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earisu1 · 3 years

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The Mystery of Martha’s Letter

Original date of the post: 30 of October, 2007.

Disclaimer: this post is not written by me, I’m just reposting.

“We see Martha attacked, and apparently killed, by spooky things (imps) in the “Unlucky Clover Field” chapter of Rule of Rose.

We see Martha bound, bagged, and lying motionless on the floor in Clara’s cabin during the “Sir Peter” chapter.

Both of those chapters are set aboard the airship. Is there any reason to suspect that, sometime during Jennifer’s forgotten past at the orphanage, Martha was ever really attacked?

I think that there is.

And I think that one of the best ways to recognize this possibility is to try to think like a story-writer.

We should ask ourselves: why might a story-writer place an interrupted letter, like Martha’s letter, as a puzzle-piece in a puzzle game?

Here’s Jennifer’s account of Martha’s letter, preceded by the related letter from Doolittle, in context as they are found in the “Once Upon a Time” chapter:

Martha’s room:

–On the bed:

“There are a couple of letters here. It’s a letter from the police…”

~~~

20 October 1930

Re: Mr. Gregory Wilson

Dear Ma’am,

Please forgive the delay in our response.

In your letter, you report suspicious activity on the part

of Mr. Gregory Wilson. After investigating the matter,

we have come to the following conclusion.

There is little to indicate that the said individual is

connected to the recent kidnappings. Mr. Wilson is

father to a son who closely matches your description

in your letter. Therefore, we have determined that

there is insufficient evidence to warrant further

investigation.

We appreciate your cooperation and understanding in

this matter.

Anthony Doolittle

Cardington Police

~~~

“It’s a letter from Martha…”

~~~

24 November

Officer Doolittle,

My name is Martha Carol, and I work at the Rose Garden

Orphanage.

In the past month, I have sent six letters to your attention,

But have yet to receive a response. Have my letters reached

you?

I ask that you please investigate this matter at once for the safety

of our children.

Yesterday, I saw them together again… Mr. Wilson and Wendy,

A child at our orphanage. I am very concerned for her safety.

The two of them have been acting quite strangely. Oh, it’s terribly

odd. By strangely, I mean… Mr. Wilson walking on all fours and

nodding… and Wendy appears to be scolding him… I don’t know

how to explain it except that it resembles dog training gone wrong.

Ooo… it gives me the shivers just thinking about it.

Please come investigate this matter as

~~~

No other letter or diary entry in the game is presented to us ending mid-sentence.

“The letter ends there…

Perhaps if the matter had been addressed publicly, things wouldn’t have turned out as they did.

Adults are so selfish.”

And, as Jennifer finds this letter in Martha’s room, we know that it was never sent (otherwise it wouldn’t still be in Martha’s room). Yet, clearly Martha considered the subject matter of the letter to be urgent. “Please investigate this matter at once for the safety of our children,” she begs Officer Doolittle in the letter. So why didn’t she ever send the letter?

Did the game-authors want us to think that Martha was permanently interrupted as she wrote that last incomplete sentence?

There is no record of Martha after that date. Jennifer says only, “One day, Mr. Hoffman suddenly disappeared. Clara and Miss Martha soon followed, leaving me and the other orphans alone…”

Do the game-authors expect us to believe that Martha, who writes in the letter that she is very concerned for Wendy’s safety, is just about to go away and leave all of the orphans unattended? Or do they want us to suspect that Martha disappeared because something happened to her? Something that interrupted her last letter mid-sentence?

Another important clue, I think, is this part of Martha’s letter:

In the past month, I have sent six letters to your attention,

But have yet to receive a response. Have my letters reached

you?

Note that Doolittle’s letter to Martha is dated 20 October and her interrupted letter is dated 24 November. Thus the six letters sent to Doolittle, “in the past month”, without response, were sent during the time after Doolittle’s letter to Martha. He responded once. Why did he never respond again to any of her six letters? Because he thought she was a crazy lady?

I think that the game-authors gave us a nudge away from drawing that conclusion by having Martha ask, “Have my letters reached you?”

The game authors, I think, wanted us to consider the possibility that Martha’s letters might not have reached officer Doolittle. So they came right out and had Martha ask, “Have my letters reached you?” Nudge, nudge.

Why wouldn’t Martha’s letters have reached Officer Doolittle?

Could the letters have been intercepted by one or more of the orphans?

How?

If I was one of the game-authors, and I wanted this solution, that orphans intercepted the letters, to be the solution to the puzzle of Doolittle’s lack of response to Martha’s letters, then I would want to show that the orphans had the opportunity to intercept her letters.

I would show the mailbox. That’s what I would do.

Is there a mailbox, or equivalent, shown to us in the game?

I think so.

There is a slot in the wall, by the side gate, that we have our attention directed to by the game-authors by the requirement that Jennifer must put a boarding pass into this slot in order to be able to enter through the gate. I think that the purpose for which this slot was designed and built into the wall was to serve as a mailbox.

If so, then we have been shown by the game-authors that the orphans could easily have noticed an outgoing letter to the police, indeed they could have easily monitored all outgoing mail.

It would have been an easy thing for the orphans to intercept Martha’s letters to Officer Doolittle.

Martha had successfully gotten Doolittle to investigate Gregory once, and Martha was now spying on Wendy’s activities with Gregory. I think that somebody didn’t want any further investigations by the police. So Martha’s letters got intercepted.

But she wouldn’t stop.

Six letters intercepted and yet Martha didn’t give up.

Eventually she might figure out what was happening with the letters.

Or go to see the police in person.

So,

finally,

Martha was stopped.”

#rule of rose #rule of rose mysteries #rule of rose theories #tw mentions of violence

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adultswim2021 · 3 years

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Ephemera Week (2002)

It’s still ephemera week, and we’re still talking about John K. I said most of my piece on him in the last post, so don’t expect there to go full bore on this one, except I forgot to say he’s animation’s Jerry Lewis. His current stuff is basically Hardly Working. I will not elaborate, because I’m being mean to you0.

MARCH SPECIALS!

In March, Adult Swim advertised a run of one-off specials. A couple of them were already covered because they fell under the parameters of “Adult Swim original production”. They were Welcome to Eltingville (March 3rd) and Saddle Rash (March 24th).

Day in the Life of Ranger Smith | March 10th 2002 - 11:00 PM (Originally aired on Cartoon Network in 1999)

This was one of two specials commissioned by Cartoon Network re-imagining Yogi Bear. The artist what took this assignment was John K, who I REEEAALLY skewered in last night’s post, didn’t I?

This is about Ranger Smith harassing animals and writing them up for violating park rules, basically. It’s short! I remember liking it at the time! Okay, maybe I’m going crazy here, but I distinctly remembered a part at the end where Ranger Smith is in bed and he solemnly confides in the viewer that the noises of wilderness give him nightmares and then it just ends. Did I imagine this? It does end with him in bed, but this doesn’t happen in the version on YouTube (which is from the Adult Swim airing). Huh.

Boo Boo Runs Wild | March 10th 2002 - 11:15PM (Originally aired on Cartoon Network in 1999)

Boo Boo Runs Wild was another one of these stand-alone Yogi Bear John K specials. This one was 30 minutes long. The Ranger Smith short was a brief 7 minutes; I’m guessing they aired a couple Capt. Lingers or something to fill time.

This one is about Boo Boo reverting to his feral nature and causing BIIIIG problems! This special would later go on to be kind of a weird trolling thing Adult Swim would do where they aired it every Sunday for a few months, even promoting regularly. This was like 2006, I think? They’d also air it as part of April Fools. Is that Adult Swim admitting this special sorta sucks? Does it sorta suck? Again, I liked these at the time and REFUSED to actively rewatch these for this write-up. Sorry.

The Jetsons: Father and Son Day/The Best Son | March 10th, 2002 11:45PM (Originally aired on CartoonNetwork.com in 2001) Our John K rock block ends with a pair of Jetsons shorts, Father and Son Day and The Best Son respectively. This is kinda the same deal as his Yogi Bear shorts, but these were exclusive for Cartoon Network’s website. I remember watching them on there. They are as bad as you’d expect late-period John K internet shorts to be, though the second short is a superior version of Spielberg’s A.I. (in that it’s shorter).

Night of the Living Doo | March 17th, 2002 - 11:00PM (originally aired on Cartoon Network, 2001)

Night of the Living Doo originally aired as wraparound segments during a Halloween Scooby Doo marathon on Cartoon Network. It’s kinda like an episode of the Scooby Doo Movies, which shoehorned in a guest star each episode. Suddenly my man Dick Van Dyke be running a carnival and shit. That’s the Scooby Doo Movies. At the end of the night they played all the wraparound segments in one uninterrupted sitting, so the viewer could appreciate it as an actual full-on Scooby Doo episode. Night of the Living Doo functioned both as an extension of that series as well as a parody. The guests were Gary Coleman, David Cross, and the very cool band Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. It was all very self-deprecating and had jokes about the absurdity of Scooby Doo tropes. Well trod territory by this point, sure. But this is better than most irreverent Scooby Doo things. It didn’t hurt that I was a HUGE David Cross fan when this aired. Is this where I tell the stupid-ass story about getting mad at a message board guy for not liking David Cross? Sure. Okay, yeah. When this aired on Adult Swim a guy on Kon’s (hi Kon) message board posted something about not finding David Cross funny, shrugging that he didn’t get the hype. He cited this and his appearances in the Men in Black movies, and nothing else as proof for his lackluster comedy skills. It’s kinda like deeming Eddie Murphy as a bad comedian after watching Dr. Doolittle.

The point of this special is that David Cross is a little wooden and stilted, like in the old Scooby Doo Movies episodes. This poster revealed that he never heard David Cross’s stand-up or seen Mr. Show, explaining “I don’t watch puppet shows” A response that still baffles me to this day. Why Mr. Show isn’t a-- WHAT IS HE TALKING ABOUT? I’m not even sure if there was EVER a puppet on Mr. Show*. David wasn’t even a guest on Crank Yankers at this point! SO WHAT THE FUCK? To this day whenever mutual pals from that board get together and watch a movie or show and a puppet appears we make a joke about this guy. Good story? No? Fuck you.

Other stuff about this show: When it originally aired on Cartoon Network it was a little bit longer than the Adult Swim version. There’s a missing scene. I think it’s David trying to play an improv game with a mummy or something. At one point I had it on tape, but I’m not sure I kept it. Sorry.

*sorry to be coy here, but I do know of at least one puppet on Mr. Show, episode 204 there is brief footage of Grass Valley Greg putting on a puppet show for his staff. This CAN’T be the source of the confusion, can it? It’s literally like, 5 seconds.

MAIL BAG

This’ll teach me to skip a day cuz this really piled up. Thanks, guys. I love all the attention. It is my favorite thing.

I never really saw oblongs as something for the hot topic set. They had Invader Zim and Squee for that kind of shit. Oblongs feel like it was always directly targeting me: the shut-in comedy nerd who would appreciate will ferrell and the sklars being in a thing. Since they ended up doing the exact same show with Janeane Garofalo and David Cross a few years later it seems like that was the goal.

Yeah, I guess that also makes sense. There were a few elements that were kinda gothy but this show was mostly just Angus Oblong ahem, clowning around (puckering mouth to stifle laughter like Chris Elliott in Cabin Boy)

What are your thoughts on the other adult animation blocks of the past couple decades? Spike's notriously failed attempt. Animation Domination. Apparently Syfy has had their own going?

Spike was irredeemably bad. People think this shit is easy. Animation Domination is sorta legit, but it’s anchored by mostly crap. That ADHD thing was kinda good and underrated. Is that still going on? I wish I were more diligent about watching/recording that. Some of them bumpers were good. Also, we mustn’t forget MTV’s oddities. They were kinda the first cable network to court Adult Animation as their thing. They deserve some kind of credit for that. I’m sure they’re doing fine.

I'm having a nice big thing of spaghetti for dinner with some chicken parm? Jealous?

I’ve never had those are they good

What does Ephemera mean? Why is this happenening? Why aren't you talking about 10 Home Movies episodes in a row like a good boy.

In dude time, my friend. In dude time

What would be your Adult Swim dream come true?

Having a complete archive of Adult Swim blocks on a harddrive like Don Giller has with his Letterman archive. Even the commercials and shit. I know of a guy who was a regular taper of the entire block from night 1 but I’m not sure he kept up with it when they went nightly. I should ask him if he still has his tapes, huh?

That or they bring back the BUILD YOUR OWN DVD thing but with blu-rays and you can make your own bumps, which was a different thing they had. THEY SHOULD COMBINE THEM. And you can master it in SD if you wanna put 10 hours of stuff on a disk.

All this is archival bullshit dork shit. Real answer: Clay Croker comes back from the dead and every block is hosted by Space Ghost. That’d be it, right?

If anyone has genuine/better answers please write in with them I wanna keep this conversation going. ‘kay?

McDonalds reintroduces limited edition Adult Swim Toys. You can get them all (plus an extra to keep wrapped for collectors purposes) but you have to spend 20 dollars at McDonalds to grab them all. This is the last day of the promotion. You have to personally eat everything you buy but you can take it home. You can only buy one of each food item. What are you getting? I know the longer the mailbag message is the quicker you are inclined to give some glib remark but indulge this one for once.

Oh wow. I’m literally going to take this seriously. I’d roll in as breakfast was ending. Get myself a McChicken Biscuit and a Bacon Egg & Cheese McGriddle, hashbrowns and a Coffee. Gobble that knob on down. Wipe my mouth with a napkin. It’s lunchtime, bitch. Big Mac, Large Fries, BIG ass soda. You feel me, dude? Lemme tally up. Okay, probably need more. 20 piece nugget. Take that home cuz I’m probably gonna have to save some for dinner. That’s probably 20 bucks right there, especially if you go to the McDonalds on Burnside where all the menu items are more expensive because of the amount of security they have to hire (did you know that different McDonalds have different prices even in the same city? I didn’t until very recently). If this somehow doesn’t satisfy my price point I get a Vanilla shake and eat it anally DURING my BIG D squirt sesh, so it’ll spend as little time in my body as possible. Wait, do I get something for this? I might do this tomorrow just cuz. It sounds like a funky thing to do

Do you think you'll open an Adult Swim mueseum at some point? You seem to be the only steward of its history.

Unless I’m hired to by a large corporation, probably not. Also I don’t think I actually have much in the way of merch other than DVDs. I stopped being a DVD completist at some point around Freaknick The Musical. Oh, I never EVER bought a Robot Chicken DVD, EVER. I literally had a nightmare once that one appeared in my collection.

Hey! Please keep us abreast any time you put more of your garbage on eBay. Maybe you can put your wedding dress on there, you big girl.

Fucking sexist/trasphobic behavior.

Check out my eBay auctions I got season 18 of NCIS up there and some other things :)

The Ripping Friends blow chunks. I don't care if a rapist or the opposite of a rapist (a virgin who volunteers, lol) made it. It sucks a high hard one like when Ozzy banged the Cheiftan's Wife in that Black Sabbath TV Funhouse cartoon. Tell me more.

Tell you more?

Name one rap song you tolerate lol. You can't say anything by weird al or marky mark.

I guess I like the song the pest sings from the motion picture The Pest

Are there any good podcasts on adult swim?

The official one hosted by Matt Harrigan is good, but I’ve only bounced around on it. I don’t know if there’s any formal recap ones. I simply don’t know!

HE'S GIVING HIGH HARD ONE TO CHEIFTAN'S WIFE? UH OH!

Buddy, you are BANNED for LIFE from my MAIL BAG! You drive me CRAZY!

#adult swim #adultswim2021 #night of the living doo #boo boo runs wild #yogi bear #jetsons #ephemera

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pricetagofficial · 4 years

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The Archer -Part 7

Warnings: Language, prank war (I’m sorry, 2 am me had a moment), again give it another chapter or so until the cringe slows down.

Part Eight

Word Count: 5167.... (Holy shit I’m sorry)

Tag list: @kishony-the-geek @idkmanicantenglish @catxsnow @unknowntoanyone @starxfires

A/N: This goes to my girl Amanda, hope you feel better! Also, again i am sorry for the blegh you are about to read.

As Rory healed, she was forced to stay out of the action. Every night she would attempt to put on her suit and every night she would be derailed. It had been a week and Alfred finally gave in on letting her out of bed rest, not that she minded it all that much with Tim joining her every day.

He would lead her out on short walks, make sure her wound was dressed properly, and let her fall asleep in his arms. Tim couldn't ignore the feeling in his stomach he had every time he was around her, and it got worse every time she smiled at him, laughed, or even looked at him.

There was no way he had that kind of feelings for Rory, she was his best friend and didn't want to ruin their friendship. But he never felt as happy as he was whenever he was around her, sure she was a little cynical and hard to understand sometimes but it's what made Rory, Rory, and Tim wouldn't want to change her for the world.

Of course, all of their time spent together did not go unnoticed. Unknown to them, Dick Stephanie and now Roy and Jason were all conspiring against the two of them. Dick, Jason, and Stephanie knowing Tim as well as they did could tell that Tim was falling hard for Rory and according to Roy, this was as close as she got to someone. She never let anyone get close to her these days and it amazed Roy just how close they were getting.

So naturally, they organized a secret meeting with just the four of them. They met down in the Bat cave because Rory was officially banished from it because she wouldn't listen to Bruce when he said no patrol. His last resort was calling Oliver and that was when she quit trying.

"So obviously, our little Timmy has a thing for Rory. What do you guys think we should do about this situation?" Dick asked, leaning against the wall.

"Well, I say we should convince him to take her out on a date," Stephanie suggested. "I can try and give him suggestions without being suspicious."

"No offense Steph, but you are one of the most suspicious people we know. Maybe that's not the greatest idea." Jason interjected. "Besides, Rory is still on house arrest and she can't go anywhere. We need to get them to admit they have feelings, maybe not to each other but to one of us." Roy finished.

"They have a point, so maybe just ease them into the idea of possibly liking the other," Dick said and pushed himself off the wall. "Now, I need to ready for patrol. It's Jason's night off so he's going to be keeping an eye on Rory and maybe do some digging. Of course, you and Jess are welcome to join us like usual."

Roy grinned, "Count us in Grayson."

Hours later, everyone was out on patrol with Barbara and Alfred down in the Bat cave while Rory was with Jason sat in the home theater. They were watching one of the many versions of Romeo and Juliet, Rory had no idea that Jason was a major literature buff and loved to read.

"Why are we watching this sappy romantic tragedy again?" she asked, leaning back in her seat as she ate low sodium popcorn. Alfred being Alfred, made sure that Rory got the food and nutrients she needs and also that she didn't eat anything too hard on her stomach because she was still on the mend.

"Because I wanted to. After watching My Fair Lady three times with you, I had 'I Could Have Danced All Night' stuck in my head." he explained, eating some of his popcorn. Rory gave him a look, "That's not terrible. It's a great song, one of my favorites."

"I was humming it in public, you're lucky Dick or the gremlin didn't catch me. Also, of course, Replacement would watch whatever you asked him too so he has watched more than I have. It seems he would do anything for you." Jason said, popping another piece in. "Besides, what is your obsession with this movie?" he asked, looking over at her ignoring Romeo confessing his love to a balcony in the middle of the night.

"My mother watched it with me for the first time when I was about four, and it stuck with me. I remember wanting to be Eliza Doolittle and tried to dress in my mother's fancy clothes and attempt to try a British accent." Rory said with a forlorn look on her face. "I've been watching it every night because it's something I can fall asleep too."

"Have the nightmares gotten bad again?" he asked, sitting up more to look at her better. Rory gave him a slow nod and he swore under his breath. "I told you, you can come and find me any time if they get too bad," he said and pulled her into a hug.

"I know, it's just that Tim is so adamant that I sleep. He wants me to heal quickly because he is so worried. I can tell that he still blames himself, I see it in his eyes every time it's mentioned or he gets a glance at the bandages. I just hope he isn't going to do anything reckless without me around." she sighed and leaned into Jason's hold relaxing slowly.

"Well, know that Dick, Bruce, Damian, Steph, and I will take care of him. Have been for a few years now, princess," he said with a chuckle. "There is no trouble he can get himself into that we can't get him out of."

Rory let a smile spread on her face. "Thanks, Jason, and speaking of Tim I need a way to get him back for picking me up over his shoulder. I said that I would attack the thing he loves most, but what is that?" she asked.

Jason was half tempted to say her but decided against it. Instead, he went with a better option. "Timbo loves coffee and computers. Maybe you could do something with those," he suggested. "But if this gets turned into a prank war, you are on your own princess. I will not save your ass if he has better pranks than you."

"Gee, such a great friend you are." she laughed, wincing from the sudden movement. Jason gave her a look and she saw it from the corner of her eye. "Stop looking at me like that, getting it from Tim is bad enough."

Jason put his hands up and sat back in his chair again. "Alright, sorry. Do you have any ideas on what to do with his coffee or computer?" he asked.

Rory grinned and turned her head to look at him, "I might have a few up my sleeve."

That night before she went to bed, she and Jason enacted their plan to sabotage Tim's coffee. The two of them made sure that they were up before everyone and went down to the kitchen and saw Alfred cooking, with a fresh pot of coffee brewing. The house rule was that no one was allowed to touch the pot until Tim had his first cup.

The two of them talked with Alfred as everyone began to file in. First was Dick, then it was Damian, Roy, Stephanie, Jesse, and Bruce. Bruce made his way over to Rory and looked at her, "How are you feeling?" he asked.

"I'm feeling good." she smiled. "I'm excited for the day."

Bruce gave her and Jason odd looks when Tim finally entered the kitchen. As they predicted, Tim went straight for the coffee pot and poured his coffee and grabbed the milk and sugar. He poured a bit of each in before stirring it and taking a sip.

No sooner did the coffee touch his lips, that he spat it out all over the floor. "What the fuck!?"

Rory and Jason tried to hide their smiles, as everyone else laughed at Tim's disturbed face but Tim saw them and narrowed his eyes. "What the hell did you two do to my coffee?" he glared.

"I may or may not have switch the sugar out for kosher salt," Rory said with a laugh, covering her mouth. "This is payback for picking me up over your shoulder, I did say that I would attack what you loved most, and here we are."

"Then why is he laughing too?" Tim looked at Jason who was trying to keep his mouth shut.

"Why, Timothy dear. It was his idea."

Jason looked at Rory with a bewildered expression, "It was not my idea! It was hers." but Tim didn't seem to believe him.

"I'm gonna kill you, Todd." Tim frowned and charged at Jason, who got up quickly and took off down the hall wanting to avoid coffee deprived Tim, for coffee deprived Tim was scarier than Damian on a bad day.

"Miss Aurora, would you please tell me where you and Master Jason put the sugar? I would like to have sweet tea, not salty this afternoon." The tone of Alfred's voice was disapproving, but his eyes betrayed him. It seemed that he had thought Rory and Jason's prank was funny.

"Sure thing Alfred." Carefully she got up and walked over to a cabinet where she had stashed the real container of sugar and gave it to the butler. "I can help clean up the mess?" she asked with a small smile.

As the week progressed, Rory grew more and more anxious about whether Tim would try and get her back or not. According to the others, especially Damian, it would be more likely than not that he would try and get her back so she chose to watch her back just in case.

Alfred had declared her wound healed for the most part, and Rory was once again allowed in the Bat cave but still not on patrol. She just had to work with Barbara and keep an eye on them and provide help if they needed it. It wasn't a bad job, Rory was a genius when it came to computers and enjoyed working with Babs who in turn taught her things while Roy and Jesse left for Star City to check on Oliver and let them know she was okay.

It was after one of those rough nights of patrol that Tim finally attacked.

Rory drug herself into the kitchen late one morning after Damian left for school and Dick went to work. Tim was in the cave, working on a case while Jason took some time to himself. Stephanie was down in the kitchen as well, munching on a bowl of dry cereal when Rory opened the fridge and pulled out the jug of orange juice.

Orange juice was one of Rory's favorite things, and Alfred had been wanting her to drink more of it because it gave her the vitamin c she was missing. Stephanie watched as Rory grabbed a glass and poured it mostly full. Placing the jug on the counter, Rory took a big gulp of the juice. What she got instead was not what she expected.

Almost immediately, she ran to the sink and spat it out gagging in the process. The taste was so horrible, Rory wanted to vomit. Quickly getting a new cup, she filled and drank water out of it multiple times to try and get the wretched taste out.

Only then did she realize that Stephanie had her phone out and was trying to hide her giggle. Narrowing her eyes, she glared at the blonde sitting on the counter. "Steph, what the hell was that."

"That, dear Aurora was cheesy orange juice. I opened a few packs on mac and cheese powder and poured it into the orange juice." Tim's voice sounded from the phone. Stephanie turned it around and saw Tim was video chatting her to see the reaction of the juice prank.

"You know what, dragon boy? This means war. I went easy on you with the salty coffee, so you better surrender now." she threatened, holding a wooden spoon in her hand. "Because this is going to get so much worse for you before it gets better."

And that's how the 6th Wayne Manor Prank War began.

The orange juice event had spread around the manor quickly. Stephanie not only video called Tim, but she managed to get a video of it and sent it to the entire Wayne Manor residence. Damian never let her forget her moment of shame mumbling something along the lines of "I always check my drinks for I ingest it, any civilized person would do the same." which earned him a whack on the back of the head from Dick, telling him to be nice.

Ever since she declared war, it was almost as if Bruce and Alfred were hiding, not wanting to get caught up in Rory and Tim's war. No one knew when Rory would strike next, and they didn't want to be caught in the middle of it or worse be the one to accidentally set of whatever she planned. Lucky for them, Rory wasn't pulling out the big stops yet, she went for another small prank.

It was simple, everyone knew that Tim had a specific cup he carried around. It was a basic white mug with the saying "World's best detective." Bruce's said "World's second best detective." Tim made the mistake of leaving it out on the counter one evening and Rory decided to leave a little message.

When the next morning came around, everyone was getting breakfast except Bruce and Barbara who were still in the cave working from the previous night. Tim was working still too, but he had come up for some coffee with the pot downstairs empty and no supplies to brew another pot.

When he entered the kitchen, only Dick, Jason, Damian, and Stephanie were in sight and were quietly eating their food. This set off red flags in Tim's mind, there was some reason all four of them were so quiet and he had a bad feeling about it. Grabbing the pot, he poured coffee into it and checked the sugar once more to make sure that it was not salt again even though it would be idiotic to repeat a prank.

Tim leaned against the counter and watched his siblings eat quietly as he sipped his coffee, but the second he took a sip the four of them started giggling. Quickly he removed his mug from his lips and inspected his coffee. "What's so funny?" he asked.

The four of them shrugged and went back to eating, something was not right. He knew there was nothing wrong with the drink itself, he had already tasted some and it was normal; so what made them laugh? He took another sip and they laughed some more. Again, Tim lowered his mug and this time felt his lip expecting something to be there. But nothing was.

Adjusting his grip, he felt something on the bottom of his cup and quickly he peeled it off to see that it was a stick note. He flipped it over to see the words "Aurora Queen is a mother fucking beast and will win this prank war."

Tim crumbled the note and saw that Jason was holding up his phone with Rory on a video call much similar to what he and Stephanie did. "See you got my note dragon boy, sticky notes don't lie. That was my last nice prank, Timothy, give up and I'll let you grovel for an hour instead of prolonging it." she grinned.

"Just you wait, songbird. I have a few tricks up my sleeves, you won't see them coming." Tim hit the red button and hung up the call. "Hey Damian, I'll drive you to school today yeah?" Damian gave Tim a skeptical look, he never wanted to drive him anywhere let alone drive period. What was he up to?

Rory sat in the kitchen later that day, reading a book when Stephanie walked in holding a bag from Burger King. "Hey Rory, I was out and got you something," she said and pulled out a box of ten-piece chicken nuggets, placing them in front of Rory. Everyone knew that these were her favorite and quickly grabbed the box.

"Thanks, Steph," and with her mouth salivating for the taste of Burger King nuggies she opened the box. What she was in the box was not chicken nuggets. Instead, they were replaced with the worst thing on the planet, roasted brussels sprouts. Immediately Rory knew what this was. This was Tim's prank at getting back at her for the note, well it was time to stop playing nice.

With this newfound revenge, she quickly enlisted the help of Damian promising to do his homework for two weeks if he just 'accidentally' destroyed the coffee pot in the kitchen, which he did. Alfred replaced it and before anyone could notice, Rory printed out a sticker that said "Voice-activated" on it and had a list of commands underneath it.

Knowing how tired Tim has been, it was perfectly timed. This time she was in the kitchen with everyone to see the chaos that was tired Tim ensue. He trudged into the kitchen and saw the new pot with the label saying it was voice-activated.

He shrugged it off assuming it was some fancy high tech pot that just came out. Looking through the list of commands he said "Brew black coffee." Nothing happened. He said it twice more and still, nothing happened.

Rory and Jason, who had seen her labeling the pot bit back a grin watching a now tired, and irritated Tim yell at a coffee pot to make him coffee only for it to not be voice-activated at all. Alfred walked in and saw Tim still yelling and now insulting the pot. "Master Tim, what are you doing?"

"I'm trying to get some coffee." he grumped. "But this stupid ass pot won't work!"

"That's because it's not voice activated sir."

Tim's jaw dropped and he turned on his heel to see both Rory and Jason gone. Of course, he just fell for another prank. He was determined to win this war so he looked at Alfred, "Could you help me with something?"

"Of course, sir."

A couple of hours later, Jason and Rory were sat in the bat cave getting her wound checked once more. After a little poking a prodding, Jason deemed it healed. Her skin had healed together nicely and she didn't feel much pain moving anymore but she still had to take it easy and no patrol for at least another week.

Alfred had come down and told them that he had made his famous brownies if they would like any. Of course, if anyone knew anything it was that Alfred made amazing brownies and they were so good you would kill for them. Quickly, the two of them bolted up the stairs and into the kitchen where they saw Tim, Stephanie, Dick, and Damian all eating some of Alfred's famous brownies.

When they got to the pan and pulled back the foil, they frowned. There were no brownies in the pan, instead, there were several brown e's in the pan with the word 'gotcha' written on the underside of the foil. The two of them turned to look at Tim who was smugly enjoying his brownies.

"That's cold replacement, getting Alfred to help you and with the brownies no less," Jason said, sending his younger brother a glare. Rory was just as pissed if not more so, she had never tasted Alfred's brownies she has only heard of their greatness.

"This is for that voice-activated coffee bullshit," he said with a grin. Rory walked over, grabbed his plate, and shoved it into his face.

"And that's for involving poor Alfred." and she walked off.

Days had gone by and there was no retaliation prank by Rory and Jason, which worried everyone. Or so it seemed. This prank was very low key and it would take a very sharp eye, or nose more likely to notice it. Eight days had passed before Dick finally spoke up, he wasn't sure but to him, Tim had been smelling like dinner for the last few days and he was confused.

"Hey, Timmy, did you change your body wash or something? You smell like dinner." Everyone in the cave nodded in agreement, the only ones silent were Jason and Rory.

"Yeah Timbo, you smell like chicken soup." Stephanie laughed, "We all just assumed that you had changed something when you showered but with the look on your face and the sudden silence of the dynamic duo tells us otherwise."

Now that they had mentioned it, Tim's showers had been smelling like chicken soup. He just brushed it off as Alfred cooking, but he hadn't made anything chicken-related in two weeks. Rory sat in her seat with a wide smirk on her face, with Jason keeping a straight face but smiling with his eyes.

"What did you two do to my soaps?!" he cried, walking over to them.

"We didn't do anything to your soaps replacement, relax," Jason said, turning in his chair to polish his helmet once more. Rory however, kept looking at him.

"He's right, we did nothing to your soaps. The showerhead however is a different story dragon boy, or should I say chicken boy now?" she grinned. Tim's eyes widened and he ran upstairs to his shower and pulled off the showerhead. Once he pulled it off, three chicken bouillon cubes fell out and into the tub.

No wonder he had been smelling chicken soup, he had been showering in it for over a week!

Once everyone learned of the prank, they began to call him chicken boy which only fueled Tim's determination to get his final prank done. It was three days before Rory was allowed to join patrol again so the two of them decided to have a sit-down and talk about their prank war.

Rory had brought Jason and Tim surprisingly brought Damian with him. "What do you want to discuss chicken boy?" she asked with a grin.

"You are going back on patrol in a few days, right? Bruce wants this war of ours to end before then so I have a proposition. We get to play one final prank on the other, and we get help from one other person. Everyone else will decide who had the better prank at the end. I assume you are picking the walking dead over there and I picked Damian." Tim replied, Jason, making a rude hand gesture at the name.

"How did you get Damian to agree to help you? I bargained two weeks of his homework." Rory said crossing her arms.

"He promised not to say or do anything stupid for two weeks," Damian said, adjusting his stance behind Tim. Rory nodded, mentally applauding Tim for his choice of bribery and assistant.

"Alright Drake, I'm assuming we get tomorrow and the next day to enact our prank and the team with the best prank wins?" she asked, raising a brow. "And what does the winner get?"

"The winners get bragging right and an entire batch fo both Alfred's cookies and brownies," Tim said, leaning back into his chair. "Deal?" he stuck out his hand and Rory gave it a shake.

"Deal."

The next two days were total chaos, everyone in the manor knew of their final prank and they were scared just how far they were going to go with this. No one was more than Bruce and Alfred.

The first day and come and gone and nothing had happened, so if they were going to pull a prank it was going to be on day two, and Tim, Rory, Jason, and Damian were ready. The night before while Tim and Damian were out on patrol, Jason and Rory snuck into Tim's room and reorganized everything.

His dresser drawers were switched around, the files in his filing cabinet were rearranged, his containers were switched and so were the flies on his computer. Rory managed to hack into it and renamed every file and reorganize them so it looked like nothing had happened, making sure to leave no pattern for him to follow to put everything back the way it was. Then they crept into Damian's room and did the same, even though there was not much to reorganize.

Tim and Damian had gotten back from patrol later that night once Rory and Jason were asleep and put their plan to action. Under everyone's door, they left a note warning them to be careful opening the doors in the manor and to not sit on any of the chairs either.

Behind every door, they had duct-taped an air horn so once they opened it the horn would go off and under every chair, they could so when they sat, the horns would go off too. Once everything was done they retired for the night.

The four of them woke up at around the same time and the first casualty of the final prank was Tim. When he went to get dressed, he opened his drawer to find that his pants were where his underwear and socks should be. Taking this as a hint, Tim looked around to see that everything was different. How the hell did he not notice that, to begin with? Tim was always very particular about his stuff and those two knew and yet they messed with his stuff.

The next casualty was Damian who suffered from the same fate only it didn't bother him as much as it did Tim. It was easier to fix it and put it all back where it belonged, what irritated him was that he was roped into something that Drake had started. Being part of the prank was not what he agreed to. Damian shrugged and began to reorganize his room.

Jason and Rory were next. When they went down to breakfast, the door to the kitchen was left open slightly. Being as tired as they were after reorganizing Tim and Damian's rooms, they swung the door open only to be greeted with a very loud horn. Rory let out a scream and fell to the floor as Jason jumped three feet in the air.

Tim stood behind them with his arms crossed and a smirk on his face. "What happened Rory? You alright?"

Still, on the floor, Rory flipped him off. "Fuck you, dragon boy. You still seem to be in a good mood, so you haven't even seen the worst of what we did." Jason bent down to help her up, the two of them careful of the kitchen door this time. Rory moved it away from the wall and saw the air horn taped to the wall.

"Well played, I'm guessing you gave everyone else a heads up?" she asked, looking around everyone didn't seem as disturbed as she and Jason were but they were definitely laughing.

"I don't think I have ever seen Jason jump that high, or even move that fast." Dick laughed, eating a spoon of cereal. It was Jason's turn to flip him off and the two of them got breakfast, checking behind the fridge and cabinet doors. It was safe to say that they were slightly scared now.

What they weren't expecting was when they sat down on the only two open stools, more horns went off scaring the both of them again, this time flinging their food into the air. At this point Rory was pissed, that was twice he got her in five minutes. Was nowhere safe in the manor? Pulling the horn of her seat, she threw it at Tim's head who only caught it.

"Scared of a little horn songbird? I thought you were tougher than that." he grinned.

"Watch your back dragon boy, I might just try to throw you off a building." she threatened and got herself a new bagel because hers landed in one of the potted plants. Jason had gotten himself a breakfast sandwich and all the pieces were across the room.

With breakfast done and over an hour later, every room Rory and Jason walked into they opened the doors carefully and checked before the sat down on any suspicious chair. "I think we're safe on the couch, at least until he finds what we did to his-"

Jason was cut off by loud yelling, followed by what sounded like someone running downstairs. "You wanna try that again princess?" Rory asked and got up, ready to run if Tim was feeling a little murderous.

Tim slammed the door open, making a horn go open and scaring himself with Rory laughing at him. "What happened Timothy? Something wrong?" she asked with a grin. Tim stomped over and held out his laptop.

"What did you do to all of my cases!?" he yelled.

After a lengthy explanation, Rory fixed everything on his laptop to the way it was before. "Now, to decide the winner," she said and went down to the Bat cave, as the passage opened Rory, Jason and Tim made their way down. What Rory didn't know was that there were more horns hidden for them.

Not thinking that Tim would rig the chairs in the cave, both Jason and Rory plopped their butts down onto a chair only for them to jump off and onto the floor when the horn went off.

"Well, now that everyone is down here there is a matter for us to discuss," Dick said. "Who had the better prank?"

Almost everyone said Tim and Damian, apparently watching the two of them scream and jump every time there was a horn was funnier than watching Tim try and refigure out his room. Rory slumped in her spot and pouted. She was never going to hear the end of it from Tim nor Damian.

What made it worse was that they both get a batch of Alfred's cookies and brownies all to themselves. Twice now that Jason and Rory were denied that chocolatey goodness, but Tim and Damian did win fair and square even though Rory's earlier pranks were better. It seemed that Tim saved the best one for last and it's what got him the victory.

"Now that this prank war of your is settled, you two are going to be partnered on patrol again. Rory, you will be helping Tim with his case on Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, and Cobblepott. You two will leave continue tomorrow as Alfred has requested she rest for at least another day to make sure she is healed enough to get back out." Bruce said.

"Also, please try not to start another prank war or anything for at least 6 months."

#Tim Drake #Timothy Drake #tim drake fanfic #tim drake fanfiction #tim drake x oc #Red Robin #red robin fanfic #DC comics #pranks #the archer

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skippyv20 · 4 years

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BOOK TITLES

First, I want to Give a BIG THANK YOU to Skippy for allowing us to come here and offer opinions, ask questions, show off our family members (pets especially), offer recipes, historical sights, wonderful stories, and prayers etc. THANK YOU for also allowing us to have contests on your sites. Now for the Book Naming Contest: We have over 90 entries. I hope I did not miss anyone’s entry. If I did, please accept my humble apologies and resubmit and I will add to the list this evening US Pacific Time. No New entries allowed; we are running out of time to offer Rachel Meghan Markle a name for her book. Tomorrow morning, I will post the final list and it will be time to vote. Once I get the top 10 names, I will submit and we can settle on a final name. If anyone has a suggestion, please feel free to offer it. There was an anon that offered names for her book after the divorce. I think we should keep those for perhaps MM’s follow-up book? We know how she can’t keep quiet. Here’s your list:

THANK YOU SKIPPY FOR ALLOWING US TO DO THIS!!!!

1. 10,000 EXPERT Ways to COPY People, PHRASES and Quotes.

2. A Smugly Without a Country

3. A Yacht Girl by Any Other Name is Still a Yacht Girl

4. Advice Not Taken

5. All Abut Meghan

6. All Thins Fake and Plastic

7. Are you my Mommy?

8. Are You Okay Today?

9.Around the World on 80 Yachts

10. Banana Calligraphy for Beginners

11. Blue Fairy Waiting List

12. Bye Eyes the Grifter

13. Coat Flickery for Beginners

14. Diary of a Mad Househag

15.. Discovering Merching 2018

16. Do As I Say Not As I Do

17. Duchass for Dummies

18. Duchess Delusional, a Memoir of Tall Tales for Sugars to Devour

19. Fake Expectations

20. Fifty Shades of Skin Colour

21. Franken sugar’s Monster

22. Frankenstein

23. Give Me your Money Prince

24. Hey Big Spender

25. Hold My Hand and Smile, Harry

26. How I Wish Archie the Doll Would Turn into a Real Boy

27. How Not to Win Friends and Influence People?

28. How to Destroy Your Husband

29. How to Feed your Doll

30. How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

31. How to Make Enemies and Influence Idiots

32. How to Merch Without Trying

33. How to Scheme Your Way into a Royal Family

34. I am a Fraud

35. I Can’t Do Anything Right

36.. I Hate my Sister-in-Law, Andrew Too

37. I will Destroy Your Life

38. Illustrated Tales from Prison

39. Insider Secrets: How to RUIN a Royal EVENT

40. Knicker-less Smegleby

41. Lady of the Flies

42. Lies My Mother Told

43. Markle Fables

44. Me Myself and I

45. Meet My Five Invisible Friends

46. Meghan Markle and the Mechanical Baby Boy

47. Memoirs of a Hediho

48. Moon bumps and Coat Flicking

49. More Lies of a Liar

50. My Rubber Baby, the Delights of Motherhood

51. Nineteen Seventy-Eight

52. Of Belly Cradling

53. Paradise Lost

54. People LOVE ME AND ONLY ME

55. Photoshopping for Dummies

56. Pit Stained Passions in Royal Life?

57. Poor Pitiful Disgusting Me

58. Portrait of a Narcissist

59. Praise of Me Myself and I…Or Else!

60. Rachel Markle When Power is Enjoyed without Responsibility

61. Scabby Doo and the Curse of the Fake Duchess

62. Scruples? What Scruples:

63. Secret Dreamworld of a Narcissist

64. Shhh…Don’t Tell Anyone My Secrets That I Will Tell You About Anyways

65. Smegsy’s Adventures in La La Land

66. Tax Runner

67. The Claw Diary

68. The Diary of a Nobody

69. The Duchess and the Messages on the Banana

70. The Duchess and the Surrogate

71. The Duchess of Sucksex’s Tips

72. The Gatecrasher

73. The Letters from Prison

74. The Life and Times of Duchess Doolittle

75. The Merching of Windsor

76. The Mysterious Manhole…What Lies Beneath

77. The Never-a-Princess Diaries

78. The Prince and the Pill Popper

79. The Reverse Money Diet

80. The Royal Fraudster

81. The Three Manipulators

82. The Thundar Thief

83. The Unemployed Duchess

84. Things I want the Sugars to Know

85. Vanity Snare

86. What to Expect When you’re Not Expecting

87. Where in the World is Archie?

88. Whiplash

89. Who Moved My Wig?

90. Yachts, Plots, Bots, and Thots

91. You Too can be a Grifter

Thank you so much! All this is here because of the contributions from everyone. We do all of it together!

Thank you so much for putting this contest together! We need fun! I love this, and greatly appreciate all your work...😊❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

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iamnmbr3 · 4 years

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Quarantine Fic Rec List Part 1

Since we’re all bored/stressed in quarantine, I thought I’d do a couple of rec lists. For this one I’m mostly doing some very well written but more unusual fics that you might not have come across before. I’ve listed the fandom and ships for each.

So Much More Than That by brocanteur (complete | 4,005 | T | Mean Girls; Regina George/Cady Heron )

"And she missed Cady Heron. She missed her and blamed her for everything." Post-film.

The Richest Men In Town by copperbadge (complete | 2,476 | G | It’s A Wonderful Life)

George Bailey, a year after meeting the angel Clarence (second-class), gets a message from Clarence via an unlikely third party: H.F. Potter.

A Marital Education by Yahtzee (complete | 12,707 | M | Pride & Prejudice; Elizabeth/Darcy; period typical)

Darcy's impotent.

The Kindness of Men by debit (complete | 2,476 | G | Black Beauty; Fixit)

The last time Ginger saw Black Beauty, she'd said, "I wish the end was come, I wish I was dead. I have seen dead horses, and I am sure they do not suffer pain."

Once Around the Block by ecouterbien (complete | 1,134 | M | The Drop; Bob Saginowski/Nadia Dunne)

She was shaking when he let her out of the bar, and it wasn’t because of the cold. It wasn’t even a long walk to her house, a block and a half at most, but it was the longest walk she ever remembered taking. She counted every breath, every footstep, all the time listening for his steps on the sidewalk behind her. He wouldn’t just let her go like that, would he? Not after what she’d seen him do.

You look so Seattle by chaosmanor (complete | 8,955 | T | Venom )

Eddie and Venom are in Seattle chasing leads. Shit gets blown up. And there's fish.

A Princess And A Guy Like Me by Yahtzee (complete | 7,107 | T | Rapunzel/Flynn Rider)

“Rapunzel has never had choices before. I want her to have choices now.”

I nodded. “Absolutely.”

He meant, at least in part, choices of guys to marry who were not impoverished orphans/recently reformed thieves.

gunna pass me to that house above by deadendtracks (amonitrate) (complete | 625 | T | Peaky Blinders )

This wasn’t the trenches but it was the closest Alfie’d been to pinned down since he got back, and while Tommy wasn’t exactly a friend, that didn’t make him an enemy, now, did it.

A Broken Soul by wheatear (complete | 4,529 | G | Harry Potter)

What exactly is the nature of a soul? And when Lord Voldemort so willingly split his own soul in half, what damage did he do to himself?

dying out on burnt rage by lunaskeeper (complete | 2,576 | M | Peaky Blinders; Tommy Shelby/Alfie Solomons; period typical attitudes, POV outsider )

John hadn’t seen the same, trapped look in Tommy’s eyes in his office. And all of a sudden it was bubbling out of John’s mouth, a question he'd been pondering since he’d met Stefan’s shaky gaze with his own.

“Have you ever sucked cock?”

Rara Avis by Coryphasia (complete | 14,854 | G | My Fair Lady)

The night after the Embassy Ball, Eliza Doolittle walked out on Henry Higgins and disappeared. Three years later, she returns to see if wrongs can be made right

'til the walls did crumble by arahir (complete | 3,742 | G | Game of Thrones’ Jon/Tormund)

Jon Snow and Tormund Giantsbane and their giant dog go camping with a bunch of Wildlings. What happens next will SHOCK you. (They are buddies who fall in love lmao.)

“Not worried, are you?”

“For a crow boy? Never.” Tormund looks away, off toward the mountains in the distance where the Fist of the First Men sits as a jut of stone in the ice fields, which are turning greener day by day. “Don’t let them keep you down there, Jon Snow. Don't die in the South."

Be Careful What You Wish For by The_Necroposter (complete | 225,838 | M | Twilight; very dark, spitefic, horror, proceed with care; skip to the end for an author’s note in which the writer epically calls out the problematic aspects of the original canon )

What if Breaking Dawn wasn't a Mary Sue fantasy, but a story with a plot, character development, and consequences? What if Bella's transformation actually was a sacrifice, and not only her getting used to an alien body was a challenge, but also staying alive in a world filled with enemies? Find out how a naive, selfish girl grows up and copes with the biggest mistake of her life.

Naming of the Beast by NeurotropicAgentX (complete | 1,316 | T | Venom; pre-canon symbiote world building)

Consciousness hit like a wave, like a signal, like an attack. There had been nothing and now there was a jumble of concepts and thoughts and impulses. It writhed and thrashed, at once realising that it had a body that could do this, that could express this new consciousness.

It screeched.

Sequence by NeurotropicAgentX (complete | 2,882 | E | Venom; sort of Venom/Riot - pre-canon symbiote world building)

I’ve never encountered anything like those blades you formed during your hunt, Venom sent, carefully, cautiously.

I acquired them on a mission. There’s a lot of interesting information to be found out there. Riot’s close-range chemical messages carried strange accents of complex biomolecules Venom had never felt before. The taste was a clear indication of just how much of Riot must have been shaped by past hosts and alien genetic information from beyond the stars. Venom wanted.

Show me? it asked.

No Living Man by ElanaBrooks (complete | 732 | G | Lord of the Rings; Parody)

In which the Witch King learns that, for an inhabitant of Middle Earth, the knowledge that no living man can harm you is no reason to get cocky. AU, Humor.

Here is a truth (here is another truth) by SecondStarOnTheLeft (complete | 2,012 | M | Pirates of the Caribbean; James Norrington/Elizabeth Swann )

Here is a truth: James Norrington loves his wife, but he is completely incapable of believing that she might return the compliment.

Here is another truth: Elizabeth Norrington, née Swann, is a much more patient woman than she has ever been given credit for.

Bahamian-Style Mooring by syllic (complete | 10,370 | G | Shawshank Redemption)

Five times Red got things in Zihuatanejo (and one time he didn’t need to get anything).

Lunch and Other Obscenities by Rheanna (complete | 9,717 | G | Star Trek 2009; background Spock/Uhura)

Nyota liked her roommate just fine until she met her.

Nom de Coeur by Dorinda (complete | 12,725 | G | Casablanca; Rick/Louis)

This looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship--but beginnings are only seeds, and it's a long way to Brazzaville.

Five Ways to Stop Being a Princess by igrockspock (complete | 3,560 | T | Star Wars; Han/Leia )

1. Spend a night in the smuggling compartments of the Millennium Falcon 2. Learn to fire a blaster without closing your eyes 3. Get drunk and go to bed with an unsuitable man 4. Yell at people who ask if you're okay 5. Go to bed with an unsuitable man even when you're sober

elioenai by Anonymous (complete | 6,002 | G | MCU Daemon AU )

Tony falls through the space between worlds. As a result, he can see daemons. It kind of freaks him out. (It's stranger and more beautiful than he could have ever imagined.)

The Sergeant and the Captain by OddityBoddity (complete | 7,316 | G | MCU )

The Sergeant and the Captain, or, The True and Accurate Reports Chronicling the Well-being of the Shield-brothers James Barnes and Steven Rogers, Faithfully Submitted by Thor Odinson to Maria Hill, Director.

Special Circumstances Questionnaire for Sexual Partners (Male): Long Form by coruscera (impractica), linbot (complete | 1,320 | E | Fandom Culture Parody )

Does having sex with you entail becoming married, whether legally, magically, physiologically, or some other de facto permanent relationship? Y/N If Yes, please describe our new life together.

#fic rec #fandom #fanfiction #random musings #quarantine rec list #coronavirus #quarantine #Star Wars #Star Trek #classical literature #classics #MCU #Harry Potter #Marvel

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thewhiterabbit42 · 5 years

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Wicked Games

Pairing: Gabriel x reader

Series Summary: When a trickster seeks revenge on Gabriel, he traps the archangel in a sex dungeon with the person he despises the most: you.

Word Count: 3432

Chapter tags/warnings: swearing, people being dicks

Series tags/warnings (as it stands): dark fic, medium burn, kidnapping, sex dungeon, mutual pining, enemies to lovers, violence, graphic depictions of horror, dub con, non con, oral sex, it’s a sex dungeon so likely all the sex, confessed feelings, bondage, more tba

A/N: This is a dark fic. Please read all tags/warnings carefully. Big thanks to my beta and @starchaser-the-prophet for taking a peek at this!

Based off the following request by @inuhimesblog

Part 2

“Seriously? You’re going to leave me with her?” Gabriel’s disdain is palpable, overflowing from his features and spiraling out into the space surrounding him.

You try not to take it personally. You’d hate feeling leashed too, if you were an ancient being whose entire existence consisted of being top of the food chain, and you imagine it especially hits a nerve given how he’s spent the last seven years.

“If you didn’t want a chaperone, then maybe you should have stayed put for the five minutes we told you to, instead of inviting a bunch of your old friends over for tea and almost getting us all killed!” Dean insists.

“How was I supposed to know they were on Loki’s side?” Gabriel demands.

You can see the way betrayal sparks bright behind gold, another heavy blow to an ego that, by all accounts, should be shredded beyond recognition. Maybe it is, but even you have difficulty discerning when he insists on being such an ass about everything.

"Because all gods are a bunch of backstabbing assholes?" Dean guesses. He’s just as sardonic and pissy as the archangel is these days, so much so, you can’t stand being in the same room with them.

"They're not gods," Gabriel says flatly. "They're maenads."

"I don’t really care what they are," Dean retorts, gesturing to dismembered corpses strewn along the floor. "Demi-God, god, trickster, whatever. The name changes, the song stays the same. You can't trust any of them!"

If eye rolling were an Olympic event, the archangel would take home the gold. He folds his arms over his chest, his entire upper body getting into the movement. His head drops back and the look on his face suggests even Heaven can’t help him as his weight shifts between feet.

You can't blame him. The entire situation screams power move by Dean. As much as you don’t agree with it, you’re not really in a position to either challenge or refuse him, and you suspect the current predicament is as much a means to keep you in line as it is Gabriel.

"Look," Sam steps into the fray, trying to be the voice of reason in this whole mess. "We need you, and, like it or not, you need us."

Short, sweet, to the point, and more importantly, accurate.

"And if there are more of these things out there," he looks down at the bodies at his feet. "Then it sounds like you could use someone to help watch your back."

Gabriel's glare swings toward him, skepticism bubbling through the surface of his anger.

“And I don’t know what you’re complaining about, because she’s the one that dropped those things, not us,” Sam adds, a touch of attitude broaching his tone to drive his point home.

While you appreciate the reminder, it’s not as if the archangel wasn’t there, moving perfectly in tandem with you. Somehow, you make a great team, despite how roughly things go when there isn’t a common enemy you want to murder instead of each other.

As Gabriel’s scathing stare slides in your direction, you feel another layer of your patience peel away. You’re not thrilled with the situation anymore than he is, but then again, when has he ever been thrilled to see you?

That’s not entirely true. There was a time he was playful and cheeky, where he used to call you endearing nicknames that drove Dean insane. Even if they weren’t really for your benefit, it had been nice to pretend someone might want to call you those things.

Now, he calls you the littlest Winchester, despite the fact you are not related to the infamous brothers, and he treats you no differently than if you were one of them, which most days means you catch a whole lot of flak for things you’ve never done.

You recognize it’s a defense mechanism. He’s been through so much between his family, Loki, and Asmodeus, though it’s hard to remember that when you’re dragged into the latest pissing match, and he acts like the whole thing is your idea.

“Yeah, well, you’re not exactly my idea of a good time either,” you mutter, your irritation getting the better of you.

You miss the way something shifts in his features, eating away at the hardness around the edge of gold as you glance back to the brothers and add, “And if I’m delegated to playing nursemaid to that one,” you jam your thumb toward the surly archangel, “Then you two are on cleanup duty.”

Dean makes a face, looking down at the collection of limbs on the floor. Surprisingly, he doesn't argue. "Sam, get some trash bags from the trunk. The industrial ones."

As if he has to specify you need the body-sized ones.

“And my bag please,” you ask.

Sam nods, slipping out the door without another word.

There’s an extra tension in the room whenever it’s just the three of you. You used to be the one to manage it, the one who could smooth things over whenever the two of them locked horns, but now you’re just as at odds with them as they are with each other.

It doesn’t feel right. None of it does. The bitterness. The constant fighting. Only you don’t know what to do about it anymore.

"C'mon, grumbles, let's get your mess cleaned up,” Dean orders, toeing what might be part of an arm with the edge of his boot.

Gabriel is not pleased to be on the receiving end of a nickname, face pulling into a sardonic smile that borders on murder. Before he can zing anything back in the hunter’s direction, the door swings back open and Sam walks in, supplies (which wisely includes a tarp and some heavy duty rubber gloves) in hand.

"Notice I said you two." You gesture between the brothers, murmuring a thanks to Sam as he hands you your bag.

"What do you plan to do? Supervise?" Dean’s in rare form, and there’s a thinly veiled accusation simmering beneath green that you can’t touch right now.

“You think those claw marks are going to stitch themselves?” You question, gesturing toward the Gabriel’s shredded leg. From the amount of blood and nearly black stain on his pants, you’re certain he’s only alive because he can’t technically die from bleeding out.

You reach into your satchel and pull out your modified first aid kit. It has the basic supplies, the biggest difference being the amount of gauze and bandaging included (for those archangel sized wounds) and some herbal components that stimulate grace regeneration.

You move a chair next to the dresser in front of what might be the only clean section of carpet left.

"Drop the jeans,” you order, patting the back of the chair with invitation as you begin to lay out what you’ll need.

There's a brief moment where the Gabriel you knew flits to the surface. "Here? In front of everyone? Kinky."

You almost smile. Almost. Because one light moment isn't even close to being a bandaid on your relationship. No matter how much you'd like it to be.

Especially when he follows it up with another blow.

"But I think I'll pass on being the guinea pig to your Dr. Doolittle and take care of myself, thanks." He holds out his hand expectantly, and it takes a concerted effort not to smack him upside the head with the supplies.

You settle for shoving them directly at his chest.

“Well if nobody needs me, I need some air.”

“They need you,” Dean gestures to the body’s on the floor. “Us, right here?” He swings his finger between himself and Sam. “We need you,” he says pointedly as you pass right by him. “Hey!”

Your instincts flare as he moves toward you, and there’s a visceral jolt through your chest that prepares you to react. Sam intervenes before you get the chance, tall frame stepping between you as he puts a hand on his brother’s chest.

“Dean.”

You don’t care what look is burning into your back right now. You’ve spent the last two days trapped in a car with a volatile version of Dean who reminds you of something you spend most of your time desperately trying to forget ever existed.

“Let her go.”

Dean doesn’t fight him, and the slam of the door is your final contribution to the conversation before you take off across the parking lot.

***

You should have kept walking. Doubled back to the highway. Hitched a ride in any direction, so long as it was away from there. Away from him.

Gabriel’s camped out on the floor, leaning against the foot of the bed. Instead of watching TV or playing on his phone like any normal being would, he’s bouncing a baseball against the wall with a persistent ker-thunk.

It’s the same motion over and over: off the thin carpet, against the same dingy spot parallel to the dresser, pausing just long enough to make you wonder if he’s finally done, before starting all over again.

Good god it’s annoying. How did you ever put up with him?

Only you know how.

Before, he was smooth. He knew how to lay on the charm and flatter his way into good graces. He used to be like Cas; beneath that outer surface lay something soft and warm, though instead of a rough veneer, it was the guise of detached hedonism.

But now he’s all pointed barbs and caustic sarcasm, and it rubs you so raw that you have little patience left to weather the truly obnoxious moments anymore.

“Drama queen, much?” You finally snap. You’re young, but the reference isn’t lost on you, and as much as he wants to act like he’s imprisoned, he has far more ways to escape this hole in the wall than you ever will.

Ker-thunk. “Better than being a lap dog.”

He doesn’t miss a beat, and this remark hits harder than you expect. You’re not certain if it’s the connotation or the sheer acidity behind it, but he’s never this mean-spirited with you.

You breath in.

Ker-thunk.

Then out.

Ker-thunk.

And in.

Ker-thunk.

Reminding yourself - ker-thunk - of all - ker-thunk - the horrible things - ker-thunk - he’s been through - ker-thunk - and how they - ker-thunk - change a person - ker-thunk.

Ker-thunk.

Ker-

You grip the edges of your lorebook so hard you’re convinced you’re fingerprints are going to sear straight into the leather binding.

“Just because you’ve been dealt a shitty hand doesn’t give you the right to be a dick to the rest of us.”

Not exactly where you’d hoped to land, but between him and Dean, the well you maintain to stay diplomatic in these situations has run so dry it’s going to take some biblical sized relationship repairs raining down on you to fill that sucker back up.

Silence falls and you’re given a moment of reprieve.

Literally, one.

“I’m the dick in this situation?” His head whips around so fast it reminds you of the movie The Exorcist. “Tell me, which one of us is on a leash right now, and which one is holding it?”

Right. Because it’s your fault he goes into situations half-cocked, low on energy, without any backup, nearly gets himself killed, and pisses off the only allies he may have left.

“Door’s open, don’t let it hit your ass on the way out.”

There’s a window in the bathroom you’re happy to shove him out of as well, but you decide to keep that suggestion to yourself in an attempt to keep things marginally civil.

You get up from your chair and toss your book aside, in need of another way to decompress. Despite the fact it’s not even noon, you head toward the mini-fridge, which is stock full of your maladaptive coping mechanism of choice.

The moment Gabriel sees you pull out a beer, he lets out a scornful snort. "Have another one, Winchester."

His insult hits a target dead center, though it’s not the one he’s aiming for. Instead of slamming your integrity or moral turpitude, or whatever the shit he thinks he’s poking at, you feel cut off at the knees.

You’re not a Winchester, and it’s not that you want to be one so much as know you never can that makes this a particularly sore spot for you.

The reminder is draining, because it’s always there, hanging over your head, and you’re as sick of it as being caught in a game of Tug of War between two equally stubborn individuals.

“Can we do something other than argue for once?” Exasperation softens the sharpness in your tone as you sit on the edge of the dresser.

You hold the beer in your hands, focusing on the cold against your palms and the dampness that forms against the warmth of your skin.

He considers your question, absent-mindedly tossing the ball up in his hand. “We could always play a game.”

For a moment, he almost looks like himself again, mischief sparking, shaking off the varnish within gold. His lips twitch as if attempting to smile, but they're heavy, immobile, and another indication of just how much has changed.

Part of you wants to humor him for the sake of keeping this tenuous break, but the rest of you is pretty god damn tired of being someone else’s punching bag.

“I have a novel idea,” you begin, leaning forward and resting your elbows on your legs.

He deflates, dour demeanor returning. “Oh, this should be good…”

You regret saying anything, but as with most things in your life, it’s too late to go back. You run your thumb along the condensation of the bottle, tongue darting out across your lips as you prepare yourself for whatever comes next.

“Why don’t we do something productive like, I dunno, talk about the group of deities out for your blood?” You’re careful not to sound too concerned. Doing so gets you batted at faster than a feral cat who’s cornered.

“Yeah. Real fun topic to be revisiting.”

It’s still the least combative response you’ve received recently, and it gives you some hope you might be able to reason with him.

“Gabriel, if I’m going to be sitting next to someone with a giant target on their back, I’d like to know what it is my enemy might be firing so I can do something about it.”

That, and you’d really like to avoid becoming a smear on the wall.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart, there’s nothing coming but a whole lotta blanks.”

You’re not sure what rankles you more: the insincere and wholly mocking term of endearment he throws at you that used to mean something, or how dismissive he is of the danger you’re both in.

“Why won’t you let anyone help you?”

In the few moments he isn’t forcing you to see a spectrum of red that exists only in his presence, there are startling shades of deep blue that squeeze around your heart because you already know why.

Some part of that must show, his mood worsening exponentially. "Maybe because I don’t need anyone’s help? Especially yours."

And back to square one you go.

"You are the most frustrating man I've ever met," you mutter, slamming the top of your beer down on the edge of the dresser and popping the cap off. You bring the bottle to your lips and the bulk of the drink bypasses your tastebuds, pouring straight down your throat.

“Seems unlikely, given your Winchester worshipping status, but you’re no walk in the park either, toots.”

You glare at him, wondering just how much trouble you’ll be in with said Winchesters if you decide to paint a banishing sigil on the other side of the bathroom door and blast the archangel’s insufferable ass into the next state.

As if sensing the brewing mutiny, both your phones buzz, Dean’s contact flashing across both screens.

Meet me at this address. Important.

Thank God, or the gods, or whatever was out there for small favors. You need something to do other than go another ten rounds with each other.

“C’mon," you tell him, hopping back to your feet without a second thought.

“Really?”

Here it comes.

You down the rest of your drink as he readies his next jab.

“What's up between you and the lumberjack?”

You’d ask which one, but the question is so ridiculous you can’t do anything except blink. “Excuse me?”

Is he implying… what the hell is he implying?

“Every time he says jump you ask how high without a second thought, but here you are, all up on my lamp post about not knowing what you’re walking into.”

There are differences between him and Dean. Big ones. Ones he should be able to grasp, but you don’t trust him to, and if there’s anything you’ve learned with either of them it’s that sometimes it’s just easier to deal with things on your own.

"There's nothing going on."

Your quick dismissal only has the archangel's stare narrowing.

"Does he have something on you?"

“Jesus christ, Gabriel, can we argue about this in the car?” You’d prefer not to argue at all, but getting him out the door is now your number one priority, and you have a feeling this is going to be worse than the time Dean left you with that toddler from Hell. Literally, a demon hiding in a three year old’s body that knew how to push every one of your buttons so you’d overlook the fact it couldn’t cross the line of salt in the doorway, rather than wouldn’t.

“I’m being serious,” he says grabbing you by the arm as you try to pass. The contact startles you, as does the admission that follows. “I know I've been kind of an douche lately --”

“Kind of?”

He ignores your knee-jerk response. “The point is, you can talk to me."

That might be the funniest thing he’s said all day.

You snort. "Good one."

“I’m serious.” He pins you beneath a sober stare, one noticeably lacking a scathing edge.

You’re not certain what to do with that.

“He doesn’t have anything on me, alright?” You sigh. “Now can we please go?”

He eyes you even more intently before his features abruptly harden again. “Don’t tell me you’re in love with him.”

You decide not to justify that with a response. Not a verbal one anyway. You hope the middle finger you raise in his direction as you try to head to the door is a clear enough indication of where you stand on the matter.

As usual, the idiot-savant in him has already made up his mind on the matter.

“Oh for shit’s sake, you are.” He grabs you by the wrist, stopping you in your tracks, and you’re too busy trying not to scream to notice the myriad of emotions that flash through his gaze. “Seriously? Since when did you become deaf, blind, and dumb?”

He's so far from the truth it should be laughable. Except it isn’t, because it’s him, and you’re over this conversation.

“Since when did it become any of your business who the fuck I’m interested in?” You yank out of his grip, shoving him out of your space. “Don't act like you care about me or anything other than playing Uma Thurman in your little Kill Bill revenge fantasy."

Gabriel freezes, surprised by the sudden burst of hostility from you.

"Now you can either get in the car, stay here, or fuck off to Fiji for all I care, but I am leaving," you snarl before storming out of the room.

You didn't sign up for this. He and Dean can sort it out between themselves if they're going to insist on being self-centered pricks the entire time. You just want to wake up one morning and feel like you’re worth something again, something no one else seems inclined to let you do.

Before you even make it to the vehicle, Gabriel’s there, waiting for you in the passenger seat. You’re relieved and annoyed. You need a break, but despite that, you know this is far, far better than facing an irate Dean.

Mostly. It really depends on how much trouble either of your mouths can get into.

The answer is potentially plenty once you plug the address into your phone’s GPS and realize you have a forty-five minute drive into the middle of nowhere ahead of you.

You take a deep breath, managing not to wrench open the car door. There are far worse things you’ve endured. How bad could one car ride turn out?

Part 2 >>

ALL the tags

@girl-next-door-writes @blondecoffeecake @room-with-a-cat @nobodys-baby-now @lucifer-in-leather @crashdevlin @idabbleincrazy @lovelyhexbag @megasimpleplan4ever @brokencasbutt67-writer @mrswhozeewhatsis @ourloveisforthelovely @copperseraphim @ladyofletters67 @azlinh @authoressskr @bofa-deans-nuts @phantomwarrior12 @karichanarts @archangelgabriellives @mizzezm @curious-trickster @tardis-is-mine @archangelashiah @katekvnes @datajana @shadows-and-padlocked-hearts @marichromatic @falcatrecon @flufy07 @alisoncdariel @angelofwinchester17 @feelmyroarrrr

Gabe Squad (Gabriel)

@disneymarina @starchaser-the-prophet @bloodstained-porcelain-doll @the-kryomancer @supernaturalways @erisunderthemoon @hankypranky @fruitypieq @missihart23 @a-wing-and-a-pen @waywardspringchild @luciferseclipse @greeneyedtrickster @fand0maniac @gabegirrl86

#gabriel x reader #gabriel #gabriel fanfiction #gabriel fanfic #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural fanfic #rabbit writes

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jgbjr88 · 4 years

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jordswriteswords · 5 years

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Clextober19: Fall Festivities

Back to school was the favourite time of year for most. Parents were overjoyed that their children would be supervised while they were working; children were overjoyed the see their friends again; teachers were overjoyed to… well, they were overjoyed for the weekends.

Madi, on the other hand, hated back to school. Being a half witch meant she had half the human antibodies, and half the witch antibodies, therefore, she was in for a whole dose of unrelenting colds during the first two months. She would get sick at least twice in that short amount of time, causing her to miss a lot of school and a lot of the time that children spent making and solidifying their friendships.

But, she couldn't go to school. Not when her nose was stuffy and running and she was sniffling and sneezing and turning her mother into an elephant, blowing her Aunt Raven up like fireworks, and sending her mama into the desert and back again in a wiggle of her nose.

But Ms. Indra insisted that she be present for the first field trip of the year. The kids were going to the apple farm, after all, and Lexa had volunteered as the class chaperone.

In hindsight, Madi should have known that her class would have been more interested in Lexa and her superstar status than the actual field trip. Even as the ten year old curled up in her mama’s shoulder, she was still having to deal with boys and girls interrupting to get a picture with her mama or ask for her autograph.

Madi sucked down the hot tea that her mama had packed in her travel mug, a blend of echinacea and magical herbs to fight off both sides of the cold virus. It relieved the aches and pains, and most importantly, stopped the sniffles for the time being.

The class wandered through the apple farm for a majority of the day, getting lost in corn mazes, learning how to bale hay for the animals, petting tiny lambs in the petting zoo, and drinking warm cups of apple cider and eating apple pie.

Madi had made it throughout most of the day without mishap aside from sneezing and blowing her mom across the corn field. Lexa snapped her fingers and fixed the holes that were created before anyone had noticed, though.

The last part of the trip was the horse rides around the farm. Each child in the class took a turn on one of the ten horses for a tour of the entire farm.

Madi brushed her hand along the nose of a chocolate pony. “Hey. Your name is Ryder. It’s cute.”

The horse stomped it's foot in the mud and shook it's head up and down. “I think my handler was a punny guy.”

Madi chuckled. “That’s actually funny.”

The horse took a step back. “No way you can understand me.”

Madi smiled up at the big nose, lifting her hands in deference like her mama had taught her to approach animals. “Duh. You speak English. You just have a weird accent.”

The horse neighed, catching Lexa’s attention. and she took a quick picture of her daughter smiling up at the giant and sent it off to her wife.

Ryder bowed his head and said, “Well I’ll be, aren't you just a smart lil cookie. Hey Cleatus! Lookie o’er here! We got us our own Dr. Doohickey!”

“Dr. Doolittle,” Madi corrected, and Ryder huffed at her.

A black stallion galloped over towards them and sniffed Madi’s neck. “She smells like apples. I love apples!”

She giggled at the contact, and pulled an apple out of her pocket, holding it out for Cleatus.

“You can hear us?” Cleatus asked.

Madi nodded and giggled more when he stepped right into her space, his giant eyeball looking into hers.

A white mare saddled up to Madi shortly after, nudging her bum with her nose.

“Ponyelope,” Ryder scolded. “She’s a good one.”

They were interrupted by the sounds of her classmate yelling. “Look at this weirdo!” Josephine Lightborne pointed at Madi, who was surrounded by horses. “She can’t make real friends so she hangs out with animals!”

Madi’s classmates pointed and laughed, and Lexa had to squeeze her hands together to stop them from snapping and giving all the ten year olds wedgies. But, if Josephine ended up stepping in a suddenly appearing cow-pie, Lexa was none the wiser.

“Don’t mind them, darlin’” Ryder consoled. “Let’s just go on a good ol’ fashioned ride. That’ll cheer ya’up, I promise,” he neighed.

Madi sighed, but smiled when Ryder rubbed his nose against her cheek. Ryder took off at a slow cadence once Madi climbed aboard, describing all the parts of the farm to her. He wandered as far away from the rest of the group as he could without drawing suspicion to point out the magical flowers in the fields and the magical animals that could only be seen by those with abilities.

The path wound around and through the pumpkin fields, and Madi tensed. "I'm allergic to pumpkins!" She hissed to the horse.

Ryder slowed his trot, but the cowboy handler that was leading the group circled around and forced him to carry on.

Her nose tickled, and she looked over to Lexa with fear in her eyes. She clutched at Ryder’s fur, and her heels dug into his sides.

"I'm trying, I'm trying," Ryder said, trying to console his rider. He tried to move faster, but his handler wasn't letting him, tired of his antics.

Madi sneezed and all hell broke loose.

She had turned the pumpkin patch into a giant, living creatures that scared Josephine's horse into bucking with her still on. She fell off the back of the horse and straight into the mud with a scream.

The rest of the horses followed suit, kicking and bucking their riders off so they could free themselves.

"Whoa, whoa!" The handlers tried, but the terrified animals wouldn't heed. The animals kicked and whined, and started to run off.

"What did I do?" Madi questioned, her voice shaky with sadness.

Ryder didn’t buck his rider off; however. He took off with Madi on his back, straight to the rest of the now free horses. All the horses had run about a hundred yards from the scare and we're circling the ground, huffing angrily.

"What was that?"

"I'll kill it!"

"I hate pumpkins!"

"Fight back!"

Madi jumped off the horse and approached the pack with her hands up. "Whoa, whoa," The horses were frazzled and frightened. "I know you're all scared. It's okay, it's my fault."

"Kill the girl!" One horse yelled, neighing and rearing back on its hind legs. Ryder moved in front of her. "Calm down, Otis, she's just a girl!"

"It was an accident!" Madi pleaded. "It was an accident. I can't control my powers."

"She scared us!"

"But we're fine!" Ryder said.

"Let's just all calm down," Madi said. "I'm sorry I scared you. I won't let it happen again."

The horses huffed and sneezed, but Madi wouldn’t move from the middle of the pack.

"Madi, no!" Her teacher called.

"Wait, wait," Lexa said, grabbing the teacher and stopping them from interfering. “They’re calming down.”

“Please, just come back to your owners. I promise, no more magic. No more pumpkins.”

Ponyelope looked around, her ears twitching with nerves.

“Please,” Madi breathed.

Ponyelope took one step, then two, then moved right past Madi and headed towards the handlers. The rest of the horses followed, and Ryder pressed his big head into Madi’s chest. She laughed and hugged his nose.

The class looked on as Madi corralled the horses and got them to follow her back to the handlers.

"How did you do that?" Aden asked when she got back.

Madi just shrugged.

"It's because - it's because she's a weirdo!" Josephine said, covered from head to toe in mud. "She doesn't have any friends so she talks to animals, and even they don't listen to her!"

A few of her classmates laughed at Madi, whose cheeks became warm with embarrassment. She ran back to the bus, and Lexa trailed after her.

"Hey, shut up!" Aden Forrest, they typically shy and well mannered boy, yelled. "She saved your life, Josephine! She saved all of us from getting really hurt!"

***

"Mads?" Lexa asked, slowly sitting next to her daughter on the large seat of the deserted bus.

The only sound was a sniffle, and then Lexa felt the soft flutter of snowflakes cascading onto her head.

"I hate this," Madi whispered. "I hate having magic! I hate being human! I hate that I'm just a weird half-thing!" The sound of her voice grew louder until she shouted at her mama. She turned and punched the seat in front of them as tears poured from her eyes.

"I'm sorry you feel that way Madi," Lexa said, dusting the snow off her shoulder and then wrapping her daughter in a warm hug.

Madi sniffed again as the tears fell and Lexa was pelted with sand and dirt.

Lexa snapped and created an umbrella to hover above her and her daughter to stop the onslaught.

"You have so many special gifts, Madi, but the best one is that you're kind. Don't let someone like Josephine take that away from you. What you did today made me more proud than you learning your first spell. You're a great person, and kids are just dumb. It'll get better, I promise. If you want to be sad right now, or if you can't help it, that's okay. I'm right here. But, never hate who you are. You’re the best parts of me and the best parts of your mom. You’re an incredible kid, Madi."

Madi leaned into her mama and hugged her tightly around her neck. "I love you, mama."

"Love you too, Mads."

Aden was the first student to enter the bus since the incident, and his heavy, awkward footsteps sounded until he was standing directly in front of Madi and Lexa’s seat. "Hey, sorry, Hi, Mrs. Griffin-Woods. I'm sorry to interrupt, but uhh," Aden said, shuffling awkwardly from foot to foot. He had a piece of paper in his hand that he folded and unfolded methodically.

Madi hid her face in Lexa's collar, and it took everything inside of the brunette not to snap at the boy. "Yes, Aden?" She asked, already pulling her pen out of her pocket to sign his paper.

"Sorry, um, thank you for offering, but I don’t want your autograph.” He ran his hand through his shaggy blonde hair, “but can you give this to Madi for me? I just want her to know that she's the coolest person ever and say thank you for saving us." His earnest blue eyes pleaded with Lexa and he thrust the paper into her face. She gracefully retrieved it from his fingers and opened it only after he scurried away and off the bus.

Lexa’s heart melted at what she saw.

Aden had written a big 'thank you' on the cover of the card. Inside, all the students in the class signed the left side of the page. On the right side, he had drawn a picture of Madi with a cape and a horse. And on the back, he scrawled, 'Madi, thank you for saving us. You're a superhero. Can I sit with you at lunch tomorrow? - your friend, Aden'

#clextober19 #13daysofclexa #the 100 clarke #clarkegriffin #clarke griffin #clarke #clarke x lexa #commander lexa #lexathe100 #lexaedit #the 100 lexa #lexadeservedbetter #accidental magic #modern magic #magic!au #magic #witch!lexa #witch!madi

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beatrice-otter · 4 years

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Yuletide Recs 2019

Happy Yuletide, everyone! First, I got a delightful little fic written for me: promenade. My Fair Lady, Eliza Doolittle and Mrs. Higgins. Wonderful story. Mrs. Higgins was superb, and Eliza's reactions to the English upper class abroad are perfect. Here are some other fics I have enjoyed: 4'33"--John Cage The Sound Of A Yuletide Fic Not Being Written. There sure are a lot of cars going by. Great meta look at writing, and 4'33" The Addams Family (movies) An Addams Family Contract (Written in Secret, Signed in Blood). “I’m an Addams,” Debbie protests indignantly. Immediately after making this statement, Debbie realized that it was true. (Or, Wednesday wants to exorcise Debbie. Debbie wants to kill Wednesday. A negotiation begins.) This is AMAZING and hysterically funny, and the thought of Debbie and Wednesday working together is TERRIFYING. Don't I Deserve Love (and Jewelry). The plan to win Wednesday’s friendship did not start well. She shared her admiration for the girl’s blowtorch, then hinted about her own childhood affinity for matchsticks and fire accelerants, but Wednesday was unimpressed. Do better,” she said before lowering her hockey mask and stalking after Pubert. Honeymoon in Transylvania. Ahahahaha, this is wonderful. Gomez and Morticia vs. the TSA! Alien Series A Room with a Crappy View. 17k of Ripley and Hicks awesomeness post-Aliens. This is an absolutely AMAZEBALLS fic, and I LOVE it. I love that they deal with their trauma. I love how they wrote the Colonel, doing the best she could on the evidence she had and how frustrating that was and yet, when you look at it from her POV, what better way could she have handled it? The action is great, the relationships between Ripley and Hicks and Bishop were awesome, this is an absolute treat. All About Eve Getting Back to Being a Woman. Karen knew enough not to go to New Haven. Never let it be said that Margo Channing doesn't know how to take care of her friends. I love this. I could just hear Bette Davis and the others saying their lines, and the ending is perfect--I think Karen and Lloyd will be able to have a much better relationship after this, if he's willing to accept and live into the changed relationship. Till I have the possession of everything she touches. Addison DeWitt/Eve Harrington and their daughter. VERY well done Addison perspective. Aubrey-Maturin series. Vent de Boulet. Jack & Aubrey, Teen. The aftermath of Stephen's escape from the French interrogators at Port Mahon. Wonderful portrayal of the relationship between them and natural consequences of their trauma-filled lives. Babette's Feast Body and Soul. After the French dinner, a new normal established itself among the faithful. Ballet Shoes A Long Way from the Cromwell Road. Petrova visits Pauline in Hollywood after the war ends. Bletchley Circle Logical Recovery. After the showdown with Marta Magro at the warehouses, Jean, Millie, and Lucy embark for Glasgow to find Eliška. Archival research, an extended stay with Jean's cousin, undercover rescue missions, and much emotional processing of past events ensue. Cabaret Infinite Variety. London, 1950. Clifford has coming looking for Sally. Instead he finds a girl who may or may not be her – or their – daughter, the reclusive former Master of Ceremonies, and an annoying parrot. He becomes part of their strange household, full of love and bickering; sorrow, pain and music. No-one will tell him where Sally is, or even whether she’s alive. No-one will tell him anything. Except the parrot, who tells him that life is a Cabaret. Oh, wow, this is painful but SO GOOD and the ending is perfect. DC Teen Titans From Cold to Fire. "Do you want to go out with me?" "What?" Young Justice Getting Stupid in your area. Hang-time includes considerations of evil clones and taking down a newly raised lich lord. Love the banter. Die Hard Your Answers Please. “Come on, kid,” McClane said gruffly. “This place is fucking depressing. You’re coming to stay with me.” Enchanted Forrest Chronicles Best Served Cold. In which Antorell causes trouble in the Enchanted Forest, and Cimorene and Alianora make an amphibious new friend. Hilarious, I love Ribbita! Ghostbusters Better Than Roses. Janine dates. It's...something. The Goblin Emperor Imperial (non) Immunity. Csevet doesn't get sick. Maia's not so confident. Light a Mourner's Candle. The Archprelate finds a chaplain for Maia. Against a Sure Winter. When the opportunity arose to become one of the four ceremonial bodyguards for the new Emperor, Cala Athmaza volunteered. He didn't fully realize what he was letting himself in for, but he knew in his heart he had made the right choice. Sugar Lumps. Maia spends some time with his horse. Greek Mythology beauty, her artificers. Shortly after their wedding, Aphrodite sustains a small wound. Really great Aphrodite/Hephaestus dynamic. a thing of beauty, golden. Olympus’ one-century wonder appears in Hephaestus’ workshop between one strike on his anvil and the next.. Another really great Aphrodite/Hephaestus fic. Hancock yeah I know the shortcut, rather take the long way. Ray daydreams a New York that looks a lot like something out of an old Daredevil comic - towers looming over the city like cragged, jaded sentries, impartial to the neon kaleidoscope of chaos churning along below them. Hancock roosts on the tallest, craggiest one of course, brooding as he watches the slow pulsing heartbeat of the city below him. Ready to dive off his perch and into action with the first cry of distress, and there’s probably lots of those in a city like New York. Lots of zooming around, saving people, saving the world. Hopefully with slightly less metaphorical middle fingers to the world. And less alcohol. Ray’s not an idiot though, and one sparkly life-changing month doesn’t just fix people. History RPF 15th Century. these late eclipses. Anne Neville, like others of her line, is born with a gift. I LOVE the way magic is brought into this, it melds so well with the history. 19th Century/German folklore The Bargain. Bettina finds a secret door at her grandmother's house, one that leads to something very unexpected. The things she learns as a result change her life in small but important ways. Imperial Radch Still Left in Want of Mercy. The Republic of Two Systems is about a month old. Seivarden is having yet another crisis - can Mercy of Kalr get her through it? Maybe, with the crew's and Fleet Captain's help. Interesting Ship perspective. high above the trees. An unexpected embassy. Really excellent, probably the best way I've ever seen "Awn Lives" done. The Incredibles Life of a Superhero, Junior Grade. Fortunately, this was Tuesday night training, not a real villain-chasing experience. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell The Magicians of Starecross Hall. Being a series of interludes in the life of John Segundus, newly practical magician, in the year following the disappearances of Messrs. Strange and Norrell. Including: a new school for young magicians, explorations of the King’s Roads, Lady Pole’s alarming needle-work, unanticipated trips to Faerie, and John Childermass. I love this story! How the school got started, and 'Miss Wintertowne' (although I do think she would style herself 'Mrs' Wintertowne, because she is married and up through the 18th Century 'Mistress/Mrs' vs. 'Miss' had as much to do with age and experience and such as it did with marital status) and how she uses embroidery as a kind of art therapy. I love the slow burn, and I love the stuff about exploring the King's Roads and Faerie. It is excellent and awesome. Lilo & Stitch The Dance. Lilo peeked out from behind the curtains and looked over the stage. A Little Princess Discipulae. "I just realized," Sara said. "Becky, I could have a tutor now. I could hire someone to teach me anything I wanted. All the things that are hard to learn alone from books — Greek and Latin, Sanskrit, algebra, anything I wanted. What would you learn, Becky, if you could?" Really great look at what their lives could be like post-canon. Marvel Captain Marvel Take my hand (and we'll march to the front lines). There's a dream Vers has sometimes. this youthful heart can love you. Carol waited a week before she left with the Skrulls. Space Cases. Monica tried many other times to win her mother over to a pet. A rabbit, a pony, a parakeet. This is not any of those stories. This is the story of Monica Rambeau and a Flerken named Goose. Or: Why Nick Fury is never allowed to babysit ever again. The Tesseract's Wife. A straight line is not the shortest distance between two points: non-linear snapshots of a love story. Fly Me To The Moon. "It's a vacation. Like spring break," Carol says. Monica's eyes widen. "Really? So we can hang out? What are we going to do?" "Well," Carol says, leaning back in her chair and flashing that old, familiar smirk. "I thought we could go to the moon." Into the Spiderverse i got you. Miles thinks he's hiding the truth about Spider-Man, but one unfortunate night, it comes to light. one last leap. Telling his parents he's Spider-Man is a leap of faith Miles can't bring himself to take. My Life to Liv. Liv survived her encounters with her interdimensional Spider-nemeses, of course. So what's next for her? Interdimensional Phone Pals. Gwen Stacy is many things, but open to friendships isn’t really one of them. Or, Five rules Gwen makes for herself, and how Peter B. makes her question them. Into the Spiderverse/Murder, She Wrote Spider, She Wrote. Miles and May visit her old friend Jessica in Cabot Cove. Mulan (1998) the proper order of things. Great outsider perspective. The Mummy After the Mummy. London was becoming Rick's least favourite place, and not just because of all the rain. Loving Evy was one thing: figuring out whether she loved him back after the Egyptian heat faded away was something else. Where's a good rising of the undead when you need one? Don't worry, Jonathan found one. Lovely fun adventure. Course Correction. Jonathan really is serious about staying away from tombs and mummies this time (except trouble always seems to find him). Good thing Ardeth is there to help him stay on-track. Travelers by Night. Very quickly, Jonathan weighed the odds. On one hand, potential death, whether by armed bandits, a mummy’s curse, or people who looked like bandits and who were very angry about someone unleashing a mummy’s curse. On the other hand, potential riches, home ground, and topics of conversation other than what happened at school fifteen years ago and who got it in the neck where. Murderbot How I Spent My Vacation Between Survey Missions. What happens when ART reunites with Murderbot during another break between research survey missions? Media gets viewed, of course, but there might also be some bad news for more shady corporations. Situation Normal. Hi, I said, along with amusement sigil 159 = wave. It seemed a little inadequate, but what do you say to the ship that radically altered your appearance, helped you figure out your past, and also threatened you with terrifying weapons? Amusement sigils seemed like my best bet. My Fair Lady Here We Are Together. Eliza and Freddy are working together. Henry isn't happy, and makes sure everyone knows it. One Day at a Time what they say about the young. Without the kids around, it feels like everything has changed, except for all the other things about Penelope's life that could change, too. a return to normal. Penelope and Schneider's Friday night plans fall through, so they have a movie night instead. Very sweet. Persuasion. The Pen in Their Hands. Five letters that were written, but were never sent, aboard H.M.S. Laconia. (And one that was.) Smooth Water. “If I wanted easy comfort, I should not have become a captain’s wife.” Wonderful Austen voice. A Step Not Taken. What if that day at Lyme had gone just a little differently? Peter Wimsey The Duke's Parlormaid. A story in correspondence, with detective interruptions. Really captured the feel of the books and all the character voices. Poirot The Mice Will Play. When Poirot returns unexpectedly from a case, he finds out something new about Miss Lemon. RED The One Bathtub. “I did have dinner plans,” Han said, grudgingly, and so Victoria kicked the door in and graciously allowed Han to be the first into the bathroom. She understood the pain of missed reservations. Rivers of London Through All the Years, This Is My Home. At night, when the rest of the staff and most, if not all, of the masters were asleep, Molly would wander the moonlit halls and remember what fresh air felt like on her skin. Of Molly, of Thomas, and of the years they've spent together - and of the Folly, strong and everlasting. Lovely Molly perspective. Peelian Principles. "You're very calm about this," Seawoll said on the fifth day. Nightingale's perspective on Peter's time as a hostage, and REALLY AWESOME. UXB. When one the deadliest weapons of the Blitz threatens London once again, Peter finds himself on the front line. Wonderful casefic, just perfect. Saved! Conversation Starters. Cassandra and Roland have five important conversations. Sense and Sensibility Realization and Renewal. As Marianne recovers, Elinor and Colonel Brandon find themselves drawn to one another. Sense8 Blue and Gold. Wolfgang comes home with Kala and Rajan after Paris. Finding a place with them. Star Trek: Rihannsu Day Comes Up New. "I have done something spectacularly stupid," Arrhae said. This is a wonderful extension and meditation on what might happen past canon. Ever since I first read The Romulan Way as a teen, I've wondered what happened to Arrhae in the end, and the subsequent books were great but didn't answer the ultimate question. This doesn't either, but it suggests something further, which I appreciate. Terminator Movies A Fistful of Sarahs. The sky cracks open, and Sarah watches herself tumble out of a rift in the space time continuum. She’s older than she is now, and she’s got a lot more scars, and she’s carrying the biggest and weirdest looking gun Sarah’s ever seen. with all the hope in my heart (and doubt in my mind). Sarah Connor has done this before. Dani has not. Post-Terminator: Dark Fate. Fate, the Future, and Other Sons of Bitches. Sarah and Dani hit the road. Winnie the Pooh In Which Pooh Hunts for the Meaning of Christmas. Pooh finds a mysterious envelope pinned to the door of his house. In Which Eeyore Loses His Tail Again, Or At Least Plans To. It's a bright, sunny day, and Eeyore has a plan to make it tolerable. Now if only his friends will cooperate.

#fic rec #fanfiction #fanfic #yuletide

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unionjackpillow · 4 years

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Quarantine Questions

Thank you @ladyaj-13 for tagging me! I hope you enjoy Cabin Pressure.

1. Are you staying home from work/school?

I’ve been home since the end of November but for other reasons than the shelter in place order and will go back to work in May.

2. If you are staying home who is with you?

Luckily for me I’m all by myself. If there was another person I reckon one of us would be dead by now. Just kidding. Or am I?

3. Who would be your ideal quarantine mate?

No one. Really. I can’t and don’t even want to imagine being stuck in a flat with another person for the forseeable future. Also please see 2.

4. Are you a homebody?

Kind of, I guess.

5. An event you were looking forward to that got cancelled?

Nothing special.

6. What movies have you watched recently?

The last thing I watched in the cinema was RDJ’s Doolittle, on Netflix the documentary about La Casa De Papel/Money Heist/Haus des Geldes, and of course I’ve watched Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears.

7. What shows are you watching?

Tommy, Tribal, Motherland Fort Salem, FBI: Most Wanted, everything from the BA Test Kitchen, Binging with Babish, Not Another Cooking Show, Adam Ragusea, Cabin Fever, rewatching MFMM and other shows.

8. What music are you listening to?

The Mentalist soundtrack, my spotify movie/tv playlist with the themes from MASK, Bravestar, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, the Morse theme, Street Hawk and others, Hozier before he was Hozier.

9. What are you doing for self-care?

Not enough.

10. What are you reading?

Fanfiction! Lots and lots and lots of fanfiction. Fangs. Recipes.

#tag you're it #about me

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nestofstraightlines · 4 years

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The Dæmon-Cages

I went to a preview screening of episode six of His Dark Materials,’ The Daemon Cages’, followed by a Q&A with the senior creative last night.

I’m not even going to give broad expectation spoilers for the episode above the cut (I’ll include a bit right at the end under the cut just giving a broad overview of whether I liked it or not).

As for the Q&A, it was very interesting.

The team were asked several questions (by a very positive audience) about themes and research; things like ‘how did you decide which of the many themes to focus on? Did you go back to the inspirational material of the books such as Milton and Blake?’ and I would characterise the answers as a slightly defensive ‘we just went back to the book’.

Call it confirmation bias, but for me that tallies with what I’ve perceived of the writing/creating flaws of the series.

Because what does that mean?

I’ve been going back to the book for 22 years now and unpacking more depths and more angles. It really did feel like there was a rejection from Thorne and series Exec Producer Jane Trantor that adaptation would involve unpacking something and repacking it into your own storytelling form.

Their tone was much more enthusiastic when it came to discussing detail: they talked about wanting to know exactly what every moment of Lyra’s day at Jordan would be, what she would do for breakfast etc. And that’s got merits; it can suggest nice images (I’m guessing this is where the idea of Roger bringing Lyra breakfast every morning comes from).

But for me, in general, it’s an approach that fits badly with Pullman as a source material. Pullman writes intuitively, discovering the story as he writes is.

At one point in Northern Lights he uses the metaphor for reading the Alethiometer that it is like climbing down a ladder in the dark, and trusting that, though you can’t see the next step, it is there. I believe that he was describing his writing process there too.

He writes indirectly, using negative space to let the reader infer a fact or an idea. For example, with daemons. We are told a little and shown a lot. Pullman is showing himself the story too.

I don’t believe Pullman knew when he was writing Northern Lights what Lyra would do for her breakfast every morning. But if the story had wanted to contain a scene set during her breakfast, he would have known.

And okay, different writing processes, whatever. But actually it is fundamental to the text and I think where the problems have crept in.

Genre storytelling can be broken up into two rough camps: character-led and ideas-led. The senior creatives of this programme, almost inevitably coming from a British TV background, fall into the wrong one - character-led.

Now both camps contain both things: if I call a story idea/s-led it’s not saying its characters aren’t important and good or vice versa. It’s about which is the ultimate point o fthe story.

For instance, Harry Potter is, for me, character-led. Its fantasy trappings are rather unpacked or picturesque dressing used to heighten basically mundane human interpersonal drama. Yeah, it’s good versus evil, acceptance versus discrimination, but those topics aren’t explored, they’re not a priority, they’re a situation to throw the characters into.

Where Thorne has worked in genre shows before, the same can be said. There is a specific situation, even a mission statement, but these are not shows constructed around telling an idea as story, but rather focusing on interpersonal drama. The premises are settings, real or imagined, which are already neatly packaged for the audience. They’re not about inventing fantasy, they are about using it to tell small-scale human dramas. Events serve nothing larger than character and relationship drama.

In Pullman’s His Dark Materials, character and relationship drama are a but not the greatest priority of the series, they are in service to broader ideas and themes.

That’s the other camp of genre fiction, where the fantasy is not a static setting used to heighten charater stuff, but an active agent used to tell a particular story.

Calling this camp ideas-led sounds like its an inherently grand sort of a category, and His Dark Materials is of course an example that is grand and important and epic and so on. But for a show to be ideas-focused, it doesn’t have to be a Big Important Theme with Big Important Execution.

Some ideas are ‘what is it to be human?’, some ideas are simply ‘whodunnit?’ or ‘what if a monster got into your house?’

Anyway.

Pullman’s HDM is ideas-led. He creates a world (and later worlds) of things we need to pay attention to. This is not Harry Potter – school, castle, wizards, you pretty much got it – this is unconstructed fantasy. And it’s not constructed for picturesque ends either. Pullman isn’t inventing this stuff because it’s independently cool or pleasing or whatever, or at least not only that. He is creating it to express a set of ideas through the medium of a story.

So story and world are perfectly bound together. And he understands the difference between convincing a reader and making your world CinemaSins-proof. It’s a story, not a world.

The series is over-invested in the details; over-invested in the tools, and misses what they are used to build in the book/s. Sometimes it even breaks what they are meant to build.

I think the failure of daemons is the biggest casualty of this.

At the screening the creatives talked about the challenge there, the unprecedented challenge of making a show in which every human character is accompanied by a unique CGI creation. They mentioned the impossible budget challenge this presented as well as the challenges in visual storytelling and presentation. I.e. even if one can afford to put a whole crowds of daemons in every wide shot it looks impossibly cluttered and like Doctor Doolittle.

And yes, of course, but it baffles – and frankly annoys – me that the imagination seemed to stop there. Or rather, the understanding of storytelling stopped there.

They talked about having spitballed pragmatic adjustments to daemons, such as making them be semi-invisible, flicking in and out of visibility. But in the end they ‘wanted to stay true to the book/s’. Again, I think we’re looking at a profound lack of understanding of what ‘true to the book’ even means.

Creatives more suited to the material would have found creativity borne of limitation. They would have had a deep and confident enough understanding of the idea they were dealing with to find the solutions from within their own storytelling field, to create daemons for screen in a way which worked.

It feels like this teams’ reaction to the challenge has been ‘to do our best and tell people they don’t understaaand it’s haaard when they complain we haven’t got it right’.

I’m sorry if that sounds harsh. But they took on this challenge and there’s a little hubris in that. I’m not sure what made them feel they were the people for the job here, but they’ve failed to convince me of that fact.

People have been telling fantastical and profound stories on screen for a long time before CGI became so photorealistic. And I think CGI has both a limiting effect on the imagination, and it encourages directors and writers with a limited sense of visual storytelling to imagine that they are equipped to deal with stories that they perhaps aren’t, because they can unthinkingly assign fantasy ideas to the ‘literalist CGI’ box.

I just get the feeling that none of the head creatives, as a mix of character-focused storytellers and details-people, really get what daemons are in a storytelling sense.

They mentioned that when they had conversations with Pullman, he advised them not to focus on daemons, that he novel included them only when they were important. And that’s true, and I can’t put words in Pullman’s mouth, but it’s my belief the TV series team misunderstood what he was getting at, and I’m basing that on stuff Pullman has said elsewhere (such as in his essays and speeches collected in Daemon voices) as well as my own reading of the book/s.

Daemons don’t appear important but the story is carefully constructed, without ever seeming to be on the surface, to explore the idea of the daemon.

It’s a practical issue too. You employ people to write and direct this stuff who are used to stories made up of human characters interacting in rooms, and they’re going to lack experience in showing stuff which is vital to this story, which includes the relationship between the human heroine and her shape-shifting animal-shaped companion, a giant talking polar bear, a city in the Aurora Boreales, fights with demons during a hot-air balloon fight and so on.

A lot of the stuff that matter in HDM isn’t just mundane drama in fantastical settings. The most vital emotional scenes include a girl interaction with a giant talking solar bear; the threat tot he bond between a person and their shape-shifting soul-manifestation etc

The human/daemon relationship is like a lot of things at different times and in different ways: human/animal, siblings, friends, parent/child etc. But it’s not a mundane human relationship clothed in light fantasy disguise. It's an idea and thus needs careful building for screen just as it did on the page.

Russell Dodgson, the head of VFX on behalf of Framestore for the series, talked about how fans always focus on daemons while there are so many more ideas in the book. ‘People love talking animals, I guess.’ He joked.

And OK, he was being off-the-cuff and deliberately glib, and in any case he’s not the writer and thereby not responsible for getting the overall imagining of daemons for this series right. But he’s so off the mark here in a way which helpfully sums up the misses of this team.

Daemons are not talking animals in the book and that is what the series has rendered them as through this lack of understanding that they amount to more than an emptily whimsical note.

EXPECTATION SPOILERS FOR THE DAEMON-CAGES:

... Having said all that; a really great episode! Best episode of the series yet.

It benefits from coming from a part of the book which is perfect for an episode of TV: it is very dramatic and climactic, while also being something of a great self-contained story in form. Lyra goes into a situation with very clear parameters of tension, fears, goals and a ticking clock. The production plays on all of those very strongly.

The weakest element of the episode is predictable given what the weakness element of the adaptation has been all along: daemons of course. As with last week my feeling is that while the show is so far from doing justice to certain ideas and moments it might as well be on a different continent, it finds enough strengths in other areas to stop the bottom dropping out of the episode.

The production design is absolutely incredible. It’s the boldest imaginative leap from the book so far. The staging of some of the events plays out differently due to a differently imagined Bolvangar and I adore the new approach. Again, I’ll have more to say when the episode has aired. I can’t wait to get into the detail of this!

#His Dark Materials #The Daemon-Cages #crit

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the-real-anywolf · 4 years

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Destiel Advent Calendar 2019

Title: My Black Cat Brings All the Boys to the Yard

Tags: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Benadryl Makes an Appearance, Curses, Movie References, Cutesy pet names, multiple POVs, You're Welcome For The Earworm, Happy Friday 13th

Summary: When a cute black cat turns up at the bunker, the Winchesters realize it isn't quite as it seems. Also, despite it triggering Dean's allergies, he can't help liking the little furball. It's a shame he can't keep him.

Written by: @eyesofatragedy67 (Eyes_of_a_Tragedy) & @punk-is-notdead (tfw_cas)

Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21775495

Day 13: My Black Cat Brings All the Boys to the Yard

Dean was walking through the door of the bunker when a dark blur ran in front of him and down the stairs. What the hell?

"Sammy! Something's headed your way!"

Sam looked startled as the blur shot towards him, and brushed against his legs. He looked down at it and his features softened. “It’s a cat. What’s it doing in here?”

Eyes watering, Dean started heading toward the bathroom. "Hell if I know. Be right back. I'm gonna grab some Benadryl."

He rushed down the hall, nose already starting to run. Crap, he needed to nip this in the bud. Rifling through the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, he swallowed two of the little pink pills dry and shoved some tissue up his nose.

When he got back to the library, Sam had the furry menace on the table and was lightly petting its head. “Where’d you come from, huh?” he asked curiously.

"Dude, don't get attached. You know we can't keep it," Dean mentioned, somewhat regretfully, as he passed through on his way to grab a bottle of water from the kitchen.

“Shame,” Sam said sadly. “He’s a friendly little thing. And look at his eyes… they’re blue!”

Dean poked his head out the kitchen door. "Blue?"

“Yeah, bright blue. I’ve never seen them on a cat before.”

Water in hand, Dean stepped into the room, took a swig out of the bottle, and wandered closer. He was about ten feet away from Sam and the cat when he started sneezing, completely dislodging the tissues. "Man, I hope this stuff kicks in quick."

“Don’t worry, I’ll put him back outside soon. I just wanna give him some water first. Maybe some bacon.”

Dean moved close enough to pass Sam his water bottle. He had to wipe the tears from his eyes to do it, though. "I didn't think cats were supposed to eat bacon. I don't want you to make him sick." He paused, "Wait, how do you know the cat's male?"

Sam scrunched up his nose, and thought for a moment. “I… don’t know. I just got this feeling, you know? I could just tell.” He shrugged for emphasis.

"You could just tell," Dean repeated with a mocking quirk of his eyebrow. "Okay, Dr. Doolittle. Well, since you're so in tune, why don't you find out if the little guy has a home? I'm sure someone's missing him."

Sam rolled his eyes and shot Dean one of his best bitchfaces. “How the hell am I supposed to do that? I don’t have a microchip scanner, and I can’t exactly ask him… her.”

The cat hissed, and Dean said, "Uh, think maybe you had it right the first time, Sammy." Whereupon, the cat meowed then plopped his butt down on one of the books on the table. "Huh…"

“It’s about curses and how to remove them.” Sam peered closely at the book and some of his hair draped onto the cat. Dean could have sworn that the cat gave a look of distaste before it got up and moved away from the dangling locks.

"What if this is like The Colonel?" Dean asked. "I'm not drinking the fur, dude. It's your turn to take one for the team."

Sam didn’t look too pleased at that suggestion. “I don’t think anyone will have to drink any potions, Dean. This isn’t Hogwarts. But I do think it’s trying to communicate with us.”

Damn, Dean was kinda looking forward to seeing Sam chase bugs. "It'd be easier if you drank the potion, just sayin'."

“Not if I don’t have to,” Sam muttered, then spoke directly to the cat. “What are you trying to tell us, little buddy?”

"Yeah, little guy, did Timmy fall down the well?" He could swear he saw the cat roll its eyes.

“Very funny,” Sam said, and he definitely did roll his eyes. “Can we be serious now, and not piss him off?”

Dean looked away from the furball and over to his brother. "What? You're the one who refuses to drink the drink so I don't have to die." And he promptly started sneezing again.

Sam sighed, and ran his fingers through his hair. “You sure are set on me drinking that potion, aren’t ya? Let me just try something first, okay?”

"Fine, but if it doesn't work, you suck it up and chug, 'k?" He glanced over just in time to see the cat bat the bottle of water off the table.

“Sure,” Sam huffed. “Nothing I want more than to talk ‘cat’.”

"So, what's your idea?" Dean hollered, grabbing a dish towel from the kitchen to mop up the spilled water.

“Observe and report,” Sam replied. “Before one of us goes off half-cocked, let’s see if he can communicate in his own way.”

"I don't know about you, but I always go off fully-cocked. You know, they make pills for that now, Sam." Dean draped the towel over the back of a chair and turned to see the cat twirling around Sam's legs. "Sounds like the little guy likes your idea, though."

“Your jokes aren’t getting any funnier, Dean,” Sam said, reaching down and scooping up the cat. “What do you think, cat?”

The cat purred, then gave Dean a disapproving look - at least that’s what it looked like, anyway.

“Let’s give it twenty four hours, and if we can’t figure out what he’s trying to tell us, then I’ll drink the potion. Deal?” Sam added.

"Fine. Whatever," Dean muttered. He walked past them, but couldn't resist scratching the cat behind the ears as he passed. His eyes started watering as he left the room.

***

Later that night, Dean walked into the kitchen to find Sam there with the cat. He was sitting at the table, placing random types of food in front of the feline. Dean watched with fascination as the cat repeatedly turned his nose up at the different options.

With a sniffle, Dean turned to the fridge and started pulling out ingredients to make hamburgers. He washed his hands thoroughly before unwrapping the beef and adding some seasonings. He was shaping it into patties when he heard a plaintive yowl at his feet. Looking down, he saw a pair of electric blue eyes staring up at him.

"Hey, cat," Dean started, only to be interrupted by the animal leaping onto the counter next to him. "Hey! You can't be up here, fuzzball."

The cat did what cats do: ignored him. Instead, it stared intensely at Dean's hands and the raw meat he was working into a thick ball to be squished flat.

"Mrow," the cat trilled, head tilting to the side.

"Sorry, little guy. No hamburger for you."

The cat pawed at the package of sliced cheddar and looked back up at him with wide eyes.

"Not gonna work on me, fluffy. I've been on the receiving end of puppy eyes the likes of which you'll never know."

With a tail twitch of disgust, Dean watched as the cat hopped back off the counter and moved back to Sam. His brother scooped the cat up in his arms and sat him down in his lap.

Dean continued cooking his burgers, listening as Sam had a one-sided conversation with his new friend.

“It’s no use looking longingly at Dean’s burgers. I know they look delicious - and they are - but they’re not cat food. You’re supposed to eat fish, or chicken, or… what the hell do cats eat? Not gonna tell me, huh?”

Sam sighed, and shook his head. “You must be hungry by now. Just try some of this tuna? Mmmm… tasty,” He said, unconvincingly.

Dean put a burger on the table for Sam and said, "Dammit, Sam, don't feed him that. What if he's like one of those gremlin things from the movie and you're not supposed to feed him after midnight?"

“This is real life, not a movie.” Sam rolled his eyes (one of these days he was going to get stuck like that), as he picked up the burger and took a bite. He and the cat stared at each other for a moment, and Sam wagged his finger at the feline. “Sorry, dude, this is mine.”

The cat hissed and hopped off Sam's lap, trotting over to Dean.

"Don't look at me, Gizmo. I'm not the pushover in this household."

“Yeah, sure you’re not,” Sam laughed. “A pretty bartender just has to call you handsome, and you’re like putty in her hands.”

The cat appeared to be particularly pissed at Sam’s remark; he skulked over to the corner and sat, apparently ignoring them both.

"I had an idea. I mean, it seems like he understands us, so what if we try some kind of written communication?" Dean asked, shooting the cat a questioning look.

“A pencil and a piece of paper?” Sam asked with a grin. “Yeah, I can make dumb jokes too.”

The cat raised its head and looked over at them, but stayed where it was.

“Do you mean something like laying letters out and asking him to pick the right ones?” Sam asked.

"Sure, like Scrabble tiles, or a ouija board… hell, even just drawing letters on a sheet of paper for him to point at," he shrugged and looked over at the cat. "What do you think, Gizmo?"

“That’s actually a pretty good suggestion.” Sam looked impressed. “I don’t think drawing letters on the paper would work though, unless we cut them out. They need to be spaced out so that it’s clear which ones he picks.”

"I'm going to go see if I can find the Scrabble game, maybe the ouija board. I'm pretty sure they're in a closet in the hall."

“Okay, I’ll take him outside, in case he wants to do his business,” Sam said, picking Gizmo up and carrying him in the direction of the stairs. The cat struggled in his arms, and Dean was pretty sure Sam got a couple of scratches at least, with the way he cursed at the creature.

The first closet he tried was full of boxes of Sam's books. Nerd. Digging through the second closet, Dean found the stash of board games, revealing Scrabble and the ouija board. He grabbed them both, just in case, and returned to the war room.

Sam was descending the stairs, looking pretty pissed, as Gizmo ran in front of him. “I thought we were friends, but the little fucker sure has some vicious claws. I hope he doesn’t feel the same way about word games.”

Dean pulled the ouija board out of its box. "I thought we could try this first, since it has 'yes' and 'no' options. Figured maybe we could try asking some questions first." He looked down at the cat, "How's that sound, fuzzball?"

The cat didn’t look too interested either way; for some reason he seemed to be trying to stick his tongue in Dean’s coffee. That was just weird… cats didn’t drink coffee, did they?

“What are we gonna ask him?” Sam asked, picking up Dean’s cup and taking it to the sink. “Is there anything you like eating other than burgers?”

The cat jumped up on the table and put his paw down on 'yes'. "Huh," Dean pulled his henley up over his nose and called out to Sam, "Looks like it's working!"

“Huh,” Sam remarked. “Wish I could work out what it was. Got any other ideas for yes or no questions?”

"Uh, hmm…" Dean made some serious eye contact with the cat. Quirking a brow, he continued, "Okay, so is it safe to assume you're cursed?"

Without hesitation, the cat placed his paw on ‘yes’ again.

“Good one,” Sam said. “Er… I don’t suppose you know how we can break the curse?”

The cat insistently tapped the 'yes' and looked up at them.

"Well, okay, then," Dean replied with genuine curiosity. "How complex should these questions get, Sam?"

“Hmmm, good question. He seems to understand everything we say, so I think we can go with quite complex. What do you say we try with the Scrabble tiles now, so we don’t have to stick with yes or no?”

Dean opened the box and grabbed the purple Crown Royal bag they kept the tiles in. Emptying it onto the table, he started flipping all of them face up. "Let's give it a shot."

Sam and Dean spent the next couple of minutes spreading the tiles over the table’s surface, removing the blank ones, as they worked. Dean couldn’t help spelling out a couple of naughty words, but he quickly shuffled the tiles around again, hoping Sam hadn’t noticed.

“Okay, what are we going to ask first?” Sam asked, addressing Dean, before staring inquisitively at the cat.

"What's your name?" Dean had jokingly been calling the cat Gizmo, but if he had a real name...

The cat began walking amongst the tiles, obviously looking for a particular letter. He stopped when he found it, and tapped his paw on it as he’d done with the ouija board.

“C,” said Sam, excitedly.

They watched as the cat began searching again, then indicated another letter.

"A," Dean added, then looked over. "We know you're a cat, dude. How about we just stick with Gizmo for now." He glanced at Sam and wondered out loud, "I wonder how he got cursed?"

The cat pushed an 'I' to the center of the table, then found a 'D'...

"Dude, I think he's calling us idiots," Dean scoffed.

“No, I’m sure he isn’t doing that. Especially as we’re trying to help him.”

The cat carried on, finding an ‘I’, and a ‘T’.

“I think you might be right.” Sam frowned down at the cat and its growing collection of letters.

Dean sat in one of the chairs, sneezing into his sleeve. "Bobby? Is that you?"

The cat meowed and put his paw on his head in what looked like exasperation, then touched an 'M'.

“M,” Sam said, peering at it as if he was trying to calculate pi in his head. “Mom? No? Er… my name is…? Are you Crowley and you’re calling us morons?” He turned to Dean and sighed. “This isn’t working out so well, is it? So far we’ve got a C-A-D-I-T, and an M. What the hell is that supposed to spell?”

Dean sniffled and said, "Man, I wish Cas was here. He could just interrogate you to get the answers."

The cat yowled and walked over to him. "Dude, back off a bit. I'm allergic to you."

The cat didn't listen, though, and sat back on his haunches and reached up to tap Dean on the forehead.

“He might understand what we’re saying, but he’s kinda heedless when it comes to personal space, isn’t he?” Sam chuckled. “You’re gonna make Dean sick if you keep getting in his face, buddy.” He leaned over to move the cat away from Dean, and got a scratch on his arm for his troubles.

Dean reached out and grabbed the cat, picking him up so they were on eye level. "Hey, you. No hurting Sam. He's trying to help you, you know."

He started coughing and passed the cat off to his brother. "I've gotta get out of here. Sorry. Good luck with this."

Dean left the room, trudging to the bathroom to pop some more meds before going to his bedroom to grab a change of clothes. He needed a shower asap.

***

Sam rested his elbows on the table and huffed in frustration. He felt bad for Dean - his allergies were a real pain - but at the same time, he hadn’t exactly made the situation any better. Despite his protestations that he only went off fully-cocked, his attempt at working out the cat’s message seemed to annoy it more, and now he was left alone to try to decipher what he was trying to tell them.

“Hey, cat,” he said in what he hoped was a placating tone of voice. “What did you want to tell us? I promise I won’t interrupt you any further.”

The cat paced around amongst the tiles once more, this time finding an ‘S’. It pushed the tile towards the others, then sat itself on the table and looked up at Sam.

“C-A-D-I-T-M-S… Nope, that’s not a word. Is it an anagram?” Sam wondered out loud.

Sam didn’t think it was possible for the cat to roll its eyes, but somehow it did.

“You’re gonna have to help me out here. I’m not getting it.” Sam gave the cat his best puppy dog eyes, and hoped that would work on the feline.

The cat stood up again, and began pushing the tiles around. When it had finished, Sam looked at what it had given him, hoping it was a better clue.

“A-C-S. It still didn’t mean anything.

Wait !

“C-A-S… are you telling me you’re Cas?” Sam felt like a prize idiot… of course it was Cas. All the pieces of the puzzle suddenly fell into place, and he beamed at his friend before scratching behind his ear.

“Dude, I’m so sorry for not realising sooner. No wonder you didn’t want me to take you outside for your business… awkward. But what happened to you? How can we undo the curse?”

Sam stopped talking and slapped his own forehead. “I’m gonna go tell Dean right now. He needs to know.”

He took off towards the bedrooms, with Cas hot on his heels. However, bursting into Dean’s room with the news, Sam saw that his brother was fast asleep.

This could wait until morning, and in the meantime, he and Cas could work on the cure. Maybe he would even be back to himself by then.

Unfortunately, Cas’s skills at letting Sam know how to cure him using Scrabble tiles were severely limited. After about an hour of frustrating attempts at trying, Sam felt his energy sapping and he laid his head on the table for a couple of minutes. That was all he needed… just a few minutes...

***

Dean woke up from a Benedryl-induced sleep and glanced over at his clock. It read 4:01. There was a warm weight on his chest, and he looked down to see Gizmo curled up on top of him.

He carefully reached over to the bedside table and grabbed a couple tissues. Shoving them in his nose, he gave in to temptation and stroked down the cat's back. His fur was so soft, and Dean could feel the rumble of purring with each pass of his hand.

"You sure are a cute little guy. I hope Sam had some luck figuring out how to help you."

The cat woke up at his voice, and stretched full-body before standing up and leaning over to nuzzle Dean's cheek.

Dean gripped him tight as he suddenly sneezed. "Okay, bud, I think it's time for another dose of allergy meds for me. What do you say we go grab some food, too?"

The feline headbutted him and licked his cheek. Taking that as an affirmative, Dean got up and carried Gizmo with him into the bathroom. He snagged the meds and continued on toward the kitchen.

Due to the watery eyes, he could barely make out Sam passed out at the table, Scrabble pieces scattered around his head.

In the kitchen, he set the cat down on the counter and grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge. He washed his hands in the sink, then grabbed a loaf of bread and the peanut butter out of the pantry. It was some organic, hippie brand that Sam insisted on buying, and Dean would never admit it to him, but it tasted better than the Peter Pan that had been his preferred choice.

He looked in the fridge for the jelly, but looked like they were out. There wasn't any in the pantry either. Dean shrugged and spread peanut butter on both slices of bread.

He was going to just slap them together and take his pills, but Gizmo knocked over Cas's bottle of honey. "Guess that could work." After drizzling a little on the slices, he put them together and took a bite. "Mmm, that's pretty tasty," Dean said with a full mouth. "Thanks for the suggestion, buddy."

Setting the sandwich down on the counter, Dean uncapped his water and swallowed down two more pills. When he reached for the pb&h, Gizmo swatted at his hand and quickly took a bite.

Dean was about to object to the sneak attack on his sandwich, when there was a sudden flash of light which prevented him from seeing anything for a few seconds. When his vision was clear again he could no longer see the cat, but Cas was standing there instead.

Where did he come from ?

"Cas?" He looked around, searching for Gizmo. Maybe… "Did you see a black cat?"

“Dean, do the letters I-D-I-O-T mean anything to you?” Cas asked. He stared into Dean’s eyes, but didn’t say anything more.

"Yeeeaaaaah," Dean drawled, looking at his friend who seemed to be covered in black hairs.

“That’s a fancy looking gizmo you’ve got there,” Cas stated drily, pointing at the waffle iron. He really seemed to be speaking in riddles today.

Dean was starting to put some pieces together when Sam burst through the door. His hair was a mess, and there was a Scrabble tile stuck to the side of his face. “Cas!! You’re back… how? How did you…?” He pulled Cas into a bro-hug and slapped him on the back.

Dean poked Sam in his tile and said, "You knew?"

“I worked it out last night,” Sam said, letting go of Cas, and pulling the tile from his face.

Cas coughed and gave him a pointed look.

“Oh, er… Cas helped me to understand last night,” Sam corrected himself. “I was gonna tell you, but you were asleep and I didn’t want to disturb you.”

"Thanks, I guess," Dean responded, half bitchiness, half honesty. "I still don't understand what broke the curse, though."

“I had to eat something after midnight. I understand the irony, as you made me watch Gremlins, and I think the witch that cursed me did too.” Cas gave a little laugh.

Dean stared, mouth hanging open. "You mean, this whole time it was a bad movie reference?"

“It would seem that way, yes. Some people love movies as much as you do, apparently,” Cas replied.

Sam slapped his hand over his mouth and chuckled. “Dude, that’s a whole new level of nerd.”

"Shut up, Sam." Dean shot him his own bitch face, then turned to Cas and sneezed. "You're covered in fur. Unless you want me to look like a walking plague victim, you'll go take a shower."

“Yes, that is a disgusting image you’ve painted for me, Dean. I’ll take a shower now.” Cas started towards the door, when Dean suddenly put his hand on his shoulder to stop him.

"It's good to have you back, Gizmo," Dean snarked, then pulled Cas into a hug. Whispering in the angel's ear, he asked, "Mind if I join you? Somebody slept on top of me last night and got me dirty."

“If you’re really good, I’ll let you tickle my belly,” Cas growled back into Dean’s ear.

“I know what you’re doing, by the way,” Sam complained. “You guys are gross.”

Dean looked over at his brother and grinned. "Then this won't come as a shock."

He grabbed Cas's ass and stroked a hand up his back. Cas rubbed against his cheek, and Dean couldn't help but dive in for a kiss. It was kinda gross, given his current state of sniffles, but Cas responded with enthusiasm.

"C'mon, kitten, it's bath time."

“Rawr,” Cas purred.

The End

#Destiel Advent Calendar 2019 #fanfiction #destiel #christmas short fics

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