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psalm22-6 · 9 months

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Reading the screenplay for Les Misérables (1917) by Frank Lloyd and Marc Robbins

So the 1917 American film production of Les Miserables (starring William Farnum, directed by Frank Lloyd, and produced by William Fox) is not lost per se but it isn't readily available to watch either. According to @melancholyarchivist's research, a version is preserved by the Filmoteka Narodowa and can be viewed on-site (Is there anyone in Poland who's interested in visiting?) and we may some day get a restored version. In the meantime, I found that (most of) the screenplay is available through the Library of Congress, where it was submitted as part of the studio's copyright claim. I will tell you straight away that it itsn't complete. It ends right at the story's climax, which was incredibly frustrating to me but there's still lots of cool info. Here were some high/low lights for me: The film begins with a forward displayed through intertitle cards:

1. In the realm of prose Victor Hugo’s immortal classic shows that if sin dims the Divine Image, conscience disturbs the soul with sore discontent. 2. We see how God uses conscience to waken a dead soul and “plague the sinful man with dark despair,” until the conscience, that first made a coward of a bad man, at last makes a hero, of a good man. 3. In “Les Miserables,” Victor Hugo portrays the worst man as having a Diving Spark that no injustice can extinguish, which God guards and feeds, making it incorruptible in this life, and immortal in the next—SLOW FADE

That is not a great start but okay. Then we see Napoleonic soldiers walking triumphantly through the streets (the year is 1796.) Contrast this with scenes in Jean Valjean’s household, where children are fighting over a scrap of bread. Valjean sees the baker's window full of cakes and bread. He breaks the window and reaches over the cakes in order to take the bread. He is of course immediately caught, and the baker rejoices smugly. For context to this next part, an iris shot was a common technique in silent films where the camera’s “eye” opens and closes to direct the viewer's attention. (Also I have added punctuation to a lot of these quotes to make them more readable.)

SLOW IRIS in on loaf of bread on Judge’s bench. Open full on Judge, looking off and talking sternly, pointing to loaf of bread

This makes it sound like the bread is on trial. The bread on display in the courtroom is present in the 1935 American film production as well and like in the '35 production, 1917 has Jean Valjean dragged out of the courtroom while dramatically reaching for his sister. In Toulon, we see Javert as a prison guard. Although Valjean is repeatedly referred to as a "galley slave," he is not shown working on a ship (as he will be in the '35 film). He demonstrates his strength by saving a prisoner in a quarry. There is a lengthy scene of Jean Valjean attempting to escape prison (which was eventually cut down according to what I've read. Notice how the title page says "a film in 10 reels." It was later cut to 8.) Jean Valjean strangles a guard to death. Bloodhounds chase him across a marsh. When Valjean is released from prison, instead of being chased by the dog out of the dog house, there is a scene where Jean Valjean asks a man for food. The man refuses but Jean Valjean then sees him give his dog steak. He exclaims “I am denied food–when even dogs are fed.” A nun directs Valjean to the Bishop's. After the classic Bishop's Candlesticks sequence, we do see Valjean steal from Petit Gervais. Cut to the bishop praying in front of his empty cupboard. Then cut back to Jean Valjean, who sees the coin. Cut to the bishop. Back to Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean has a vision of himself: beside him fades in images of him as a prisoner, which are slowly replaced by a vision of the Bishop surrounded by light and looking at him sadly. The police are looking for Valjean but they don’t see him because he is on the ground sobbing. Then he goes to the Bishop’s house and prays outside it. There is a very sad scene of Fantine leaving Cosette with the Thenardiers but this scene was later cut. After Fantine is fired, an “old hag” tells her “Why should you starve when you are still young enough to attract men?” (This intertitle was cut by the Chicago board of censors.) In horror, Fantine holds up her hair and has a vision of Cosette as a baby, which dissolves into the hair. We see Fantine go to the hairdresser to sell her hair. Immediately after this she encounters the Bamatabois character and remembers what the old woman told her (that intertitle was also cut by the Chicago board of censors). She smiles at him, and touches his arm, and he pushes her into the gutter, telling her it is where she belongs. When Javert arrests her, the money she got for selling her hair is left behind in the gutter. Meanwhile, we see Valjean coming into the homes of poor families to give them money. He arrives in time to see Fantine's arrest and orders that she be freed, leading to this direction:

Very dramatic. I'll try to limit my use of screenshots though, since the typeface is a bit hard to read but one thing that's very charming and at times hilarious are the typos. See for example this scene where Javert tells Mayor Madeleine that he has denounced him:

Interior Madelein's room-- He writing at desk. Door opens. Housekkeper announces Javert. Javert enters. Stands looking at Madeleine. Housekeeper exits. Madeline turns around, asks Javery his business.

Even ignoring "Javery," they just spelled Madeleine three different ways.

Closeup Javert-- Her looking at Madeleine with resigned expression says: "I WISH TO TENDER MY RESIGNATION." Closeup Madeleine-- He looking at Javery in tense manner, suddenly controls himself, quietly says "Well."

As Jean Valjean decides what to do about Champmathieu's arrest, he sees visions of prison and of the bishop. When he arrives at the court in Arras, he is transfixed by the doorknob, which transforms into the face of prisoner 24601 (I thought that part sounded pretty cool). In the courtroom, no one believes that Madeleine is Jean Valjean. He addresses the prisoners and reveals that he knows Valjean's prison number. Then he lifts up his sleeve.

Closeup Madeleine left arm and shoulder. Letters T.F.P. and numbers 24601 is seen branded there

Of course, the musical would later do this but what other early adaptations show Jean Valjean with a brand? Fantine dies, Simplice lies to help Valjean escape (a fair amount of emphasis on Simplice actually.) We see Madame Thenardier send Cosette out to get water. In the woods, witches and ghouls haunt Cosette. Valjean buys her Catherine, shows the Thenardiers the letter from Fantine and gives them money in exchange for Cosette. Cut to 1832 (funny, this is basically just like how the musical abridgesthings). We get a birds eye view of Paris and the

Closeup Courfeynac-- He surrounded by men, who are eagerly questioning him. Marins enters. They greet one another in friendly manner. Courfeynac tells Marius he wants to speak with him. They exit from friends. Long Distance-- Men gathered in knots whispering as Courfeynac and Marins go to table, sit and start to talk. [...] Interior room at coffee house-- Marins on stall, addressing men in earnest manner. He finishes speech, is congratulated by Courfeynac and others. IRIS OUT.

Yes, Courfeyrac is called "Courfeynac" for half the script, until they switch to "Courferac" which isn't as bad. Marius is always "Marins," except once when he is called Marius and I swear that "Marius" is the typo. We also get a short scene of Gillenormand, who receives a letter from Marins saying that he won't accept his money. Meanwhile...

Long Distance Garden-- Cossette out of sight. Valjean enters, sees her gone. Registers surprise. Cossette creeps out behind him, startles him. He turns, sees her. They exit together.

It's not super egregious but Cosette is always called "Cossette." Marins leaves Courfeynac. Cossette and Valjean go to the park.

Long Distance-- Valjean and Cossette seated on bench Closeup Marins-- He looking off, registers fascination. Closeup Cossette-- She reading book, slowly raises eyes. Sees. Closeup Marins-- He looking toward her, fascinated.

He looks at her like she's a bug.

Long Distance-- Marins walks past Cossette and Valjean. He exits past camera. Closeup Cossette-- She peeping over top of book after book after Marins. Very interested. Pathway-- Marins going from camera, turns and suddenly walks back.

Freak behavior.

Long distance-- Valjean speaks to Cossette, who is shyly looking toward Marins. They both rise and exit past camera. Marins comes to bench, picks up Cossettes handkerchief, gazes after them, registers facination.

I don't think that there is any payoff to the handkerchief, it seems to really be Cossette's. Cut to the Thenardier's. There is no Azelma, Azelma is replaced by Gavroche (sometimes spelled Gavroch, Gavranche, Bavranche or Gavrouche.) Eponine comes to Marin's room and he gives her money. Then that very afternoon, Valjean comes to give the Thenardiers alms. Gavroche actively participates in his parent's schemes (he breaks the window with a rock, not his hand.) Thenardier recognizes Valjean and decides to rob him.

Outlet of Sewer-- Low barred arch gate in background, river seen beyond. Thenardier come to outside of gate, opens it with key, enters, close gate behind him as he comes to foreground toward camera. 4 men creep past camera and join him. He starts to whisper to them.

I love that Thenardier is meeting Patron-Minette (unnamed though) in the sewer and that they introduce his key here. Meanwhile, Marins goes to the police:

Police Headquarters-- Javert with back to camera, listening to Marins, who is telling of plot. Javert suddenly swings around, full face to camera. THE SUBLINE IRONY OF FATE. JAVERT NOW ATTACHED TO THE PARIS POLICE TAKES CHARGE OF THE CASE.

I bet that that reveal was awesome! Javery gives Marins a gun. Then Valjean arrives at the Thenardier's house and is forced to write a letter luring Cossette there. But before he can be made to give the address, he escapes and burns his arm. Marins fires the pistol and Javert arrives. Valjean then knocks over the candlesticks and escapes in the dark. He goes home and Cossette tends to his wound. Eponine and Gavroche see their parents arrested.

Closeup Eponine and Gavranche-- Gavranche turns to Eponine and says: SISTER DEAR - I AM GOING FAR FROM HERE.

Meanwhile Marins is distraught because he can't find Cossette

Interior Meeting Room, A.B.C.'s-- Room crowded with men. Marins seated alone at table. Courfeynac addressing men. Marins does not pay much attention.

Eponine finds Cossette's house and leads Marins there.

Exterior Valjeans house-- Eponine enters followed by Marins. She turns, points to garden gate. He joyfully starts toward gate. She stops him. He turns to her. She wistfully says: DO YOU LOVE HER? Back-- She finishes line. Marins nods yes, then eagerly exits to gate. Eponine looks after him and sighs. Garden at bench-- Cossette gazing out dreamily. Marins enters quietly behind her, stands looking at her with great love. She suddenly feels his presence, sees him, rises, stands staring at him. They look at one another. Marins registers great love, starts to speak to her. She turns away from him, registers great confusion and emotion. Close up Eponine-- She leaning against iron fence, registers dumb suffering.

Unlike in the book, where iirc Marius and Cosette embrace straight away and then never again until they are married, Marins and Cossette do not embrace as first but after many meetings, they embrace A LOT. One night Valjean looks out his window and he just sees them making out. Then Marins leaves. Cosette goes inside.

Interior living room (night)-- Cossette discovered arranging flowers in old fashion vase and lighting candles in happy manner. Valjean enters to her, stands looking at her in silent anguish. She turns, sees him, goes to him lovingly, asks him what's the matter. He quietly says: FOR REASONS WHICH I CANNOT EXPLAIN WE MUST LEAVE THIS HOUSE TONIGHT FOR ANOTHER I HAVE CHOSEN.

So yeah the reason they leave is because of Marins. Meanwhile, Javert gets a message:

Interior Police Headquarters-- Javert discovered writing. Gendarmine enters, hands him letter. He opens it, read INSPECTOR JAVERT A MALE PRISONER NAMED THENARDIER ESCAPED TONIGHT FROM THE LA FORCE PRISON. ACT ACCORDINGLY. LEBLANCC

This letter makes me laugh. MEANWHILE, Cossette is distraught at leaving. She sees Eponine (Marins had previously pointed out his friend Eponine) and gives her a letter for Marins.

Insert note-- DEAREST MARINS FOR SOME UNEXPLAINED REASON MY FATHER HAS SECRETLY TAKEN ME TO NO 7 DE L'HOMME WHICH IS TO BE OUT FUTURE HOME. COSSETTE

That also makes me laugh. Then a riot breaks out for no reason except that it is 5 June 1832.

Street near coffee house-- People seen hurriedly entering homes, all in state of alarm. Courfeynac at head of 35 men marching toward camera, old man and Gavranche at side of him. They all singing revolutionary songs.

Eponine is there in men's clothes and she gets the idea to give Marins (who has discovered that Cossette's house is empty) an anonymous note telling him to go to the barricade.

Long shot-- Shooting barricade in foreground, fight in progress. Red flag which is attached to pole at top of barricade suddenly falls, shot away. Old man grabs it, starts to climb to top of barricade. Close up top of barricade-- Old man starts to put flag back into place. Close up soldiers at end of street-- Officer gives command, they fire volley. Close up old man-- He trying to fix flag, suddenly his body sags, clutching flag, he falls. Long distance-- Old man falls from top of barricade to ground. Courferac goes to him. Close up Courferac andold man-- Courferac raises the dead body, registers strong emotion Close Up Marins-- He gazing off, exits toward Courferac Behind barricade-- Marins with Courferac laying dead man on matress, Marins has dead man's coat in hand, suddenly rises, calls off, raises hand, says: "LET THIS DEAD HERO'S COAT BE OUR FLAG."

They continue to fight the National Guard. Marins strikes a soldier senseless. Eponine gets shot, gives Marins the letter, and asks for a kiss. Marins kisses her. She dies. Then he writes a note to Cossette. Gavroche delivers the note to Valjean. Valjean is about to rip it up when he has a vision of the Bishop.

Sub title-- KNOWING THAT COSSETTE'S HAPPINESS DEPENDS ON MARIN'S SAFETY, VALJEAN GOES TO THE BARRICADE TO WATCH OVER HIM.

The next morning, the insurgents are still fighting:

Iris in on old man's coat-- Top of pole at barricade. Open full, showing long distance shot of street, men in barricade being served with coffee, fighting going on. Valjean in background, tending wounded.

Couferac tells them that they are going to run out of ammunition and Gavroche goes to get more. Valjean yells at him to come back. When Gavroche is shot and killed, Valjean retrieves the body and the ammunition.

Interior coffee house-- Courferac followed by Marins and Valjean leave body of Gavrouche. Courferac sees Javert and in terrible rage points to him and says: "YOUR FRIENDS MURDERED THAT BOY FOR WHICH CRIME YOU DIE."

I forgot to mention that Javert had been caught and tied up earlier. Marins is horrified but Courferac agrees. Valjean secretly lets Javert go. The barricade is attacked by cannons. Marins is shot. Valjean takes Marins and leaves. We see Courferac fighting terrifically. Shots of Valjean carrying Marins through the sewers are interspersed with shots of Courferac and others fighting. The insurgents retreat into the coffee house. The others die until only Courferac remains. He runs into another room, slamming the door behind him. The soldiers follow. The screenplay ends there! Don't you wish you could read the rest??! I feel certain that we were going to see Thenardier again, since he had escaped from prison, plus we saw him use that key. And I think we would have seen Gillenormand too. Also obviously Jean Valjean dies, but I read that his death scene got cut down in the final version.

#les miserables #lm 1917 #les mis #posts destined to be tagged long post

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homomenhommes · 1 month

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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … April 14

April 14, 1962 Description: People mailing their taxes.

1600 – Italy: Philosopher Tomasso Campanella (1568-639) is jailed, spending twenty-seven years imprisoned in Naples in various fortresses. He was a Dominican friar, Italian philosopher, theologian, astrologer, and poet.

He is overheard saying to his cellmate: "O Father Pietro, why don't you do something so that we may sleep together, and we may get pleasure?" Pietro replied "I wish I could, and I'd even bribe the gaolers with ten ducats. But to you, my heart, I would like to give twenty kisses every hour."

Campanella was finally released from prison in 1626, through Pope Urban VIII, who personally interceded on his behalf with Philip IV of Spain. Taken to Rome and held for a time by the Holy Office, Campanella was restored to full liberty in 1629. He lived for five years in Rome, where he was Urban's advisor in astrological matters.

1904 – Born: Sir John Gielgud (d.2000), long acknowledged as one of the greatest British actors of the twentieth century. A highly versatile performer, he played leading and character roles on both stage and screen, in every genre from classical tragedy to low comedy. While in many ways reticent about his sexuality, his experiences illustrate the significant changes in public attitude towards homosexuality over the decades.

Arthur John Gielgud was born in London on April 14, 1904 to a family with theatrical backgrounds on both sides. His father was the son of a Lithuanian actress, and, through his mother, he was the great-nephew of Dame Ellen Terry, the most renowned British actress of the nineteenth century.

Gielgud began acting in his teens, joining the Old Vic theater company in 1921, and making his film debut in the silent picture Who Is That Man? (1923). Soon thereafter, Gielgud became Noël Coward's understudy, eventually taking over the lead roles in Coward's play The Vortex (1924) and Margaret Kennedy's The Constant Nymph (1924). Other successes followed quickly, as Gielgud began to play major Shakespearean roles at the Old Vic, beginning with Romeo, and, before he was thirty, the more mature lead roles in Richard II, The Tempest, Macbeth, Hamlet, and King Lear.

Gielgud as Hamlet

During this time, he began his first major relationship. Actor John Perry lived with him until their separation in the early 1940s.

By the 1930s, Gielgud was a box-office idol—a rather unlikely one, given his bulbous nose and unprepossessing figure; indeed, his detractors thought his Romeo "feminine." His great gifts were his cat-like mobility and, most notably, his expressive voice, which fellow actor Sir Alec Guinness described as being "like a silver trumpet muffled in silk."

Gielgud also became a respected stage director, launching his own distinguished company in 1937 at the Queen's Theatre. He directed and often performed in productions of Shakespeare and such classics as School for Scandal, Three Sisters, and The Importance of Being Earnest. In 1953, Gielgud was named in Queen Elizabeth's Coronation Honors List as the recipient of a rather belated knighthood. That this honor came about at all was a result of two of his colleagues, Sir Laurence Olivier and Sir Ralph Richardson, pleading with Prime Minister Winston Churchill to remedy the grievous oversight.

As Gielgud's homosexuality was generally known if not publicly acknowledged in a time when sexual acts between men were still a criminal offense in Britain (and remained so until 1967), the government had been reluctant to bestow its approval on him. Given the controversy over his knighthood, it was cruelly ironic that within months of receiving the honor, Gielgud was involved in an embarrassing incident that might have been fatally damaging to his career.

During the early 1950s, British legal authorities conducted a veritable persecution of gay men that resulted in criminal charges against a number of prominent figures. Gielgud was arrested outside a public lavatory in Chelsea for "importuning for an immoral purpose," and the press conducted a vitriolic campaign against him. Gielgud nonetheless received a standing ovation upon his next stage appearance, and his arrest is thought to have been instrumental in starting the process of decriminalization. (The incident did not, moreover, prevent the Queen from granting him two further distinctions, the Companion of Honour [1977] and the Order of Merit [1996].) But, having been so deeply humiliated, Sir John never spoke publicly about the matter or his sexuality again, and he was banned from entering the United States for the next four years.

After World War II, Gielgud's career shifted, as he began to appear with greater frequency in the character roles for which he is now best remembered. With the advent of the "Angry Young Men" of the 1950s, Gielgud's acting style was greatly out of fashion on the British stage, and, accordingly, he appeared more frequently in motion pictures. He acted in more than 130 films in his long career, the greater portion of which were made between the 1960s and the 1980s; and in 1982 he received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of the sardonic butler in Arthur.

Finding it increasingly difficult to commit lengthy dialogue to memory, Gielgud retired from the stage in 1988, but continued to perform in films, nearly until the end of his life. At the age of eighty-six, he had his first nude scene in Prospero's Books (1991), and he subsequently appeared in Shine (1996), The Portrait of a Lady (1996), and Elizabeth (1998).

In 1999, he was deeply bereaved by the death of his partner Martin Hensler, with whom he had lived for nearly forty years. Within months, on May 21, 2000, Gielgud himself passed away quietly at his home in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, at age ninety-six.

1906 – Elmyr de Hory (born Elemér Albert Hoffmann; d.1976) was a Hungarian-born painter and art forger, who is said to have sold over a thousand art forgeries to reputable art galleries all over the world. His forgeries garnered celebrity from a Clifford Irving book, Fake (1969); a documentary essay film by Orson Welles, F for Fake (1974); and a biography by Mark Forgy, The Forger's Apprentice: Life with the World's Most Notorious Artist (2012).

De Hory claimed that he was born into an aristocratic family, that his father was an Austro-Hungarian ambassador and that his mother came from a family of bankers. However, subsequent investigation has suggested that de Hory's childhood was, more likely, of a middle-class variety; he was born Elemér Albert Hoffmann. (An acquaintance, Fernand Legros, said that de Hory was born in Budapest (Hungary) 14 April 1905, but that de Hory would change the date to 1914 to appear younger.) Both his parents were Jewish. His father's occupation was listed as "wholesaler of handcrafted goods." His parents did not divorce when he was sixteen, as he had asserted in the Clifford Irving biography.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, de Hory was imprisoned in a German concentration camp for being both a Jew and a homosexual. (While his homosexuality was proven over time, investigation into his past has shown the likelihood that he was at one time christened as a Calvinist. Such an ostensible conversion did not stop the Nazi government from targeting people who were born Jewish for extermination.) He was severely beaten and was transferred to a Berlin prison hospital, from which he escaped. He returned to Hungary, and it was there, he said, that he learned that his parents had been killed and their estate confiscated. However, according to Mark Forgy's account, both de Hory's mother and brother were listed as Holocaust survivors.

On arriving in Paris after the war, de Hory attempted to make an honest living as an artist, but soon discovered that he had an uncanny ability to copy the styles of noted painters. He began to sell his Picasso pastiches to art galleries around Paris, claiming that he was a displaced Hungarian aristocrat and his offerings were what remained from his family's art collection or else that he had acquired them directly from the artist, whom he had known during his years in Paris.

In 1959, suffering from depression, he attempted suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills. A friend rescued him and called an ambulance. His stomach was pumped, and after a stay in the hospital de Hory convalesced in New York City, helped by an enterprising young man, Fernand Legros. Legros' account of his dealings with de Hory differs substantially from de Hory's own. He portrays de Hory as an aggressive and persistent con man, who suckers Legros into the belief that he is a needy impoverished aristocrat deserving of Legros's charity, whereas in reality he is a person wanted by Interpol under a multitude of different aliases and convicted of a variety of crimes, forgery and fraud being not the least of them; de Horys is object of pursuits, convictions and expulsions from France, Switzerland, Italy, Federal Germany, Great Britain, from Mexico, from the United States, from Canada, for false check writing without funds, check forgery, forgery carrying a false name, theft, receiver and purveyor of stolen goods, and embezzlement.

In de Hory's account, Legros accompanied de Hory back to Miami where he continued to regain his health. When he imprudently took Legros into his confidence, the other man quickly recognized an opportunity and importuned the artist to let him sell his work in exchange for a 40% cut of the profits, with Legros assuming all the risks inherent in the sale of forgeries.

With Legros, de Hory again toured the United States. In time, Legros demanded his cut be increased to 50%, when in reality Legros was already keeping much of the profit. On one of these trips Legros met Réal Lessard, a French-Canadian who later became his lover. The two had a volatile relationship, and in late 1959 de Hory decided to leave the two and return to Europe.

In Paris, de Hory unexpectedly once more ran into Legros. De Hory revealed to him that some of his forgeries were still back in New York. According to de Hory, Legros devised a plan to steal the paintings and sell them, making a name for himself and his art gallery in the process. Later that year, de Hory's account continues, Legros persuaded de Hory to resume their partnership. Legros and Lessard would continue to sell de Hory's work and agreed to pay him a flat fee of $400 a month, enough to guarantee de Hory a comfortable and risk-free life in his newfound home, the Spanish Mediterranean island of Ibiza.

De Hory always denied that he had ever signed any of his forgeries with the name of the artist whom he was imitating. This is an important legal matter, since painting in the style of an artist is not a crime—only signing a painting with another artist's name makes it a forgery. This may be true, as Legros or Lessard may have signed the paintings with the false names.

In 1964, now 58 years old, de Hory began to tire of the forgery business, and soon his work began to suffer. Consequently, many art experts began noticing that the paintings they were receiving were forgeries. Some of the galleries examining de Hory's work alerted Interpol, and the police were soon on the trail of Legros and Lessard. Legros sent de Hory to Australia for a year to keep him out of the eye of the investigation.

De Hory continued to elude the police for some time but, tired of life in exile, decided to move back to Ibiza to accept his fate. In August 1968, a Spanish court convicted him of the crimes of homosexuality, showing no visible means of support, and consorting with criminals (Legros), sentencing him to two months in prison in Ibiza. He was never directly charged with forgery because the court could not prove that he had ever created any forgeries on Spanish soil. He was released in October 1968 and expelled from Ibiza for one year. During that time he resided in Torremolinos, Spain.

One year following his release, de Hory, by then a celebrity, returned to Ibiza. He sold his story to Clifford Irving, who wrote the biography Fake! The Story of Elmyr de Hory the Greatest Art Forger of Our Time. De Hory appeared in several television interviews and was featured with Irving in the Orson Welles documentary F for Fake (1973). In Welles's film, de Hory questioned what it was that made his forgeries inferior to the actual paintings created by the artists he imitated, particularly since they had fooled so many experts and were always appreciated when it was believed that they were genuine. In F for Fake, Welles also poses questions about the nature of the creative process, how trickery, illusion, and duplicity often prevail in the art world, and thus, in some respects, downplays the culpability of the art forger de Hory and outliers like him.

During the early 1970s, de Hory again decided to try his hand at painting, hoping to exploit his newfound fame: this time, he would sell his own, original work. While he had gained some recognition in the art world, he made little profit, and he soon learned that French authorities were attempting to extradite him to stand trial on fraud charges. This took quite some time, as Spain and France had no extradition treaty at that time.

On December 11, 1976, de Hory's live-in bodyguard and "companion" Mark Forgy informed him that the Spanish government had agreed to extradite de Hory to France. Shortly thereafter, de Hory took an overdose of sleeping pills, and asked Forgy to accept his decision and not intervene or prevent him from taking his life. However, Forgy later went for help to take de Hory to a local hospital, though en route he died in Forgy's arms. Clifford Irving has expressed doubts about de Hory's death, claiming that he may have faked his own suicide in order to escape extradition, but Forgy has dismissed this theory.

1912 – The RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg just before midnight on April 14th. By 2:20 AM, she broke apart and foundered, taking over one thousand three hundred people still aboard to their deaths. Just under two hours after the Titanic foundered, the Cunard liner RMS Carpathia arrived on the scene of the sinking, where she brought aboard an estimated 705 survivors. Among the known gay people who died on the Titanic were crew members second carpenter Michael Brice and Third Officer Sam Maxwell as well as Archibald Willingham Butt who served as an influential military aide to U.S. presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft.

1935 – Erich von Däniken is a controversial Swiss author best known for his claims about extraterrestrial influences on early human culture, in books such as Chariots of the Gods?, published in 1968. Von Däniken is one of the main figures responsible for popularizing the paleocontact and ancient astronaut hypotheses.

Von Däniken is a co-founder of the Archaeology, Astronautics and SETI Research Association (AAS RA). He developed a theme park called Mystery Park in Interlaken, Switzerland, which opened on May 23, 2003 and closed on November 19, 2006.

His 26 books have been translated into more than 20 languages, selling more than 60 million copies worldwide, and his documentary TV shows have been viewed around the world.

Von Däniken's run-ins with the law started at an early age. In the 1960s, Von Däniken worked in hotels and restaurants across Switzerland, and then he was convicted of fraud, serving a prison sentence for defrauding his boss at one hotel. In 1967, soon after Chariots of the Gods was published he was arrested and charged by Interpol with fraud and tax evasion for non-payment of US$14,000.00. On behalf of the prosecution, he was ordered by the Court to undergo psychological examinations, and labelled a homosexual, reflecting a time when being homosexual carried a negative stigma. During the investigation, authorities uncovered a large personal debt totaling about US$700,000. Von Däniken was found guilty of embezzlement, and he served more than three years in Swiss prisons. While in prison, he continued writing, and 'Return of the Gods' was subsequently published.

Dan Roos (L) with Lisa Kudrow & Dan Bucatinsky

1955 – Don Roos is an American screenwriter and film director. Roos was born in New York. He attended the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. After graduating, Roos moved to Los Angeles, where he pursued a career writing for television.

Roos began his writing career when he had a friend of his impersonate an agent and represent him; a phone call led to a job with playwright Mart Crowley (The Boys in the Band), who at the time was Executive Producer of Hart to Hart. Roos went on to write for The Colbys, Nightingales, and other TV shows, before his spec scripts led to feature film writing assignments. His first major film was 1991's Academy Award-nominated Love Field, an interracial drama starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Dennis Haysbert.

Roos' work as the writer of the film Single White Female has earned him a permanent space in Hollywood movie trivia, since that title has entered the lexicon in reference to the film's psychopathic lead character who begins to take on her roommate's identity.

Roos is well-known for his work writing strong and engaging female characters. Ironically, In a 1999 interview in The Advocate, Roos stated that prior to scripting Boys on the Side and The Opposite of Sex, "as a Hollywood screenwriter, I was used to disguising my gay characters as heterosexuals" because of homophobia in the film establishment. His use of an interracial attraction in Love Field, for example, was a way of talking about "a love that dare not speak its name." Roos explained that he used women to stand in for gay men dealing with emotional conflict because "men are still stuck in that ridiculous '50s attitude. They're never allowed to play real fear or any kind of weakness. Women get to play all those feelings." Roos won a Best First Feature Independent Spirit Award for The Opposite of Sex.

In 2000, Roos served as the executive producer of All Over the Guy (2001), a comedy about four friends—a gay couple and a straight one—on an often bumpy road to romance. The assignment gave him the opportunity to work with his life partner since the mid-1980s, writer and actor Dan Bucatinsky.

Roos has appeared at numerous glbtq film festivals, including three at his alma mater, Notre Dame, but he severed that connection after the 2006 event, prior to which the school's president, the Reverend John Jenkins, had condemned the name of the Queer Film Festival as one that would "celebrate and promote homosexual activity" in contravention of Catholic doctrine."I will never come back to Notre Dame again--ever," declared Roos. "When I come here, all I feel is hate. They don't want me here. They don't want me to have my daughter [in the same house] with my boyfriend. They think I will burn in hell. Would Anne Frank go back to Bergen-Belsen?"

Adopting a child in 2005 was a source of great joy for Roos and Bucatinsky. Roos supports a woman's right to choose abortion but was glad to find a woman who not only decided to carry through her pregnancy but also chose a gay couple as the adoptive parents for the child, who was born in Wisconsin. Roos and Bucatinsky were able to file an amended birth certificate in California, with both of their names listed as parents.

1987 – Mississippi creates a "Sex Offense Criminal History Record Information" program. It creates a state registry of convicted sex criminals, including for consensual sodomy. Employers are permitted to request information about employees from it.

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blueprint-poetry · 3 months

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open letter to myself

Now we’re getting down to bedrock I pick up the stones and make an altar Cast myself on the fires Of all that came before

I bullied myself into a corner Now we come to the table to truce We stare each other down Tonight, I must admit It’s come back To haunt me

I see their faces, I hear the memories Joy turned to grief, in retrospect, Deceived

I’ve been trying, trying so hard To do all the things I ought Yes, I am so scared And no, I do not know How to never find ourselves there again And if that’s your condition for peace, Please come again with a game plan I just want to sleep And forget for the time being, But I’m putting the work in, Please see I’m putting the work in

The altars will stand as gravestones They’ll stand as testaments And maybe they’ll be all the reminder we need To sacrifice ourselves only in the name of the Holy And never again be bullied By their cop-outs Not a sacrifice we ought to make So here we are, rebuilding Their blows were knockouts I put you through the wall And you have chosen to come forward And try to restore the heart They stole from inside of me Rundown building framing A propped up, abandoned Condemned part of me

He’s pulling weeds from our nervous system It’s a root system That’s more viral Than toxicosis Running rampant

So listen, You remembered the words Remembered all the times Their friendship left a bitter taste Cause it always loved to say, Hey. You leaning in is so demanding. Hide all this. Ask nothing of me. That’s not what friends are for.

I wash my hands of it every night When I get home. I am trying so hard to come home To myself. We ran so far with a collapsing frame And nothing to show for it. And I will keep working to absolve me Where all their professions of love Refused to release me. I am not toxic, kid, I’m broken. There’s a difference. But we are not broken Like there’s something wrong with us, Unredemptive. That’s an empty threat from a coward’s heart, Two full chambers of liars And one packed with laziness, And a nice cozy little attic To self-soothe Any prick of conscience.

So listen. Keep your conscience fresh And connected, Softened and trembling, Searching. Do not sear my hand when I question now, How do we find a way out? Cause you know I died to get out, Removed the disdainful crowds from the atrium And all the players from the ring. But this arena is not empty. Truer faiths showed up Just as we were needing.

So what are we going to settle on tonight? You’ve got my peace in one hand, Hope by the other, I’m holding the grief in spades And a lot of choice words made I can’t seem to help it. Everything feels like A house of cards on the verge of collapse Like the spinal column they almost tapped Before the night we took our life back.

Every play on words is a round of choices made Over the long course of the matter Don’t go spinning words I’ve already mastered And just tell me, What do you want? Them back? Only if they change Their regard For you. Cause it’s been missing All the best parts Of you.

That’s my condition. We have to make peace, So here’s the altar once again. I built it in the wilderness When you felt like you were lost And I gave us this place to come to On our journey home To ourselves, And the garden He’s planning, Planting, Landscaping Down to the bedrock Will be breathtaking. Be not afraid of this bed we lay in, Our foundation will be renewed And we’re working with midnight oils And wicks flickering in desperate places But we have not been lost To the sight of the Anointed One Who has already led the way.

Let them play, let them muse, Let them lambast and assume We are being renewed And we are being transformed And while they drop off to sleep, Let us pray until the weeping Turns to blood running over Our hallowed heart, No longer hollowed out By irreverent hands And follow these footsteps on into The Promised Land.

–blueprint poetry

#poetry #blueprint poetry #abuse #neglect #broken relationship #healing #trauma #recovery through poetry #poets of tumblr #poemblr #christianity #my faith #by it i see the world #salt & light #open letter to myself

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the-kingshound · 3 years

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The third Arch Deleted Scene

The snippet here is a bit rushed at the beginning and in some other parts, as I did not want to go into even more spoiler territory. If you want to send me asks about this please be sure to advertise them as spoiler at the beginning, since not everyone will want to read them.

SPOILER

TW: blood, injury, poisoning, strong language.

3rd Arch – the seventh Trial

Your stomach was knotted by dark swirling anxiety from the moment Arthur announced the diplomatic visit. You were familiar with the House, it kept being, after all, one of the most influent beside yours before and after the Emperor’s fall. This did not mean anything, though. Your homeland was beautiful but deadly, ready to swallow anyone whole to quickly digest them.

You promised yourself you were going to be at Arthur’s side at all times, and that’s precisely what you are doing now.

Four days in, and the only major threat has been the amount of people wanting to interact with you. For the most part, Arthur smoothly deflects them to himself, for which you are endlessly grateful. You’re not in the mood to socialize, instead you keep on high alert, especially against the House leader and formal Ambassador.

You do not think he will pull anything while you’re here, after all you grew up together and you respected each other deeply, but one cannot be too cautious when the King is concerned – as demonstrated by the multiple scars that litter your body. You would go through all of it again in a heartbeat if it meant keeping your King safe, but all you can do for now is stay by his side and keep the risks at minimum.

For this reason, when the Ambassador proposes a meal together with both yours and his knights, you are instantly weary.

“I don’t like this one bit, Arthur.”

“Me neither,” agrees Evaine, all the while lazily making their dagger spin on the table.

“I don’t deny that is not an ideal situation. On the other hand, a wrong move on their part would jeopardise their own negotiation,” counters Arthur as Morien finally snaps, blocking Evaine’s wrist with a tight grip and hissing an irritated “stop fooling around, for God’s sake!”

Evaine pouts. Yniol ignores them in favour of the matter at hand “they are certainly going to outnumber us, but if they wanted to attack us head on they would have done so before now, there were better opportunities. MC?”

You really think it through before answering “I wouldn’t put it past the Ambassador to try something, direct or more subtle, while we’re so exposed and out of our physician. Lania is not the head of his House for nothing, but aside from that he was always particularly attached to the Empire. We can’t afford to underestimate him.”

“Yes, yes” interjects Morien, having by now freed Evaine’s hand and left the table, dismissing themselves from the meeting “I’ll be prepared in any case. I swear you manage to hurt yourselves everywhere we go.”

And so dinner begins. It is a boring affair, but you won’t let yourself relax until it’s over. You sip on your wine, closely inspecting the hosts for any sudden or unusual movement. You find none, but you stiffen and your brows furrows. There’s something strange in your mouth, something strangely… bitter.

Time seems to freeze in front of your eyes. With an uncoordinated, panicked movement you jerk on the table and bat away Arthur’s cup, spilling its content on the table.

You place your hand on the table to support you as you rise, your dilatated pupils numbly fixed on the red liquid that’s quickly staining the tablecloth. It feels like an hour but actually only a second has passed before you regain your senses.

“Seize them.”

Arthur and his Knights are no longer seated by now, but the Ambassador’s men have drawn their weapons as well and pointed them to your delegacy, effectively halting their movements. You see icy red and do not spare another glance at the man now placed on your back while you snarl in the envoy direction.

Placing your fingers on the hilt of your sword, you hiss an enchantment to track the magic residue and the culprit is revealed in front of your eyes. Ignoring the taste of iron on your tongue, you spit out another enchantment and the room’s door is locked close with a lout snap. They will not get away.

Unfortunately, you lack the ability to free Arthur and the Knights, you are now surrounded and painfully outnumbered, but you know they can hold on until you have taken care of the threat at hand. You cough blood and half crash on the floor, but you ignore the alarmed voices of your Knights and crawl in the Ambassador’s direction.

How dare he. How dare.

“My, Lord…”

“Let them,” a voice says to your back “they will not go far.”

“How dare you” your breaths are ragged, your intestines raw and burning, your voice rough for the acid that invades your throat. The Ambassador’s face is a mask of contempt and stony resolution. He watches, halting his men while they try to block you, as you half-crawl to him, gripping with iron strength the wooden chairs to keep yourself upright.

“I have the upper hand, King Arthur. I’m afraid you are in no position to make such demands.”

“Release us, and call a physician for my spouse, and I will consider letting this incident go without consequences.”

Arthur’s voice is steady, calm and there is only a hint of something sharper, at least for now.

You can’t see your King, but the sound of his voice sends shivers down your spine. They tried to kill him. The House you grew up to respect is full of nothing more than vile traitors.

As your strength start to waver, you lose your balance and crush to the ground with the chair you were pushing your weight on. Still, you get up again and you and fix your gaze on the second born, now Ambassador and traitor “I’ve had enough of you.”

You take a shuddering breath, your lungs filled with blood that’s now spilling over to your lips as you speak, but the pain you feel is nothing compared to the hot, blinding rage that’s consuming your every thought. Still, your voice is, as ever, cutting cold “you invite us here, offering a pacific discussion, and all you provide are poison in our drinks and weapons against my Knights and my King’s throat. You’ve exhausted my patience, Lania.”

You see him flinch at the use of his name. You remember a time long gone when you played together as kids, swearing you would be the ones to restore the Empire uniting your two Houses. Now these are broken promises and rotten friendships.

“MC,” the Ambassador says, “it’s over, you have to understand that.”

“Oh, you just wait,” interjects Evaine, almost immediately silenced by the Ambassador’s men.

You cough and choke on blood, and you can feel the physical weight of Arthur’s and the Knights’ worried eyes on your back, but you exhale and grip tighter your sword’s hilt. A wave of raw power invades your body and you are able to focus again.

“You know what I’m capable of, what I am willing to do for my King,” your voice is almost devoid of intonation, save for unforgiving hardness. His gaze falls on your non dominant arm and then on your throat, scarred by a thin horizontal line “I will gut you and feed you to my hounds. You’ll die like the backstabbing coward you are.”

They know as well as you do that you don’t make empty promises. There is a rustle around you that culminates in a sharp sigh from the Ambassador and swords pointed at your neck.

“Must we really do this, MC? I cared for you once, but you know that I will not hesitate to strike you down if you give me reason to do so.”

You don’t draw black nor move a single muscle, your eyes find Arthur’s blue ones and you find the King is dangerously immobile, his fingers brushing against Excalibur’s hilt in what could be mistaken for a soothing caress. When he speaks, his voice bears nothing else but firm command “you will not do that.”

Lania cocks his head to the side, appearing quite unbothered “oh?”

“How is your sister, Ambassador?”

At the same time as Lania stills, you blink. A violent cough than shakes your chest, and when your senses are fully back and you can breathe again Arthur has kept going with the same calm, calculated demeanor “I want to remind you that together with the Lord the wedded she’s now head of the Merthian feud, the nearer one to the south-eastern border.”

“What does it-“

“I am the one in control of the knights tasked with their protection. As per the arrangement we signed weeks ago, the border is under Camelot’s defence. But if I die, or if my spouse dies, my knights will retire, Ambassador.”

Oh, Arthur is not King for nothing. He is striking where it hurts the most – family – without even an drop of blood shed. You don’t hide a proud, feral smile at this. Almost immediately, blood invades your throat again, you can feel its taste on your togue, but you shove the pain back where it started in your burning stomach. You shiver. You love and hate seeing your King like this.

Lania swiftly unsheathe a long, curved dagger and you are immediately ready to bolt– swords to your throat be damned, you’ve had worse – but he makes no move in Arthur’s direction for now.

“Figured you had to hit low to get a reaction.”

“Release us,” Yniol commands, standing tall near the King.

“No” spits out Lania, his composure now fully broken “you stole our independence and our pride, Pendragon, you humiliated us and stripped our Houses of the opportunity to unite again. You are every bit of your father’s blood!”

He then turns to you, his eyes frantic, his expression pained and almost feral “I thought you were on my side!”

Blood rushes to your ears, a high-pitched whistle the only thing you’re able to hear at the moment. You feel sick. Sicker than before – sicker than what you’ve felt in years. You spit blood on the floor, your answer is weak and unnaturally subdued, “it was a- a long time ago.”

“We were like siblings!”

You can’t say anything, you only choke on your words. All that you manage to do is keep yourself upright only thanks to your sword.

“They are right, you really are your King’s hound, nothing more than Camelot’s bitch,” he tries the next word in his mouth like they were both foul and inevitable “the haghàn bajek*.”

Your vision is overcome by whit spots, your skin hot and freezing cold.

“Kill them all.”

You force yourself to focus. Protect your Knights. Protect your King.

After that it is pure, unbidden chaos. You tighten your grip on your sword, assessing where you’re needed the most. With the corner of your eye you spot Arthur, he’s a beautiful fighter, he is no match for – Lania.

Your magic flares alongside most of your nerve endings as you sprint in his direction, interjecting his blow with your own weapon. Unfortunately, the Ambassador is a skilled opponent and you’re already considerably weakened, all you can do is channel in your arms the strength of your steel determination to not let him reach your King.

“Stop trying to defend an enemy, MC!”

“Stop trying… to kill him.”

You are barely managing to defend yourself when Lania strikes back. You catch the dagger with your arm, it pierces through your skin just over your elbow but it won’t reach its intended target. No one will hurt your King while you’re still breathing. No one.

Pain paralyzes your arm, your breath is stuck in your throat together with a blood clot that feels intrusive and that fills you with panic. The finishing blow never comes, though. As you inhale again, you refocus on the room’s occupants and notice how Arthur’s Knights have the clear upper hand.

“Ah, and you thought you could beat the Round Table so easily,” Evaine all but purrs in a knight’s ear “that’s precious.”

“Stand down” Gawaine commands “you’re surrounded.”

You can hardly distinguish the shapes of your own knights, you’re nauseous, your stomach and throat are on fire. You fall down on your knees, exhausted and hurt. You feel like you’re going to throw up–

“MC’”

Where is Lania, where is –

“Wh-where…?”

“Kai, get Morien here, please.”

Arthur’s voice is soothing, as ever, but tainted with worry. You can’t make his face out. There are arms supporting your weight, not his but equally familiar – Yniol?

“It’s going to be alright, dear.”

It’s the last thing you hear before the world goes black.

*haghàn bajek = [REDACTED] traitor

#deleted scene #SPOILER #tw:blood #tw:injury #tw:poisoning #tw: strong language #I was quite happy with it as I wrote it #but now not so much I'm having second thoughts #if it's deleted by tomorrow you know why

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punkpandapatrixk · 3 years

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New Moon in Libra 🐞🐍⛲🐝ALL SIGNS

With the elements/signs of the zodiac, you can freely use your Sun, Moon, Rising/Ascendant, or even your Stellium (❗️)

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Main theme: Being passionate about whatever we care about could sometimes lead to extremes. This New Moon in the pleasant energy of Libra favours cleanliness and balance. This is a period you can use to cleanse your mind and spirit off broken ways of thinking and doing things. Whatever causes stress, pain and hurt—to yourself or others—needs to be released, and this is a great time to set that intention. Appreciate yourself for making gradual efforts at all~

Soul Cleansing for 🐞Aries Leo Sagittarius

This New Moon in Libra ushers in an opportunity to restore balance. You could've been so eager about some projects or new goals that you kind of forgot to slow down and take break. Some others, you could've been so ambitious that people around you are feeling a burden from your pressure on them. Could you have slipped into the role of a bully just because you have big plans?

There's a lot of emphasis on the tempering of energies. Libra energy is a balance of both Yin and Yang. Feminine and Masculine. Cold and Hot. This New Moon's energy supports you in working to balance your spirit, mind, and body.

If you've been working too hard; now's the time to slow down. If you've been stagnant; now's the time to take some steps forward. If you've been meek; now learn to show people how to respect you. If you've been somewhat a bully; reign your ambition and learn some diplomacy.

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☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

Soul Cleansing for 🐍Taurus Virgo Capricorn

You are protected by the Higher Realms. Some Earth Signs may not be as aware of their connection to the Spiritual Realms (especially in comparison to Water Signs), but right now, many spiritual beings want to remind you of this special connection you have as part of your being.

You tend to worry a lot and when things do not seem to go as planned, you easily fall into mental disarray and feel like you're lost in life. At such times, it would be best to seek spiritual guidance... from your very own team of Guides... by your own conscious effort. Instead of simply reading online astrology or tarot readings, you can learn to listen to the natural promptings of your Soul~

This New Moon in Libra offers a chance for you to tip the balance of your spiritual life. If you've been thinking of increasing your spiritual prowess, or you've been thinking of becoming more spiritual as they'd put it, this is a marvellous chance for setting that intention. You may be pleasantly surprised by just how clear your path ahead becomes after making clear what you want to do with your current state of energy.

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☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

Soul Cleansing for ⛲Gemini Libra Aquarius

Who amongst you has a penchant for being a coward? Not sure if you're aware of this yourself... But a lot of Air Signs, when underdeveloped, are the world's biggest cowards. I guess it's just a natural part of being so intelligent. As they say, smart people tend to be afflicted with a great amount of self-doubt.

When you are unclear about your own place in society, you become unsure of what you can offer the world. No matter how smart or marvellous you are as an individual, if you do not let that eccentricity and uniqueness to shine, if you must rely on society's approval of your worth... You'll never become that BOSS you have the potential of becoming.

This New Moon in Libra offers you a chance to deeply reflect on your inner value as a person. Who are you and why do you rely on other people's viewpoints of you to determine how you see yourself? If you so choose, this New Moon could be your tipping point. Do you have what it takes to transform your life? It all begins with the mind.

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☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

Soul Cleansing for 🐝Cancer Scorpio Pisces

Up until now, you could've been the type to depend your mental wellbeing on the people you naturally feel an emotional attachment to. Be that as it may, you may have been realising now that you're still not getting the emotional contentment you crave. It is because you're not giving enough to yourself from your own cup. In a simpler term, you're not loving yourself enough.

You may be under the impression that putting yourself first, that giving to yourself first, is selfish. So then whatever you have, you give to others first, and excessively. In return, you wish to be showered by the love from others the way you've showered them with your love. You know what this is called? Toxic co-dependence.

Even those of you who do not necessarily engage in this behavior blatantly, have this pattern or mindset in the way you think. This is never going to give you the happiness you could generate for yourself if only you would spend your Love on you first and foremost. This New Moon in Libra offers you a chance to redirect the way you think about giving and receiving love. What intentions do you wish to set now?

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☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

Feel free to support me on Patreon if you love this kind of content🍑I create stories and tarot readings that calm the mind & heal from within🍒

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raeynbowboi · 3 years

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Disney Villains in DnD

With the Disney Princesses and Princes, I put them into parties, but for the villains, I’m going to start by listing the ones powerful enough to be a Warlock Patron in descending order of power (by their base form). The rest are ordered by the release date of their film. I’m not going to cover all of the Disney villains in this one post, as there’s just too many, and not all of them map easily onto DnD.

CHERNABOG THE DARK MASTER

AS BIG BAD: Archfield Patron Warlock (Asmodeus)

As Playable Character:

Race: Asmodeus Tiefling Background: Courtier Class: Divine Soul Sorcerer (Evil) Skills: Insight, Deception, Intimidation, Persuasion

The Devil on Bald Mountain, Chernabog stands as Satan and Lucifer incarnate, the Disney-Canon equivalent to the Prince of Darkness, and the ruler of Hell. Like with Maleficent and Hades, Chernabog lacks a stat block, being a Greater Deity, and King of the Archfiends, Ruler of the Nine Hells. As a playable character, Chernabog doesn’t lend out his hellish powers or get them from an outside source. Instead he is a Tiefling with the infernal bloodline of Asmodeus (Lawful Evil) running through his veins. When he was an angel, Lucifer would have been a courtier, standing in the shining Court of Heaven before he was banished to Hell. His skills make him adept at lying to and manipulating people, as Insight lets him learn a person’s desires, and then use lies and honeyed words to lead them astray in his service. Consider this a free “how to play as satan” build.

MALEFICENT THE WICKED FAIRY

As Big Bad: The Raven Queen

As Playable Character:

Race: Hexblood Background: Noble (History, Persuasion Intimidation) Class: Wildfire Druid Skills: Arcana, History, Intimidation, Perception

Lore-wise, Maleficent uses “All the Powers of Hell”, but in terms of Dungeons and Dragons, the Wildfire Druid gives Maleficent the best parallels to her powers, as she’s able to grow a wall of thorns, call a bolt of lightning, Polymorph into a fire-breathing dragon, and spread fire. It also works lore-wise as the Wildfire Druid destroys the very forest they swore to protect. As a Hexblood, Maleficent becomes a fey hag, able to curse princesses and disguise herself as a racial ability. As the Big Bad, Maleficent maps perfectly onto the Raven Queen, ruling over the shadowfell, summoning the Heartless to do her biding, and loaning Diablo to those who worship or swear fealty to the Raven Queen.

HADES GOD OF THE UNDERWORLD

As Big Bad: Hades/Death God

As Playable Character:

Race: Mephistopheles Tiefling/Reborn Background: Charlatan Class: Death Cleric Skills: Deception, Insight, Persuasion, Sleight of Hand

For Hades, the God of the Dead, making him into a Cleric was a no-brainer. But Clerics have very limited options for fire magic. Sacred flame and Flame Strike both deal radiant damage, and their only other fire spell is Searing Smite which they got in the spell list expansion. But as a Mephistopheles Tiefling, Hades can also gain temporary access to Burning Hands and Flame Blade, along with Mage Hand. Mephistopheles is also the demon best known for making a deal with Faust, a trait shared by the deal-making Hades. If you’re not feeling the fire theme, or your DM doesn’t like the tiefling subraces, Hades can also work as a Reborn.

THE HORNED KING MASTER OF THE CAULDRON BORN

As Big Bad: Undead/Undying Warlock Patron (Lich)

As Playable Character:

Race: Reborn Background: Noble (History, Persuasion Intimidation) Class: Necromancy Wizard Skills: Arcana, History, Intimidation, Investigation

Ironically, there is a new magic item that maps perfectly onto the Black Cauldron, the Cauldron of Rebirth. But oddly, it can only be attuned by a Druid or Warlock, and the Necromancy Wizard creates the strongest undead thralls, as he adds his Proficiency Bonus to their attack and damage rolls. But if you’d rather have the Horned King be able to use the Cauldron of Rebirth, then make him a Spores Druid. If you absolutely must go warlock, make him an Undead Warlock. As a Warlock Patron, he would be a Lich. In the Chronicles of Prydain books, he served Arawn, God of Death. But the Horned King serves no such master in the Disney film.

JAFAR THE GRAND VIZIER

As Big Bad: Genie Warlock Patron (Efreeti)

Race: Human/Fire Genasi Background: Courtier (Insight, Persuasion) Class: Genie Warlock (Djinni)/Wild Magic Sorcerer Skills: Arcana, Deception, Insight, Persuasion

Jafar is the only one of the patron villains who themselves is a warlock to another patron. In his human form, Jafar has little to no powers. Everything Jafar is able to do is through either his magic snake staff or Genie’s magic. It’s only once he becomes a genie himself that Jafar has his own powers. So, Jafar here is split between two builds. As a human, he’s a warlock relying on a djinni. As a genie himself, he’s a wild magic sorcerer. Technically, he could be both. Play Jafar however you want. As a big bad, Jafar is stuck as one of the most subserviant types of warlock patron, which isn’t so surprising why he’s this low on the patron scale. Only Ursula is technically weaker than him, but that’s only true when she’s in her base form. Once she wields the trident, Ursula is even more powerful than The Horned King.

URSULA THE SEA WITCH

As Big Bad: Fathomless Warlock Patron (Sea Hag/Kraken)

As Playable Character:

Race: Triton Background: Courtier (Insight, Persuasion) Class: Glamour Bard Skills: Arcana, Deception, Insight, Performance, Persuasion Items: Circlet of Human Perfection (reskin as seashell necklace)

I built Ariel as a Fathomless Warlock because in order for her to be on land, she had to make a deal with Ursula. So, with Ursula on land, she can masquerade as Vanessa, using Ariel’s voice to charm and manipulate people. We even see Ursula do this when she charms Eric, so we know that as Vanessa, Ursula could easily run a successful criminal empire using Ariel’s voice to hypnotize and manipulate people into obeying her orders. The Circlet of Human Perfection allows Ursula to maintain a perfect beautiful human disguise without having to eat up spell slots. As a Fathomless Patron, Ursula in her base form is a simple Sea Hag, being much weaker. But once she gets a hold of Dekella, the Bident of Thassa from King Triton, she can grow in both size and power to rival the might of a Kraken. And with Thassa’s divine bident, Ursula can command the tides and all the beasts and monstrosities within it, puting her nearly on par with the powers of a goddess of the sea. But unlike Hades, Maleficent, and Chernabog, even at her near godlike power, Ursula still has a stat block, her bident can still be taken from her, and she can still be slain and defeated.

QUEEN GRIMHILDE THE EVIL QUEEN

Race: Human Background: Noble (History, Persuasion Intimidation) Class: Alchemist Artificer Skills: Arcana, History, Intimidation, Investigation

I really did consider the Transmutation Wizard for Grimhilde, as it has the power to cast polymorph for all of your Frog Prince needs, and a master transmuter can even Restore Youth. But then, the alchemist can brew a potion of transformation, and the chemistry set is clearly how we see Grimhilde using magic. The only magic she performs without the chemistry set is when she creates a gust of wind in front of her magic mirror. She doesn’t even create the lightning bolt for her transformation spell, it just happens to be storming outside, so she’s not controlling the weather either. Plus, the most powerful spell she has is the poisoned apple and she has to summon a bolt of lightning to cast Alter Self, a 2nd level spell. By DnD standards, Grimhilde’s not really that powerful. She doesn’t even fight the player herself in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. If you want Grimhilde to be more magical, then go with Transmutation Wizard, but if you want to be more accurate, the Alchemist is how Grimhilde does her magic. Yzma from The Emperor’s New Groove shares a nearly identical build.

CAPTAIN HOOK THE GENTLEMAN THIEF

Race: Human Background: Pirate (Athletics, Perception) Class: Swashbuckler Rogue Skills: Athletics, Deception, Insight, Intimidation, Perception, Persuasion

While Hook’s still a putrid coward, he holds himself quite well, and is the epitome of Lawful Evil, maintaining a strict personal moral code to clash with Peter’s frankly Chaotic Neutral “heroism”. Hook’s not really good at the normal rogue skills like hiding or thieving, but he shines as a manipulative double-talking liar. Long John Silver from Treasure Planet has a similar build.

GASTON LEGUME THE HANSOME HUNTER

Race: Human Background: Folk Hero (Animal Handling Persuasion, Survival) Class: Monster Slayer Ranger Skills: Athletics, Perception, Persuasion Stealth, Survival

As the strapping hero of Belle’s Village, Gaston has the favor of his entire community, keeping them safe from any and all beasties that lurk beyond the city. Too bad he’s as rotten as they come. Likely one of the weakest villains in terms of pure power scale as little more than a local hero, he’s still an iconic enough villain I couldn’t resist adding him. Clayton from Tarzan shares a similar build.

SCAR THE USURPER OF PRIDE ROCK

Race: Leonin Background: Noble (History, Persuasion) Class: Oath of Treachery Paladin Fighting Style: Unarmed Skills: History, Insight, Intimidation, Persuasion

Simba was a druid because he was a wise king who could call upon his people to stand beside him. Scar is a paladin because he has devoted himself to a single goal: his own personal power. Scar shows little wisdom, but has a strong character and savvy charms about him that make him better suited as a CHA caster.

JUDGE CLAUDE FROLLO THE JUDGE OF PARIS

Race: Human Background: Investigator Class: Light Cleric Skills: Insight, Investigation, Persuasion, Religion

This was an easy villain to build. As a religious man worshipping God (who would def fall under Life, Light, and maybe Knowledge) Frollo would go for the one that lets him keep witches warm. His background was chosen as an investigator because he’s responsible for keeping the peace in Paris, and there wasn’t a background option for lawmaker. Noble or Courtier might have worked, but didn’t seem quite like the right fit as they deal more with aristocratic authority and royal court politics.

RIKU THE HEARTLESS KEYBLADE MASTER

Race: Human Background: Soldier (Athletics, Intimidation) Class: Raven Queen Warlock/Hexblade Warlock, Shadow Sorcerer Pact Boon: Blade Skills: Arcana, Athletics, Deception, Intimidation

In the first Kingdom Hearts game, Riku spends most of the game being manipulated by Maleficent. His DnD counterpart would surely be a warlock to her. But Maleficent oddly has not one but three possible warlock patron options. As the Raven Queen, she obviously has the Raven Queen Warlock, but the Raven Queen also created the Hexblade, which come from the Shadowfell, which she rules over. The third is unique to Maleficent, as she is a fairy, and a powerful one at that. Making her a valid choice for an Archfey Warlock. Archfey doesn’t quite fit Riku, but the other two do, and as a Sorcerer, Riku draws power from the Shadowfell which his patron rules over.

DR. FACILIER THE SHADOW MAN

Race: Human Background: Charlatan (Deception, Sleight of Hand) Class: Fiend Warlock Skills: Arcana, Deception, Persuasion, Sleight of Hand

It’s kind of hard to deny that Dr. Facilier is obviously a warlock, though his patron options don’t really come close to a neat fit. Among his choices though, fiend comes the closest to selling his soul to the Other Siders or Shadow Folk. It’s possible he could have sold his soul to the Raven Queen and his shadowy friends are the emissaries of the shadowfell, but as he has no raven or crow familiar, that’s a somewhat weak comparison.

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mourntheantagonist · 3 years

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#HarringroveApril Day 16: Nostalgia

***

When Billy signed those discharge papers, piled into his dented Camaro and headed west towards the sunset despite the screaming redhead banging on the windows crying “please don’t go!”, with an aching chest both metaphorical and physical, he didn’t think for a second about looking back.

So how he ended up back in the same shithole he turned his back on ten years ago was entirely beyond him.

He had made a life for himself in California. He got his associates degree at the local community college and worked his way up from a nine to five teller position at the local bank all the way to branch manager, making an upper middle class salary. It was easy work. Boring work, unfulfilling work, but easy and worth every penny. He had a couple of friends, mostly coworkers, more so acquaintances than friends. He had a fancy apartment in the city, he went on dates, though they usually ended in one night stands where the other guy snuck out in the dark hours of the morning leaving Billy to sleep in a bed that was just too big for one person. But he was free from all of those forces in his life that always held him back and pinned him down, and each and every one of those forces just reeked of small town America.

He hadn’t heard a peep out of Hawkins since Max had given up on calling around eight years ago, or at least he hoped that she’d given up and something worse hadn’t happened to her. He regretted not answering those calls everyday. The guilt of leaving her behind like that weighed heavy like an anchor, but he did it anyway. Bad decision after bad decision he was surprised he made it to where he had today, and he just wished she’d call again.

But he also wasn’t sure enough of himself that anything would change if she did, and that phone would likely remain on the hook until the ringing stopped and she was left to the sound of his voicemail.

“You’ve reached Billy Hargrove. Leave a message.”

He wasn’t home the day she finally did call, which fortunately took that decision away from him. Her message was tossed in with a mix of telemarketers and employees calling in for days off, it could have easily been dismissed, passed over like every other piece of junk in the system if her voice hadn’t been exactly the same as it was the day he left her.

“Hey Billy, it’s Max. I know you probably don’t give a shit, but Neil died of a heart attack last night…” Billy stopped listening after the words ‘Neil died’ came over the speaker. He had to replay the message to hear the rest because by the time he’d gathered himself it had already ended. “...the funeral is next Saturday in Hawkins. Nobody expects you to come but I thought you should know anyway and that everyone would still like to see you. Call me back at…” Billy wrote the number on the back of a blockbuster receipt and set it flat on the counter quickly with a firm hand and a quick retraction, like it might burn him. Max’s name and a ten digit number below it in a blue ballpoint pen stared back at him and he just drummed his fingers on the counter and bit his lip trying to think everything over.

He looked at it for probably another thirty minutes while the rest of the voicemails cycled through in the background before he decided to make a call of his own. Slowly and shaking, he dialed the phone number and tried to even out his breathing while he waited for the sound of the pick up. He was partially hoping that it never came.

But it did. The click sound was followed by a voice that didn’t belong to Max, but one he still recognized.

“Hello?”

Billy took in a deep breath. “Hi. This is Billy.”

“Wow, I’m surprised you actually called.”

Billy huffed and if it had been ten years earlier he would have already hung up the phone by now.

“Who is this?”

“Lucas Sinclair. I take it you want to talk to Max?”

Billy tensed at the mention of her name, as if that hadn’t been the whole plan in the first place. “Yeah,” he said, a little bit of shakiness to his voice, “could you put her on?”

After a few short moments of silence and a little bit of movement in the background, he heard her.

“Hey Billy.” she sounded… glad… and it made Billy let out a heavy sigh of relief.

“Hey Maxine.”

“It’s Max.” There was that tone, she hadn’t changed at all.

“Yeah, I know.” There was a pause, Billy twirled the phone cord around this index finger to the point it started going pink and then purple while he tried to get the question to leave the tip of his tongue. “So, he’s really dead?” he asked, blunt as ever.

“Yeah. I don’t expect you to want to come for the funeral, but I just thought you should know, and if you need a place to stay you can– hold on one second” Billy could hear muffled bickering and Max yelling ‘Lucas Sinclair’ through clenched teeth and it brought a smile to his face. It reminded him of all those times he’d eavesdrop on her phone calls with him just to piss her off, just to hear her yell at him through their shared wall before she’d chase him around the house. Those were good days. “As I was saying. You can stay here if you need. We have a spare room.”

“Thanks for the offer.”

“I really hope you decide to come.”

“We’ll see.” He was just about to hang the phone back up, but he stopped himself, “Hey Max?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s nice hearing the sound of your voice again.”

Billy wound up taking the week off and driving that same old Camaro, restored back to its former glory, that did the distance twice before, back over to Indiana, to the place he said he’d never go back to, and he really couldn’t figure out the reason why he didn’t just go into work. There was nothing to drive him to go but the weird feeling in his gut that refused to go away until he called in, and a little bit of that pressure was released.

For each freeway exit he came across on the over thousand mile journey he contemplated turning around, getting back on that on-ramp going the other direction and save himself from whatever hell he’d be walking into.

Because that’s what Hawkins was to him. Hell. There were monsters like his father, and then there were real, legitimate monsters as well and Billy wasn’t safe from either of them, well he was safe from one now. He couldn’t imagine why Max decided to stay in the shithole and not get out like he did.

Maybe that’s what makes him the coward.

The welcome to Hawkins sign gave him chills. He remembered seeing that for the first time, following behind the rickety Uhaul pulled by their beat up truck when Billy decided not to follow them into their next turn, and instead got lost on the “scenic route” of Hawkins which really meant “trees, trees, and more trees” when he hit the Quarry’s dead end and nearly went off the cliff into the water below.

At the time he might’ve thought it would have been better if he had.

A lot of things had looked to have changed about the town since the last time he saw it. Places that he remembered being nothing but vast forests now had neighborhoods and restaurant chains and the place that once had a natural canopy was now completely deforested and exposed to the sun.

But the Quarry was exactly the same as he left it.

From the beer cans crushed and scattered, to the sounds of gravel pieces bouncing up and chipping the paint on his car.

The continuities continued to add up when he stepped foot out of the car, pulling on that same old denim jacket he hadn’t worn in years after trading it in for a suit and tie. His boot hit the gravel path just like it always had, with that same stomp that demanded attention, like each time he got out of that car he had to play into the dramatics, put on the mask and play the part he chose for himself. The breeze and the smell, it was all the same as before, as if the industrialization just several blocks north hadn’t had any effects on this little corner of the town where the birds still sang their songs in harmony and the smell of nature was pungent. It felt like no time had passed at all.

But it had been the sound of a rumbling BMW rolling down the crushing gravel that made him feel exactly like he was back in highschool again, the same rotten kid who used fists as forms for problem solving, the kid who as an adult had worked on his impulsivity, standing there, staring up the gentle slope with his fists clenched so tight his fingernails left marks on his palms. All that work, all that progress he thought he’d gone through, thrown straight out the window at just the mere sight of something from his past.

The BMW pulled up beside him, and the quarry apparently wasn’t the only thing that hadn’t changed. Steve still had the same big swooped back hair and that same exact look on his face when they made eye contact through the passenger window, the same exact look he had the day he told him he was leaving, and screamed at him to get out of his hospital room.

That was the last time they spoke.

Steve got out of the car without a word and just leaned against the door, looking him up and down, and Billy didn’t feel like he had any right to say the first word, considering he’d had the last one.

“It’s good to see you Billy.” Steve broke the silence, and it was almost startling, with both the sudden change of volume, and the sound of that voice he’d almost forgotten singing in his head like a song he didn’t remember learning the lyrics to.

“Is it?” Because it felt like it was all just a formality coming out of his mouth.

He wasn’t expecting an answer to that, so he shouldn’t have been surprised when Steve changed the subject. It was oddly refreshing seeing Steve write the script this time, steering the conversation his way.

“Looks like we both kept our old wheels,” he said, slapping the top of his car twice, maybe a little too hard. The sound of a hand against metal echoed through the trees. “though there’s not as many dents from what I remember.”

“I had it restored.”

The majority of Steve’s body was hidden behind the car that separated the two of them, but he could see in the way that his shoulders moved that his hands had found his own hips, doing that same stance of a mother who just caught their kid in the act of something naughty. “Some good memories happened in that car.”

“Some bad ones too. Or do I need to remind you how the dents got there in the first place?” Billy crossed his arms over his chest, as if the thousand pound chunk of metal that served as a barrier wasn’t enough to protect him. Because it felt like Steve could see directly through him with the way his head tilted when Billy threw his words back at him. Because they both knew that it was horseshit. Memories of whatever happened between Steve and the Camaro existed only in the dents that remained and the neck pain that still lingered. He didn’t actually hold any grudge about that, and he never did.

Because Steve was right. There had been good memories in that car, some he didn’t remember until seeing him again, some that still played in his mind when he went to sleep at night. Maybe that was the reason he kept it around for so long, that one piece that contained all of those few good times, all of those times with Steve.

“You were always so good at that.”

“What?”

“Deflecting. Pushing people away.”

Billy opened his mouth to defend himself, but there was nothing that came out but his own breath, but Steve filled that silence anyway before Billy would have even had the opportunity to speak.

“You cut your hair.”

It was like he was being interrogated.

“Company policy, they practically had to strap me down and take the clippers to my head themselves.”

Steve actually laughed, and it seemed genuine at least. Billy pulled out the pack of red that he always kept on the seat like it was muscle memory. His hands would only ever stop shaking when he had that little stick between his fingers, and they were only shaking more since Steve got out of that car.

“You still smoke?”

Billy put the cigarette in between his lips and lit up, pausing for a nice drag before bothering to answer Steve. Just letting his eyes fall shut and experience just a short moment of relaxation.

“Some old habits never die”

Steve pursed his lips. Every single one of his mannerisms were exactly the same. This one meant that he wanted to say something that he didn’t know if he should.

“Was I just an old habit too?”

“Steve–”

Steve just kicked the side of his car with his knee, sure to leave a dent of his own. The sound was loud enough that the consistent stream of chirping birds transformed into a cascade of flapping wings as the birds on the trees flew away from the scene. He walked around to the front of his car and the physical object that once created separation was gone, and suddenly Steve was within reach and he couldn’t breathe.

“Glad to know it’s harder to quit nicotine than it was to quit me!”

Billy chucked his lit cigarette at the ground and scuffed it with his heel into the gravel. “Who told you it was easy?!” He had a finger pointed to Steve and had closed their distance a few feet more, less than an arms length apart from each other.

“You left!”

“Because I had to! You know I did!”

“You didn’t have to leave me!” Steve practically screamed that final word, his face was now just inches away from Billy’s and he was nearly foaming at the mouth and from an outsider's perspective, Steve looked about two seconds from either kissing him, or killing him.

He did neither. He took a step back and recollected himself with a dramatic clearing of his throat. “You didn’t even ask me to come with you.”

“And you don’t think I regret that every fucking day of my life?” Billy’s voice broke, trembling throughout the sentence like he was containing a ticking time bomb. “Why are you even here?”

Steve just rolled his eyes at the steer. “Max sent me.”

“Of course she fucking did.”

“She cares about you y’know.” Billy scoffed, because how could she? After all he did to her? He could still hear those palms banging against those windows and her muffled screams for her to stay every time he got into that car. “Why are you here?”

“Did she not tell you the part where my dad died?”

“I know damn well you didn’t come all this way to pay your respects.”

Billy let himself drop to the ground and sit on the rough terrain with his back against his tire, unable to continue standing, his legs were ready to betray him.

“I have no idea why I’m here, okay? I just am.”

Steve nodded his head, and he didn’t say anything, no quip back in his face, he just followed Billy to the ground.

“Are you upset he’s gone?”

Billy let out a groan and tried to rub the growing migraine from his temples.

“I’m feeling a lot of things, but I don’t think ‘upset’ is one of them.” Neither of them said anything after that. They just sat there on the ground and enjoyed the silence together like they used to do. Looking up at the clouds and arguing over what shape they were. There’d be none of that today though, and it had nothing to do with the overcast skies. “You still keep a six pack in your trunk?”

Steve laughed and got up from where he was seated and popped the trunk. He was right. Some old habits never fucking die.

Steve tossed a can over to Billy and sat back down on the gravel, maybe a little closer than he had been before. Billy took a long swig and swallowed the bitter taste down. He hadn’t drank much since he was a teenager, he traded in his Coors for Cola and he doesn’t understand how he used to enjoy the taste of it before.

“Why did you stay in Hawkins?”

Steve dug his heel and pushed a pile of rocks forward, kicking a plume of dust into the air.

“Nobody ever gave me a reason to leave.”

Billy wanted to ask if he would have even come with him had he asked him to. But he opted against it, instead just taking another drink from the can and a genuine “I’m sorry.” passed his lips.

“You know I followed you?”

“What?”

“Yup. Made it all the way to St. Louis before I turned around.”

Billy was just staring at him at this point, unsure if he’d just heard him right. He just sat there with his mouth agape, catching flies and waiting for Steve to say more.

“I knew that you needed to go. I knew that you were hurting and it took me almost ten hours on the open road to realize that you needed time to heal.” Steve’s eyes looked glossy and his cheeks flushed but he kept his smile on. “So I came back home, and I waited here for you to come back. I wanted to make myself easy to find when you needed me.”

“You waited for me?”

Steve inched his hand over to where Billy’s was propping himself up and let his fingers gently trace the back of his hand. Steve’s touch was everything. It made his heart start racing and his palms start sweating and it felt just like 1985 all over again.

Billy took Steve’s hand in his own and entwined their fingers together and Billy let out a long exhale as they did.

“Billy,” Steve said softly, scooting his body just a little bit closer, less than a foot of separation now between the two of them, and he looked Billy in the eyes. Billy had almost gotten entirely lost in those pools of deep brown before Steve had the chance to speak again. But he heard it, loud and clear. “I’m still waiting for you.”

He waited.

Waited ten fucking years.

Billy wasn’t going to make him sit there and wait for a kiss too.

Billy closed the distance at the moment the penny dropped, sinking all of his weight into the kiss in a frantic and uneven pace just like they were eighteen again trying to squeeze both of their bodies into the backseat of the Camaro, refusing for even a second to separate themselves from the one point of contact that sealed them together like glue. The kiss felt just like their first. In the same spot, instead under the stars and the two of them both drunk off their asses, and that time Billy tasted of only blood and liquor.

But it was that same feeling. That desire to never pull away, that fear that it would end and that it would be the last time. He had that fear with everyone of Steve and his kisses, that each one might just be their last.

So he made a point to savor all of them.

They kissed until they physically couldn’t anymore. Out of breath with swollen lips and an inability stop the smiles that peeked through every couple of seconds. They sat there with their foreheads touching and their clasped hands still intact, relishing in the heat that was each other’s breath on their faces. Billy was crying, just streams of tears paired with a smile that Steve gently wiped away with his thumb, the brush of contact making him shiver.

“I missed you so fucking much.”

Steve cradled Billy’s head in his hands and peppered a few short kisses to his lips.

“I missed you too.”

“You think this is why Max invited me here?” Billy asked. “I can’t imagine she’d actually think I would want to come to this thing.”

Steve laughed. “No. She’s not an idiot. She figured you’d want to crash the funeral.”

Billy immediately got up from his place on the ground and held his other hand out for Steve to grab onto. “Well you wanna join me while I go piss on my old man’s grave?”

Steve took his hand without hesitation and let Billy pull him up off the ground.

“It would be my honor.”

Hawkins made a lot of bad memories for Billy, most of which he locked somewhere far away, but the good still remained. Right there in the look on Steve’s face with the way he looked back at him.

And he was happy to make a couple more.

#billy hargrove #harringrove #stranger things #steve harrington #mandi writes tresh #ficlet #harringroveapril #harringrove april

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jade-nargacuga · 2 years

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AU Backstory Time!

So the backstory for my au is based on real events in my many, MANY years of playing pokemon. Other than in gen 1 where I I fed infinite Missingno Rare Candies to my pokemon(yes I’m that old, shut up) I’ve always had an aversion to using legendaries in my main team to beat the story. Usually, you never get them anyway until very late, and by that point I’ve already got a full team that I’m very attached to. This started to change somewhat in gen 4 with the events I’ll list out below:

(howdobulletpoints?)

- In HGSS I received the Event Arceus as one of the first event distributions I was actually able to get

- Even though you could catch Giratina in D/P, Platinum was not out yet so I decided to pick Giratina when Arceus asked you which of the trio you wanted to create

- Was very surprised that Giratina was legit LEVEL 1 instead of like lvl 70 or something

-Thought about how cool it would be to raise a legendary from lvl 1 and use it in a playthrough, but I had already beaten my HG file at that point and had no way of trading away my pokemon so I could start a new file

- Should mention I get VERY attached to my pokes and will transfer my teams and favorites up through every game I can

-Giratina gets boxed at lvl 1 for future games/playthrough

- SoonTM

- I buy Pokemon Platinum, Black and later Pokemon White 2(I wanted both Reshiram games for some reason) and continue to collect event pokemon

- Keldeo event releases after I’ve already beaten W2 once, and at that point I’m able to trade my pokes between games/transfer then up from old games.

- Why not do a legendary playthrough? Start a file, get Keldeo, and finally train my baby Giratina and a few other low level event legendaries

- Start game and get Keldeo, Giratina, Jirachi, and I think Mew and/or Victini? as fast as I can right after the first gym

- I love making up narratives in my head when playing, so at the Pledge Grove where Keldeo gains it’s Resolute Form I pledge that this will be the most Legendary Adventure EverTM

- Life and or college happens

- I barely play the file from that point on. Can’t remember if I ever beat the second gym or not

- Pokemon X and Y come out and I buy Y

- Why play an old game I already beat once again with overpowered legendaries when there is the New Hotness?

- Kalo is so unbalanced I legit raised 3 full teams of pokemon concurrently. I called them the Royal Kalosian Army

- Eventually transferred over old pokemon to Y, effectively killing off the whole Legendary AdventureTM idea for good

- Maybe I’ll do it for real at another point?

- Tragedy

- My 3DS with Pokemon Y and every single pokemon I had collected over the years up until that point gets stolen right as I’m getting ready to go home for Winter break. Never find the culprit

- I legit get SUPER depressed about this, so much so that I don’t even buy ORAS like I planned to until a few months before Sun and Moon come out

- It’s just not the sameTM

- Play Moon, Ultra Sun, and later Shield, with my love of pokemon slowly being restored

- Buy and play Legends Arceus before BDSP remakes because Sinnoh is actually my least favorite region and I’d rather see the new spin on it first

- Beat game, battle Volo, Giratina comes in pissed

- Oh hi mom, prepare for death. You broke your promise so I’ll break your face -Giratina probably

- My face when this headcanon sets up shop to live rent free in my head

- My face when I want to punch Volo in the face for calling my son a coward when I beat him

- My life when I now want to find a White 2 Rom and hack in Giratina and maybe Keldeo as my starters

- No, using the lvl 65+ Giratinas you can only get in post game areas won’t make this right.

- I must attack and dethrone god(gamefreak) and use roms to turn back time and set things right

- Not waiting 10 years for them to remake the second part of the gen 5 games when I just know they will only remake the original B/W and maybe do a Legends game with the full Kyurem given their track record

- I’m rambling at this point, so kudos to anyone who read all of this to understand my current brainrot

#Pokemon #Legends Arceus #Wayward Son AU #oh shit now this might just become a PLA AND W2 crossover story idea #storyline of the ACTUAL story is so not hashed out yet #Only the angsty murdery reunion is planned out #Can't decide if that should be the begining middle or end #Maybe two series?#giving myself decision paralysis #help #Wayward Son #Wayward Souls AU

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maggiecheungs · 2 years

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Setsuko Hara in The Ball at the Anjo House || 安城家の舞踏会 (1947) dir. Kōzaburō Yoshimura

#setsuko hara #the ball at the anjo house #kozaburo yoshimura #classicfilmcentral #classicfilmsource #cinemaspast #japanese movie #filmgifs #ellisgifs #shgif #the original vid was so lq 😢#release a restoration you cowards

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sapphim · 3 years

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Mine Massacre - Cut Content

Cut content from DA2′s act 3 bone pit questline! The mine massacre quest was originally much longer than it appeared in game.

mine massacre journal entries

Go to the Bone Pit to assess the situation for Hubert. See to the workers who are sheltered in the mines. Return to Hubert in Hightown's market by day. Control of the Bone Pit was handed to the miners to settle a labor dispute. Control of the Bone Pit was wrested from Hubert to settle a labor dispute. The Bone Pit labor dispute ended when Hubert's guards killed the miners. The Bone Pit labor dispute ended when Hubert's guards killed the miners. The high dragon has returned. Kill it! The Bone Pit has been overrun by dragons. Slay them! Hubert was grateful for the dragons being eliminated. The high dragon at the Bone Pit was left to its own devices.

quest start

(Hawke completed act 1 quest The Bone Pit) Hubert: Catastrophe has struck, partner! We are ruined. Ruined! Hawke: [Calm yourself.] Don't panic. Tell me what happened. Hawke: [It figures.] It's always something with this mine. Hawke: [Spit it out.] I've no patience for hysterics. Tell me what's wrong. Hubert: A cart came back from the Bone Pit, half-wrecked, with a dozen mangled bodies! Hubert: The horse pulling the cart was the only survivor, and it does not speak! Hubert: Town full of rotten mages and not one can get answers from a horse? Hawke: [I'll go.] I'll see what's going on. Until then, try to stay calm. Hawke: [What would you do without me?] I'll check it out. You keep interrogating that horse. Hawke: [Enough. I'll deal with it.] If you've nothing relevant to add, I'll get to it. Hubert: I knew I could depend on you. Just like old times, partner!

(Hawke did not complete act 1 quest The Bone Pit) Hubert: Champion! Catastrophe has struck! I am ruined. Ruined! Hawke: [Calm yourself.] Don't panic. Tell me what happened. Hawke: [Do I know you?] Since I became Champion of Kirkwall, everyone wants a piece of me. Hawke: [Spit it out.] I've no patience for hysterics. Tell me what's wrong. Hubert: A cart came back from the Bone Pit, half-wrecked, with a dozen mangled bodies! Hubert: My mining operation could be in grave jeopardy, and no one can tell me what is going on! Hubert: I implore you, Champion! Go to the Bone Pit and set things straight! Hawke: [Isn't the Bone Pit cursed?] I've heard the place is riddled with misfortune. Why would you have a mining operation there? Hubert: I thought the rumors were exaggerated. The mine has been good for the city these last few years. Hubert: It provides hundreds of jobs for your own countrymen, Fereldan expatriates who would otherwise be on the streets. Hawke: [I'll go.] I'll see what's going on. Until then, try to stay calm. Hawke: [I have nothing better to do.] With the Undercity sewers backed up, I'll take any excuse to get out of town. Hubert: Oh thank you! I knew the Champion of Kirkwall would come to my aid. Hawke: [Maybe later.] I'll get there when I get there. Hubert: Please make time for this, Champion. With each passing moment, wealth is being lost. And lives too!

As released, Hawke goes to the bone pit, fights a high dragon, and returns with bad news for Hubert.

vanilla quest end

Hawke: A dragon attacked your mine. Everyone is dead. Hubert: Dear Maker! What of my equipment? Did it seem salvageable? Hawke: [You selfish bastard.] Unfortunately, your precious equipment didn't make it... and neither did your workers. Hawke: [Priorities first, right?] No. And neither did the workers who died trying to save it. Hawke: [Everything was razed.] The dragons scorched every last cart and shovel. Hubert: Oh, my heart! So many years of investment... I am ruined. Ruined! Hubert: I am sorry, Champion, I appreciate your help, but I sank all my coin into that rotten mine. I have nothing left to pay you. Hawke: [I'll take the mine.] Give me the Bone Pit. Perhaps in a few years I can get it back in order. Hubert: What? (Scoffs.) Fine, take it! I wash my hands of this cursed venture! Hawke: [I didn't do this for money.] I slew the dragon to protect the city. I need no coin from you. Hubert: Up-jumped bloody dog-lord.

In the cut content, however, Hawke finds Hubert’s hired guards outside the mine. Recorded audio for the cut content can be found on youtube.

cut conversation - Cara

Cara: Champion! I didn't think anyone was coming. Hawke: What happened here? Cara: The dragons caught us by surprise, coming down from the mountains. Cara: Robart, my best lieutenant, was watching for them, but... he's missing. Cara: We held back the dragons so the survivors could take shelter in the mines. Now we're clearing a way out of here. Hawke: [Are the miners safe?] You're not leaving without the miners, are you? Hawke: [So you're running away?] Better save yourselves while you can, right? Hawke: [What, are you cowards?] You should be protecting the miners. Why aren't you with them? Cara: It's not like that! We're clearing the way so they can escape before the high dragon returns. Aveline: A high dragon? So near to Kirkwall? Anders: Come now, high dragons are exceedingly rare, and I've already slain one of them. Hawke: A high dragon? Are you sure? Cara: I've read the tales of the Hero of Ferelden. The description matches. (Here the high dragon interrupts the conversation in some way.) Cara: Believe me now? We're running out of time! Cara: Champion, please go to the mines and get the workers on their feet. I'll watch the skies.

Cara: I'll guard this path. Please, see to the survivors.

Cara: Maker be with you, Champion.

Hawke finds the surviving miners in the mines.

cut conversation - Earl & Jansen

Earl: Champion, you're here! Jansen's asking for you. I fear he don't have long. Blue Hawke: Jansen. I'm here to get you to safety. We don't have much time. Purple Hawke: Jansen, my friend. You look a bit worse for the wear. Red Hawke: Jansen... help is here. Hold on.. Anders: He's dying. There is nothing I can do. Aveline: That wound has festered. It's... not good. Isabela: This one's beyond help. Fenris: The wound rots. His death is certain. Varric: That's a nasty wound. Jansen: The... Champion of Kirkwall. I knew you'd come. Earl: He's delirious. Been trying to tell me something, but I can't make it out. Jansen: I thought my life would be more than this... more than mines and dragons and that bastard Hubert. Jansen: But I gave my life to the Bone Pit, like so many others... Hawke: [I'm so sorry.] Forgive me. I would have saved you if I could. Hawke: [You're not dead yet.] Cheer up. While you still draw breath, there's hope. Hawke: [We don't have time for this.] Jansen, I need to get the miners to safety. If you've something say, make it quick. Jansen: I feel the cold creeping up. Not long till it stops my heart. Unlike Hubert, I can't live without one. Jansen: I overheard that bastard, talking to a guard—thought it was nothing till now. But he knew the dragons was coming. Earl: Hubert's a son-of-an-Orlesian-whore, but there's no way he'd leave us to die. Jansen: Listen to me! This mine's cursed—let it burn! Don't let it take another innocent life. Jansen: Please... Earl: No! No, not yet! We can still get out of this... Cara: Messere Hawke! We're too late. The dragon's returned!

Earl: Ah, Jansen. I'll drink a pint for you, my friend. Earl: If Hubert knew those dragons were coming... I'll crack his head open!

Earl: Best of luck. We're all depending on you.

After the high dragon is killed, Hubert appears outside the mine with the guards.

quest end

Earl: You saved us, Champion. When we reach Kirkwall, we'll send help for the wounded. Earl: Hubert! Now you show up? We watched our brothers die, all for your blighted pit! Hubert: How dare you! Without me, you would have starved to death in the gutters of Lowtown. Earl: That's better than filling a monster's belly! Hubert: Imbeciles! How could I predict the dragons would return? You bark like you are the only ones who lost something. Hawke: [Let's calm down.] Throwing accusations around doesn't help anyone. Hawke: [You're welcome, by the way.] In case you hadn't noticed, your dragon's dead. No need to thank me. Hawke: [Shut up, all of you.] Quit your shouting. Hubert: Yes, thank you Champion! I, for one, am both grateful and amazed... Cara: Robart? I thought you were dead. You were watching for dragons. Why didn't you warn us? Robart: Cara, I... I've got new orders now. Cara: Hubert? You knew about the dragons? Hubert: Just calm down and you'll be well compensated. Cara: Do you know how many died? And it's your fault! Keep your blood money. Hawke: [Hubert, please explain.] I assume there's a good reason you didn't tell me about the dragons. Hawke: [What were you thinking?] You knew dragons were coming and you kept it to yourself? Hawke: [You sent me here to die?] Was it your plan that the dragons would kill me? Hubert: Not at all! Hubert: Robart reported dragons in the region, but they could have gone anywhere. I simply wanted to avoid panic. Earl: And get every last hour of work out of us before we were eaten! Earl: To think I didn't believe Jansen. You motherless bastard! I'll rip out your shriveled heart! Hubert: Champion, talk some sense into your countrymen before they get themselves killed. I would rather not have to train new workers.

(Ending 1: Hawke takes the bone mine from Hubert.)

(Ending A) Blue Hawke: [I'm taking over as mine boss.] Coin can be earned again, but the lives lost can never be restored. Blue Hawke: Since they have sacrificed the most, the workers will own and run the mine, under my supervision. Hubert: What? After all I have invested— Blue Hawke: Hubert, you'll be a silent partner until your share's bought out. Hubert: Shit! Fine! I am sick of this pit anyway. I should have sold it years ago! Earl: Imagine that! We'll be owners! Earl: Be a lot of work to get this mine running again. First, we gotta get the injured back on their feet. (Ending B) Purple Hawke: [I'm taking over as mine boss.] As the person with the most impressive title, I'll make the decisions here, thank you. Purple Hawke: I'm taking over the Bone Pit, effective now! Red Hawke: [I'm taking over as mine boss.] You will give the mine over to me. Unless you'd rather pay with your life. Hawke: You men will have a safe environment and steady pay from now on. Hubert: Shit! Fine! I am sick of this pit anyway. I should have sold it years ago! Earl: No more taking orders from that Orlesian bastard! We'll be working for one of our own, now. Earl: Be a lot of work to get this mine running again. First, we gotta get the injured back on their feet.

(Ending 2: Hubert is killed)

Hawke: [The workers are right.] What you've done is indefensible. Stand down or face me. Robart: Sorry, Hubert. You can't pay me enough to cross swords with the Champion of Kirkwall and slayer of dragons. Hubert: No wait! I will double your pay... triple! Hubert: No! We can make a deal! How would you all like to be my partners? Hubert: (Screams.) Earl: I guess the Bone Pit's yours now. What are your plans? (Ending A) Hawke: [How'd you like to be partners?] The miners know how to run this place. I'll make you all co-owners. Earl: Imagine that! We'll be owners! Earl: Be a lot of work to get this mine running again. First, we gotta get the injured back on their feet. (Ending B) Hawke: [I'll be your new boss.] If you'll continue working the mines, I promise to treat you better than Hubert did. Earl: No more taking orders from that Orlesian bastard! We'll be working for one of our own, now. Earl: Be a lot of work to get this mine running again. First, we gotta get the injured back on their feet. (Ending C) Hawke: [I'm through with this place.] You and your fellows can have this blighted pit. I never want to come back here again. Earl: Aye, this place is cursed. Let's just walk away and never look back.

(Ending 3: the miners are killed)

Hawke: [It's your mess. Deal with it.] Hubert, I'll leave you to your problem. Hubert: What a bloody mess. Hubert: Thank you for dealing with the dragons. As promised, you are the majority owner of the Bone Pit now. Hubert: I will go draw up the paperwork. Men, leave the corpses to the crows.

assorted comments

Remarks from your party members during the quest:

Fenris: Most dragons kill for food or territory. These bodies were not devoured, so they must see this place as their own. Anders: They never stood a chance. Aveline: This was pure slaughter. Merrill: So many dead... Varric: I wonder if anyone could have prevented this.

Anders: So many injured... We'll never be able to get them all out in time. Aveline: So few survivors... and we'll lose more if we try to move them. Fenris: This cave stinks of death. These people won't leave here alive. Varric: Even were we all healers, it would be impossible to help everyone. Merrill: So many injured and dying...

Anders: Dragons. You never get used to the sight of them... Aveline: Dragons! The legends of this place must be true. They've returned to take what's theirs. Varric: Seems the dragons want their pit back. Merrill: After all these years, dragons have returned to the Bone Pit. Fenris: Dragons. Further proof this place is cursed. Isabela: I always thought dragons were supposed to be rare.

And comments from Hubert after the quest:

Hubert: I, eh, convinced the city guard to... overlook what happened at the Bone Pit. Hubert: I hired someone to post fliers in the refugee camps, so we shall have new workers before long. Hubert: The papers are in order. You will run the Bone Pit in my stead. Hubert: The papers are in order. The miners will run the Bone Pit themselves. Hubert: I never should have gotten involved with that cursed mine.

#cut content #da2 #dragon age 2

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icecreamsundayonajulyafternoon · 3 years

Text

Alcina Dimitrescu/f reader

+some well meaning Chris

I also posted this on my ao3 account Homoeroticmicrowave as a part of my resident evil oneshots book the link to which is : https://archiveofourown.org/works/32351686/chapters/80202100

For context in this the reader works with Chris but got kidnapped by Alcina and ended up bonding with her

Anyway behold My dignified shit post:

Alcina tilted your head up by your chin with one of her claws with a gentle sort of care “I might just be enamoured by you my little maiden” her voice had a certain air to it as the power she carried held strong though the coldness it had been coddled by withered away.

“And I am just glad to have met someone as truly brilliant as you are you make my heart feel like it’s faltering” Alcina’s tensed muscles and rigid posture seemed to deflate as her claws retracted.

“My little human girl you truly are one of a kind you are too good for this world and it’s cruelty that it afflicts you with”

Her hands incased yours as she held them so lightly ”Stay with me” Alcina’s eyes steadily gazed into your own “I want you to stay with me in this castle forever with me. I want you to marry me and be mine and let me be yours”

You almost thought she was joking but Alcina Dimitrescu would never make such a joke and to claim that she had would be ludicrous it was simply not in her nature to be so brash with her humour. However, declarations received a treatment that was a far cry to how her delicate words of amusement were handled

“I can give you a life worthy of living for you. I’ll have you adorned in whatever clothes you would see fit to clad your body and express your beauty in all of its forms, I’ll have you living a luxurious life that would make a deity envious, your every desire would be fulfilled if you only ask and I promise you I will give you everything if only to see you relish the world you live in” there was a certain warmth to her tone that she never previously expressed to you.

”It’s a pitiful world full of devastation and tyranny and I will not have it harm you from hence forth”

You released one of your hands from her gentle grasp so that your hands could reach out

“You make me feel pink and small and like I’m fluttering like my feet could rise from the ground and I’d float in the air like some sort of silly, little cartoon character when they’re smitten by someone” you felt overheated and uncomfortable as you spoke but you continued

“I would stay with you whether or not you had riches to offer me. Castles and gowns and jewellery is all very lovely but it’s not what keeps me yearning. I want you Alcina, I want you and I want to spend every moment that I can with you” you smiled despite your inability to even glimpse her face. A coward you were and yet a lovesick fool you were all the same.

“I found a home with you Alcina.” Your eyes finally reunited with hers and as she looked at you, you had never felt more loved than in that moment. “Let me be your home too….let me marry you” the words caressed her heart and she moved your arms so that they fell around her neck and she lifted you up by your waist. “I treasure every moment I have with you my love” she whispered. “Let this world we’ll build last forever”

When you had a moment alone while getting ready you radioed into whatever members of your team were still alive and had their radios still working and on them “So I’m not gonna be able to go back with you guys but everything’s pretty good so uh yeah I don’t really know how to explain the predicament- no that’s too negative a word- situation- no, no this is not a situation that makes it sound like there’s some kind of situation- what I meant to say the events that preceded my current happenings can be perceived as a little odd however everything is fine, goodbye forever”

You threw your radio out of the window and into the snow and presumed it had broke. Chances were your teammates would not have heard your message but it was still polite to let them know you were alive and well and would simply just not be joining them on their way home or anything at all again ever because you were about to be married to a giant, homocidal lady. They could be angered by your supposed ‘disrespectful’ tone concerning how you address everyone and didn’t go over formalities but you were gifted with this thing known as manner which influenced your decision to inform them of your lack of presence on the return journey before hand.

You were just considerate like that.

You gushed over the dress you had been so graciously gifted. It truly was a work of art tailored just for you. Each detail of it was made with a passionate precision that had you gawking with glee as you admired every segment of material woven into the fabric.

It was a true marvel and you felt like a piece of artwork yourself that would be displayed with great care in an art museum. You looked like a glamorous painting that was created with such integral beauty that the expertise of the artist could not be measured by any title or prideful words.

A sense of pride ghosted your senses and you found your fingertips brushing the mirror with such a light touch that you couldn’t br sure your skin had made contact with the mirror at all. You were so subconsciously convinced what you were looking into was glazed with deceit and if you touched the mirror you would break the illusion of beauty and your true form of much lesser looks would be restored. But that didn’t happen and for a moment you could sympathise with narcissus as much like them you found yourself fawning over the being of beauty that you weren’t entirely sure was yourself.

You were truly a bride who’s beauty was beyond befitting of any title that could be bestowed upon you and you thought yourself to be belonging with angels of artwork, your place was dancing with the muses who were worth more than simple adoration and worship.

You weren’t a god but you were blessed by Aphrodite’s touch and you were sure simple folk could not help but be too mesmerised to experience jealousy at your envious appearance.

If it were a sin to be enraptured in revelling in your own appearance than you would relish the hellfire that rained down to scorch your flesh and soul. You’d paint such a pretty picture dancing in the misery of hell gifted by sins. Lucifer had treated you well and you thanked them for gracing you with what God couldn’t.

Alcina’s voice rang out like a dove from behind the door and lulled you away from the mirror your attention had been stolen by. “Perhaps you could be so gracious as to adorn me with your presence”

You turned to face the direction of her voice “of course anytime my love” you said earnestly.

“I won’t look at you now nor do I want you to see me just yet but I couldn’t help but to speak to you just for a moment beforehand…I want it to be special my dear and I won’t want for it to be any less special than either of us want for it to be because you deserve everything you want and yet lover I find myself needing to be selfish and needing to hear your voice”

”Alcina it’s okay” you couldn’t help but to let a giggle escape you “I can’t help but feel nervous to see you and yet I can’t wait to I love you and tonight is special because it’s our night it’s special because it marks the first day I get to be with you forever”

You head Alcina let out a small laugh tainted by an agitating anxiousness. “So do I”

You felt breathless as you stepped out into the night. Donna your apparent personal seamstress and now flower girl guided you to where it would take place.

Alcina stared as though she had witnessed something that couldn’t be explained by any science or rationality. While she herself was a sight to take in when she saw you she felt as though her childhood dreams were coming true as you seemed mythical.

When your eyes met her you felt like you were falling and you didn’t want to stop. Not for a moment. She was gorgeous. A wedding dress perfectly fit for her graced her elegant features. She looked ethereal and you wanted to reach out to touch her. Each step you took seemed so slow. Far too slow for your liking. You wanted to be in her arms and soon.

When you did finally meet her while tradition forbid you to kiss her just yet you at least reached out to hold her hands. Your eyes glistened with joy all of the love you had barely fit in your body as it threatened to burst out of you in bounds of laughter and tears. You felt so much and you wanted to feel like that forever. You wanted for this moment to last forever. You wanted to be held by her forever.

Your hair seemed so gorgeous and lustrous in the glowing moonlight. Fairy lights decorated the trees surrounding you and fireflies twirled in the breeze. To think you would see such beauty and wonder in what had once been a placed that had brought you such terror and havoc.

Alcina held you tenderly as though she couldn’t quite believe this was happening. She wouldn’t be isolated in that feeling as you were swarmed by disbelief, you didn’t shun all of the conflicting emotions you were feeling. Not for a moment. You welcomed them and you couldn’t help but tingle with the relief of any negative thoughts or surprise being overwhelmed with ecstatic delight. You had thought of marriage in the general sense before when considering where the events of your life might lead you and while it wasn’t conventional not anything close to what you could have ever expected you would gladly spend the rest of your days residing in Dimitrescu castle with Alcina. She really was one marvellous woman.

You had insisted on certain songs being played at your wedding from fun songs you had once joked about being played at your wedding to irresistibly romantic guilty pleasures that you would have been teased mercilessly for an infinite amount of times had you ever admitted you would want played. But that was in another lifetime and while Alcina may not always understand certain aspects of your interests she was always glad to watch you indulge in them.

You two danced, chests pounding with a romantic joy you had never thought existed in the way you felt it. As your arms wrapped around her neck as she lifted you up you couldn’t help but think how a much younger version of yourself would feel giddy at knowing how in love you were. Though knowing your child self the word ‘gross’ would also most likely make an appearance as the topic of love.

You admired every detail of her face and when you kissed her you thought about how you couldn’t wait to spend the rest of your life with her. However long you had would be amazing as long as it was spent by your side whether it be one day or one hundred years you wanted to spend it all with her. You had been bewitched by her and you couldn’t be happier.

Then your moment was interrupted by the sounds of gunfire. Violence and stubborn hatred truly had a way of ruining even the most kindest and beautiful of moments.

Alcina scooped you up and ran, throwing you over her shoulder and quickly moving so that you may escape the presence of aggression and be safe in the sanctuary she made for you.

Over her shoulder you saw Chris running, bullets blazing as he ran with a determined rage. You thought he would have been long gone by now. You had convinced Alcina to give up her part in aiding Miranda’s plan. Surely you could convince her to let these people leaves unscathed.

You moved in front of Alcina, attempting to quell her anger and bitter bloodlust with promises of trust and hope. You begged her to at least let you try to form some kind of truce so that you would not have to live knowing people you cared about destroyed each other. Hesitantly she let you go. Though her reluctance was apparent and she looked so eager to snatch you up and lock you far from those who put your life at risk.

You left the castle and approached the direction you were adamant Chris and probably his team would soon be.

Geez he really went to the effort to risk his life searching for your and stealing you back with him all so he could lecture you on your lack of formality and far too casual tone when you had radioed in as well as your blatant disrespect, poor execution of the mission and your inconsideration of the expense of the property you had been given. Sounds about right. It was a mistake to attempt some kind of means of communication really. And now look what happened your wedding was ruined.

You raised your hands up to show you meant no harm when Chris and found and approached you.

There was a moment between Chris properly processing you were there and him first catching sight of you where it felt like everything had been put on pause. He eyed you suspiciously as though you were some sort of distraction, a part of a malicious scheme Alcina had made in order to proficiently destroy any hope of Chris’s rescue attempt and mission succeeding.

”Hey” you waved awkwardly in a hopeless attempt to break through the immense pressure and tension of the situation “nice to see you’re still alive and stuff that’s cool” your voice rang out through the silence. “I’m alive too which is fun looks like we have that in common”at that point you were just throwing dumb words at him in a blatant attempt to get him to respond in a way that wouldn’t suck.

Chris grabbed you and pulled you into a vice-like hug. You felt him lift you up “It’s good to see you….Where is that thing? What did that bitch do to you?” He seethed.

”Nothing she actually had a pretty good sense of hospitality-did you come here on your own without anyone-“

He had you back on the ground but his grasp never left you as he shifted his grip so that he now had a steady hold on your shoulders. “This isn’t the time to act like nothings wrong if you’re injured or you’ve been drugged with something you need to tell me” his hold on you was just as secure as it was when he hugged you even if he no longer had you squished against him.

“I’ve not been hurt really I’m not lying to you Chris” you looked him in the eyes and tried to communicate with your facial expressions that you were telling the truth.

Chris sighed slightly but nodded “good, we need to leave we can continue this conversation when we’re safe-“

You put a hand on his chest to put some distance between you both “look Chris I’m- I’m not leaving. I’m staying here” Chris looked a mixture of perplexed and horrified.

He stepped closer to you so he was practically leering over you “what are you talking about! We’re going. Now.”

“No Chris I’m not. I love Alcina and I’m not leaving her. I won’t. You can leave I’ll make sure she won’t come after you just as I made sure she no longer interfered with Ethan finding Rose but I won’t go with you”You stared defiantly at him as you stood as tall as you could despite him towering over you.

”Alcina? Is that what that bitch got you to call her!You think you love that thing! Jesus Christ what did she do to you!” Chris looked disgusted at your words.

“Hey man I don’t ruin your weddings do I the least you could do is let me go back to her-“ Chris held your arm tightly preventing you from leaving as he radioed into someone.

”I’ve acquired S/n. Clearly they’re under some kind of influence- they must have been brainwashed or put in some form of hypnotic state!” Chris hypothesised to the person on the other end of the radio upon your immediate reluctance to leave. The moment you suggested you had no interest in leaving he stopped talking directly to you. “We’ll meet you there soon we’ll need a medic and possibly some means of restraint for them” he tucked the radio back into his pocket and turned his attention back on you.

“I’m all here I’m just genuinely okay to stay here” you implored him to recognise that you were in fact all there.

Chris ignored your attempts to defend your sanity and slung you over you shoulder. “Fuck are you doing!” You yelped at his sudden action.

“I don’t know what that freak did to you but I won’t let you suffer! I won’t leave you in this hell hole! We can fix this I promise!” He seemed so genuinely concerned and you understood why but you just needed him to listen. You knew how ugly this was going to end up if he didn’t.

”Stop calling her that! You know nothing of her! There’s nothing to fix! She’s been nothing but kind to me! Please just put me down and leave!” Your pleads were wasted as he stopped responding to you.

Panicking you thrashed in his stone like grip even going so far as to try to bite and scratch him. He grunted in response to your little attack and repositioned you so that you couldn’t easily hurt him and if you did you wouldn’t do much damage.

Your fears were ignited when you heard Alcina’s voice rampaging through the wind. Chris cursed and you began begging you to put him down and leave you. Unfortunately, he interpreted your words as an attempt to sacrifice yourself for his sake, which he refused to go along with.

He didn’t let go of you as he began running and quickly grabbing a gun which he fired at Alcina with a precision you wish he lacked. You started screaming begging for them not to fight but your words crumbled as your weeping shouts were overpowered by the insatiable violence that inevitably occurred due to both parties refusal to attempt any form of reason.

While you understood the motivation both of them had and if you heard one perspective by itself you could easily side with it if the other one remained unknown to you.

Chris set you down by a tree after tying you to it. You blubbered through your messy tears that he needed to stop and listen to you for just a moment. You were desperate for them to stop before it was too late but just as always you were ignored as Chris left you to fight Alcina.

Your thoughts flurried as paranoia and fear truly sunk in and you were sure one or both of them would die. As you were sure you would lose everything to the cruelty of bloodshed. Time seemed to drag on and you struggled to release yourself from the rope that held you securely. You were so sure that one of them were dead as horrific sounds seeped into the cold night air.

Your fears proved true when you heard Alcina’s screams rattle throughout the air. Your breath hitched. What just happened-

Your head snapped at the sound of footsteps and your whole body felt like it was burning as you saw Chris’s weathered face.

He untied you and lifted you up into his arms that seemed to tremble ever so slightly. “What-what just” you could barely get the words out of your mouth. It couldn’t have possibly meant what-no there had to be some other explanation. Any other explanation.

”She won’t hurt you anymore” with those words you fell a part.

Chris remained silent as you sobbed. He just kept walking. He was sure you were just experiencing some kind of false mourning as the result of whatever Alcina had done to you. And yet guilt threatened to creep at the doubt that teased the back of his mind. He held back his thoughts and focused on getting you home.

#lady dimitrescu x reader #lady dimitrescu x y/n #lady dimitrescu resident evil #resident evil 8 #resident evil village #resident evil #biohazard #chris redfield #alcina dimitrescu #lgbt girl #resident evil fanfic #angst #wlw #lgbtqia

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ryik-the-writer · 3 years

Photo

Sequel to Dinnertime Disaster ~ Belle confronts Snow on her behavior towards her family and finally gets some things off her chest.

[A03]

Age of the kids: Around 23

-.-.-.-.-

Belle angrily shelved a cart of returned books, stuffing them beside each other without care to their catalog numbers.

It had been three days since her disastrous dinner with the Charmings and her blood was still boiling after Snow White’s attack on her son. Three days since her son ran off and hadn’t told his parents where he was going or when he was coming back. Three days that her daughter revealed her secret ability and barley spoken a word since.

Even her husband was quieter than usual. Belle assumed he was keeping himself distracted to prevent himself from wreaking havoc on the princess-turned-bandit, and possibly keeping tabs on Gideon, but it still felt like she was dealing with the aftermath alone.

Snow White had destroyed the foundation of her family in a matter of seconds and Belle had yet to be able to piece it back together.

Belle remembered the last time she felt this hate-filled and lost: when she had sent Rumple over the town line after his attempt of murder on Killian. She regretted it the second Rumple was over the line, but she’d been too heart-broken to bring him back. She had tried to convince herself that she was doing what was best for the town and even herself, but deep in her bones she knew she was doing it because she was hurt, because the one person she thought she could always trust had just spat on their vows, and she needed space.

And she did get space…from her rejected husband as well as the very people she’d helped save. For three days she had sat in the home she and Rumple shared, sobbing and tearing apart the remains of the life they had begun to build. Not once did the Charmings or even Hook—whom she would find out through a loose-lipped Leroy had been black-mailing her husband mere days after their wedding—stop by to check on her well-being. In fact three days later, when she managed to pull herself together long enough to get an on-the-house bowl of soup at Granny’s, she found the Charming clan laughing and carrying on at a table in the back, only noticing her once she was leaving.

It was a minor sin, Belle thought at the time, but it wasn’t until a year later, when she and Rumple renewed their vows—when she became a mother and nearly lost her dear son to an unquestionable evil—when the heroes she fought for, and sacrificed over, were dead-set on killing him—that she was able to realize that the sins against her were too great to ignore any longer.

They had left left in the hospital to rot after Killian’s attack, scared and delirious with amnesia, drugging her over and over again to keep her tame.

Snow White had sold out her and her unborn child to save Killian’s skin—and none of them had bothered to warn her of the impending danger.

And they all made the decision to leave her to rot in the Underworld after she put herself in an ill-advised sleep to protect her baby—gods she would never forget the look on Emma’s face when she popped into Granny’s. They had completely forgotten about her.

And that was on top of the constant blackmail, of using her as an inanimate object to be tossed around and trampled on and crushed as long as it benefited them.

By the time her son had been restored to her, she was willing to let go of all the misdeeds done towards her, to begin anew just as Gideon’s life had been.

But then they started up all over again.

Inquiring her services to babysit Neal and Robyn at every drop of a hat—only to ignore her requests for assistance with Gideon whenever she needed it.

Sneering at Gideon from afar.

Leaving all of them out of ‘family’ events, like dinners or parties.

It hurt, but Belle had buried that pain for Neal and Robyn’s sakes. They were what mattered. They were her family.

And now half of that equation was gods knows where, angry and hurting from his own mother’s backwards thinking—and as his unofficially godmother, Belle couldn’t help him.

She knew where he was of course. A quick spell on Rumple’s end determined that he and Gideon were still in Storybrooke, though keeping their distance.

Giving them their space was the hardest part. As a mother all she wanted to comfort her son, but she needed to let him grieve and think on his own.

If the other night hadn’t happened, maybe he would be.

The thought was still on her mind when the door to her library opened despite the closed sign, and festered into hate when the one woman in the world she didn’t want to see stepped in.

“Belle, good morning,” Snow White greeted with her usual bright smile. Though there was more stress in her eyes.

“We’re closed,” Belle said, pushing the cart towards the children’s section, her anger boiling when she heard her follow.

“We need to talk about the other night,” Snow said, her tone indicating there was no room for argument. “More importantly, where our son’s go from here.”

Belle released the cart, letting it roll until it crashed into a shelf. “I have nothing to say to you, and what our sons do is their business.”

Snow rolled her eyes. “I knew you’d act this way.”

Belle slammed a book down on the cart. “Like what, Snow? Like a parent or like someone with common sense.”

“I wouldn’t call you that,” Snow muttered, and Belle twisted around.

“You know what, this has gone on long enough.” Belle said. For yours there seemed to be this balancing act between her and the ex-princess. There was this intense acidity between them, far from a rivalry, but constant enough that they subconsciously tried to outwit each other as mothers and as leaders in Storybrooke.

But there was something more personal there, a phenomenon that divided yet bounded them together for life: darkness.

Snow feared and hated it, convinced that it went against everything she was meant to represent as a hero.

Belle accepted it as part of her life, as a part of her husband and son’s very existence. She hated it as well, but she greeted it with respect, knowing light could not exist without it.

It was in her and her family, and Snow hated that. She hated that her own child didn’t seem to mind it.

But Snow was without reason when it came to darkness, or at least anything that was darker than her.

Maybe the former princess didn’t know it yet, but Belle was just that.

“You,” Belle snarled. “Are a pious bitch and I am so sick of you.”

Snow’s eyes widened but Belle didn’t back down.

“You need to drop your issues with me and my family right now,” Belle directed coldly. “We have done nothing but been civil to you for the past two decades, but all you’ve ever done is stick your noses up at us and the other night was the final straw!”

Belle didn’t back down. She stepped up to the ex-bandit and pointed a finger at her, aiming for her heart.

“You act like your better than us, than me, than everyone in this town, but you’re lower than everyone! People may love you, but they don’t respect you because you have done nothing to earn respect! You endanger them without warning, leave them in the grips of an enemy without a leader! And that’s just the town! What about your family?”

“How dare—”

“Didn’t you ever wonder why Neal came to our house so often?” Belle inquired—begged—Snow White. “He didn’t feel comfortable around you! He felt constricted, like he had to be the son of Snow White and Prince Charming, not the son of his parents.”

Snow shook her head, staring at Belle in disbelief.

“You’re lying. He never said any of this. He never—”

“Why do you think that is?” Belle spat.

Snow’s eyes searched Belle’s face, hunting desperately for the answer that she knew.

She gulped, nodding her head just slightly as her chin wobbled.

“Fine,” she admitted through clenched teeth, her pride settling. “Maybe I did push him too hard. But everything…” she looked at Belle squarely. “Everything I did was to protect him from the likes of you.”

Belle flinched at the way the last word came out, like the tension in the Charming home was somehow her fault.

“Likes of me? Are you referring to me particularly or my family? And I suggest you tread carefully on what you’re about to say.”

“The likes of filthy, dark-hearted cowards,” Snow answered unafraid. “You think I put too high standards? Well you’re right, I did. Because my son is better than you! All of you! You and your…your…”

Belle’s eyes narrowed. “Say it.”

“Your darkness!” Snow said, the word coming out as a gasp. “That darkness…Rumplestiltskin’s darkness…it keeps destroying my life no matter how many times we snuff it out! I wish it would just die already!”

Belle’s heart dropped. So this was how the great Snow White really felt. She rather see them all dead than coexist with them.

“And what about your daughter?” Belle snarked. It was a low blow, and if she wasn’t so mad the words would have never left her mouth. “What about Emma’s darkness? Do you hate that too or does that get a pass from the great Snow White.”

“My daughter’s the Savior,” Snow remarked. “She’s the exact opposite of you.”

“Really? Because if I recall correctly, her potential for darkness was so great you cursed an innocent baby and her mother to boot.”

Snow’s glare wavered. “That was—”

“Sick.” Belle answered. “And you know what? It didn’t change a damn thing? Emma still gave into darkness, still made all the wrong choices that came with it.”

“Emma accepted darkness to save us after your husband tried to destroy all of us!” Snow fought.

“I wasn’t referring to the Dark One’s curse,” Belle stated matter-of-factly. “I was referring to the darkness that has been brewing inside her all her life. The darkness she built to protect herself from everyone who ever hurt her. Baelfire, Rumple and you.”

“Everything I ever did was to protect her!” Snow yelled, her voice cracking. “And I did everything I could to be a good mother—a good friend—to her afterwards!”

“By letting her be with a man who lied to her? Who endangered her family, her son?” Belle retorted. “You led her down the aisle into his arms after finding out he killed David’s father, an event that left him scared. You made him push it aside so you could have your day. Emma didn’t need to get married, Snow, she needed to heal from everything that had happened to her. She needed her mother to listen!”

“I just…she needed…”

“And now she’s in some realm where her family can’t see her,” Belle continued, unable to stop. “Neal was right, you didn’t protect her the way you should have. You were so obsessed with making up for the moments you missed with her that you didn’t care that she was doing everything she did because she was traumatized! How could you not see that as her mother!”

That seemed to be the trigger, the anchor that had been weighing down Snow White’s grief. The woman’s chin began to shake and within a few seconds she was screaming in hysterics.

Belle actually had to jump back, the volume of her cries so loud they threatened to blow out her own hearing.

She watched in horror as the ex-princess crumpled in her library, the door still askew.

Belle stepped over her just enough to close it and allow them true privacy. She could only stare down at her for a moment, this once majestic leader who was nothing but a lump of sorrow at her feet.

Belle had been cruel, she knew that, she felt the lump of guilt began to rise in her throat.

Snow White, despite her faults, was still human, and still healing from her own trauma.

Giving up her child, living nearly 30 years in a lie away from the people she loved, and trying to put back the pieces of her shattered life when she awoke.

Her progress was notable, forgiving Regina, staying by her family’s side during all the various events in the town. Maybe she hadn’t always been the wisest, maybe she’d even been selfish at some points, but she had been doing the best she could.

Belle sighed, leaning down to scoop the sobbing woman into her arms.

“There, there,” she comforted fruitlessly. “Come on.”

She led Snow to a chair behind her circulatory desk, practically dropping her there while she went into the kitchenette for tissues and water.

She returned with a glass and a less-than-comfortable roll of paper towels, handing one to the ex-princess awkwardly.

“Here.”

Snow calmed some, taking the course towel and wiping her red face. She breathed in shakenly, focusing on composing herself.

After a moment Belle grabbed a second chair and sat across from her, hesitating on what to do or say next.

She wasn’t sorry and she wouldn’t apologize, but she hated that Snow had to come to terms with her misdeeds and guilt in such a confrontational setting, and with her at that. Her own home or even Archie’s office seemed more appropriate.

But it was all in the open now, and Belle felt she had a duty to close the door she had snatched open.

“You’re right,” Snow sniffed before Belle could say anything. “I destroyed my family.”

“No,” Belle sighed. “I didn’t mean for you to see it like that.”

“But it’s true,” Snow said with a tired shrug. “I pushed Emma into something she wasn’t ready for and now I’ve lost her. And now I’m about to lose Neal too.”

Belle shook her head, wishing more than anything that he and her son were with them at that moment.

Belle thought about them for a moment, about the last two decades and the time before and all of its obstacles.

“You haven’t lost him,” Belle reassured, her fingers clasped. “I’ve lost a son. I know what if feels like when you realize they’ll never come back.”

Snow tilted her head. “You got Gideon back. You even got to start over with him.”

Belle lifted her head, staring glassily at the woman across from her. “I wasn’t talking about him.”

The confusion faded instantly from Snow’s face as the memory of the fallen man who had impacted both of their lives settled between them.

Belle smiled sadly. “Do you remember that day? When you entered the shop and you told us Baelfire died? You held me, and…that was the last time I felt like I really knew you.”

Snow wiped a fresh tear from her eye. “I didn’t know what to do after he died. All I could do was hold Emma and tell her everything was going to be okay even though I didn’t know if it was or not.”

Belle nodded, remembering how she spent that night in the shop, sobbing into the cot in the backroom until she passed out.

“That…that was the last time I truly felt like her mother,”

Belle blinked, surprised by such a reveal.

It was ironic really. The second she learned of Baelfire’s death was the last time she felt like she had a true friend. Someone else who loved the Dark One, gone.

“I wanted so badly to see her happy again,” Snow continued. “And Hook…he was there…and he…he…”

Belle nodded. “He made appropriate modifications to earn her affection.”

“And eventually he became her only ally because of me,” Snow said with an air of disgust. “Now I don’t even know where she is, how she is.”

Belle sighed. If Gideon ever disappeared like that it would break her.

“Snow,” Belle began. “I know all that’s happened to you is still hurting you. And you’re hurting Neal because of it.” She reached out and gave the woman’s hand a squeeze. “You need to face it all. I had to do the same when Gideon was taken. I had accept my part in hurting Rumple and my son so that I could have hope that we could start over.”

Snow shook her head. “I don’t know if I can. Emma, she…she doesn’t need me anymore.”

“That’s not true,” Belle fought. “Our children will always need us. We can’t fix the past, but we can build a better future.”

Snow could only stare at the woman in front of her. Belle had always been braver than her because she had more to lose. Loving the Dark One was a dangerous game and somehow she won it. Now she had a community that loved and respected her, the same community that looked at Snow White with hesitancy.

Snow had lost the leader they needed at some point, hell, the leader her own family needed.

Somehow, someway, she was going to get her back.

She stood, wiping her eyes a final time.

“I…I need to leave. I need to speak with my husband.”

Belle nodded, standing as well.

Snow moved forward, as if she were going to hug Belle, but Belle took a step back.

Thankfully, Snow seemed to understand. She had a lot to make up for and it would take time.

But really, she realized that Belle was perhaps her truest friend. She had held her accountable today, and had lifted a curtain from her eyes that had been there far too long.

“Good luck,” Belle said. And she truly meant it.

Snow paused outside the library, one last thought weighing on her mind.

“If you see Neal or Gideon before I do,” she began, hesitating a bit. “Could you tell them…they have my blessing?”

Belle tilted her head. It wasn’t quite an apology, but it was good start for the high and mighty ex-princess of Mist Haven.

Belle nodded and sent Snow away with a comforting smile.

They would never be friends, but they knew now where they stood. Belle would hold her with the same contempt that she held with Zelena, Regina and even Emma, but that would be it. Maybe one day that would change, but it was solid relationship for the two of them to have for now.

As Belle locked up the library that night, she felt lighter than she had in years, all the anguish she had felt free from her now.

She smiled a bit as she walked to her car.

She couldn’t wait to get home and tell her husband all about it.

0-0-0-0-0-0

Snow entered the little farm house she and her husband had bought decades ago when the moved out of their little loft apartment.

The house was supposed to be a haven for a new life, a fresh start when their most recent evil had been defeated.

She had imagined raising her son in those safe walls, giving him everything she hadn’t been able to give Emma. She imagined family dinners and quiet nights on the front porch after long, loud days.

She’d gotten all of that, at first, before Emma began to spend less time at the house, before Henry had jumped on his motorcycle and disappeared into the unknown.

She had told herself then that it was just a part of life, her family moving on, but then when Neal began to stray, her acceptance became a panic. She was losing her family, and she looked wrongfully for a scapegoat. The Golds fit the mold. After all, she’d blamed Rumplestiltskin for everything under the sun that had happened in Storybrooke and her family.

But Belle’s talk had lifted that blinder. Rumplestiltskin had made his mistakes and had set to work to fix them. He’d been a good friend to her husband and son all these years, and she’d been too enthralled in her grief to join in on that friendship.

But that was over now.

David looked up when she entered, concerned.

He’d felt…something…in his chest earlier today. Like a piece of the heart he shared with his wife had broken off.

It was unnerving, and if he hadn’t been looking for Neal, he would have ran and found his wife immediately.

He was still angry at her for her outburst at the Golds’ but she was still his wife. His best friend. His everything.

“Snow,” he greeted, relieved.

“We need to pack, a lot. I don’t know how long we’ll be gone.” She instructed, that buried leader insider he creeping back up.

“What?” David said. “Pack for what? What are we doing?”

The ex-princess put her hands on her husband’s shoulders, smiling bravely at him despite the tears in her eyes. He was the one thing she hadn’t lost yet, but she’d come so close, shared heart or not.

She’d hurt him without even realizing it, and she had so much to make up for.

But there’d be time for that.

There’d be time for everything now.

“We’re going to find our daughter,” Snow answered, determined. “We’re going to bring her home.”

#rumbelle fic #never unwanted #belle french #belle gold #snow white #mary margaret blanchard #ryik's fics

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goddess-of-geeks · 4 years

Text

Grace and Power pt. 1

Reunion

This would be so much better if I came up with a name for this fic.

A/N: This is in fact not the first time I wrote a reader insert but it is in fact the most work i’ve ever put into one.

Warnings: None

Word count: 2100

You opened the flap to the tent that would temporarily house retired General Iroh, Prince Zuko and Commander Zhao. When you entered you saw two guards blocking the exit from Zuko and his Uncle with two spears.

You and Zuko locked eyes, an emotion that can only be described as shock graced his features. You gave him a tight lipped smile before looking towards your commanding officer, Zhao.

“Commander Zhao,” You said, making Iroh and the formerly mentioned look your way. You noticed a similar look of shock on Iroh’s face. “We interrogated the crew as you instructed. They confirmed Prince Zuko had the Avatar in their custody, but let him escape.”

“Now remind me,” Zhao grinned before walking up to stand behind Zuko, whose face morphed from shock to hurt and betrayal. You looked down at the ground, you hoped that you following orders wouldn’t ruin your short lived reunion. “How exactly was your ship damaged.”

Zuko looked down in defeat.

Prince Zuko and Iroh were seated across from Commander Zhao who was standing in front of his desk.

You and another guard were standing behind the young prince.

“So,” Zhao began, “A twelve-year-old boy bested you and your firebenders.”

“Wait, the avatar is twelve? You’ve spent the last, nearly three years looking for a twelve year old boy.” You said looking at the prince.

Zuko nodded in response. You looked up and pondered on that thought for a moment before mumbling to yourself.

“And I thought I had nothing better to do with my life.”

Zhao cleared his throat drawing your attention towards him.

“My apologies, sir.” You said bowing towards him.

“You’re more pathetic than I thought.” Zhao continued as if nothing happened.

You looked up at Zhao. You never understood how a man could be so cruel to a child.You knew you hated Zhao when you saw the twisted smirk that was on his face when Ozai burnt Zuko.

Zuko spoke up, “I underestimated him once, but it will not happen again.”

Zhao turned his back to the prince before stating, “No, it will not, because you won't have a second chance.”

When Zuko spoke up again he sounded almost frightened, “Zhao, I’ve been hunting the Avatar for two years and I-”

Before the price could finish his sentence Zhao turned on him hottily, flames erupting from his hand as he swept it in an arc from left to right.

“And you failed.” He finished for the prince. “Capturing the Avatar is too important to leave in a teenager's hands.” You don't understand why Zhao used that as an excuse. He watched with his own two eyes as you took on ten of his men, with nothing but a katana, during one of his training exercises.

“He’s mine now.” Zhao finished his sentence.

Zuko threw himself at Zhao in frustration and anger. You and the guard beside restrained him. While he was struggling in your grips you were rolling your eyes.

“Zuko calm down, you don't wanna do anything you might regret.” You said to him.

He ignored you, causing you to roll your eyes again.

Before Zhao could leave the tent he turned to you and the guard, Zuko still struggling in your grasps, “Keep them in here.” You and the Guard nodded.

When Zhao left Zuko gave a demonstration of his anger by kicking the table stationed next to Iroh. You and the other Guard let go oh his arms soon after.

Zuko turned to you, fire in his eyes, finger hitting you in the chest accusingly, “How could you.” He practically spat in your face.

You didn’t flinch, “How could I what?” You questioned, your eyebrows furrowed as you looked towards the prince. “Do my job?” You asked further.

Zuko crossed his arms over his chest and scoffed at your words, “Job.” He said in a sour tone. “You’re a year younger than me. How could you possibly have a place in the military.”

Iroh watched the whole interaction calmly, with a fond expression on his face. Remembering the good old days when you two would fight and argue.

“It’s not like I had a say in the matter. Zhao saved my life, sadly I’m in debt to him.”

Zuko crossed his arms and turned away from you in a huff.

Iroh stood up before walking over to you and placing his hand on your shoulder, “I am very enlightened to see you again Y/N. We should celebrate. How about some more tea!” He exclaimed. Zuko rolled his eyes, and you had a fond look on your face. You missed these two so much.

After an undetermined amount of time Zhao finally re-enters the tent.

Zuko and Iroh were seated in chairs facing one another.

“My search party is ready.” Zhao said addressing Iroh and Zuko.

“Once I’m out at sea, my guards will escort you back to your ship and you’ll be free to go.” Zhao said.

“Why? Are you worried I’m going to try and stop you?” Zuko retorted.

You felt like your eyes were gonna fall out of their sockets if you kept rolling them so much.

Zhao laughed, “You? Stop me? Impossible.”

Zuko stood up from his seat, “Don't underestimate me, Zhao. I will capture the Avatar before you.”

“Prince Zuko, that's enough!,” Iroh said standing as well.

“You can't compete with me. I have hundreds of warships under my command, and you... you're just a banished prince. No home. No allies. Your own father doesn't even want you.”

You couldn’t believe anyone would dare utter such things to royalty, banished, yes, but still royalty nonetheless.

“You're wrong. Once Zuko delivers the Avatar to his father, Ozai will welcome him home with honor and restore his rightful place on the throne.”

You didn’t even know what you were saying, the words just began to spew out of your mouth, and you had no control over it.

Zhao turned on you, his face red with anger.

“You’ve only been here two weeks, what makes you think you have the right to speak to a Commander in such a way.” Zhao growled at you.

You opened your mouth to retort but he cut you off.

“If Fire Lord Ozai really wanted him home, he'd have let him return by now, Avatar or no Avatar, but in his eyes the so-called “Prince Zuko” is a failure and a disgrace to the Fire Nation.”

You tried to speak up once more, but his time Zuko cut you off. You swear you were gonna stab someone.

“That's not true.” Zuko said.

Zhao turned to Zuko with a nasty face, “You have the scar to prove it.”

Zuko launched himself and the commander and you made no attempt to stop him.

“Maybe you'd like one to match!” He shouted in his face.

“Is that a challenge?” the commander questioned.

“An Agni Kai. At sunset.” Zuko said.

You froze. Yeah you wanted someone to put Zhao in his place but you didn't want Zuko to fight in another Agni Ka, considering what happened at the last one.

“Very well. It's a shame your father won't be here to watch me humiliate you. I guess your uncle and your little girlfriend will do.” Zhao said smugly.

Zhao turned to walk out of the tent, he stopped and looked at you before saying,”Your actions will cause you to suffer major consequences. I hope you are ready to face them after you have to watch the prince face another devastating defeat.”

Zhao finally left the tent. You were glaring daggers at the spot he was previously standing.

Iroh walked up to Zuko “Prince Zuko, have you forgotten what happened last time you dueled a master?”

“I will never forget.” Zuko responded.

Iroh, Zuko, Zhao and You were in a Fire Nation Arena. Zhao and Zuko were kneeling, backs facing one another, preparing for battle. Zhao had 4 of his men in attendance, whilst Zuko only had you and Iroh but that was enough.

“Remember your fire bending basics, Prince Zuko.” Iroh said, “They are your greatest weapon.”

Zuko stood up, “I refuse to let him win.”

His shoulder wrap fell to the ground. You swept your eyes over his muscular figure.

A small piece of your heart shattered at the realization that Zuko was no longer that sweet 13 year boy old you knew all those years ago.

Zhao stands and turns, his shoulder wrap falling off his shoulders, as well.

“This will be over quickly.” Zhao stated.

Atop the gate a gong sounds. Both men face each other and assume firebending stances.

Zuko fires the first shot which passes harmlessly to Zhao's left. He fires again, this time it passes without effect to Zhao's right. Zuko fires several more, the last of which Zhao blocks, satisfaction evident on his face. Frustrated and losing control of his breath, Zuko moves towards the commander, unleashing more fire from both his hands and feet. Zhao dodges and blocks them all. Zhao then crouches forward and shoots flame at a point on the ground close in front of him.

From the corner of your eyes you saw Iroh watching anxiously.

“Basics, Zuko! Break his root!” You heard the retired General exclaim.

Zhao fires many blasts of flames, alternating between his fists. Zuko blocks each, but is slowly forced back. On the last strike Zhao uses both hands, knocking Zuko over and sending him skidding backwards in the dirt.

You hold in your breath hoping he’s okay.

Zhao takes a flying jump at Zuko. Zhao lands as he tries to get up, but he isn't fast enough. Zhao fires right at him. Zuko rolls out of the way just in time, and as he is getting up sweeps Zhao's feet out from under him.

You finally exhale the breath, your chest gently rising and falling.

Zuko lands on his feet, a slight smile appears on his face. Zuko walks towards Zhao, using his feet to produce small waves of flame that rush toward his opponent. Zhao is caught off balance and wobbles slowly backward.

Iroh clenched his fist in an expression of hope, a smile beginning to spread over his face.

Zuko finally lays Zhao out flat on the ground with a blast of fire. Zuko rushes up to him, prepared to deal the final blow.

“Do it!” Zhao yells.

Zuko releases a blast that shoots to the side of Zhaos’ face.

“That's it? Your father raised a coward.” He sneered at Zuko.

“Next time you get in my way, I promise I won't hold back.” Zuko said.

He turned his back on the pathetic Commander and began to walk away.

You took notice of how Zhao got up and shouted in anger. He unleashed a wip of flame at Zuko. You stepped in before the flames could hit the princes back. The fire coming from Zhaos’ foot is extinguished as your gloved hand closed over his foot.

You gave the commander a nasty look. “After this horrendous display of you being a sour loser,” You said in a sweet tone, “I have decided to tender in my resignation.” You finished dropping his foot causing him to stumble and land on his butt.

Iroh and Zuko appeared to be frozen in time for a moment before Zuko rounded on Zhao.

You turned and placed your hand on Zukos’ chest, and looked him in the eye. He looked down at you.

“Don’t.” You said in a hushed tone.

Yould see the moment's hesitation in his eyes before he slapped your hand off of his chest and continued advancing toward the Commander.

“No, Prince Zuko.” Iroh said after he witnessed your failed attempt to stop the angered Prince. “Do not taint your victory.”

Iroh turned to face Zhao, a look of disdain on his face.

“So this is how the great Commander Zhao acts in defeat. Disgraceful.”

“I wholeheartedly agree.” You chimed.

“Even in exile my nephew is more honorable than you.”

Zuko looked at Iroh in surprise at his statement.

“Thanks again for the tea. It was delicious.” Iroh said finally to the Commander

Iroh moved to leave, You and Zuko followed closely behind. With burning anger, Zhao watches them exit the gate of the arena.

Outside, Zuko quietly asked Iroh,”Did you really mean that, Uncle?”

Iroh slyly stated, “Of course. I told you ginseng tea is my favorite.”

You couldn’t help but snort at his declaration. Sending you into a full laughing fit followed soon by Iroh and eventually Zuko, as the three of you walked towards the harbor.

~~~

And that’s the end... for now.

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#prince zuko x reader #zuko x reader #zuko x you #fire lord zuko #atla #atla fanfic #atla zuko #zuko fanfic #zuko imagine

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wishingforatypewriter · 3 years

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Ok, let me set the fire. Firts Korvira, and then KuvIroh II.

Ooooh. I don’t think I’ve ever really thought about KuvIroh before, but a girl is intrigued lol! I’m not sure which questions you wanted, so I’ll just pick a few.

Korvira

-Who holds the other’s hand first?

Korra tries it first. They were both in the North Pole for a meeting of world leaders, and Korra could tell that Kuvira—who grew up in the southern Earth Kingdom and had little experience with ice and snow—was freezing her ass off, no matter how much she tried to pretend she wasn’t cold. So when they’re out in the capital city, Korra takes the metalbender’s hands, brings them up to her face, and warms them with some very low-grade firebending. Then she just...decides she going to hold on to one of her hands for the rest of the walk.

To say this catches Kuvira off guard is an understatement. They had been flirting/fooling around for a while, but weren’t officially a couple, and there had never been any public displays of affection between them. She starts to pull away at first, but then Korra is like, “Hold my hand, you coward.” And of course our girl was not going to back down from a direct challenge.

-Who initiates the first kiss?

Kuvira! Korra takes her out to drink and party to celebrate her official release from house arrest, and after a few shots too many, the former Great Uniter tells Korra about everything they should have done in the spirit world. Kuvira has always had a way with words, and by the time she stops her descriptions for long enough to lean in and kiss the avatar, Korra’s all but melted, and they leave the bar together in a matter of minutes. But no one should really be surprised by this; Kuvira always gets what she wants.

KuvIroh II

-Who asks the other out for the first date?

Iroh had heard of Kuvira’s reputation as a skilled bender and tactician long before he was introduced to the interim president at her inaugural ball in the newly restored Ba Sing Se, but he had not been expecting her to look like that. When Raiko introduces them, she reaches out for a handshake. Her grip is strong, assertive, but when he bows low and kisses her hand, with all the gallant formality befitting a Fire Nation prince, she blushes.

They share several dances during the ball between conversations with heads of state and wealthy industrialists, and before the night’s half over Iroh invites her to the United Republic “to see the fleet.” (Unfortunately, this one did not fully escape the legacy of Zuko’s awkwardness).

After giving him a look that might have vaporized a lesser man on the spot, she smirks and says she loves a good armada, then tells him to have his secretary get in contact with hers (she often borrows Zhu Li for this kind of thing).

#kuvira #korvira #kuviroh #legend of korra #lok #tlok #iroh ii #korra

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ouverkeel · 3 years

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Blood streamed down the skin of his face, circling round his eyes and dripping from his chin. The exposed slash mirrored that of the fracture in his helm, quiet rays of light passing through and colliding onto his dreaded facade. Ash seeped into the gash alike that of his underlaying fear; a guilt for have ever brought them with him. Remorse wasn't an option anymore. He stood on a battlefield. A battlefield for the bereaved. His face trembled no longer; his eyes remained aloof and his heart stayed vigilant. To ignore one's inexorable demise eases one's soul; to accept it, is to convalesce through loss. Restoration came to be his embodiment, chaos.. had been his opposition's.

"Extraordinary. A human capable of Elemental-Based manipulation."

His grip was sharpened and his senses rose to precision. Feeling the soft caress of the cold wind that gardened the arrival of drizzle, the tears in his armor exposed the fabricated inner layer to oxygen. With a fragment of his remaining rigor, he hooked the release of his helm with his shaken fingers and ripping it from it's stature, revealing his scarred visage to his opponent. Silently, they stared down one another's eyes. A pair with one that enveloped hubris, and another that seized resolve. Blood from his torn face trickled down the curve of his chin, dragging pieces of debris along the stream.

"You are far more special; far for unique, than anybody in your short life has ever made you seem."

His own objective was made clear to them both. Falter his progression, reassuring his friend's safety, letting them escape to renew the trichotomy, attempting once more in attaining the triumph necessary to ensure the Between lives on; to ensure that their sacrifices weren't in vain. The legacy of the elementals lived on in a soul that wasn't. Centuries of warriors, cowards and patriots rested in the grip of his hand. Warriors, cowards and patriots whose morals resided in him: whose morals built him; whose morals were him.

"You're an Elemental!.. you are everything you ever dreamed to be!.."

A crown. An accessory of one's helm with a sole purpose to exemplify their stature or importance to anyone that comes to behold their image. A show of great strength, valour or leadership. A piece of others perception of them, not to be taken by the faint of heart. A crown represented their capability to rise above their defeats, stand fixed in the face of great darkness and to fight on despite the world pushing them back. Their crown represented fluidity, stillness and resilience. Attributes which he never came to receive. He wasn't an individual deserving the right to be a leader.. even this was clear to him. With such consistency, he would fall after every encounter, his mind in persistent trepidation with every inevitability and his body aches with every battle that was thrown at him. The consideration of being crowned was--and always had been.. futile. But despite these falls, he rose above them with excellence. Despite his arbitratious dismay, he never ceased to sharpen the rest of his body. Despite his inability to retain persistent strength with every conflict, he raged on like a forest set ablaze.

Keeping a solidified grip, he grasped down onto the hilt and materialized a steel of his own fortitude. Each particle of metal spiralled round in a helix, forging the sleek and elegant blade that was now his own. Fire traced the sword, searing into the air its light and kindling a spark that would echo this culmination through time. A bright flame scorched the ash round him. A bright flame, that finally became him.

"That isn't who I want to be, anymore.."

Rose-red energy siphoned off the base of his countenance, curving and creating an accessory of his helm with a sole purpose to exemplify his stature and challenge to whom had now beheld his presence. It's scarlet edges severed the air, the shimmer of the ornament gleaming onto the blood that painted his wound.

"and I don't need you to tell me.."

A crown cast of the purest red, crackling and as ruptured as fire had been. A beautiful, intricate effigy, not constructed for the show of strength, valor nor fortitude.. but a softening, calm likeness to his inadequacy, and the actions he has taken to exceed them. Weaknesses, now a bygone of his former self.

"who.. I.. am."

Falter his progression. That was the only thing he needed to do. His final objective; a final promise for restitution.

#writing #books #fantasy #short story #story #writeblr #free write #creative writing #novel writing

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