let’s go shag on the beach.”

She laughed as he let her go and picked up their bags.  “Sounds perfect.”

As he walked out the door, she couldn’t help but think that she had never loved anyone more than the man before her.  She didn’t know what the future held for her, but she did know that her future was nothing without Sirius Black and Harry Potter. (Excerpt from A Second Chance, chapter 213)

Zee’s wand was made by Gregorvich and it is chestnut as the wood meshes with her love of animals, I think it’s short like her, only 15 cm  in length and her core is from a coral reef.  Her wand core gives the owner patience, someone with a coral reef core knows how to bring things to fruition, provide protection for all, as well as generate longevity.  They have a knack for deflecting disaster, whatever form it takes.  They are also loving, nurturing, and healing; are a source of enduring friendship and support and often the glue that holds the ship together.  I thought it sounded very much like Zee.

She stands no taller than 156 cm (roughly 5′1 and 3/4) and often wears 4 inch heels as if she was born in them, preferably her heeled cowboy boots.  She has long dark brown hair with golden caramel highlights mixed through it.  Her grandmother on her mum’s side was African-American so her skin is like a caramel toffee.  She loves bright red lipstick and big earrings.  She wears a white gold and turquoise turtle belly button ring and usually has smaller hoops or studs in her ears above the big hoops.  As shown above and mentioned before, she is very curvy, hourglass and I picture her body type like Jaydah Doll, but her face is the gorgeous model at the top (I saw her and thought Zee).

Her pet is a panther named Lady Godiva.  She rescued her from Muggles who were hunting her and her pack in Kenya.  Her parents were killed and she was the only cub that she could find so she nurtured her and kept her safe.  Why Godiva?

“I always admired her bravery; standing up for what she wanted and doing the only thing that she could do at the time to make her stand.  No one would listen to her and she had no power and no ability to use weapons.  She wasn’t a witch with powers to sway them so she set out on a horse, completely nude, and she got the attention she wanted.  She made her mark.  I found Lady Godiva in Kenya, hiding from the Muggles who had shot and killed her family, when I rescued her and confronted the Muggles, she jumped from my arms and stood in front of me, growling at them, almost daring them to fight her to get to me.  I thought that she was making her stand, a cub with no power of her own, but she was trying.  So I named her Godiva.” (Excerpt from A Second Chance, chapter 65)

Her grandfather on her dad’s side was a Muggle and veteran of the Second World War.  He drove a 1937 BSA M20 and it’s hers now.  She loves motorcycles and getting her hands dirty.  She’s an incredible cook.  She likes to read mystery, horror, and romance novels.  She travels for her job and has been all over the world, but has recently been enjoying her time working in the menagerie within the Ministry of Magic and helping to organize it.

As to the Koldovstoretz School of Magic, I like to think it’s hidden somewhere deep in Russia and that it looks like the ruins Balga Castle to prevent anyone from finding it, but when you get through the warding it opens up and looks the Vologda Kremlin and Saint Sophia Cathedral, just gorgeous Russian architecture -- but not as large as Hogwarts’ castle.  It says that they played a version of Quidditch there where they flew on uprooted trees instead of broomsticks -- which is another reason why I think Zee was never big into playing the sport herself.  Also I imagine her as short and curvy, which means she may not have great balance on a broom, and she loves riding the motorbike and likes the Muggle machine more than a broomstick if she has to choose.

As to her family tree:

The Jacksons:

Colten (Muggle) and Florence Jackson

Daughter Magnolia Jackson Zacarias (deceased) married to Michael (Misha) Zacarias with one daughterZahira Zelena Zacarias

The Zacarias’:

Ivan and Anya Zacarias (Muggles – Ivan was the soldier in WWII with the motorbike that he gave to Zee)

1. Michael (Misha) Ivanovich Zacarias m. Magnolia Jackson Zacarias (d) m. Sorcha Brown Zacarias

(a) Zahira Zelena Zacarias eng. Sirius Orion Black

(i) Harry James Potter

(ii) Twin 1 and Twin 2 Black (due January 1997)

2. Olga Ivanova Zacarias Petrov m. Dimtri Petrov

(a) Mikhail Petrov m. Ana Ivanov

(i) Yuri Petrov (11)

(b) Mila Petrov Sokolov m. Nicholas Sokolov

(i) Nastasia Sokolov (9)

(ii) Dinara Sokolov (6)

3. Sasha Zacarias Blok m. Yerik Blok

(a) Tanya Blok Fedorov m. Alek Fedorov

(i) Eva and Irina (twin girls identical) (2)

(b) Tatiana Blok eng. Iosif Kuznetsov

The Browns:

Callum and Fiona Brown

Brian Brown m. Jocasta Fitzgibbons

(a) Dougal Brown m. Ellen Smith

(i) Jenny Brown (24)

(ii) Ian Brown (22)

Sorcha Brown m. Misha Zacarias

(a) Zahira Zacarias

Names for Family Members:

Ivan & Anya = Baba and Deda

Tetya = auntie

Dyadya = uncle

Misha & Sorcha = Papa and Grandmama

Colt & Flo = Grandpa and Grandma

Callum & Fiona = Gran and Grandda

Basically, I love her and I’m so glad that other people have come to love her as much as me.

Zeerius is my canon.

@velvethopewrites​ thank you for loving her enough to put her in your Muggle AU.

#a second chance #harry potter fanfiction #breanie #original character #zee zacarias oc #sirius and zee #zeerius

[nellygwyn]

Harlots Season 3, Episode 1 - Reaction, thoughts etc.

I am just gonna be as candid as possible about all this, and give you my honest thoughts (albeit borne out of a 3am migraine and period pains) about episode 1. I think I might break my thoughts down by storyline. Spoilers ahead:

• Charlotte Wells - So, initially, I was loving Charlotte. She was the Charlotte I know and love. Even when the Pincher storyline began to unfold and Isaac appeared in her life, I initially thought 'Charlotte is dealing with this in the Charlotte way. He's hateful to her so she laughs at him and plays him at his own stupid game.' Unfortunately, it appears that there is going to be some kind of romance between the two, or at least a sexual relationship, which began to unfold in the last part of the episode. This is a violent pimp, a class of people Charlotte has always hated, who lied to her, choked her and wants to bleed her dry. He threatened the girls in her house and then, he set fire to it, with Nancy and Fanny's baby inside. And this is supposed to be sexy? No. Like, I can't predict how this will ultimately end but I'm sorry, if the season finale isn't a shot of Isaac Pincher dead in the Thames, I really....really am disappointed they decided to sell this relationship as anything other than ooc for Charlotte and illogical. Also, can I just say that bawds and pimps worked with each other all the time? This is why Charlotte should never have BEEN a bawd. Bawds are not the pinnacle of feminism, they were often awful (and if not awful then morally grey) and pimps, that they often worked alongside, were worse. I don't think most of the bawds in the show are wholly bad but they were never wholly good either and presenting them as 'the sisterhood'...hello????

• Isabella - Now you guys know I do not like Isabella. I did like her and then at the end of Season 2, she threw Charlotte and other sex workers to the metaphorical wolves. However, S3 opens a year later and everything is...fine again, apparently? Charlotte forgives her, is probably even having sex with her sometimes. Even Nancy was nice to her, despite how much she riled against her at the end of S2. HOW IN THE HELL have we got here? Isabella's character has kind of done a complete 180 too. She's kind and mild. Maybe they want to make Fitzwells work as a ship but idk about my fellow bi girls or even lesbians out there....how do you feel about a bi woman throwing herself at a sexually perverse violent man and leaving a woman who is kind and affectionate to her in the dust? Is that portrayal something you want? Anyway, Isabella was okay in the episode, nothing super exciting. Sophia was BORING AS HELL and I do not DO NOT care about her elopement. Like...okay? This feels irrelevant and unnecessary?? Also, another historical note: Isabella wanted her friends to give money to Charlotte and her house, right? Their refusal obviously wasn't surprising to me, it was a massive risk on Isabella's part (ooc? Ooc) but when one of the women said 'You want us to give charity to harlots?' in a disgusted tone, I was just thinking like....that's exactly what you all already do. With the Magdalen Hospital and the Foundling Hospital. Late 18th century aristocrats were all about charity to sex workers. Not for the right reasons and not always in the most helpful ways but that was de rigueur. It wasn't the charity part that should've raised that lady's eyebrow, it was the fact Isabella was asking them to fund a brothel essentially.

• Emily Lacey - Her relationship with Hal Pincher is okay but like, again, he's a pimp, less violent than his brother but...birds of a feather flock together! I'm not really sure why she suddenly isn't very ambitious anymore but if she wants a lower middle class keeper? I support her. Also, lol, 'I wanna learn about commerce' as if 'commerce' wasn't also Georgian era slang for 'fucking.'

•Charles Quigley - I haven't forgotten how that little shit behaved at the end of Season 2 but I admit, I felt some sympathy with him or rather, pitied the fact that he was wallowing in his own sorrow. I wonder if he's left London for good...it did seem like they are trying to set up a romance between him and Fanny which...first of all, NO. Second of all, if he has to have a romance with someone that isn't Emily, why not Cherry? She adores him. But I feel as if she's used for comic relief a lot of the time, as if we're supposed to giggle at the fact that 1) a disabled sex worker exists, and 2) that she has quite a strong sexuality as well as having a disability. So maybe we won't see that, idk.

• Harriet - Harriet is based on a real person, a black woman who lived in Georgian London and decided to open a brothel populated purely with sex workers of colour. So I am glad they are finally getting into that storyline for her. We only met Rani properly, out of all her girls, and I adore her. Honestly, Harriet's storyline actually seems like it is gonna be great but also very minor, which is disappointing.

• Lydia - I hated the Bedlam storyline when it began and I am still unsure of it now. HOWEVER, since that's how things stand, I have to really praise Lesley Manville's acting power for making me root for Lydia and making me want her to be free again and bring a semblance of (evil) normality back to Covent Garden. What I REALLY hated was Catherine's intersecting storyline. Listen, lots of young girls got sent to Bedlam in the Georgian era but not usually for having sex with a servant. I know we often think of the past as being rife with doctors diagnosing sexually active women with hysteria and the like, but that wasn't really a thing at this point. In fact, attitudes towards the differences between men and women were just teetering on changing. Women were still seen as naturally hot blooded, men their prey at this point, and it wouldn't be until later on in the 18th century and into the 19th century that women were seen as naturally sexually modest and subservient and men, the hot blooded, libertine ones. It just feels...so dumb. I mean, I liked Catherine, I just want to know why that reason was used to chuck her in Bedlam. You know what might have actually been interesting? If she had some kind of depression or mental disability. Or even just for being a little weird, or non-conforming. They threw lower class women in for all those things and more.

• Lucy - One of the highlights of the episode, for me, was Lucy's storyline which intersects with new characters, Elizabeth Harvey and her son, Fredo (who is gorgeous and so foppish and ugh...it is a shame his character seems solely attracted to men because I...am a little bit in love). I was a little annoyed that Lucy wanting to be a bawd was presented as some kind of...regular ambition for a sex worker? As if being a bawd naturally followed being a courtesan. This isn't true. It's not like getting your undergraduate degree and then going to do your master's. Bawds were a very specific thing and most courtesan didn't want to essentially exploit women in that way. Anyway, after that fiasco, she does indeed go to buy a house and throws her lot in with Elizabeth and Fredo who want to open a mollyhouse. So, Lucy is a molly bawd now which to me, is a lot less awful than being a regular bawd. I'm excited to see where this goes, Elizabeth and Fredo were some WELCOME additions for me, along with Rani. Unfortunately, there were a lot of allusions to sodomy being a capital crime and Mrs May has a share in the house too so...I'm as worried about the outcome as I am excited to see mollyhouses explored.

All in all? I did enjoy the episode, perhaps because I was warned prior about some of the unsavoury things that happened and had time to prepare. I'm obviously very upset about the whole Charlotte and Isaac thing which does appear to be the dominant storyline, and that's not good. This season doesn't really understand what continuity is and Isabella walking into a gentleman's club to tell all the men there that she had a child out of wedlock made me laugh out loud because it was so absurd. Violet, Amelia, Florence and Justice Hunt have disappeared without a trace. Will and Jacob will be in the season but weren't in episode 1 (apparently they are in Scarborough, boxing, which....wig). BUT (and it's a very tentative 'but') this episode had enough small saving graces to spur me on to continue, if only to see Fredo say 'It's a hanging offence so it pays a lot, darling' again, and the gorgeous (GORGEOUS) costumes. Am I disappointed overall? Yeah. Do I think it is an irredeemable season? No, not yet. Watch this space.

#harlots spoilers #long post/ #sorry it won't let me put this under the cut so.....sorry!!!

[suffering-and-happy-about-it]

I want to tell you... (Nathan Drake x Reader, Part 4.)

Description: Nathan Drake is not the exact definition of an unhappy man. His job is steady, his friends still see him from time to time, he plays football, but his marriage is his main problem. Many things will change when a special person comes to his life.

Word count: 2000 (-/+)

Warnings: A serious age gap relationship, but mostly Sully being Nathan’s father... Again.

Tagging: @the-obsessive-fangirl and @missdictatorme, do you like Florence?

Nathan immediately wrote her number down to his phone so his clumsy ass could never lose it. He had that napkin before his eyes all the time, always thinking of Y/N when he looked at it. He had it with him even when he was about to jump in the shower. He was obsessed with that napkin.

He almost called her many times only during that week, he always took his phone to his hands and furrowed a little only to stop himself. He always looked at his wedding ring and rose it to his lips, kissing it gently. But he couldn't stop thinking about Y/N either way, even if he thought about Elena.

There would not be a single thing wrong when they would decide to just hang out on the beach. She would even take her boyfriend most probably, so what was he so unsure about?

But she haunted his head. Her smile and laugh were there just as her skin wet from the rain. There was something. Just a little thing, which made him think about nothing more than her. But then he thought of Elena and pushed everything out of his head. He would hate himself if he thought about another woman while he was still her husband - even tho Y/N popped in his mind by herself.

That party in his restaurant went really good - even though his sleep deprivation, he served the best Creme Brulee they ever served. Nate even got paid for a double shift, working from the very morning to the evening, having his eye on every of their offer. But he didn't want to go to his empty flat - so he decided to visit Sully.

He was always home on Sunday's evening and his place wasn't longer than thirty minutes away from Nate's workplace. He knocked at Sully's door at eight hours in the evening with the best Scotch he could buy to make Sully fonder of his unplanned visit.

He heard footsteps going to the door at a slow pace, so he must've woken him up. Nathan prepared for his bitching and he made himself sure that the bottle of Scotch will be the first thing that Sully will see. But when the door opened, his eyes almost fell out.

It was a small, thin woman and his age with freckles all over her face. Her cheeks were rosy and her forehead was sweaty, so Nathan figured out what they were doing. She had long, lightly orange hair and she was only in a shire shirt almost showing all of her upper thighs. Nathan turned around instantly, getting red all over his face. That must've been Sully's girl, he presumed.

"H-hi." - Nathan spoke in a low voice, not looking at her almost naked body. With the corner of an eye he could see her smiling and to say, she looked like a nice woman.

"Victor, it's for you!" - She turned her head over her shoulder and she let Nate go to Sully's apartment. She closed the door then and yawned out loud. - "It's some gentleman and he looks like a pile of mess, so I've let him inside!" She yelled to somewhere in Sully's flat as she turned on her heels, stretching and completely showing him her naked, but nice ass. Nathan was about to faint.

"I'm sorry if I, you know, interrupted something." - Nathan said in a low voice and she smiled at him with a kind tone in her dark brown eyes. She passed him a cup of coffee, pouring another for Victor and for her.

"Don't be silly." - She carefully put a hand on his shoulder, patting it playfully. - "We finished a few minutes before you knocked on the door." - She told him as she turned on her heels again and left to the bedroom. Nathan had a hard time trying not to spill the coffee when he started coughing.

He heard a conversation from the bedroom and her laughing as he waited for Sully, who showed not even like five minutes after that. He truly was a fine fitness man even though his high age. He had a white t-shirt and old grey sweatpants on, slowly lighting up another of his cigars. Sully took another cup of coffee and an ashtray as he went to sit by Nathan’s side. The Scotch made him smile.

“That’s her?” - Nathan whisper-shouted at Sully, pointing in bedrooms direction as he heard her humming of a song. - “That’s the girl that the birds are singing about?” - Sully rolled his eyes, but Nate’s expression made chuckle.

“Even a man of my age can have a hot woman by his side, don't ya dare to think that I would date those fossils my age?” - Sully looked offended when he flicked Nathan’s forehead. Nathan furrowed his brows with a small ’ouch’. - “But why on earth are ya here? Ya haven't called for a week so I and Chloe assumed that you're doing good.” - Sully looked at his girlfriend as she left the bedroom dressed only in a tight white top and tight yoga pants. 

Nathan looked away because she carried them two liquor glasses for the Scotch and she was about to kiss Sully. And Nathan didn't want to be traumatized for life.

“I am going to have a long jog, I have ideal weather for that. See you, boys!” - She waved their way as she swayed her hips away from them. Sully was lost in his own thoughts, just watching her ass slowly wiggling just a few feet away from him. He was a ladies’ man - that was for sure. But Nathan wasn't expecting this. That lady was a killer.

But she didn't affect Nate the way Y/N did. Sure thing, Sully’s girlfriend was a very nice woman, but she hadn't got that little something for Nathan - but she definitely had that effect on a sully as Nate watched him dripping his stare into her ass.  - “And Nate?” She asked all of a sudden. Nathans look found her face and he smiled at her so she knew that he was listening. 

“Come on and visit us sometimes. Sully was talking about you really nicely and that isn't a very common thing!” - She giggled when Sully told her that she should be on her way. 

“Alright, kiddo. She's gone, so start talkin’.” - Sully looked at him and poured them a fair amount of Scotch. Florence, his extremely hot and seriously young girlfriend, was right about Nathan - he looked like a pile of mess. Nathan had huge, black circles under his baby-blue eyes, his hair was one big mess and he had a visible stubble, which wasn't a common thing about Nathan. - “Did somethin’ happened to Elena?” - Sully looked at him with a silent, sullen look. 

“Oh, thank God for its not the case!” - Nathan said immediately and he looked seriously freaked out. Sully left out a quick sigh. He felt relieved because he liked that girl. She was fun to be around. Even if he knew that Nate and she had a huge down in the last few months, that didn't make him don't like Elena. 

“So what the goddamn rush then? Ya don't usually show up at my place with a Scotch in your hand without callin’ me beforehand.” - Victor took a sip of that Scotch, starring Nathan down.

“I need to tell you something and Chloe still acts like if she never saw me so I can’t speak to her at the moment.” - Nathan took a sip as well, coughing immediately. 

“After what did you do to her bathroom? Why am I not surprised?” - Sully chuckled and Nate did as well. Nathan didn't remember a single thing from that evening, so he must go all in with his throwing up game. 

“Alright kiddo. Let it out, what's the problem?” - Sully asked in a concerned voice. Maybe Nathan got a clue for another of their infamous treasure hunts? Or he would be moving out of the town? Maybe he bought a horse, how was Sully supposed to know what's on that boy's mind when he was enjoying mind-blowing sex not even half an hour ago?

“Promise me that you will not be bitching me down when I tell you.” - Nathan asked quietly, pouring the Scotch down his throat and looking at Sullivan with an uneasy look.

“I swear on Florence that I won't.” - Sully slightly touched his right boob in a patriotic gesture, which made Nathan smiling as he quickly poured down another glass of Scotch.

“There's this girl I’ve met.” - Nathan almost whispered, but Sullivan heard it perfectly. He almost choked himself in disbelief. He knew that Elena had Nate on a shutdown which indicated that she isn't in love with him anymore and Sully knew that the boy knew it as well, but Nate was the most loyal person he ever met in his whole life. He stared at him and couldn't believe the words which fell out of his mouth - and Nathan couldn't as well. 

Sully was sure that Nate would never cheat on Elena. Never ever. But if somebody else caught attention, their marriage was dead. And the way Nathan stared into a place far, far away and smiled, Sully knew that this lady must've really stolen his consciousness away from him. There was nothing more to it than just accept it the way it was.

“Wasnt expectin’ that, I tell ya boyo. Is she hot?” - Sully chuckled and Nate gave him another unsure look. Did Sully just casually ask about Y/N? Not bitching a bit about that Nate is married? He truly has done that? Nathan chuckled - it has only two possible explanations. Sully wasn't a relationship type even tho it seemed that dating with Florence does a pretty good job. Or he knew that Nate and Elena are not a thing any more; which hurt in a certain way, but he felt relieved on the other side. 

 “She's so much more than just plainly hot, Sully. I mean... She looks like a princess from a fairytale and she is fun, sweet, it really makes my heart melting when we are together. It got under my skin so much that I can't shoo her away from my head. I am clueless.” - Nathan chuckled in an uneasy tone and looked at Sully like he was about to cry.

“Ya really like her, huh?” - Sully chuckled, trying to make his mind occupied before he started to cry. He didn't like to see Nate sad, it made him uneasy. - "Ya seem to be into her, which is great in my opinion." - Sully shrugged his shoulders and looked from the window.

"That's the problem. That's the deal. I am married and she has a boyfriend anyway. I'm in a fucking tight corned which will crush my balls soon." - Nathan poured another glass down. That made Sully laugh out loud.

"That's some tricky situation, kiddo."

"But your Florence seems nice." - Nathan tried to change the topic, but the heaviness and uneasy feeling were in the air already.

"I would say do. She liked you as well, I could see it in her eyes. She wasn't too away from offerin' ya a threesome." - Sully joked and that made drunk Nathan laugh as he looked on the already empty bottle. Sully got on his feet and got them another bottle of spirits.

"That would be the worst experience of my whole life." - Nathan cried loudly and their evening was only starting.

#uncharted #nathan drake #uncharted fanfiction #have a lovely day #in love #we're getting somewhere #yay #drunk nate again #and sully acting as his father figure #it's cute #nate is into reader a big time #he's a cutie #i love him

[yeehawsimulator]

A Long Lost Love

Arthur Morgan x Female Reader (2/?)

Part 2 of my Red Dead Fix-It!

You and Arthur go on a bounty hunting mission together

No warnings for this chapter

Requests are always welcome

•

“Y/N! You comin’ or what?!” John’s voice sounded, sending you sitting upright in a jolt before sighing deeply. “Jesus John! Can’t be any more subtle about waking a girl?”

You heard him walk off with a laugh and you noticed Arthur had already gotten up as well. You stretched your arms out, feeling your muscles warm up before standing up, making yourself a cup of coffee, shielding your eyes from the rising sun.

“I hope I didn’t wake you up” Arthur spoke as he sat down next to you, making you chuckle. “I had the pleasure of John waking me” “Well it’s either him or Dutch, still don’t know who’s louder” He laughed in response, scratching his cheek as he stared at the smoldering campfire.

“Charles, Javier and Sean right? You boys wanna head into Valentine with us? I can show you around” “It’d be a pleasure” Javier spoke as he stood up, the other two doing the same. “Ah those four ‘ave to come along as well aye? I was hoping we’d get some alone time with ya” Sean spoke as he looked at Arthur, Dutch, John and Hosea already on their horses. “I’m truly not as spectacular as the stories make me out to be” “I don’t believe a word of it” Sean laughed in response.

Arthur handed the reigns of Florence to you, patting the horse’s neck as you got on to her. “She’s beautiful, an arabian right?” “Yes she is, ‘ve had her for about 5 years now” You replied, smiling at the fondness in Arthur’s eyes as he looked at Florence.

“I’ll ride ahead, you boys can follow me” You loudly stated as you made Florence go into a strut, riding through the same muddy path. “So you spent a lot of time with Dutch and the others back in the day?” Charles questioned as he rode up next to you, making you nod. “I was with them for three years, though it was only Dutch, Hosea, Arthur, John and a few others back then.” “What led them to take a woman in if I may ask? It surely was seen as even stranger a few years ago” “You can ask me anything, I ain’t offended easily. Dutch and Hosea found me after another gang attacked the farm me, my brother and my parents lived at. My brother had thankfully taught me to shoot well, which saved my life. I couldn’t save theirs though” You told him, making Charles sigh deeply. “I’m sorry that happened to you”

“Aye, can you show me the saloon first? I need me a drink!” Sean shouted from further back, making you laugh. “Sure Irish man” You yelled back.

You reached Valentine not much later, you pointing out the saloon to Sean who rode off with Javier. “This here is the local bank, pretty well guarded on weekdays, but I’ve noticed guards were lacking on saturdays during the daytime” You spoke as you pointed at the building, hearing Dutch huff behind you. “Haven’t lost your touch even after all these years” “I’d be damned not to”

“And the only other notable building would be the Sheriff's, usually will have some decent pay for a bounty. I’m up for doing one if one of you’ll come with?” You spoke with a grin, hearing Arthur sigh. “I’ll come”

“Charles, will you come with Hosea and I? We’re gonna check out the bank” Dutch questioned, Charles nodding in return. “Good luck with the bounty” “Good luck with the bank” You told Dutch, hitching your horse in front of the jail.

“Don’t worry ‘bout me, been doing some bounties in my spare time” You told Arthur, “Why doesn’t that surprise me”

“Ah miss Y/L/N, it’s always a pleasure to see your face. Let me know there’ll be some work done, poster’s up at the usual spot” “Mornin’ sheriff” “Mornin’ to you sir” Arthur joined in, making the sheriff lift his brows.

“Now who’s this?” “Arthur Morgan, friend of hers” “He’s good at what he does” You told the sheriff, taking the bounty poster from the wall.

‘Benedict Allbright, wanted alive. Has been selling a ‘miracle cure’ which contains harmful ingredients.’ The poster read.

“Plenty of other folks been trying to get him, none have been successful” “Just have the 50 dollars ready, we’ll be right back with dear mister Allbright” You spoke as you opened the door, Arthur giving a nod to the sheriff before following you outside.

“Too much confidence will cost a man his head, as wise Hosea always says” “First of all I ain’t a man. Sheriff won’t take me seriously if I don’t put up an act, but it pays well” You replied as you got up on your horse, cleaning your favorite rifle in case things did go south.

“Can’t argue with that” Arthur chuckled, riding alongside you up to the mountains Allbright was seen last.

“Y/N I- uh, Don’t you think we should talk about everything that happened?” “Oh Arthur, please. Not now” “I don’t mean right now, when we have some alone time at camp perhaps” Arthur told you, making you let out a deep breath as you rubbed your forehead. “I ain’t even sure if I want to talk about it”

Arthur looked away from your and tightened his grip on the leather reigns of his horse, trying to focus himself on the nature surrounding you. He just wanted everything to be like it used to be between the two of you, that he never left you behind on that job, or perhaps that he left together with you. You surely were not returning the warm feelings to him, hell, you have every right not to, he thought to himself.

“He should be around here, let’s hitch up and continue on foot” You spoke, which pulled Arthur from his train of thought.

“You wanna take the lead?” “Oh no mister Morgan, you go right ahead, I’ll be right behind you” You chuckled, the two of you heading up the mountain path.

“I see a campfire up there, must be him” Arthur softly spoke, seeing Allbright sitting by his campfire not much later, his back turned to you. “Sir! Sir can we ask you something? Have you seen mister Allbright perhaps? I was told he’d be ‘round here somewhere” Arthur spoke, Allbright almost falling face first in the campfire in shock. “Oh, oh no I haven’t!” “Ah that’s too bad, see, my wife’s mother is very sick, we heard he had a miracle cure-“ Arthur continued but Allbright quickly stood up, straightening his jacket before giving a short nod. “Well you have found him alright, it’s gonna cost the two of ya though”

“I’m sure it will” Arthur laughed, pulling out his revolver which made Allbright lift his hands in a split second. “Goddamned bounty hunters!” He yelled, taking a step back which almost made him fall off the cliff they were standing near. “Just calm down, we were told to bring you back alive” You joined in, grabbing Allbright’s jacket to pull him away from the edge. “Well, see, I-I.. You’ll never take me alive!” He suddenly shouted before letting himself fall off the cliff, into the river below.

“Goddammit” You groaned, “Help! I-I have made a mistake!” Allbright’s voice sounded from below. “I’ll ride, you lasso the dumbass” Arthur spoke, mounting Allbright’s horse as you quickly got up behind him, wrapping your left arm around Arthur’s waist as he moved the horse into a gallop down the mountain towards the river.

“Just a bit closer Arthur! I can almost reach him” You let go of him to ready your lasso, aiming it at the man drifting away in the water. You missed the first try when you almost lost your balance on the horse, making Arthur move a hand behind him to grab onto your jacket, keeping you in place. You aimed once again and thankfully managed to hit Allbright, tightening the rope as Arthur stopped the horse, you and him whistling for your own.

“Here stow him on the back of mine, will save ya his bickering” Arthur spoke as you hogtied Allbright, lifting him on the back of Arthur’s horse afterwards.

“Your wife? Couldn’t have thought of anything else?” You huffed as you rode back to Valentine, making Arthur laugh. “What? You’d prefer I said you were my sister?” “No, that’d be weird”

“Can you two lovebirds shut up and get me to the jail already? I’d prefer that over listening to your bickering” “Oh shut up” The two of you replied at the same time, you laughed as you continued, “Want me to throw ya back in the river old man?”

A while later you reached Valentine again, stopping your horses in front of the jail. “Will you take care of our dear friend here? I’ll go check on Dutch” “Sure, and Y/N, we still make a great team” “We sure as hell do” You chuckled as you gave Arthur a short wave, walking over to the Saloon to see the rest of the gang members gathered.

#arthur morgan #fanfic #fanfiction #rdr #rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #red dead redemption #arthur morgan x reader #arthur x reader #arthur morgan x you #sean macguire #dutch van der linde #john marston #charles smith #javier esquella #hosea matthews #sadie adler #writing #my writing #romance #angst #fluff #reader insert

[gypsydear]

09.27.2021 8:15 am

It was cold out there this morning. I overslept and Bella missed the bus so I just took her. Kyla is still home on quarantine but I have a test scheduled for her this afternoon. Then she can go back to school in a few days if she’s negative. The rest of us have gotten the first shot of our vaccine and I’ll take her when she old enough.

Yesterday was fun! Bella and I got our shots in the morning, stopped at bojangles for some bo rounds and then stopped at Shelby’s to pick up the hurricane lamps she saved from Aunt Bobby’s house. She gave the girls a strobe light, it works but it sounds haunted. After that, K and I (mostly K) got a Boston butt started on the grill. Then all of us (except Bella) went to Florence; Petsmart for some bird stuff, Barnes and Nobles (I was looking for either The Green Witch or a mushroom identification book, found neither so I bought Scott Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs), then to Sams Club (cause that chicken salad is BOOOOOOMB) and then GameStop, cause why not.

We got home and the girls unloaded the groceries while K and I went out into the woods and hung up a trail cam near a small body of water. I’m thinking hopefully it’s used by a lot of different wildlife since I always hear animals in there. In a couple days, I’ll go get the card out and see what we’ve got. I’m pretty excited about it.

It seems like ever since I’ve started my witchcraft journey, I’ve been alarmingly satisfied with my life. Maybe it’s all coincidental, or maybe they coincide but whatever the reason, I’m really happy. I love studying the craft, and I feel especially spiritual while hunting for mushrooms in the woods, or coming across something new.

[imperialsea-a]

What is an aspect of your muse that you’ve wanted to explore the most? / Name one idea for a plot you’ve had but never gotten around to writing. / If you’re a multimuse or have more than one blog, is there a muse you wish you used more? / Name one of your favorite tropes.

easy meme for a burnt out mun & accepting.

♛   What is an aspect of your muse that you’ve wanted to explore the most? 

    hhhhhhh i don’t know, it fluctuates a lot? Though it mainly changes between the worst time of her life, and the best, that being: post-academy fall/association uprooting + yuuki’s awakening + surprise, eva’s not actually dead for now VS. she’s happily married w five kids and has grown up a LOT since her teen years. 

    Bethy is a naturally orderly and strong-willed person who, after making some tough decisions, becomes totally dedicated to her job as a hunter; she was born into that world at the peak of their society being the descendant of the Averill line + the only child of Kaien Cross who is a hunting legend– whatever his current status may be, and despite having struggles related to the social/emotional complexity of balancing out the human world, vampire society, and her own place in those realms, she remains determined to play her part in maintaining the peace. UNFORTUNATELY for her, she relied too much on the Association– I mean, she revolves her entire self-worth on being a hunter, and when things collapse? She does too. She feels disgusted stupid and used and worthless.

    The rug’s been pulled out from under her, the status of her mother being alive isn’t exactly stable– her best friends are gone (bc yeah im including eiri in this THAT’S HER BERRY ; O ; ), she’s so furious (half-rationally,half not-so-much) with Kaien she could actually KILL him, and then she’s carted off back home with her grandparents (Florence + Alexandria) to recover since she’s also sustained some physical injuries along with the heaps of emotional strain. She’s not okay for a long time, but she does recover and returns to HQ eventually. So, I guess I’d like some threads during the time of her recovery? It’s flexible enough since she doesn’t stay cooped up indoors the entire time she’s away; after the first few weeks of serious depression, she begins going out and doing normal non-huntery things. Not 100 percent all better, not even when she does come back, but away from the entire work situation, she’s healing and learning to rebuild herself, and her self-worth doesn’t revolve solely around work/the few friends she’s managed to make. She’s finally living for herself, muh bby i cant– i love bethy sm, she develops so much here

    OTHERWISE, I JUST LOVE MOM/ADULT! BETHY. She’s the happiest, healthiest version of herself and has really grown comfortable with the ‘imperfection’ of her situation– I mean, she got to marry for love (after her grandfather tried to set the man on fire) which is something she thought she never could do, her sister in-law is an aristocrat married to Takuma Ichijou aka weirdo from the strongest vampire noble family, her best friends are KURAN  PUREBLOODS, and she’s on speaking terms with Kaien so–. who’d have thought. she even survives twins.

    The first broken/recovery timeframe might lead to some more flexibility plot-wise / crossover-ish sort of things? since she’s not really  h u n t i n g  and is existing quite normally (though that’s not to say she won’t pick up 1 of several weapons and fight if she needs to), but- IDK I KINDA JUST RAMBLED / INCOHERENTLY DUMPED STUFF HERE. 

♛   Name one idea for a plot you’ve had but never gotten around to writing.

     I’m not overly plot-specific when it comes to threading with people, but I’m always open to it. I guess one I’d like is really simple: strangers meet + have a pleasant convo over some form of public transportation / helping the other with something, kinda gets really personal in conversation since whatever they’re doing is taking a  l o n g  time, and they kindly part ways, thinking they won’t see each other again, then meeting again some time later in an either mundane situation or ‘uh so someone’s destroying the city’-level action. what happens from there depends on characters / story? I had a thread sort of like this, and it led to one of the best relationships Bethy ever had, but the mun deactivated and I’m still kinda, like, sad about it kfjdlkfjd

    That, or maybe something like–??? one muse saves the other from something, and they somehow end up getting stuck together through a really bad situation and help each other out. AS U CAN SEE, I don’t, uh, plot a lot .  .  .  o w q ;;

    as a sidenote, this goes across all my blogs: i love one-sided love :’D

♛   If you’re a multimuse or have more than one blog, is there a muse you wish you used more?

    Arata and Eva, for sure but u knew that. It’s more just a matter of meee…….nnnot writing out their backstories, even though I have it all there. Arata (affectionately called RaRa/Rara ooc–) is a vampire hunter like Beth, from a really powerful family, who somehow ended up unofficially officially adopting 3 kids after a like, 7 yr old saved his punk 17 yr old butt from a vampire. he grew up, wears glasses for fashion bc he doesn’t need them, and is all around a really good guy; he’s kind of awkward and is a family disappointment, but he’s got hunting skills fo dayyyys, just ask the chunks of noble flesh for touching one of his bbys–. He’s no joke my favorite OC EVER, and if it weren’t for my inability to actually be active, i’d give him his own blog. I love RaRa, man.

    As for Eva, she’s Elizabeth’s mother, for those who don’t know. She’s a fun character to write, though I don’t much for the above reasons of ‘no bio written for the public’–. She’s made mistakes, the big one sticking out as letting herself get cornered by the president (marrying kaien wasn’t one of her mistakes somehow), and was in the wrong place at the wrong time. As a consequence, she got bitten by a Pureblood, and the pres, being the opportunist he is, took advantage of that, locked her up, and held her prisoner for years. When she’s out, she’s got a lot of recovery to do, but she’s okay in the end. She’s also one of Bethy’s biggest influences, and where she learned her kindness/fun side from. bethy is a kind girl ok, she’s just got a few HIGHLY situational layers to get past– but yeah. I liked Eva so much I kept her alive; I can’t imagine my OCs without her now.

♛   Name one of your favorite tropes.

    This is something I never really thought on before, since I don’t really pay attention to tropes. I don’t know what it would be called, but something pertaining to opposites or contradictions, I guess? Since, Bethy is practically a land-confused mermaid :’D and i associate her/gentle tides with water and the calmness+peace it brings her, but she herself, along with her family, is heavily fire-influenced, or in takashi’s case, WATER = NO, IM GOOD, THANK YOU. but somehow, it still works? 

    Same with her overall existence? she’s a beautiful liar/actress, but she doesn’t lie where it isn’t necessary. she has to keep her hunter/vampire involvement a secret– that’s something she’ll never casually spill, but she’s not really as closed off as she seems, the situation just needs to be right. ahh… bethy’s pretty open-minded to things despite how straight-laced she is, and it really shows later in life. love of her life = hunter from an incredibly nontraditional family. mother = lvl d vampire. two of her children = cursed twins. bffs = no joke all vamps. yuuki…eiri, zero– i dont think she has human friends outside of akemi. hhhhh….. ANYWAY, all of that, it’s far from the idea of ‘picture perfect’ she upholds through her early life, but in the end, it works out? and it is perfect, for her.

    Not really a TROPE, i suppose .  .  . but she’s a bit of a mess in terms of contradictions both personally and thematically. if there’s a trope name for that, she’d fall into its category.

THIS IS RLLY LONG IM SORRY–

#long post #( granny hours: ooc answer. ) #( answered. ) #moonlittheft

[elsewhereuniversity]

Your senior year roommate calls herself Clarity. She’s very small and rumpled and distant, and she goes for long walks in the forest south of campus when she’s frustrated. You aren’t friends, but you coexist peacefully. It’s enough.

The creature on your co-owned Walmart futon isn’t Clarity.

It looks like her. Enough to fool a casual observer, certainly. Enough to fool someone who hasn’t been soldering sterling silver for six hours. But you have, and the truth of silver lingers, and the Thing That Looks Like Clarity is sprouting delicate flowers from the skin of its bare shoulders.

It’s sitting cross-legged and perfectly, terribly still, tracking your eyes as you take all this in. When you sigh and set down your backpack, it says, “Hello, smith. There didn’t seem to be any sense in pretending.”

“Jeweler,” you say, and, “I go by Florence, these days. What should I call you?”

It blinks, languid and slow. “I’m not here to usurp. I’m a… placeholder.”

“It’s still confusing as shit, my guy.”

It considers this at length. Finally, with the air of one who has just solved a great puzzle, it says “Claire. We will know, the two of us.”

“Works for me. Nice meeting you, Claire.”

And that seems to be all there is to say. Your roommate’s been stolen by the Fair Folk, you’re living with a changeling, and there’s not much you can do about either of these things. You scroll through Instagram until it gets tired of watching you and wanders out into the hallway.

So that’s Claire.

 Three nights later you wake up shivering, because it’s November and Claire has neatly lifted the screen out of the window. You can hear the clink of glass just beyond - it’s climbed out onto the slanting roof of the dorm.

“Fancy meeting you here, darling.” It doesn’t turn its head when you gingerly settle beside it. The affectation is stilted and awkward and antiquated in its mouth.

“Do you want to maybe come off the roof?” you ask. “You’re starting to sway.”

It sighs. It looks less like Clarity in the moonlight, although whatever Sight you pull from silver has faded by now. It’s a small girl still, close-cropped hair a dark purple, nose elegant, mouth wry – but the knobs of its spine are far too sharp, now. The thready tendrils of climbing vines are pushing themselves from the skin of its forearms. It has eyes like holes in the universe, and it’s drinking like it’s trying to fill up the incomprehensible wasteland behind them with straight gin.

When the silence draws out for too long, it offers you the bottle and says, “Elderflower infused. Freely given.”

You hesitate, because at the end of the day you’re a smith and you Don’t Deal With The Gentry. But this day’s only twenty minutes old, and something about the moment seems important. You nod, take a swig, hand it back. It’s cloyingly sweet, and the kind of strong that makes your breath catch in your chest. Claire smiles all teeth, but there doesn’t seem to be any actual malice in it. It might just be that it hasn’t quite figured out how mouths work.

“Do you really need the whole bottle, though,” you say, when you can talk again. It looks at the sky (has it looked away from the sky at all?) and smiles, and smiles.

Claire seems to take place-holding as a personal challenge, typing Clarity’s history essays with thick gloves on so it can touch the electronics. You know Clarity is gone, and some of Clarity’s friends know, and Clarity’s boyfriend has gone missing (you last saw him setting out for the forest with a backpack full of obsidian and caramel creamer cups, and you hope he finds her). But outside of this subdued inner circle no one else seems to have picked up on how much sharper Clarity is now. It seems pleased about this, the few times you mention off-handedly how well it’s fooling people.

The pair of you fall into something that’s not quite friendship, something that very carefully has no give and take at all. If you were smart you’d let Claire be, honestly. If it was smart it would let you be. But there’s a kind of mutual morbid fascination, if there’s anything. Claire demands you show it every new Snapchat filter, and recoils at the soldering iron, and calls you darling like your chosen name is something dangerous to speak. Claire has two settings, and they’re euphoria and a kind of wistful rage. Claire sighs over the silver rings you make and tells you that something will take your eyes, one day, and that maybe Claire will be the one to do it.

And for your part… on the nights when the air is fresh and the moon is neatly halved and Claire’s pupils are blown wide with something that smells like honey, it says things like ‘when I die I’ll come back with green eyes’ and ‘I’ll make wings like Icarus, what a lovely story, and mine will work better, I’ll get all the way to the sun’, which isn’t how it’s supposed to go, and it could break your heart if you let it.

Sometimes Claire goes to the revels. It never asks you to come along, which you suppose is as close to friendship as it’s possible to get, with the Gentry. Sometimes it comes back barefoot, or with mottled bruises down one side, or with a shadow that is more violet than it should rightly be in the morning sunlight. Wordlessly, you find one of the mason jars full of rosewater that have become such a staple of your dorm room. Your skin stings where your fingers brush.

You watch Claire closely, at times like these. You aren’t sure why. You think you want to see it vulnerable, but it never quite softens the set of its jaw, the angle of its shoulders. You know it’s stupid to worry about it, but you do, you do. Claire’s too proud, dangerous proud, the kind of pride that means someday it won’t be coming back from whatever trouble it’s looking for.

So sometimes, when you hear the hunting horns, when the smell of apple blossoms curls from the snowy fields and Claire’s eyes start to look like burned-out viewports to a bombed-out world, you tug the creature onto the roof and try not to notice how it’s much heavier than it really should be, for its apparent size. Claire sits still on the roof, watches the spaces between stars for hours without blinking, and you watch Claire. It would all be very teen-movie, except that there are the spider-leg fingers and the moss creeping over its exposed ribs and you’re reminded more often than not of how alien it is, this monster that you’re living with; that power to this girl-shaped thing is true names and the ability to break good things without caring. Despair comes in moments like that, and when Claire says things like, “Lets find the marble palace that the crows told me is hidden in the library,” you agree without thinking because god help you but you love the way it smiles when you say, “Isn’t that dangerous?”

“We won’t die,” Claire assures you. “Not like this. That would be boring.”

“Boring,” you repeat.

“Extraordinarily so,” Claire confirms, as if to remove any doubt that’s arisen. You press your palms to the grit of the rooftop and wonder when this will fall apart. But Claire is very close and warm and there’s an entire lost world in it somewhere, and that’s why you haven’t given up yet.

Or wait, it’s the smile Claire gives you, which is bright and lovely and fascinating as a fractured mirror.

“Let’s roll out, darling,” Claire announces, swinging back into your room, radiant and uncaring, and no, this is why.

You find the marble palace in the library, and the eternal summer backstage at the theatre, and the series of waterfalls that pour through the mirror world you can get to through the laundry room. Lost weekends, all of them, gone in a matter of hours, but Claire’s hand is firmly in yours and you both set foot back onto safe ground untouched and giddy, full to the teeth of wonder at the hidden things.

One night, early in May, you stumble out of the music classroom where you’ve found an entire forest of jeweled trees. You’ve saved one single oak leaf, a paper-thin thing made of copper, set with the most delicate seed pearls along each seam. Claire pressed it into your hands and told you to never let the sunlight touch it.

Now, on the short-clipped grass of the quad, it’s late Sunday night and you have a paper to write and a project to finish and the mist that’s never quite gone entirely has buffed the distant river to a mirror-shine, and Claire says, “Clarity has won her game.”

It takes a second to parse its words, and then your stomach drops out. “You don’t have to leave, we can – ”

Claire says, “I am a placeholder and you will graduate in two weeks.”

“Come with me,” you say, before you can think better of it. “I…we can find somewhere you can live too, we can…”

Claire’s face is blank as the moon. It’s probably the worst thing you’ve ever seen. “God, darling,” it says. “I couldn’t do that to you. Neither of us could live like that.”

It’s not your choice. You know it’s not. It doesn’t make it any easier.

“You can write to me,” you say instead. “Or email or whatever, I know you know how to use a computer. Or tell the crows, or something. There’s got to be some way to talk to me, if you need to.” You hesitate. “Will you be okay? Are you okay?”

Claire hums something tuneless, stares into the night sky. The shoulders of its shirt writhe. Finally violets push through, like the black fabric is nothing more than cobwebbing. It says, “I think this was never supposed to happen. I think there’s nothing I could have done to change it. I want to …” Its throat clicks. “I would stop everything, if I could. I would stay here and watch the sky.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” you say, because you’re a smith, and you know. Real things, true things – they end. It’s part of the whole deal. You tell Claire so. And then you tell it that if it wants to stop and watch the sky you can do that, for now. There will always be sky, and endings can be pushed back.

“Darling,” Claire says, and for maybe the first time since you’ve known it, it turns its eyes away from the stars to look at you instead. “Florence, oh. If you were mine I would keep you,” and it hurts, god it hurts, so maybe it’s love after all.

“I am,” you say, stupidly. “I could be.”

The first time you kiss Claire, it’s just a brush of lips against the corner of its mouth. It stops moving, stops breathing. You’re shaking, suddenly. This won’t fix anything, you know this by now. But then Claire is moving in a rush, snarling a hand into your hair and kissing you hard and desperate. You can feel teeth, and you’re flush against Claire’s sharp angles, and it’s glorious-

And just as suddenly, Claire takes a shuddering breathe, and then another, and it shoves you back. You stumble, almost fall.

“You can’t be anything,” Claire hisses. You think it would be crying, if it could. “You’re leaving.”

Suddenly you’re just as angry, the gut-punch of loss and fear turning vicious inside you. “So are you! No one’s making you fuck off back to the Elsewhere–”

“You were going to leave since I met you!” Claire shouts. “And I knew and I was good and you’re free, you can go! This is what you want! I can’t…I didn’t want…” Its face is caught half-snarl, half sob, a tangle of emotion you want to smooth away or maybe punch. Its cheeks are blotchy and there are ruins behind its eyes and you think you might regret this, later. No one was ever supposed to see Claire like this.

“I can’t,” Claire repeats. Its voice is a boneyard. “Darling, I can’t. I just…”

The anger leaves as quickly as it came. You feel as hollow as a reed. “I’m sorry,” you say, because one of you ought to. Damning words, to the Fair Folk, but no words are as dangerous as the ones you’ve already said. “It’s okay. It will be okay.” No part of that was not a lie, but Claire takes it as the peace offering it is, and when you cross to the wall of the music building and sink down to the ground, shoulder blades against the cool concrete, Claire follows you down. It leans over to brush at your cheek and you register the track of your own furious tears. It’s a poor attempt at an apology, as sweet as it is empty. You don’t acknowledge it, and after a few seconds Claire draws back.

You watch the stars move, and in the morning you go home. You go home alone. You go to grad school on the other side of the Atlantic and go for long walks in forest and think about Claire. You go for short walks and wonder why the night sky makes you so sad these days. You forget.

The last time you see her, you are twenty-six, and Claire is sitting beside you, radiant with poppies. There’s a half-moon overhead and the mist has rolled over the garage roof where you’re sitting. When you breathe it in you remember. This isn’t the first time you have remembered. It will be the last.

“Florence,” it says, and frowns. “That’s not your name, now.”

“Claire,” you say. “That’s not right anymore either.”

“I’ve missed you,” it says. Its eyes are green in the halflight. You want to say I love you, but you don’t know if that’s right anymore. You settle for, “I missed you too,” and add, “Be safe.”

“That would be exceptionally boring,” it says, and smiles like it’s holding a knife in its teeth. “But you know where to find me, darling. If you were mine…”

The mist rolls back out soon, and it takes Claire with it. You feel salt-scourged somewhere deep in your chest. This isn’t what you imagined, but then very few things have turns out the way you imagined. In the end Claire can’t stop and sit with you on rooftops, can’t stop at all, nothing ever really stops until it ends. You know this. So you lie back on the roof and watch the sky move sideways by yourself.

#original #changelings #stories #romance #claire #i haven't written anything is SO LONG you guys

[makeitwithmike]

Born with Wanderlust

By Crowdfire

Crowdfire Spotlight — from small town Texas nurse to The Hackerette, blogging her way through more than 26 countries, this is Kamelia Britton’s story.

Crowdfire Spotlight chronicles the stories of inspiring Creators — their struggles and triumphs, how they got to where they are now and where they’re headed next.

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

― Lao Tzu

For Kamelia Britton, that journey would begin in the small town of Orange, Texas, where she was raised by her father and her grandmother.

Kamelia’s mother, barely eighteen, struggling with addiction, and unable to handle the pressures of being a wife and a mother at a young age, had left the family when Kamelia was only two years old. Growing up without a mother figure and being raised by a single dad meant Kamelia’s upbringing was a tad unconventional.

Not yet an adult, divorced and with custody of a toddler, Kamelia’s father went to electrician school so that he could provide for their family. He moved in with his parents so Kamelia would have someone to take care of her while he was studying and working.

Small town hacking

Being raised in a small town meant living a simple lifestyle — there was never a lot to go around and you had to make the most of everything. With a mini farm in their backyard, they raised pigs and chickens, and even grew their own vegetables. Her grandfather would make cornmeal and the Brittons would sell their produce at the farmer’s market.

“I was a life-hacker before it was even cool to be a life-hacker. I grew up as a baby life-hacker,” she grins. That’s where she gets the name for her blog, The Hackerette, where she chronicles her travels and life-hacks.

Kamelia’s early learnings in negotiation came from her grandmother. Always ready for a haggle, her grandma would go hunting down the sales racks at stores and find gems at bargain prices. She’d grown up repeating, “You can always get the same thing for a better price,” and passed it on to her granddaughter. Kamelia adopted this philosophy without question, out of necessity at first, and as she grew older, to stay true to the values instilled by her grandmother.

The motto that Kamelia lives by now?

“Save where you can so you can splurge where it counts.”

Kamelia enthuses, “You can’t always save, ’cause that’s boring. But you can’t always splurge, either. It’s more fun when you have this duality!”

“If I can find an amazing deal on travel, I’m super happy. If I want to splurge on accommodation, maybe rent a villa, then I do that. But a lot of times, I end up not having to splurge, because I still find a deal,” she laughs.

Her resourcefulness when it comes to scouting out the best deals boggles my mind. And also raises some envy. Ever heard of travelling the entire world for $325? Well, Kamelia has done it.

Her problem solving skills are extra strong given her profession as a nurse. Her friends call her Vanilla Ice, after the lyric, “If there was a problem, Yo, I’ll solve it” from the popular 90s hip-hop song called “Ice Ice Baby.”

“My life-hacking skills just became savvier as I grew up and wanted more things, and didn’t want to go without. I asked myself, how can I not go without, on a price I can afford?” She ended up seeking out ways to do all the things she wanted to do with whatever resources she had at hand, be it time, money or air miles.

Nursing dreams

Kamelia wasn’t bitten by the travel bug until she was 18. Growing up in a town with a population of 10,000 limited your creativity in choosing a livelihood, she feels. You were either a nurse, a teacher, a banker or a homemaker.

Not knowing what to do, but knowing she had to work to support herself, sixteen year old Kamelia started working at a drive-in serving food. But she needed more money if she was going to put herself through higher schooling.

One of her cousins worked as a nurse, and Kamelia started thinking about it seriously — her cousin seemed to like the job, made good money and had job security, the last of which was really important to Kamelia.

So she gave nursing a go and found out that she really connected with it. “I loved the technical aspect of learning about my own body.” She even found putting an IV into a human body and infusing liquids into it fascinating. “It just felt very futuristic to me,” she laughs.

“I loved that I could do three 12-hour shifts and then I could be off. The schedule worked with my life and I couldn’t see myself doing anything else for a really long time.”

When she graduated nursing school, working in between throughout, she became a Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN) first. Then she went right back to school, to register herself as a full nurse. Since she’d never travelled before, she was itching to step out of Orange, Texas and see the world beyond. So when she got an opportunity to work in Galveston, Texas, she jumped.

The one with the beach

Galveston was a big city for her and the possibilities of moving away from her small border town excited her. She took up a job in a neo-natal intensive care unit (NICU) working with premature babies or preemies as she’d learn to call them. A year and a half later, she was itching for more.

“There’s gotta to be more going on,” she thought. And that’s when Kamelia heard about Travel Nursing.

Places across the U.S. and the world have a shortage of nursing so they hire people on a contractual basis to come there and fill a nursing position for an interim period. You get paid for accommodation and get a stipend.

It’s a great way to travel around. Having never travelled anywhere, Kamelia had never known what she was missing. All she knew was that there was more going on in the world and she was curious to explore it firsthand.

She’d never been to California. So she called up the nursing agency and told them, “I want to go to California.” The attendant nurse asked her where in California she wanted to be placed. “Oh,” she replied, “isn’t it all the same?”

“What about San Francisco?” the nurse suggested.

“Is that the beach?” Kamelia asked.

“No, not really. Okay, what about L.A?” the nurse asked.

“Nope, not L.A. for sure,” Kamelia exclaimed. (L.A. would be too crazy for the country girl in her!)

“All right,” the nurse said, “What about San Diego? It’s near the beach”

“Let’s do it.”

She’d never heard of San Diego. She didn’t know a single soul living in San Diego. She just took a travel nursing assignment for three months and decided to move there. In 2005, hopping into her car, 24-year old Kamelia drove across the country to California all by herself.

Technically, this was her first solo-travel experience. Halfway there, she was struck by self-doubt. “What am I doing? Am I crazy? I’m travelling across the country to work by myself for three months?!”

In for a penny, in for a pound

She hated it. She wanted to go home. She had a horrible work schedule, working from 3pm to 11:30 pm, five days a week. She had no time to be social. She didn’t know anyone, had no friends nearby and wasn’t prepared for living alone in a new city.

Despite this she decided to stay on. Not having had a chance to explore the city as yet, she was determined to experience it to her fullest.

She found a full time job in the NICU at a local hospital and ended up staying longer. San Diego has now been home-base for Kamelia Britton for 12 years and she’s loved it ever since.

“I felt like I finally found my people, you know?”

Yet she wanted more. She wanted to go to Italy, and she didn’t mind if she had to go all by herself. She started looking up Contiki Tours and saw that the group tours were priced at $2,000. She started saving up and telling her friends all about it.

“I was fine going by myself but I didn’t really want to. I also didn’t want to wait for anybody.” But two of her friends perked up and told her, “If you’re going, we’re going, too!”

They ended up ditching the tour and Kamelia found herself travelling to Italy with her girlfriends. “Once you set your mind to something and do it, you inspire others around you to take action.” It was Kamelia’s first overseas trip.

They spent almost three weeks travelling around Rome, Florence, Venice, Paris, and the South of France. She remembers thinking to herself, “I could do this forever.”

The Europe trip cost her thousands of dollars. She started looking for a way to bring down her travel costs. “I think I made every mistake in the book because I didn’t know what I was doing.”

She started researching frequent flier miles. She started searching on Google one day — one thing led to another and she found herself down a rabbit hole, into a wonderland of travel deals.

That’s where she learned about things like error fares and glitches in the system. She even got a profile on , Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and her blog on WordPress.

Ann is a Content Crafter at Crowdfire. She’s never been robbed, though she has lost multiple wallets.

Born with Wanderlust was originally published in Going Big — The Official Crowdfire Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The post Born with Wanderlust appeared first on Make It With Michael.

from Born with Wanderlust

#Born with Wanderlust

[sweetcerac]

Team Urban: Why I Love Urban Fantasy!

Hear from the authors of Entangled Teen Publishing why they love Urban Fantasy!

Brenda Drake - Guardian of Secrets (Library Jumpers, #2):

I’m such a fan of Urban Fantasy for many reasons, but mostly because writers can take our normal world and, either secret or not, add a dash of the fantastical to it. With mystical creatures hiding from humans or living side by side with them, deliciously nefarious things can happen. There’s just something extraordinary about urban fantasy. It’s the ability of the writer to look at something normal in the human world and mix it up. Changing a simple book into something that can transport someone from library to library or hiding a zoo of magical beasts in a common suitcase.

Book Description:

Being a Sentinel isn’t all fairytales and secret gardens. Sure, jumping through books into the world’s most beautiful libraries to protect humans from mystical creatures is awesome. No one knows that better than Gia Kearns, but she could do without the part where people are always trying to kill her. Oh, and the fact that Pop and her had to move away from her friends and life as she knew it.

And if that isn’t enough, her boyfriend, Arik, is acting strangely. Like, maybe she should be calling him “ex,” since he’s so into another girl. But she doesn’t have time to be mad or even jealous, because someone has to save the world from the upcoming apocalypse, and it looks like that’s going to be Gia.

Buy Guardian of Secrets

  Chris Cannon - Fanning the Flames (Going Down in Flames, #4):

There are no maidens that need to be rescued in urban fantasy. More than likely the females are the ones kicking ass.

I love the snarky banter that occurs when you throw modern day characters into strange/magical/supernatural circumstances.

Anything is possible in urban fantasy. There are no rules about what types of paranormal creatures you can have. If you want to create dragons that breathe fire, ice, wind, sonic waves, and lightning, you can, just like I did in Going Down In Flames *cough cough shameless self promotion

Book Description:

She isn't afraid of anything...except losing the knight she loves. Bryn McKenna has it all, including her smoking-hot knight turned live-in boyfriend, Valmont. Even though she’s a hybrid dragon, she’s finally fitting into the new shape-shifting dragon world that’s become her own. But her grandparents want to ruin everything by making Bryn’s nightmare of an arranged marriage to Jaxon Westgate a reality. It doesn’t help that Jaxon’s father is on a witch hunt for Rebel sympathizers and Bryn finds herself in his line of fire.

If she doesn’t say, “I do,” she’ll lose everything. Good-bye flying. Good-bye best friends. Good-bye magic. But if she bends to her grandparents’ will and agrees to marry Jaxon, she’ll lose the love of her life—her knight.

Buy Fanning the Flames

  Shonna Slayton - Spindle:

Urban fantasy reminds me that our own world is magical. We are so used to the way our world works that we take for granted how incredible it is that our heart beats, our brain imagines, that our eyes see color.

As a writer, urban fantasy allows me to open up my imagination on multiple planes. I still work with the real world, but I get to add layers onto that. It’s like going from black and white TV to color. Like Dorothy in dusty old Kansas stepping into the colorful land of Oz.

 Book Description:

In a world where fairies lurk and curses linger, love can bleed like the prick of a finger…

Briar Rose knows her life will never be a fairy tale. She’s raising her siblings on her own, her wages at the spinning mill have been cut, and the boy she thought she had a future with has eyes for someone else. Most days it feels like her best friend, Henry Prince, is the only one in her corner…though with his endless flirty jokes, how can she ever take him seriously?

When a mysterious peddler offers her a “magic” spindle that could make her more money, sneaking it into the mill seems worth the risk. But then one by one, her fellow spinner girls come down with the mysterious sleeping sickness…and Briar’s not immune.

If Briar wants to save the girls—and herself—she’ll have to start believing in fairy tales…and in the power of a prince’s kiss.

Buy Spindle

  Tara Fuller - Inbetween (Kissed by Death, #1):

Book Description:

Death doesn’t fall in love. Usually. Since the car crash that took her father’s life three years ago, Emma’s life has been a freaky—and unending—lesson in caution. Surviving “accidents” has taken priority over being a normal seventeen-year-old, so Emma spends her days taking pictures of life instead of living it. Falling in love with a boy was never part of the plan. Falling for a reaper who makes her chest ache and her head spin? Not an option.

It’s not easy being dead, especially for a reaper in love with a girl fate has put on his list not once, but twice. Finn’s fellow reapers give him hell about spending time with Emma, but Finn couldn’t let her die before, and he’s not about to let her die now. He will protect the girl he loves from the evil he accidentally unleashed, even if it means sacrificing the only thing he has left…his soul.

Buy Inbetween

Danielle Ellison - Salt (Salt, #1):

Whether it's witches, demons, ghosts or other types monsters, there's nothing like escaping the sometimes mundane reality of our world, or giving what we know every day a spice of fantasy.  Filled with kick-ass heroines who aren't afraid to fight for what they believe in (and hot, just-as-fierce love interests) Urban Fantasy inspires you look beyond what you see and be more than you think you can be. Plus, life is more with some magic: more dangerous, more unpredictable, more chaotic, more fun.  

Book Description:

Penelope is a witch, part of a secret society protecting humans from demon attacks. But when she was a child, a demon killed her parents—and stole her magic. Since then, she’s been pretending to be something she’s not, using her sister’s magic to hide her own loss, to prevent being sent away. When she’s finally given the chance to join the elite demon-hunting force, Penelope thinks that will finally change. With her sister’s help, she can squeeze through the tests and get access to the information she needs to find “her” demon. To take back what was stolen. Then she meets Carter. He’s cute, smart, and she can borrow his magic, too. He knows her secret—but he also has one of his own. Suddenly, Penelope’s impossible quest becomes far more complicated. Because Carter’s not telling her everything, and it’s starting to seem like the demons have their own agenda…and they’re far too interested in her.

Buy Salt 

Rachel Harris - My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century (My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century, #1): 

Book Description:

On the precipice of her sixteenth birthday, the last thing lone wolf Cat Crawford wants is an extravagant gala thrown by her bubbly stepmother and well-meaning father. So even though Cat knows the family’s trip to Florence, Italy, is a peace offering, she embraces the magical city and all it offers. But when her curiosity leads her to an unusual gypsy tent, she exits…right into Renaissance Firenze.Thrust into the sixteenth century armed with only a backpack full of contraband future items, Cat joins up with her ancestors, the sweet Alessandra and protective Cipriano, and soon falls for the gorgeous aspiring artist Lorenzo. But when the much-older Niccolo starts sniffing around, Cat realizes that an unwanted birthday party is nothing compared to an unwanted suitor full of creeptastic amore. Can she find her way back to modern times before her Italian adventure turns into an Italian forever?

Buy My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century  

Gloria Craw - Atlantis Rising (Atlantis Rising, #1):

I love Urban Fantasy because it infuses normal life with myth and magic. It’s so exciting to have something in common with a character who finds a magic object, special ability or a secret origin. The possible ways her courage and passion might be tested are endless. When she does triumph against fantastic odds, I’m left feeling inspired and reassured that I can overcome great obstacles in my everyday life too. Urban Fantasy reminds me that the ordinary in us can sometimes be…extraordinary. 

Book Description:

We’ve stayed hidden too long… I am different. I have always been different, but no one can know or my life will be in danger. So I hide in plain sight, wearing drab clothes and thick glasses and trying to be invisible. I’m so good at hiding, no one has ever noticed me. Until Ian…the mysterious and oh-so-cute boy I know I need to avoid.

Now I have been seen. And more terrifying still, I am wanted—by those who would protect me and those who would destroy everything and everyone I love. But if they’re all terrified about who I am, wait until they see what I can do…

Buy Atlantis Rising

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