#accident and that poor girl is so so so desperate to believe him... jane had a clearer mind i think. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nah-she-didnt · 3 years

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Another Day

Slight tw: self harm, violence (nothing too graphic)

One day I will thoroughly proof read before I post, but not today!

Don’t cry.

Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, you stupid cow. Come on, just a few more minutes. Hold it in, just hold it in a little while longer, alright? Can’t you just be a grown up for once in your life? Stop fucking crying!

Just twenty more meters and she’d be safely behind the Fat Lady’s portrait. Ten more meters, and she could let it all out. But not yet.

The Fat Lady eyed her suspiciously. “You’re out late, m’dear.”

Lily cleared her throat. She could feel the tears longing to be shed that pricked at the corners of her eyes. “Prefect duty. Password’s ‘Agean.’”

The portrait swung wide, and Lily dashed inside. The common room was, miraculously, empty. This wasn’t totally surprising, as it was past one in the morning on a Wednesday night, but it came as a huge relief nonetheless.

Lily glanced around twice to make sure that there were no stray seventh years in the corner of the room taking advantage of the quiet atmosphere to finish up another hour of studying.

At last, when she was satisfied that the room was clear, Lily burst into tears.

“Damn it,” she whispered ferociously as she wiped her tears on the back of her sleeve, “for fuck’s sake, stop it. Stop it!” But she was powerless to stop the flood of feelings that came pouring out of her. She swore again and shook her head, hard, to stop the thoughts. Useless. Pathetic. Little girl. The words rang out over and over again, bouncing around the corners of her mind until she couldn’t take it any more.

With a roar of frustration, Lily kicked the leg of the nearest armchair as hard as she could. Fuck.

“OUCH!” She screamed and dropped to the floor. Her toe throbbed horribly, but at least it distracted from her head. She cradled the toe and prayed she hadn’t broken any bones. At this rate, she’d probably end up back in the hospital wing tomorrow morning. Lily knew that Pomfrey could probably fix a broken toe just as fast as she’d fixed the cut on her neck, but the idea did not bring her any comfort.

“Uh, Evans?”

Lily shrieked. She grabbed instinctually for her wand before realizing that it was tucked into the waistband of her school skirt. She had to flip over onto her stomach to access it properly. She pointed the wand wildly in the air in the direction of the voice. “Who’s there?”

“Oi! Stand down! It’s me!”

Lily’s heart sank. That was the last voice in the entire world she needed to hear right now.

James Potter stood near the door to the common room, his hands raised in front of him in surrender. “Blimey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Lily groaned as she rolled onto her back, then sat up, wand still pointed at James. “How the hell did you get in here? The common room was empty five seconds ago, and I didn’t hear the door open.”

James, who still had his hands raised, offered her a weak smile. “Ah, well, a gentleman never reveals his secrets, or something like that,” but he looked a little guilty, “would you put that thing away? I just wanted to make sure you’re alright.”

Lily lowered her wand cautiously. “I’m fine.”

James pointed down at her toe. “You don’t sound fine. C’mon, up you get.”

He strode over to her spot on the floor and pulled her into a standing position. She winced as she tried to put weight on her damaged toe. “I think I broke it.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” James tried to joke as he helped her hobble over to the couch, “the way you kicked that chair. Did the poor bastard commit an unspeakable offense to your person?”

“Very funny,” Lily grimaced as she sank into a seat on the couch. To her annoyance, James slid into the seat next to her. “Now, if you don’t mind, I was in the middle of having a very private breakdown.”

“Yeah, I noticed that bit. Come on, give me your foot.”

Lily scoffed. “Yeah, right.”

“Seriously!” James cried as he waved her foot in the direction of his lap, “I’m actually pretty good with injuries. Comes with the territory, being quidditch captain. I see lots of injuries worse than this.”

“I’m surprised you made it this long through a conversation without bringing up your captainship,” Lily grumbled, but relented. She reached down to pull her mary jane off, wincing sharply as she did, then pulled her sock off as well. “Don’t tell me you’ve got some sort of foot fetish.”

“Nah,” James grinned as he accepted her maimed foot onto his lap, “I’m actually not fond of feet. Can’t stand anyone touching mine, you see. I’m dead ticklish.”

“I’ll have to remember that,” Lily joked, then flushed a deep scarlet. The comment sounded much more innocent in her head.

James, however, merely laughed. She could feel herself soften a bit at his smile.

“So,” James said cautiously as he examined her foot, “do you want to talk about it?”

Lily picked at a hangnail to save herself the moment when she would have to meet his gaze. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

James rotated her foot gingerly, frowning slightly as he moved. “I mean your very private breakdown. Want to tell me what happened? You were on rounds tonight, right?”

Lily nodded. “Nothing happened. Just a bit of an accident. Kept me out later than usual. I must have gotten over tired.”

“You don’t really expect me to believe that, do you?” He took his wand from his pocket and pointed it steadily at her toe. “Episkey.”

Lily took a sharp intake of breath as she felt her bones reset with a soft pop. Then, suddenly, the pain was gone.

“Thank you,” she breathed as she flexed her toe back and forth, “really, Potter, that was brilliant. It doesn’t hurt at all anymore.”

James winked annoyingly. “Don’t mention it, now,” he leaned forward slightly, hands clasped between his knees, “if you don’t want to talk about what really happened, fine. I’ll leave you alone. But, on the off chance that you do want to talk about it, I’ve got nowhere else to be tonight.”

Lily considered this proposal. On the one hand, she’d rather eat frogspawn than admit weakness to James Potter. On the other, she couldn’t bear the thought of going back up to the dormitory with nothing but five sleeping roommates and her own thoughts for company.

For now, Potter seemed to be her only option.

“I was on rounds,” she began slowly, still looking down at her hangnail instead of in his eyes, “and I was in the dungeons.”

She paused here for a reaction from James, but he did not offer one. In fact, he was so silent she wondered if he even dared to breathe.

“It was my last stop of the night before my shift was over,” Lily said into her hands again, “and I was coming round the corner by Dungeon five. Benjy was down the other hall and lost sight of me. You know where there’s that enclave with the tapestry of Agrippa?”

She waited for James to say something, but he did not. Instead, he offered the tiniest of nods.

“He was waiting in the shadows there. Mulciber.” The name was poison on her tongue. It attacked her senses. Filled her mouth, her ears, her nose and eyes with a foul presence. She wanted to scream, to claw her face to get it out get it out get it out.

James swore quietly under his breath, but did not interrupt her. She took a moment to compose herself, then pressed on. “I tried to scream, but he put his hand over my mouth. He had something sharp up against my neck. I couldn’t see if it was a knife or some sort of spell, but it cut me. Just there,” and she pointed to a spot on her neck just above her collar bone. “Then he started to say things to me. Nasty things. Just kept on and on. Then, finally, Benjy yelled out, and Mulciber ran off back to his common room. And I just...let him go.”

She was shocked to realize that she’d started to cry again. The tears weren’t fast and desperate as they had been a few minutes ago. Now they were controlled, cathartic. They rolled slowly down her cheeks, past her chin, and over the spot on her neck where Mulciber had cut her.

“Thank god,” James murmured. She was grateful for this interjection as it gave her a moment to wipe her eyes. “What happened then?”

Lily shook herself slightly. Now that she’d started to talk, she found she couldn’t stop. “We went straight to Dumbledore.”

James nodded vigorously. “Good, good. I’m glad. What’s going to happen to Mulciber?”

Lily let out a cold, involuntary laugh. “Nothing, James. Nothing at all.”

James gaped at her. “How is that possible! Surely Dumbledore-”

“I gave Dumbledore my memory,” Lily felt shame creep into her once again, “but it wasn’t enough. I never saw his face, never got a clear view of him in my mind. But I knew it was him. Dumbledore said there wasn’t enough to go on and sent me off to Pomfrey.”

A moment of silence passed between them. Lily noticed with a jolt that James clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. “That’s bullshit,” he whispered finally, “Dumbledore is supposed to protect us. Supposed to protect you.” He glanced sideways at her, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “I’m so sorry, Lily.”

She smiled weakly back at him. “Thanks. But honestly, he was right. If I’d have just gone after him. I mean, he ran away from me, I could have hit him with a stunner when his back was turned. But I just let him run away. I didn’t do anything to stop him.”

James’ jaw twitched, as if he were about to argue but thought better of it. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, then looked at her once more. “Lily,” he whispered, as he put his hand gingerly over her own, “I am so glad you didn’t try to stop him.”

Of all the things he could have said, this was perhaps the most surprising. “How can you say that?” She wrenched her hand from his as if he’d burned her skin. “I’m supposed to be a Gryffindor. A prefect. And I can’t even defend myself from an evil, cowardly-”

“I’m glad,” James interjected softly, “because it could have saved your life. Or at the very least, saved you from an even greater harm. Think about it. He was already willing to hurt you once, who’s to say he wouldn’t have done it again?”

Lily did her best to choke back a sob. “But I let him get away with it. What if he does it again to someone else?”

James considered this for a moment. “I think sometimes the bravest choice is to keep yourself safe. And it sounds like in that moment you were in no position, emotionally or otherwise, to try and take him down. Not after what he did to you. You live to fight another day, always.”

Lily said nothing. She still felt the shame, the guilt that she’d watched Mulciber run down that corridor without so much as reaching for her wand. But she also remembered the panic, the feeling that she couldn’t move a muscle. Fear had rendered her completely immobile. She couldn’t have stopped him even if she wanted to.

“I know you won’t believe me when I say this, but you can’t blame yourself,” James said firmly, “you reacted the only way you knew how. It doesn’t make you weak.”

Lily nodded slowly. Then, without thinking, she reached back out and took his hand gently in her own. They sat like that for a long time, sitting several feet away from each other but holding hands quietly. James stared straight ahead into the fire, but every now and then would run his thumb across the ridges of her knuckles.

After at least ten minutes of quiet, Lily spoke. “You haven’t asked me what he said.”

James shrugged. “It’s not my business. I mean, if you want to tell me, you can. But I have a feeling you would have by now.”

Lily tried to block out the voice that played like a megaphone in her head. Mudblood. Pathetic. Useless. Stupid little girl.

“I’m sure you can guess,” Lily muttered, hating herself for crying again.

James turned his head from the fire to look at her again. “I’m so sorry this happened to you. You’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever met, Lily,” he’d never heard him sound so sincere before, “I really believe he chose the wrong person to fuck with.”

Lily smiled weakly and squeezed his hand. “Thank you.”

James smiled back. “Plus,” he offered, “you’ve got a lot of friends that will help you kick his arse back to hell or whatever hole he crawled out from.”

Lily couldn’t help but laugh a little. It was an empty threat. She knew that Mulciber’s attack was a symptom of something darker, something more insidious than a school rivalry. Her friends wouldn’t be able to protect her forever. But it was nice to pretend that she wasn’t alone.

“Thank you. I’m glad you were here tonight, even if you scared the ever loving shit out of me.”

James winked, but it was with less cheek than he usually possessed. “No problem. You know me, students from far and wide across this great castle seek me out for my emotional services.”

She really laughed at this. “Somehow I don’t believe that.”

“Believe it, I’m really quite mature when I want to be.”

She felt as if a weight had been lifted from her chest. Her heart was still heavy, and she suspected it would be for some time now, but it was easier to bear. Suddenly she realized how completely exhausted she was.

“I should go up,” she whispered. She squeezed his hand gently before pulling away from him. “I’ve got to get some sleep or I’ll be a wreck for McGonagall.”

James stood quickly with her as she moved to leave. “I’ll hand in your essay, if you want,” he said hurriedly, “you should get as much sleep as you can. She won’t mind, I’ll tell her to talk to Dumbledore if she has any questions.”

Lily frowned at him slightly. “How can you hand in my essay if you haven’t even done yours?”

James barked with laughter at this. “You underestimate me! I wouldn’t dare ignore an assignment from Minnie.”

“Right,” Lily said, bemused. She pulled out her wand and summoned her essay down from her dorm. It zoomed right into her hand, and she handed it over. “Thanks so much. You’re a lifesaver.”

“Don’t mention it, I hope you get some-”

But his sentence was cut off by the sound of the portrait hole swinging open.

“Oi!” Sirius called as he and Peter strode over to them, “where the bloody hell were you? You were supposed to be our lookout, remember?”

Lily raised an eyebrow at James. “You know, we never did get around to discussing what you were doing in the common room at one in the morning.”

James laughed nervously. “Ah, Evans, there are some things you’re better off not knowing. Trust me.”

She smiled at him once more, then turned her back on him for her dormitory. The sounds of bickering followed her, echoing all the way across the common room and up the stairs.

The words did not stop playing over and over again in her head the whole time she got ready for bed. Pathetic. Useless. Mudlbood. But now, new words joined them. Soft, kind words broke the monotony of cruelty that played on repeat inside her mind.

You live to fight another day, always.

#I am once again asking you all to ignore my typos #I post the same night as I write bc I'm not a COWARD #jk it's because my anxiety won't let me sleep on anything #nina writes #jily #jily oneshot #canon compliant #james potter/lily evans #tw: self harm #tw: violence

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Best Romantic Movies on Hulu Right Now

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Romance gets a bad rap at the movies. Until you behold the best romantic movies on Hulu.

Yes, Hulu is on the case with an expansive collection of romantic movies for you to connect with your softer side… or the side of you that screams in an eternal tormented shriek, desperately trying to find a mate whose shrieks match your tone in this expansive disappointing nothingness of existence. Love is hard. Anywho, here are the best romantic movies on Hulu right now.

Sense and Sensibility

This Jane Austen character really seems to have a handle on romance. The 1995 film Sense and Sensibility is adapted from the Austen novel of the same name and has a great deal of talent both in front of and behind the camera. Oscar winner Ang Lee directs while Emma Thompson (yes, that Emma Thompson) wrote the script.

Thompson stars alongside Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman and Hugh Grant. The movie, like the book concerns the Dashwood sisters and their sudden descent into non-stupendous wealth. Of course then the romance begins (not between the sisters, weirdos. Alan Rickman and Hugh Grant are in this thing too, remember?)

AWOL

AWOL is how indie romances should be – small, authentic, affecting. Joey (Lola Kirke) and Rayna (Breeda Wool) are two young women from a nowheresville Pennsylvania town. They meetcute at a local carnival and quickly fall for each other but circumstances threaten to crush their romance before it can even begin.

AWOL understands first and foremost that while love is easy, relationships (and arguably everything else in the world is hard). Sometimes what you want and what your environment is able to allow you to have are two very different things.

Margarita with a Straw

2014’s Margarita with a Straw is both a coming-of-age and romance film the likes of which you’ve probably never seen. This Indian film comes from director Shonali Bose and stars Kalki Koechlin as Laila, an Indian teenager with cerebral palsy, trying to achieve some independence in her life.

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That opportunity comes for Laila when she is accepted to New York Universtiy and moves to Greenwich Village. There she meets and falls in love with blind Pakistani activist. Miles from home, Laila must deal with her changing, burgeoning sexuality and live in a world not built for her. But it’s cool: she can always take her margarita with a straw.

Hello, My Name is Doris

Between TBS’s (now HBO Max’s) Search Party and Hello, My Name is Doris, director Michael Showalter had a stellar 2016. Hello, My Name is Doris is a wonderfully sweet, equally tragic and completely hilarious romantic comedy.

Sally Field stars as the titular Doris, a lively woman in her ’60s who after the death of her mother becomes infatuated with a younger man. With the help of cliched self-help materials she does whatever she can to get his attention. Hello, My Name is Doris is an empathetic romantic comedy that will change how you view age.

Cashback

Cashback wins a very important award on this list: most intriguing, provocative poster. But it’s more than just a pretty poster. Cashback is a British romantic comedy about the most mundane of topics: working at a grocery store.

For anyone who as ever been young and had an interest in the opposite sex (or any sex for that matter), however, they know that one’s place of employment is often an absolute fountain of sex and chemistry. If that simple exposition isn’t enough, Cashback comes along with a sci-fi twist and more importantly: Oliver Wood from the Harry Potter series.

Let the Right One In

Let the Right One In may seem like another odd choice for a romantic movie on Hulu but it’s romantic and sweet in a way that few other movies are. Sure, the players involved are a little boy and a little girl vampire (though the fact that she’s a vampire may very well mean she’s centuries old, just try not to think about it).

It’s a spooky yet undeniably sweet movie that presents the female side of a romantic entanglement as the ultimate protector.

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50 First Dates

50 First Dates has a somewhat disappointing Rotten Tomatoes score. Ignore that. It’s probably partially due to many critics’ distaste for at least one of the actors in the above screengrab. Not that they can be blamed. The presence of Adam Sandler or Rob Schneider in any comedy can be a rough sign. In 50 First Dates‘, however, it’s not an issue at all.

50 First Dates is a legitimately funny and romantic romantic comedy. Drew Barrymore stars as Lucy Whitmore, a woman with short-term memory loss. Due to a car accident, every day she wakes up believing it is October 13, 2002. Sandler’s character Henry Roth meets her in Hawaii and the two must overcome this bizarre condition to establish a lasting relationship.

Date Night

What do you get when you take the male lead of a popular NBC sitcom and pair him with the female lead (and mastermind behind) another popular NBC sitcom? A pretty decent rom-com as it turns out! Date Night stars Steve Carell (The Office) and Tina Fey (30 Rock) as a disaffected married couple trying to spice up their love life with a romantic night out on the town. But when a reservation steal turns into a case of mistaken identity, the pair’s night gets quite dangerous.

Date Night‘s action-heavy concept isn’t anything new to the romantic comedy genre but the presence of Carell and Fey (along with Mark Wahlberg, Taraji P. Henson, James Franco, Kirsten Wiig, Mark Ruffalo, and a whole host of other impressive talent) is enough to make this a pleasant viewing experience.

The Princess Bride

So you want to watch one of the most purely lovely and entertaining romance movies of all time? Well Hulu is here to say “as you wish.” The Princess Bride is a 1987 fantasy adventure film based on a book by prolific screenwriter William Goldman. The inspiration to the story infamously came from Goldman’s two daughters requesting conflicting stories about “princesses” and “brides.” So the writer decided to do two for the price of one.

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In this adaptation, Cary Elwes stars as Westley, a young farmhand who loves Princess Buttercup (Robin Wright). But when Westley is shipwrecked and left for dead and Buttercup is betrothed to Prince Humperdinck, the hero must embark on a sprawling adventure to rescue her. And of course this is a framed bedtime story being told to Fred Savage in bed…as all movies should be.

The Boy Downstairs

So much of what goes into a good romantic relationship is timing. Sometimes the chemistry is there but the timing is not. 2017’s The Boy Downstairs delves into this phenomenon from a millennial perspective.

Aspiring Brooklyn writer Diana (Zosia Mamet) and aspiring musician (millennials are always aspiring, you see) Ben (Matthew Shear) are in a happy, successful relationship. But Diana is forced to break things off after she moves to London. When Diana returns, she finds a new apartment through her friend and guess who just happens to be the boy downstairs? That’s right: Ben…and with a new girlfriend, no less. What follows is a funny, yet mature examination of what it takes to get the right one back.

Happiest Season

The setup for Hulu’s 2020 Internet-breaking comedy Happiest Season is very romantic…to a point. Abby (Kristen Stewart) and Harper (Mackenzie Davis) are in love. Yay! Not only that, but they’re going to Harper’s parents’ house for Christmas where Abby might propose. Woo! Also Harper has not told her parents she’s a lesbian and in a committed relationship with a woman. Oh. Oh no. Poor Abby!

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Questionable setup aside, this an excellent, personal effort from actress turned writer-director Clea DuVall. It’s an attention-grabber and conversation-starter to be sure. It also certainly doesn’t hurt that much of the cast is mind-meltingly hot. Stewart, Davis, Alison Brie, and Aubrey Plaza are like a who’s who of TV and movie crushes. Hell even Victor Garber and Mary Steenburgen can absolutely get it. All in all, the charismatic cast and accessible concept makes for a surprisingly wholesome romance movie.

Plus One

Maybe it’s just me, but there’s something really charming about erstwhile TV stars playing the lead opposite each other in a romantic movie. Such is the case with 2019’s Plus One, which stars Maya Erskine (of Pen15) and Jack Quaid (of The Boys).

Erskine and Quaid star as long-time friends Alice and Ben enduring the portion of their twenties where every friend seems to be getting married at once. Thankfully Alice and Ben have a longstanding agreement to always be each other’s “plus one” at every wedding. But such an arrangement couldn’t possibly lead to them discovering they have romantic feelings for each other, right? Right???

Palm Springs

“Time loop” movies frequently try to distinguish themself from Groundhog Day, the progenitor and most famous example of the form, by changing up the genre. Edge of Tomorrow is an action movie and Happy Death Day is a horror movie, for instance. What’s so impressive about Palm Springs is that it leans in to the romantic and comedic stylings of Groundhog Day and in many ways bests them.

In this movie, Andy Samberg styles as Nyles, a young man living through the hell of experiencing the same day (a wedding in Palm Springs) on a loop. In one particular loop, Nyles accidentally brings in the bride’s sister Sarah (Christin Milioti) and the two must confront the reality of living the same day over and over again forever together. You know…just like any couple.

LOVE AND BASKETBALL, Omar Epps, Sanaa Lathan, 2000, (c)New Line Cinema/courtesy Everett Collection

Love and Basketball

And now we come to a movie whose title is the two greatest things in the world! Love and Basketball is about…well, what you’d think. Quincy McCall (Omar Epps) and Monica Wright (Sanaa Lathan) are two next-door neighbors in Los Angeles, California, who are both singularly focused on pursuing their respective basketball careers.

Love and Basketball is a film all about passions – both creative and romantic. The movie also does a surprisingly thorough job of marking all the important beats of a relationship from childhood through the adult years. There’s a reason Love and Basketball has become a modest cult classic – it’s a fine execution of both the romantic and sports movie genres.

The post Best Romantic Movies on Hulu Right Now appeared first on Den of Geek.

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yourdeepestfathoms · 4 years

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Forever a Family

Heavy angst

TW: Death, suicidal thoughts

———————

When Joan got the phone call at rehearsals, she didn’t really know how to react.

“Miss Joan Meutas, I am sorry to inform you that Bessie, Maria, and Maggie have passed in an accident.”

“...Oh, that’s terrible.”

Then she hung up and went back to practicing Get Down on her keyboard.

People handle the news of loss in different ways. Joan’s was immediate denial. If she didn’t stay on the line, if she didn’t hear anymore information, then it wouldn’t be true. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true.

There was a gentle touch on her shoulder and she looked up to see Jane staring down at her with worried eyes. She hadn’t even realized she was crying.

“Is everything okay, love?” Jane asked.

“They’re dead,” Joan whispered.

After that, Joan was sent into a spiral. She still didn’t really believe the news until the bodies were brought back to London and she saw for herself that her bandmates, her family, were really gone.

Maria died instantly upon impact with the truck that hit the car. The airbag broke her neck when it blew out, at least giving her a painless death. Bessie, who had been driving, got impaled straight through the stomach by a sheet of metal. She didn’t last long, but Maria was still alive when the ambulance showed up. Unfortunately, she would later die from severe head trauma on the way to the hospital.

The sight of their bodies never left Joan, even though that evening had been a blur. She remembered collapsing and throwing up, nearly choking because she was sobbing at the same time. Then she remembered jumping up and trying to grab them, trying to hug them or take their hands or rouse them, but she couldn’t get near.

That’s when it really hit home.

Joan was all alone.

Going home to an empty house that evening was...surreal. Joan looked through the dining room, the kitchen, the living room in sheer desperation, praying to see the other three waiting for her.

But they weren’t there.

They would never be there ever again.

Joan slept in Maria’s room that night. She curled up under the blankets, clutching her stuffed lamb close to her chest. All at once, the grief and pain and loneliness hit her and she began to scream and wail. She cried until her voice blew out and she could only mewl and whimper uselessly.

She didn’t fall asleep. She blacked out from exhaustion, crying as she fell unconscious.

—

The house was silent when Joan woke up. She rolled out of bed and trudged downstairs to find the ground floor empty.

That’s right...

She squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself not to cry again as she padded across the hardwood floor to get to the kitchen. She took her medicine, but didn’t get any breakfast. Even if she was hungry, she didn’t want to eat.

While walking to the couch, Joan heard meowing coming from the upstairs hallway. She crept up the steps to see Tippy-Toes meowing at Maggie’s bedroom door. She could only watching for a moment as he pawed and scratched, waiting for the woman to open up so he could play with the strings on her guitar. They liked making music together.

But it would never happen again.

“She’s gone, Tippy.” Joan said quietly, moving fully into the hallway.

The black and white cat looked at her before meowing again, scratching further at the door.

“Tippy,” Joan spoke again, “Tippy, stop. She’s gone. Maggie’s gone. Didn’t you hear me?”

Tippy-Toes doesn’t listen. Maybe he doesn’t even understand. Maybe he does and is denying it just as much as the guitarist.

“Stop, Tippy!” Joan cried, tears exploding from her eyes. “She’s dead, Tippy! Maggie is dead! Maggie is dead and she’s never coming back!!”

The girl’s knees buckled and she collapsed to the floor. A fresh wave of tears hit her and she sobbed loudly as Tippy-Toes’ meows pitch higher and higher. She cried with him until their wails turned into a full on death rattle that could probably be heard all throughout the neighborhood. The pain just grew and grew as the cacophony continued.

Tippy-Toes stops, eventually, but Joan doesn’t. He doesn’t understand as well as she does, but he knows something is wrong. He trots over to the girl and lays down next to her head, purring into her hair.

Together, they lie there, unraveling through the grief and misery.

———

It’s been a week since the deaths and Joan hasn’t come to any rehearsals or any shows. Most of the production team understands, but even they lose their patience for a girl suffering from loss after awhile. Some of them have considered her getting fired, which makes the queens angry if they overhear the plans.

The queens are the only ones who really care. They hurt from the deaths, too. Especially Aragon, who mourned her dear friend for awhile, but knew she had to stay strong for Maria. Anne, too. Cleves struggles with the loss of her girlfriend, but tried to act like she was okay.

Joan, however, couldn’t do it.

By the eighth day, the six queens decided the girl has had enough space and went to visit her. The door was unlocked when they got there- not exactly a good sign.

“Joan?” Jane called out into the dark house.

“Hey, Joan, it’s us!” Anne said next.

“We brought food!” Katherine added.

No answer.

The queens were half expecting the house to be a total mess, but it was actually very tidy. Nothing was broken or out of place. It was just very quiet and none of the lights were on, so dull grey light from outside was the only thing illuminating the rooms. Tippy-Toes, among many other cats, was asleep on the couch.

“Joan?” Jane tried again.

“Is she even here?” Cleves wondered out loud.

“Let’s look for her.” Aragon decided.

Cleves was the one who eventually found the girl. She was in Bessie’s room, huddled in between her many bass stands, just staring at one of the legs of the bed. She didn’t even raise her head when Cleves entered the room. It’s almost like she was...dead.

Six people surrounding the poor girl was way too many, so only Aragon, Parr, and Jane stayed inside while the others were sent out into the hallway.

“Joan?” Aragon called out, “Are you okay?”

Of course she wasn’t okay; what kind of question is that? She didn’t even look okay.

Joan was wearing plain black shorts and an oversized T-shirt (it was Maria’s). Her hair was a complete mess, tangled and matted, her eyes were bloodshot, and all the color was leached from her face. Her arms were littered with picked open scabs. She looked more dead than alive at this point.

“Joan?” Parr tried, hoping to rouse the music director. “Kid? It’s Cathy. Jane and Catherine are here with me, too. The others are out in the hall. Can you say something?”

Joan didn’t even budge. The only thing that was moving was the slight rise and fall of her chest when she breathed, but even that was hard to notice. Her being completely unresponsive made the three queens in the room with her even more scared.

Did she even realize they were there?

“Joan,” Parr extended a hand and set it on the girl’s shoulder. “Joan. Come on, hun. Say something.”

If Joan even felt the touch, she didn’t react to it. Parr drew her hand back to her side and looked at Jane and Aragon with a terrified expression.

“Darling,” Jane tried. “We-”

She stopped because she noticed Joan eyes snap over to her immediately. The rest of the girl’s body didn’t move at all, but her just looking at them was a good start. Jane smiled softly.

“Hello there, darling.” She said warmly.

Slight light returned to Joan eyes. She raised her head a little, staring intently at Jane.

“Bessie?” She called out in a weak, but hopeful voice.

Jane’s smile disappeared. She frowned pitifully.

“No, love. It’s Jane.”

All at once, Joan mood dropped. She curled further away and buried her face back into her knees.

“Bessie,” She whimpered, “Mum...”

Jane’s heart aches for the poor girl in front of her. Watching her silently cry for her other mother figure broke her even more.

The third queen slowly inched closer until she could squeeze Joan’s shoulder comfortingly. At that simple touch, the girl completely collapses into Jane’s arms, shuddering and shivering. Jane immediately pulls her into her lap and holds her protectively.

“I’m here, darling, I’m here.” She whispered in her ear.

Joan thin body was soon wracked with sobs. She clung to Jane for dear life, burying her face into her chest and just trying to imagine it was Bessie holding her, shushing her, telling her it was okay.

But it wasn’t.

It wasn’t okay and it wasn’t Bessie.

A wail of pure agony and grief ripped free from Joan’s throat. Her nails dig deep into Jane’s back, drawing blood, but the queen can’t care. It’s impossible to care when she was holding this poor, broken girl in her arms.

Joan cried herself out eventually. When she does, she blacks out from exhaustion.

She hopes she never wakes up.

———

Stepping into the theater didn’t feel right the next day. Not without Maria or Maggie or Bessie. This place felt so alien. Being there was wrong.

But Joan pushed forward with whatever courage and strength she could manage. She ignored the whispers, the stares, the coos of pity, and strides towards her dressing room. She passed the stage manager, who watched her hike up the stairs with an expression that was a mix of agitation and relief. Although she didn’t look back to make sure.

Whatever strength she had melted away when she stepped into the dressing room. Gazing around the space made her think back to all the things she and the other three ladies in waiting did together. All the fun conversations and dorky antics.

All the things that would never return.

“Joan?”

There’s a gentle touch on Joan shoulder and she whirled around to see Parr and Aragon standing there.

“Good to see you here, love,” Aragon said with a soft smile. Her eyes are still flickering with deep sadness for her dear friend, but she’s finding closure.

Joan wished she could do the same.

“Hi,” Joan whispered and her voice is so soft and weak. “It’s, umm...” She dips her head and hunches her shoulders in.

“Hey, it’s alright,” Parr said. “Don’t speak if you don’t want to. You’re still shaken up. Don’t push yourself too hard.”

Joan nodded, feeling guilty. She shouldn’t be acting like this when Aragon and Anne and Cleves were probably closer to the other ladies in waiting. What gave her the right to think she deserved such a long break?

Without realizing it, Joan is stepping forward and hugging Aragon. The queen doesn’t even hesitate to hug her back, holding her tightly in her warm, strong arms.

“I miss her, too.” Aragon whispered, unintentionally fueling Joan’s guilt. “But Maria would want us to be strong for her. She’s watching over us now, you know?”

“Can you...talk to her?” Joan asked softly, almost sounding like a small child asking a silly question.

Aragon is quiet for a moment, tightens the embrace, then pulls Joan back by the shoulders so she can look into her eyes.

“Not really.” She said, “But I pray to her every night and I just know she’s listening.”

“Can I do that, too?”

“Of course.” Aragon smiled slightly, “I’m sure she would love that. They all would.”

Aragon and Parr had to leave to the stage to get ready for the show, and Joan dreaded having to play without her bandmates.

She wept during the first introduction.

She wept during Heart of Stone.

She wept during the intro in the MegaSix.

What if they hate her now in the realms beyond?

That thought hit Joan like a sledgehammer near the end of the show, causing her to falter with her playing.

What if they curse her name?

She doubted they would, they were too kind for that.

They had given her everything and in return she had let her guard down for the last and final time. She should have gone to that meeting. She should have died, not them.

After the queens exited and the deps for the band, now the all-star cast members, started to walk off, too, Joan stayed rooted on her stool. Some audience members stared at her, raising their phones to see if there was an extra act.

She brought a hand to her gut, closed her eyes, and imagined what it would be like to find absolution in a blade. Plunge and drag and drag and drag until there was nothing left of her but shredded flesh and blood, but that would not be enough, not for her. It would not give her jet family back. It would not give her the shouts and the laughs and the boisterous cries at all hours of the morning and night. That was not what her family would have done if it had been her that had been broken in that car.

But she wasn’t strong as them.

Because at least they would have had each other.

She had none of them.

Joan didn’t really how loud she was crying until her shaking breath hitched so high it sounded like a squeak. She blinked through the haze of tears and scrubbed her eyes with her sleeve. Several audience members are still lingering in the house, watching her, so she dashed off and gathered her things, not bothering to change out of her costume. Jane called after her, but she didn’t answer.

Joan walks those streets, shocked by how the world keeps running and running while hers had stopped its run not so long ago.

She walks and walks, slower and slower as she is about to reach her destination: she doesn’t want to be there alone, she doesn’t want to accept that it happened, and that there is no one waking her up and telling her that it’s all a nightmare. But she’s there and, for a moment, her breath gets caught in the throat, a bundle of emotions that are finally finding their strength to come up and be heard.

She doesn’t want to be there.

The autumn leaves are dancing around her, a warm breeze is trying to offer a comfort that it seems to be invisible and unpalpable. There can’t be comfort. There can’t be reassurance. The pain is still too loud, the wound is still too raw: her heart and her soul aren’t ready to accept that there is a reason for what has happened; her mind is still trying to distinguish between reality and fantasy, between the soothing effect of a false illusion and the harsh truth of a world deprived by its most beautiful voices.

“Why?” She wonders but there is only silence replying her and that lack of words is an absence that stings more than she can accept.

“Why?”

She has wondered for too long but still nothing has come up and maybe it will never be answered because sometimes life is like that, a storm in the middle of a summer day and its lingering residues following her for weeks and months. Maybe one day she’ll stop asking herself that but, for now, it’s just all she can think about, over and over again.

It doesn’t make sense.

Nothing makes sense and it has been like that since she got that call, just a few words that had stumbled down her life and shattered it. She can still hear them in her ears, she can still feel the way her own heart had stopped beating as a black void had started to envelope her. She still feels like she’s down there, trapped in a nightmare that no one knows how to stop or break.

It doesn’t make sense.

There is regret in her steps. There is a baggage full of words that should have been said and things that she should have done. Maybe, if she had done them, nothing would ever happen.

Joan wishes she could go back in time. She wishes there was a way for her to erase all those tiny mistakes she’s made, all those times she wanted to reach out but, instead, turned her head away because it still hurt. Her friendship, her family was- is still- the most important thing and, yet, she let it slip away in fear of what the world would have said. Her image is everything and, yet, what is left now? There’s no image to defend, there’s nothing left because their death has destroyed everything.

So she wishes. She wonders and wishes that there was a way for her to save just a few lives.

Their lives.

There are still tears in her eyes. She wants to believe it’s because of the cold and the wind but it’s just a useless alibi. She lets them fall, not ashamed anymore because there is no one around to watch her. But she feels like a hypocrite, she feels like she doesn’t have the right to cry that loss because she could have done so much to prevent their absence.

To prevent their death.

She knows it’s the truth, no matter how many times people keep telling her that she’s done nothing to cause the happening. She knows it’s the truth, no matter how many people try to explain how, sometimes, she can’t save everyone. That bad things just happen to good people.

“I’m sorry.”

She knows it’s too late.

She knows that it’s useless because they’re not there to hear that word.

Maybe they’re listening, like Aragon had said. Maybe they’ve been watching her down from heaven, because that’s where they are now, those tortured souls hidden behind a smile and an endless laugh. She remembered it. She remembered Maria’s sweet voice, how it always went directly to her heart and pulled strings that never hurt. She remembers how Bessie’s face would lighten up, bright eyes that shone like daily stars. She remembered how Maggie’s laugh made her feel better, especially those days when the world was so set in destroying her balance and sanity. Sne was addicted to their laugh, their smiles, their voices. She craved them in ways that were so deep and powerful that, after a while, she stopped asking herself what magic they held. She turned to them, she made them laugh over and over because she was selfish, she was in pain and only that laugh, that smile, that voice could save her from the deepest and darkest waves.

Regrets don’t leave Joan, not even now that she’s standing in front of the consequences of her ignorance. It’s her fault. She kept telling herself as if this admission could absolve her sin. It’s her fault because she promised but it was always so easy to forget about it: there wasn’t never the need to- she has always been the one that needed help the most. She has always been the one fate had chosen to deal bad cards: her past, her family, those accusations and those stupid decisions.

And, God, they were always there when those were brought up from her first life. Bessie’s comforting words, Maria’s gentle touch, Maggie’s light hearted jokes to make her smile. The way they would come out and defend her, even when it meant to be the target of hateful attacks. The way they would just…be there in ways that were difficult to explain to the world that had never seen them in private.

Why didn’t Joan do the same for them?

Why didn’t Joan come out and defend Maria when all those voices wanted a piece of her soul? Why didn’t Joan come out and be there for Maggie, not only when those cracks in her voice were so out for everyone to hear and judge? Why didn’t Joan let Bessie know that those voices weren’t true?

Why didn’t Joan let them know that they were the purest souls she’s ever met?

“I’m sorry.”

Joan was sorry. She could have done more. She could have told them more. She could have spent more time with them instead of burying herself in work and sometimes not even speaking a word to them for a day. She could have said “I love you” more.

She should have known better.

Joan should have known better, but she didn’t. She didn’t want to face the truth. She didn’t want to realize that her superheroes might be needing a hero themselves and she was too afraid or too busy to be up to the task.

She depended on them and now she’s lost.

Alone.

Joan hears a whimper and realizes it’s herself. She hiccuped and struggled to breathe for a moment. She unlocks her phone as she fishes her keys out of her pocket.

It’s too late, but she remembers a picture she once took of them all. Maggie asked her to send it to her, but she never did.

The Unholy Trinity...and Bessie

Joey: Here’s that picture.

After a moment of loading, a selfie of Joan, Maria, Bessie, and Maggie pops up. Maria, beaming, has her arm slung around Joan’s shoulder, who was holding the phone and sticking her tongue out like a cat, and Maggie is at her side, grinning. Bessie was flashing bisexual peace signs beside Maria, smiling lovingly because of the deep affection she had for her girls.

Joey: I hope you guys like it.

Joey: Don’t worry about replying.

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incorrectdeceptionquotes · 5 years

Text

A Bundle of Secrets (Rewritten)

Chapter 1

The sound of feet against pavement echoed through the dark as a young woman rushed into an abandoned building, carrying a bundle of blankets in her arms.

She forced open a secret panel in one of the walls, carefully tucking the bundle inside with a teary smile and a kiss before closing the wall back up, leaving the slightest crack open. She hurried back to the entrance, looking frantically at her surroundings as she unlocked her phone.

“Hello, 911, what’s your emergency?”

“Please, you have to send help!”

“Ma’am, what’s wrong, is everything okay?”

She could barely breathe as she heard the faint click of polished shoes getting closer and closer.

“I can't, just--when you get here, make sure you search this place top to bottom.”

The operator grew concerned at this. “Where are you right now?”

“It’s not safe here, get her somewhere safe!" There wasn't any time to explain, they would find her any second now. "Please. It’s too late for me.”

“What’s too late? Ma’am?”

A shot rang out and all that was heard was a choked whisper. “Please take care of her...”

“Take care of whom? Who’s there? Ma’am, I need you to tell me--”

There was another sudden shot, but this time the bullet went through the young woman’s forehead. She crumpled onto the floor, dark curly hair feathering out around her.

“Ma’am, are you still there? Ma’am-”

An expensive-looking shoe kicked the phone out of the dead woman’s hands, cutting off the call for good and then nothing. Only a shadow hovering over the body and a blank stare in the woman's lifeless blue eyes.

(~**~) (~**~) (~**~) (~**~)

“And that is how you pull it off.” Cameron waved his hands with a flourish as he and Kay pulled up to the crime scene. “Honestly, it’s a piece of cake once you get over a fear of fire.”

Kay stifled a smile as she rolled his eyes at his childishness. “You know Cam, sometimes I think you value pulling off a stunt more than you do about your own safety.”

It wasn't bad though. He wasn't quite back to his usual carefree self, but he looked lighter, his smiles quick to come and more genuine than before.

“Well, it’s worth it if it works, right? Though Johnny always thought that one was stupid.”

Kay was quick to notice how his eyes clouded over, his smile slowly fading as he mentioned his brother.

“How’s he doing?" She was hesitant to broach the topic. "I mean have you… have you heard from him at all?”

“No,” Cameron sighed heavily, “And quite frankly, I don’t want to even wanna think about him right now. He’s clearly not.”

Kay put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I get that you’re upset with him and you have every right to be. But he’s still your brother.”

His hand covered hers as he gave a weary smile. “I know, I know, it's just--I’m just not ready to see him and... I’m tired of looking for him. Thankfully he doesn’t need something from me. Not yet, at least.”

“Well, whatever you might need, I’m here for you.”

“Thanks Kay.”

The abandoned warehouse was already filled with police officers when they entered.

“So this is where the 911 call came from huh?” Cameron only saw bleak stone and crumbling concrete no matter where he looked. “There’s probably all sorts of hidden secrets about this place. Being an abandoned building and all.”

“It actually used to be an old group home for foster kids, but it closed down a few years ago for safety issues and the group was relocated elsewhere," Kay elaborated as they headed towards Mike, who was standing over the victim. "The operator said she has no idea who our victim is; all she could tell us was that she sounded like a young woman who was desperate for help.”

“Hey Mike, so who’s our victim?”

“Unfortunately, we don’t have an ID yet and it seems she came running here with not much on her,” Mike replied. “But she was clearly running from something.”

“Whatever she was trying to escape from obviously found her,” Kay added as she looked at the woman’s wide unblinking eyes. Poor girl, she thought, feeling that something seemed oddly familiar about those eyes.

“Judging from her clothes, it doesn’t seem like she was planning on running,” Cameron observed, noting the cool autumn breeze and the fact that the victim was wearing a thin sweater with a light summery skirt, “Maybe she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Got mistaken for someone else...”

Cameron trailed off. It was faint, but he thought he heard something. Something a little farther into the building. He couldn't tell what it was just yet…

“Maybe. Mike, was there any other information that the operator gave about our victim?” Kay asked as Cameron wandered off.

“Oh yeah. They mentioned how our vic went on about making sure that whoever was chasing her did not get to her.” Mike explained.

“Who's her?” Kay frowned in confusion. “If we can figure that out, maybe we can find out who our victim is.”

Meanwhile, Cameron was searching the building, he was sure the sound was coming from this direction. He happened upon the wall and noticed a tiny crack where it should be. What he saw when he pushed it open shocked him.

“Uh, guys?” Cameron yelled from where he was.

“What is it, Cam?” Kay called back.

“Look, I know I’m not supposed to touch anything before you guys have finished a complete search of the premises...” He said in a rush as he hurried back to them, carrying that same bundle of blankets that the woman had held just a few short hours ago. “But I don’t think this can wait.”

“Cam, what on earth could you have possibly--”

Kay met him halfway, wondering what was going on when she went speechless at the sight. Peeking out from the bundle in Cameron’s arms, wide awake was a bright eyed, curious baby. The little girl was probably only a year old at most with very pale skin, big brown eyes that seemed to smile at everyone, and the same dark curls as their victim.

Cameron grinned, oddly cheeky and sheepish at the same time. “I think you can understand why I thought it couldn’t wait.”

(~**~) (~**~) (~**~) (~**~)

“So you found the baby in the same building as our victim?” Deakins was as stern and sharp as ever as Kay and Mike watched Cameron entertain the little girl, making silly faces as he bounced her on his knees.

“Yes, due to the timing and that she bears some resemblance to our victim, we think it’s reasonable to believe that she might be related to our Jane Doe,” Kay explained.

“Any idea on who our Jane Doe is?”

“We’re still working on it," Mike replied, "We should be finding out soon.”

“Alright, keep me posted.” Deakins walked away, her face softening with a quick flick of a smile as she took one last look at Cameron and the baby.

“I’ll go see if we have an ID yet,” Mike said to Kay as he motioned his head towards Cameron, amused at the sight.

Kay rolled her eyes before sitting next to Cameron and the baby. “You two seem to be getting along.”

“Babies are so fun to entertain, everything you do is like a magic trick to them, watch this!”

Cameron covered his face before then quickly pulling his hand down and went, “Peek-a-boo!”

The little girl burst out laughing. It was so infectious that Kay and Cameron couldn't help but join her.

Kay's smile only grew. “I see what you mean.”

All of a sudden, the baby pointed at Kay, gurgling and smiling as she reached out her arms to the agent.

“I think the little lady wants you to hold her, Kay.”

“Oh…" An unsure expression spread over her face, "I don’t know, I’m not really--”

Cameron held up the baby in front of his face and spoke in a high-pitched voice, “Please Kay, I want a hug and Mr Cameron is starting to run out of ideas to entertain me!”

Kay snorted, rolling her eyes for what seemed like the umpteenth time that day and gently took the little girl from Cameron. The baby just cooed and stared up at her with bright, innocent eyes. There was something about her that just seemed so familiar, yet she couldn’t put her finger on it.

“She likes you.” Cameron's voice broke through Kay’s thoughts.

“What?”

“I tried giving her to Mike earlier and she almost burst into tears,” he chuckled.

“Really?”

Kay laughed as she settled the baby in her lap, a hand supporting the little girl’s back. That had to have been a blow to Mike's ego, seeing how he often bragged about how good he was with children. She looked up just in time to see Cameron smiling at her.

He was always smiling, but this one was slow and subtle, harder for her to read.

“What?”

“Nothing, just never really pictured you with a baby.”

Kay raised an eyebrow at that.

“N-not that I picture you in any way, shape, or form," He backtracked with a flustered look on his face, "Not that I mean anything by that, what I meant was--”

He abruptly leaned down to face the baby. “Can you help me out here, kid?” The baby just grabbed his nose and laughed. “Yeah, real helpful.”

“Hey guys," Mike walked in at that moment, "we finally found--why is the baby holding Cam’s nose?”

“He tried to ask her for advice,” Kay grinned before she turned back to Mike, “So any news?”

“We found an ID and…" Mike shook his head briefly, "Let's just say I’m glad you guys are sitting down.”

Kay frowned, “Why? What is it?”

“Well, our victim’s name is Fiona Jonbroni, twenty-six years old, was placed in the foster care system when she was four after her mother died in a car accident.”

Cameron grimaced, “Poor girl, I’ve heard the system’s rough.”

“It can be.” Mike sighed, “She bounced around foster homes until she was eighteen, found a job where she met a Shawn Blanc and they were married three years ago.”

“What happened to him?” Kay grew concerned, instinctively holding the child closer without realizing it.

“I just sent a team to their apartment to see if he’s there.”

Cameron looked at the innocent little girl. “So there’s a chance that she’s still got a parent out there?”

“That’s what we’re hoping for.”

“Do we have the kid’s name? I mean, we can’t keep calling her Little Lady or Kid.”

“It says here that her name is Farrah Blanc, with two Rs.”

Cameron smiled at the little girl before taking her back from Kay.

“So, your name is Farrah, huh? Well, it makes sense. You’re like the fairest of them all.” He joked, noting that the girl’s pale skin and apple red cheeks could give Snow White a run for her money.

Kay shot Cameron an unamused look. “Cam, come on, you know how I feel about puns.”

Cameron simply grinned. “It’s after nine, Kay, I think I'm safe.”

“Wait,” Suddenly Kay was confused, "You said you were glad we were sitting. What's going on, Mike?”

“Well, Fiona’s birth certificate listed her mother as Violet Jonbroni and...” He hesitated, clearly reluctant to keep going.

“And her father?” Cameron prodded.

“And... the father listed here is someone you might recognize." Mike's face grew grim. "Sebastian Black.”

Cameron’s eyes suddenly went wide with shock. “W-wait,” He let out a nervous chuckle. “A-are you saying that our victim was my father’s daughter? But that’s imposs--that would mean...”

“Cameron…" Mike's throat went dry; he could barely say the rest.

"I think our victim was your sister."

No, you are not experiencing déjà vu, this is the same ‘A Bundle of Secrets’ I wrote over a year ago... however as I have been writing the sequel and rereading it... ‘A Bundle of Secrets’ was my first real fanfic I took seriously and it sorely needed improving.

I hope that you had enjoyed the original version but with the help of my good friend @s4karuna, we have revamped ‘A Bundle of Secrets’ into a smoother and more enjoyable read.

I want this story to be the best it can be and I am grateful to my friend for helping me rewrite it... this is gonna be fun, you guys are gonna see a lot of additional/deleted scenes!

#deception #cameron black #kay daniels #mike alvarez #deakins #a bundle of secrets #rewrite #deception fanfiction #renewdeception #savedeception #deception abc

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trashkweeen-blog · 6 years

Text

Drinking and Dating - Brandi Glanville

As I was gearing up to read this book, and gathering my deeply intellectual thoughts on the 17 chihuahuas in a human suit that is Brandi Glanville, I was like, oh good, I love Brandi. Sweet pizza-throwing Brandi. She spills the tea, this should be good in a trainwreck sort of way.

I mean, I have to say that I was squarely in the Brandi camp for a moment in time - a Dream Team fan, if you will. She really won me over at Game Night. You know, that desperate attempt by Dana to be part of the show. Ugh, Dana. Dana was like The Silence from Doctor Who. Not because she was silent - oh no, if she was within shouting distance you’d hear about her sunglasses and how much they cost. No, because the second you turn around, your memory of her is completely wiped. I had to google both her actual name and the name Kim kept calling her because she couldn’t remember Dana’s name either (it was Pam).

Anyways. Game Night at Pam’s was not a cute look for Kim and Kyle Richards, or as I like to think of them, Baby Jane and Blanche Hudson in the lead up to the accident that will eventually leave Kyle bound in a chair while Kim feeds her rats and writes letters to daddy. You may remember Game Night as the night when Kim hobbled in super late, took her trenta coffee cup filled with mashed up pills into the bathroom, and proceeded to do her hair and makeup, with Kyle intermittently popping in to both tell her she’s being weird, and to be weird.

You may also remember Game Night as the night when Brandi accused Kim of doing crystal meth in the bathroom, and then Kim and Kyle hid Brandi’s crutches so she couldn’t stand up or walk. I’m citing this as exhibit 1 in Kim’s latent Baby Jane persona, just waiting in the wings.

Point is, Kim and Kyle were pacing the room like lunatics, pointing their withered fingers at Brandi, and calling her such chill things as “slut pig”. Poor Brandi, NEW TO THIS GROUP, and being called a pig by the witch character from that Nightmare VHS board game from the 90s:

youtube

(shit, do you guys remember that?)

Brandi, with the fearlessness of an Amazon warrior queen, looked up, unblinking, unflinching, and calmly said, “Bring it, bitch, color me slut”. And Kim and Kyle were shook. I live for anyone who shakes Kyle.

I also really loved when Lisa Vanderpump demanded an olive branch from her, and Brandi legit yanked a branch off of one of LVP’s trees, handed it to her, and then said, “what do you want me to do, eat your pussy?” Iconic.

Admittedly, Brandi lost me a little by Season 5, when she developed a super co-dependent relationship with Kim, where they each made it a fun hobby to enable the other’s worst behaviour. Brandi decided she was gonna replace Kyle, which like, unless you’ve endured years of Big Kathy pushing you into show biz and gold digging bad marriages, then no, you can’t. You don’t have the range.

But i was intrigued nonetheless, eager enough to dig into Brandi’s second book, which I read out of chronological order for the very academic reason that it was available first at the library.

And it started off pretty strong. Brandi lovingly told us about the HPV her cheating trash ass ex husband gave her, called Leann Rimes a cunt, shaded her album sales, blamed Adrienne Maloof for her own shitty marriage, and called bullshit on the concept of scorned ex wives. Overall, great shit. Loved it. I was like yesssssss preach through a lot of it.

Then Brandi delved into her dating advice, and girl, she was feeling her Carrie Bradshaw oats at every turn. I could basically picture her, smoking at her window, wearing a tutu, and gazing forlornly at the Chair that Aiden Made™. Which, like, all the Aiden apologists in the world need to get over. Aiden was trash. He tried to force Carrie into a boring ass engagement, pulling her away from interesting parties with porn producers, so she could like, watch him eat fried chicken in his gross underwear at 10pm????

The only good thing Aiden ever did was keep Carrie home when she could have been out making comments like this to her friends. A real service to her friends, who had to pretend to laugh at her idiotic jokes because she always got them tickets to cool stuff.

Aaaaanyways. Brandi Glanville is no Carrie Bradshaw, and if she were, I’d really prefer if she’d been the Carrie Bradshaw whose computer crashes before she learns how to backup her writing.

Drinking and Dating is a combination of bad dating advice, very personal child custody beef with her ex husband (yeah, I know his name, I just don’t care enough to type it, he sucks), and blind items about the “celebrities” she’s banged.

Apparently, she wanted to list these celebrities by name, and her publishers wouldn’t let her, for fear of being sued. And honestly, Brandi being sued is not a saga I want to watch. She was personally outraged enough when her Celebrity Big Brother alliance member Keshia Knight wanted to leave the house in order to BREASTFEED HER INFANT, so I don’t wanna know how ugly Brandi gets when she’s got, like, actual problems.

So, first things first, here’s some bad dating advice from Brandi Glanville:

pick up guys at Home Depot! Apparently, it is filled with “manly men” who want to turn women into housewives. If you roam the electrical aisle, you can “have your pick of Home Depot’s most eligible bachelors”. I hate this so much, I can’t even fully articulate it. This is by far the worst dating advice I have ever heard, and I read Class with the Countess.

If a guy has a criminal record, but also a private jet, only the latter fact is important. Like, if the assault charges and restraining order have been dropped, and he tells you his ex girlfriend was batshit crazy, it’s safe to assume everything’s kosher here, and you can proceed to fly around on his jet, where no one can hear you scream.

dump a guy if his idea of an epic party is at Brendan Fraser’s condo. I AM SORRY BUT if I had the chance to party at Brendan Fraser’s condo, I would skip my own father’s funeral. Like, yeah he’s kinda fat and weird now, but if you close your eyes, imagine him at his peak, and make him say “George love Ursula”, you could probably still come while he lazily rails you. And you owe it to your thirsty 1997 self.

But, I guess if you’re at a point in your life where relationship advice from Brandi Glanville seems appealing, it’s too late for me to reach you. Have fun at Home Depot.

I’m skipping the parts about whether Brandi’s trash ass ex husband is boycotting her relationship with her children by not letting them bring nice clothes to her house and whatever else. Cause it’s too dark, and I’m not here to contribute to the psychotic breaks any real housewives children may have when they start comprehending their parents’ exploits.

What I will talk about is the series of dating stories Brandi “coyly” relates, using cute little pseudonyms for her bang buddies. Yeah, you could comb through the 2010-2011 NBA season team roster stats to figure out who the 6′11″ suitor was, but like, who cares honestly? If it wasn’t even interesting enough for the paps, it’s not interesting enough to sleuth for.

The only one that caught my attention really, was the mid 90s TV star who was out with his more conventionally attractive co-star at the time. I do believe this to be David Schwimmer and Matt LeBlanc, so do with that what you will. (But I will say that if I had to fuck anyone from the core Friends group, it would be Ross. If we’re going outside the core group, it’s gotta be Paolo for some of that patented “meaningless animal sex”.)

Overall, this book was a fucking labor to get through; it was rough. I downloaded the audiobook so that I could listen to it while walking to work and on the treadmill, and yeah, that kinda made it easier to digest, but it also meant I had to listen to Brandi’s dog whistle of a voice for several hours.

I can’t decide what was more irritating about this book, the 7,000 hashtags used throughout, or the mind-numbing minutia of things like what grocery store Brandi prefers and why. (PS, remember when Ramona Singer thought minutia was a Yiddish word, and was probably visualizing it spelled “menusha”? Bless.)

Given the choice, I’d rather go to the Van Kempens’ housewarming party, where they didn’t serve food even though it was at 8pm, than read another chapter of Brandi’s tales.

Quick Stats:

Pages: 242

Did it need to be that many pages?: Ugh, absolutely not. There were times I zoned out during the audiobook, or just got up to pee and stopped listening for a few minutes, and I feel I did not miss anything.

Did it change my mind about the housewife?: Honestly, it made me hate her more, but that could be because listening to Brandi Glanville’s voice for several hours straight is a form of torture used at Guantanamo.

Real-ass book rating: 📖/5. This book was awful. It was so terrible. It had no structure, and was just a series of long, unedited, pointless stories, punctuated with bad hashtags.

Junk food book rating: 💎/5. Idk, like if you wanna hear about how Brandi banged an unnamed NBA player in a car in an alley, or how she had to sleep off her wine at some unnamed actor’s house because she couldn’t get her breathalyzer ignition to start in her car after she banged him, I guess the book is like somewhat amusing. But if you’ve ever listened to a middle aged woman complain about her kids’ stepmom for any length of time, you know it’s not worth it.

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brigdh · 7 years

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Extremely late Reading Wednesday

The Burning of Bridget Cleary by Angela Bourke. In 1895 in rural Ireland, a young woman named Bridget Cleary was burned to death by her husband. She had been sick with bronchitis for the previous week, and her family had apparently become convinced that the "real" Bridget had been stolen away by fairies, leaving a sickly changeling in her wake. In fact, the night before her death, her husband was assisted by her father, her aunt, and various cousins of hers to perform a magical ritual/exorcism that verged on torture. But the question of how much any of them really believed in fairies remains open. Was her murder simply domestic violence that used the legends as a cover-up? Was it an unfortunate accident? Something in-between? All of this gains resonance from the fact that the story of Bridget's death hit newspapers at the same time as Parliament was debating Irish Home Rule and Oscar Wilde was undergoing trial for homosexuality. The idea of Irish peasants (not that any of the people involved truly qualified as such... ) blindly following fairy legend to the point of murdering a pretty young woman provided ammunition for all sorts of political goals. This true event makes for an absolutely fabulous story. Unfortunately Bourke is not the person to tell it. She frequently jumps around in time, making it hard to understand the chronological order of events. She positions Michael Kennedy as the protagonist, though God alone knows why – he's one of Bridget's cousins, but wasn't even there on the day she was killed, doesn't give particularly elaborate or compelling testimony in the trial afterward, and has nothing to distinguish him from the rest of the family. She makes the thesis of her book the idea that Bridget was killed out of jealousy, but doesn't even try to show that this jealousy actually existed; she simply treats it as a foregone conclusion. And, I mean, Bridget was better-educated and wealthier than the rest of her family! I am willing to believe this was an important factor in her death! I am totally the choir, and yet Bourke wouldn't preach a single piece of evidence to me. Ugh, I have such mixed feelings about this book. There's a lot of interesting details in it, from the history of fairy legends to the contemporary Romantic tradition of writing poems and collecting folklore, to the case itself, but it's all so muddled and incompetently done. There's a kernel of good here, but it's coated by a lot of poor writing. Marriage by Susan Ferrier. Ferrier – at least according the back of the paperback I read – is considered the "Scottish Jane Austen". And based on this book, I have to agree. We've got romance among the lower gentry, country folk coming to the city (in this case Bath), and, most prominent of all, lots of wry observations about other people's foibles. It's not exactly like Austen (among other things, there's a fairly heavy Christian tone to the narrative, though it never gets so moralizing as to ruin the fun for me), but it's close enough that if you like the one, you'll probably like the other. So, the plot! Juliana is the daughter of an earl and is engaged to a (old, annoying, but rich) Duke. However, she is in love with a handsome soldier boy, Henry, so they elope. Henry is promptly fired from his position and Juliana disinherited by her father for such behavior, so they are forced to go live with Henry's family in rural Scotland. Since they're both shallow, spoiled, dumb young things, this is basically a fate worse than death, especially given Henry's collection of meddling spinster aunts. Juliana may have promised that she was willing to live in a desert to be with Henry, but it turns out that was because she didn't know what a desert is. Eventually Juliana gives birth to twin girls; she and Henry keep one, and the other is given to Henry's childless sister-in-law, a woman who stands out by being the only person with any sense and good-heartedness in the whole book. All of this takes up the first third or so of the book. Afterwards we have a timeskip of sixteen years, allowing the twins to grow up. Juliana has managed to make it back into society, where she is a center of fashion. She's raised "her" twin, Adelaide, to be charming and to value marrying rich above all else – she doesn't want to see her daughter repeating her own mistake! The other twin, Mary, is well-read, charitable, humble, and has all the generic goody-two-shoes traits you might imagine, though she's a little too genuinely nice for me to ever resent her for this. The plot begins when Mary is sent off to Bath to meet her mother and sister for the first time in her life. People fall in love, marriages are made (not necessarily the same as the ones in love), and a multitude of ridiculous secondary characters march in and out of the narrative. My personal favorite was Doctor Redgill, a man so obsessed with food that he considers the only 'good marriage' to be one that comes with a French cook. It was a fun book, but I have to complain about the edition I read (which I picked up for free from a box on the street, so I suppose I can't really grumble too much): Oxford University's "World's Classic" edition from 1986. It's stuffed full of footnotes: do you need what "backgammon" is explained to you? how about the phrase "you shouldn't game" (as in gamble)? And of course it is vitally important that a common phrase like 'it's an ill wind that blows no good' should come with a citation for its earliest appearance in print. On the other hand, an entire paragraph in French doesn't need a translation, silly! Doesn't everyone speak French? The editors are absolutely desperate to find allusions to other pieces of literature; I'm sure not every single time a character is described as "pale" it's a quote from Bryon. I literally can't imagine who these footnotes are intended for, and yet someone spent so much time assembling them, coming up with 4-5 per page. It's... funny? sad? irritating? Well, it's certainly memorable. I enjoyed the book, though I might recommend acquiring a different edition.

(DW post for easier commenting)

#books #book reviews #sarah ferrier #bridget cleary

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bujoloveme · 5 years

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Coroners Inquests in Somerset from old newspaper archives

Weston-super-Mare Pier Suicide, August 1881

The wife of Mr. Richard Nash of Oakhouse Martley, Worcester, committed suicide by jumping off the pier in Weston-Super-Mare. She went for a walk with a friend and while her friend was paying for the pier, Mrs. Nash came to the railings and climbed into the water. The body was recovered later that day.

Suicide Pact of Huntspill near Highbridge, August 1868

Elizabeth Cridge, nearly sixteen years old, and Jane Meaker, nineteen, both stayed out one night. Their beds had not fallen asleep and they were nowhere to be seen, so a party was looking for them, but to no avail. Eventually her bodies were discovered in a cattle herd on the grounds of her employer. Rather romantic, they were held in the arms of each other, both were obviously cold. There are rumors of this immoral attitude, and these had reached the Vicar, Reverend Arundell. Vicar told her boss, Mr. Hawkins, and he quickly talked to them about the gossip. Hawkins told them that if the rumors were true, they would not have ears on Monday. On Sunday night they made a kind of suicide pact and both dipped into the small, but rather deep pond. The question remained, were they healthy when they did it? The verdict was "Felo de Se". The girls were buried within the day between nine and twelve o'clock at night and did not perform any Christian rites, as was usual for suicides. Huntspill is in a gloomy mood at the moment.

Hallatrow Church Suicide, Somerset July 1861

Hallatrow has no church, but High Littleton, so it could be. Miss Collins, the Virgin of the Church, sent two young girls to clean her up before the Sunday service. They went about their business, and meanwhile their fifteen-year-old brother sneaked in and went to the bell tower. After ten or fifteen minutes, a sister found him swinging on a rope. The rope used was also used to ring the bells. He had been so determined that, while the rope was much too long, he threw his legs away from him, otherwise his feet would have touched the ground and he would get into a kind of kneeling position.

Bath, October 1836

Uriah Hales, a worker, fell into a lime kiln on Lower Bristol Road in Bath. He was released from the oven, but his two legs had literally burned down.

Frome Suicide, September 1843

A tragic event took place about a mile from Frome, Somerset. Thomas Moon went with a relative to Vallis Vale, as he then stood on the rocks and dropped. The height of the rock was about one hundred and fifty feet and not surprisingly it was killed as soon as it hit the ground.

Twerton, Bath June 1860 (fatal accident)

In Twerton, there was a terrible accident in which a little girl died. The name of the children is Grissel and their parents live on the side street of the Royal Oak Inn. The children were playing near the road one day as they walked beside a car with a load of wood in it. One of the pieces of wood weighed a few tons more, and for some inexplicable reason, she managed to fall under the wheel, right above her head. The girl died instantly and her brain stuck out of the head of her lifeless body. Her brother had tried to save her, and his foot was squeezed under the wheel.

Weston-Super-Mare, October 1885

Mrs. Emily Kirkbride had employed Emily Mary Nicholas as a domestic worker at Woodhill on Manor Road in Ashcombe. She had been there for over four years, but Mrs. Kirkbride guessed she was pregnant. She had a word with her and told her that she was right in her assumption. Kirkbride then told her mother to go home. Nicholas was disappointed with the news, but was told that she could stay another day. Mrs. Kirkbride left her alone the next day around three o'clock and when she returned at seven o'clock, she saw that the house was locked and not lit. Kirkbride thought she'd been picked up at the train station to stay out for half an hour, but then she heard a moan. The mistress got help immediately and the door was opened. A message has been sent to get her mother or father, and at a good time. As soon as they opened the door to her bedroom, her father appeared to console her. Nicholas had taken some poison and the doctor was able to rescue her, and a few days later she went home. The day after she went home, she gave birth to a child, but she was born dead, and a few hours later Emily Nicholas died. She left a sad letter saying, "I hope the Almighty will forgive me for what I will do and bring me home so I can be with Him. I do not want to live so as not to be a problem for anyone. Goodbye, my dear mother and father, brothers and sister and my dear mistress. I hope to see you again someday. Friends, you all know about it; it will drive me crazy. I hope that the bad misery has to suffer and bear all costs. So goodbye. "Nobody knew who this mysterious person she's written about.

Dowlish Wake February 1881 (Vicars Suicide)

The vicar of Dowlish Wake, Rev. Benjamin Speke, killed himself by drowning. His wife had died the day before, and a few years ago the clergyman was missing. His clothes were found in London, several weeks later he turned up in Cornwall and managed to get a job as a rancher. He was eccentric, to say the least!

Hampton Rocks Skeleton, Bath September 1893

Two boys have made a terrible discovery while exploring a cave. While they were in the Hampton Rocks Cave in Bath, they came upon the remains of a 20/30 year old woman, covered with flat stones and badly decomposed. It was limited to being a skeleton, and had been there for a long time and could only be designated as a woman due to the clothes and hair rest. The boys came in contact with the police, but eventually the County Police took over the investigation.

Nailsea Dynamite Suicide, October 1893

John Roberts was a miner and he lived with his wife in Nailsea and, to say the least, had a stony relationship and was brought to court for their attack. As a miner, he sneaked some sticks of dynamite from his workplace, put a stick in the trash, and lit it while his wife was there, waiting for the thirty-second fuse to end. He went into the yard, then heard a loud explosion (and the people who lived a mile away said they heard it) and his head was blown to atoms.

Keynsham, March 1857 (fatal accident)

A fatal accident occurred at the Hillsbridge Iron Works near Keynsham. A man with the rather Dickensian name, Holiday Bush, who worked as a roller operator at the factory, picked up a wrench when a piece of his clothes got stuck in the machine. Then he dragged him headfirst against the drums and he killed immediately.

Portbury Suicide, May 1830

A young boy, only sixteen years old, drowned in Portbury because his lover had rejected him for inappropriate behavior while her husband was away. The guy tied a huge stone around his neck with his braces and plunged into the water. Because he was believed to have committed suicide, his body was buried at midnight and without religious rites.

River Avon near Bath, March 1904

An investigation was made of the body of a gentleman employee named C.F.Davis of Clevedon, whose body was fished out of the Avon. He left a farewell letter and his hat on the bench, as well as a second note to the coroner: "I have fully realized this act of the terrible eternity that awaits me in the episode, but it is only the fitting end to a life of misery. God help my soul. Tuesday, February 23; 9 am to 3 pm. Moved to six o'clock tomorrow.

The following letter to a friend reads: – "I hereby send you a pair of golden links, the last possession with which I must part. Try to ponder all the friends in Clevedon, kindly, and forgive the hasty deed I'm going to make tonight … Tell everyone who's interested in finding my body as soon as possible. I'm afraid of rats and eels. The only step I still have to take; what else can I do? I've done my best since leaving Clevedon to fight it. The more I think, the worse I am and the more urgent it is for me to clarify as quickly as possible. God forbids that it was always my intention to "make" anyone, but circumstances change the cases. My life was a cursed life. "

His uncle killed himself twenty years ago, and his mother died in an asylum for about a month, and a warrant for his arrest has been issued. Judgment "Suicide while temporarily insane".

Puxton Station near Weston-Super-Mare, September 1904

The express train had just driven through the Puxton Station near Weston-Super-Mare when a layer of slabs noticed something on the tracks. On closer inspection, it turned out to be the decapitated body of a young woman. The remains were identified as those of Katherine Woodford at the age of 24, the daughter of Locking's rector. She had driven around the area and the bicycle was discovered in a field some distance away.

Weston Super Mare Suicide, August 1884

A member of the Volunteer Engineer Corps, a man named Twitt, blew himself out in his bedroom in Weston-Super-Mare. His sick wife was in bed at the time, and his wife was very desperate for his suicide and she is not expected to recover from the shock.

Suicide of Grosvenor Suspension Bridge, Bath, February 1918

An airplane worker, Mabel Holland, 16, jumped from the Grosvenor Suspension Bridge in Bath. She was suspected of dishonesty, but this was unjustified and the girl from Bath decided to end everything. She left a message why she had done it.

"I've almost lost my thoughts with their taunts. The girls who work with me have driven me to it. "

Weston near Bath, July 1900

A mob of 200 to 300 people in the village of Weston near Bath attacked a poor woman. Her husband had died, and shortly afterwards she was convicted of a crime. The unruly crowd seized them, lit them, and pulled them through the streets, which were attached to a rope. Reverend Hayas Robinson, the pastor of the parish, intervened as they "crouched", cutting the rope and freeing the woman. One man was imprisoned for three months and two others were each a few weeks in the clink. Some others were fined £ 2 each.

Glastonbury Church Suicide, February 1840

The suicide of a Mr. Bullhead took place in Glastonbury. He was heavily in debt and owed £ 1700 to a local firm, and it was assumed that he had invested in the Glastonbury Canal, which apparently also lost money. The solution was simple. Mr. Bullhead borrowed the keys to the church tower and told the sexton he wanted to survey the surrounding countryside to see if it had been flooded in the recent violent rainstorms. He made it to the top of the tower and then dropped off.

Lansdown Grove Hotel Suicide, Bath, September 1889

A body of a man was discovered near the Lansdown Grove Hotel in Bath. He was found under an elm and was identified as the inmate of Bailbrook Asylum. His name was Julian Fowler, the son of the vicar of Walton near Clevedon. He had shot himself in the head with the weapon at his side. A few days earlier, Fowler's father allowed his son to take him home. This he did over a little break in Wales. The father sent a postcard to the responsible asylum officer, Dr. Ing. Wetherley, and said that they would come back that day. Fowler and his father arrived from Chepstow, Bath, and he had to travel three miles back to Bailbrook alone. This was the occasion he needed and then committed suicide near the hotel.

Gurney Slade Fatal Explosion, January 1832

Mr. George Gait, a grocer in the village of Gurney Slade, went to his wife. The rest of the family, a total of eight, went to the chapel, with one of the daughters making a fire and throwing the contents of a box into the fire. She thought it was the coal box, but it contained several pounds of gunpowder and the house was torn to pieces. Two of the children were completely killed and three are in critical condition.

Badmord / Suicide, February 1850

Edmund Hunt killed his own life and that of his toddler in Bath. The child's wife and mother were an ordinary shoplifter, and when he came home one night and found out she had been arrested again, he took the child and went down to the River Avon and plunged into the water. He was deeply attached to the child and only thirty-seven years old.

Banwell Drowning, Weston-Super-Mare, January 1884

In Banwell, a few young men named Phillips and Richards had a street brawl. Phillips was dragged away by his friends, and Richards was led by the crowd to a mill pond where he was pushed. In the middle of the pond was a tiny island he stayed on until he said they had a boat. Instead, he took a bath for it, got caught in weeds, and immediately drowned.

Taunton Suicide, October 1868

About seven miles from Taunton in Blackdown Hills, a corpse of a man was found, with his neck slashed. In a ditch, about a mile from the Holman Clavell Inn in Pitminster, the ruined remains were found and nearby were a razor and a knife, both of which were covered in blood. The man's name was Henry Mitchell of Crediton and was a former member of the 16th Rifles, and it was estimated that it had been there for at least a week.

Southstoke Brewery Fatality, Bath, March 1887

Thirty-six-year-old Charles Witchell (# 2), Crossway Cottages, Combe Down, lived with his brother and sister and was missing from his home. He had worked for Southstoke Brewery in Bath for twenty years. Questions were asked about his whereabouts and it was found that he had not worked in the brewery, they thought he had gotten sick and stayed home. As the hours turned into days, the family became worried and wanted. His body was in an empty container in the brewery. He was accidentally found when a worker went to the roof of the building, and he spotted Witchell's hat next to the tub. The vat was empty but contained enough gas to kill a man. It can not be determined whether it is a tragic accident or suicide.

Suicide in Taunton County Gaol, February 1850

County Gaol in Taunton saw the suicide of a juvenile prisoner. 16-year-old W.Hounsell was imprisoned for fleeing the Chard Union. He was obviously so disturbed by his stay with Her Majesty that he threw himself under the wheel of a treadmill on which eighteen men worked. They tried to stop in time, but the guy was badly disheveled and when they got him out, he was already dead.

Monkton Combe Mill Suicide, September 1864

Thomas Watts, a miller, left his house and went to the mill in Monkton Combe. During the morning, someone wanted to talk to him about business matters, but they could not find him and looked around. He was found in the mill, which hung on a beam. In the roof area where it was found, the soil sinks seven feet deep so that the grain can run into the mill. He stood on the edge of the bath and tied a rope around a beam, put it around his neck and jumped off.

Bad self-immolation, August 1863

The wife of William Wallace, a farmer living in Worle, committed suicide in a frightening manner. One morning, Mr. Wallace left the farm to look over fields and cattle, leaving the wife and two children at home. Shortly after leaving, she dressed in a robe, went downstairs, turned on a light, and lit up. As she got out, she went into the garden and died of the terrible burns she suffered. She was called a "weak intellect" and had some weird delusions because her husband moved to a bigger and better farm. Friends told how she used to say that she did not want to leave the farm, and they had to carry her in a coffin.

Fear and Cowardly Saw, Bath, May 1834 (tragic accident)

27-year-old Henry Abrahams oversaw the circular saws of Messrs. Fear and Coward in Bath. When he came into contact with him, he turned to 3600 feet per minute. He first took off one arm, parted the side, tore open the guts, and released them. He was taken to United Hospital but it was hopeless and he died the next day.

Clevedon, July 1899 (woman found on rock)

William Hancock, a boatswain, rowed his boat near Salthouse Mill when he spotted the corpse on the rocks. He went to Clevedon and said Sergeant Fairchild. They found her again, and the only clue to her identity was the "H.W." she wore on her clothes. She was about thirty, blue coat and skirt, blue cap, black silk waistband and children's boots. It seems that the woman had fallen from a nearby, about thirty-meter high cliff on the rocks and was beaten by the waves and rocks around him.

Bad brothel suicide, June 1860

Thomas Bull, a farmer from Basingstoke, who had hung himself up at Monmouth Street 8 in Bath and was known as a loo. He went to Bath to attend the races in Lansdown. Then he met a prostitute named Jeffries. He went to the above address and stayed there for a few days. The brothel's wife told him to go home because he was depressed. He said he would and decided on a kip before he went back and he asked her to wake him up at three o'clock. The door was tightly closed when she wanted to start it up, so she fetched a copper cellar that helped open the door, along with a carpenter. They found Bull hanging on a string at the bedpost. The body was freezing cold and his hands were black, which means he was long dead. He had only one shirt on and no money or papers to prove who he was.

Frome, August 1847

A fatal accident occurred near Frome, who, it seems, was seen in a woman's dream. The wife of a man named Gibbs, who was a carter, dreamed that a car had run over her husband while he was at work killing him. She was absolutely convinced of that, but he gave it away. He had to go to Bath one day and the wife asked him to take her daughter with him. Everything went well until they returned at seven in the evening and came to Ammerdown. The horses got angry and Gibbs tried to jump and stop them. Suddenly the dream came true in all aspects. He was run over by them and lived for several hours, but during the accident, the daughter tried to help and was run over and even killed.

Somerset County Gaol, Taunton, January 1857 (tragic accident)

George Kingdon was a prisoner in County Gaol in Taunton. He was with six others in the drainage work and above them were some men on scaffolding. An iron bar fell down and tried to jump out of the way, instead she landed on his head. He breathed unconsciously and only lasted a few minutes before he died. An autopsy revealed that bone fragments had entered his brain from the skull. The bar had fallen nearly fifty yards, and if he had stayed where he was, the bar would have missed him.

Saltford Drowning, Somerset. September 1906

When Douglas Snell Chamberlain swam at Saltford's Avon on Saturday at the age of nineteen, he suddenly sank and dragged another swimmer, his cousin, Heal. Several people went to their aid and Heal was saved in an exhausted state, but Chamberlain was drowned.

Badmord / Suicide September 6, 1870

Mr. H.C. Hopkins writes in the British Medical Journal about the sad case of Miss Prankard, now in Bath United Hospital, and says she was wounded by two bullets, one of which kicked in front of her ear on either side. Both are now housed in the bones of the upper part of the mouth or in the nostril. To date, it has developed positively, but so far has not tried to remove the balls.

September 19, 1870 – Miss Kate Prankard, one of the victims of the late murderous assault, in which her sister was killed by her father and shot herself in the head, has recovered sufficiently to leave the hospital and live with her Friends It will be remembered that two bullets were placed in her head, above the palate, behind her nose, but the surgeon decided that no surgery was necessary in the hope that they would work out. They were right, because on Wednesday a bullet broke from where it had been embedded and fell into the young lady's mouth.

October 1, 1903 (The request)

The investigation of those killed in a recent Worle accident by a railway engine colliding on a train crossing was completed yesterday afternoon. The evidence showed that just before the accident, Smart, the driver of the car, said he could cross the intersection before the train passed by, and later said he would probably be spending twelve months with him. The jury has delivered a judgment against "Smarty" against Smart and argued that the crossing was not protected by a 70-year signal. Smart was sentenced to legal action, but was granted substantial guarantees for release. (Martha Biddiscombe and Isabel Hannon, both from Ferndale, were killed in the collision in Worle.)

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liambuckleyblog-blog · 6 years

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Week Twelve English: Operation Gender Bend

For this week, our goal is to take our stories... and flip the gender of each character. While this sounds utterly bizarre at first, it is an effective way of trying to avoid the stereotypes that ran rampant in our stories. Well... most of our stories. My game isn’t actually that much different, once it was all said and done. That’s a good thing, though- it just means that my story avoids stereotypes.

Here’s the new version:

Story:

A boy (William), young but with brown eyes that seem ancient, visits a prison with his Legal Systems class. However, he runs away from the prison. The police are after him, but only because he was there when a breakout was in progress. William doesn’t know that- he thinks that they want to take him away, to put her somewhere nobody will ever find him. Alongside paranoia, he has a serious case of Tourette’s syndrome that is most evident whenever he is highly stressed.

His suspicious activity eventually leads to him actually being wanted for obstruction of justice. He keeps running away, not knowing that he is being followed and protected by a woman (Dana) with chunks missing from her hair and eyes that dart around, trying to find a threat so her mind can focus and take them out. She wants to keep him safe so that she can deliver him to the police.

Not far behind is his mother (Jane), a poorly paid female wrestler with an unusual habit of disappearing in the night. In actuality, she is a criminal- she steals from the wealthy part of town to make sure her son eats and can live without people believing he was a poor, futureless waste of space. She knows that he is wanted by the police, and she has abandoned all signs of being ordinary.

William runs on and on, evading police by deftly making his way to the next province over. Dana, meanwhile, is taking out every criminal that comes close to him. His mother tries to act casually as she trails him, ready at a moment’s notice to attempt to distract the police.

Last of all is the Lieutenant (Jamie), who is commanding her officers to follow after the boy. The Lieutenant, a woman of great ambition with few deeds to her name, seeks to discover the cause for his fear of capture and why he ran in the first place. She wants little more than to reform the police department in their city by having the officers focus more on diplomatic action rather than violent apprehension; however, she lacks the status and influence to be listened to.

Generally speaking, the plot is slowly shown through how each character reminisces. The stories are all going at the same time, with the player sticking to one side of the story until they reach its conclusion. The boy reveals his true nature only after he is captured, which happens in the Lieutenant’s story. Hers is locked until the player beats the other three sides.

William focuses on the other times where he had truly been alone like he is during the game; Dana remembers how she used to feel safe until all of the gangs in the city made his life hell, costing her her job, her husband, and almost everything she owned; Jane thinks back on her son’s childhood, remembering all the reasons she wants to protect him.

Jamie, meanwhile, spends all of her time devoted to the case and ushering her officers towards the capture of the boy. She alone remains in the present the whole time, never looking back at the world she had, but instead looking forward to a better future. She truly loves the city she aims to protect, and while it is foolish for her to pursue the boy so far, she is supposed to be an admirable person.

At the end of William’s story, it is revealed that he knew things that didn’t quite match his facade of an innocent fleeing the police for no real reason.

Dana was a planner who had worked alongside the police to organize a drug-bust, and when they didn’t protect her afterwards, she knew that she had to capture the criminal organization’s leader to ever be safe from the gangs of the city.

Jane was never aware of her son’s true nature, and her attempts to reach him and save him from the police end in her being shot by her own son’s organization. Her last words were lost to the wind, but her undying devotion to her son’s safety is certain.

In the end, William was the person who organized the jailbreak in the first place. He had actually led many of the major criminals from the shadows, and when they were caught in a drug-bust a month prior, he had devised a way to get into the prison and set them free without creating suspicion- appear to be visiting for a school trip.

Jamie apprehends him eventually, driving her back to the very prison that he had all but destroyed at the beginning. On the drive back, she talks with him about why he had done so many bad things in his life and asks why he took his bright future into his own hands only to make it crumble worthlessly. He, as she speaks, stabs her in the throat with a sharpened rock and they both die from the car crashing into a tree.

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Character Design- Backstory:

William- He used to have night terrors, violently reacting to things that weren’t there in the night. His mother was long gone, gone before William could open his eyes. Jane, his mother, was never around to reassure him when the terrors came. He didn’t wake up until dawn most of the time; he began to fear being alone as a result. During the day, he was usually reserved and quiet but exceptional at public speaking. He feels alone and abandoned by his mother because she isn’t around when he needs him most. One night, when he was thirteen, he went out to see why his mother wasn’t there. He got lost in the winding streets of the city, ending up terrified and alone. The very last time he reminisces in his story, he remembers the girl who found him and helped him get back home- a criminal named Lilian that the Lieutenant ends up killing in his story. He has one last reminiscence during Jamie’s story- he remembers going out again, just as late at night, to find his savior again. He found her cartel, housed in a parking garage for the night. William looked at the few things they had and saw potential for freedom, for taking the night for himself. He looked at Lilian, who had saved him from the night, and deemed her to be a superior protector when compared to his mother. He told them one simple thing: “This is all you can do without me, so I’ll be taking over from here.” He was sixteen.

Dana- She was an accountant at the local bank, where she ended up finding her husband Daniel. They loved each other desperately, spending all of their free time together. She remembers all the time that she spent with him. The last time she reminisces in her story, she remembers the fateful day where she and Daniel were walking home from work when gangsters grabbed them and took them into a back alley. They held Dana down, beating her into submission, as she was forced to watch other gangsters attempt to take his wedding ring. He keeps resisting, and Dana can only remember the look in his eye as his throat was cut out.

Jane- Jane reminisces on the times she took William into the park, going out to the zoo, and times where they were huddled together during a thunderstorm. The last thing she reminisces on is the day that he came home with an acceptance letter to the college of his dreams; she feels enormous pride for him, as she didn’t have the opportunity to go to college.

Jamie- She doesn’t reminisce during the game, but while she is commanding her officers she references occasions she had been a part of before and lessons she had taken to heart.

Firstly, while ordering a platoon of Support officers for the first time she mentions her father’s advice on life- “A bandage covers a wound, preventing it from spreading- it’s the antibiotic that prevents infection. My old man used to say that we should be the ointment.”

Secondly, while ordering a platoon of Assault officers she occasionally mutters references to a shootout at the local bank- “Don’t rush in. Lieutenant Stevens forgot the value of tactics during the Wilson Bank shootout, and it cost him twenty men.” “Using the big guns is all well and good until your officers shoot thirteen civilians on complete accident. Stevens lost his job and his life for that.” “Hold back until there’s no other option. Then you fire.”

Thirdly, she alludes to a drug bust whenever the Breach officers kill a criminal- “You’d think those little guns couldn’t kill a man. Those rats with the meth found out the hard way that the killing is the least of your worries.” “Easy there, pal. Don’t kill them all. It’s not like back then, with the warehouse and the mounted guns. They’re just men.”

Fourthly, when leading a full platoon with Support. Assault and Breach officers at once, she mutters little bits of advice to herself- “Remember, the Breach guy’s job is to protect the other officers.” “The Assault officer has to stay in position, unless he wants a medic to patch him up.” “Those Support guys are smart and have just as fast of reflexes. Shame they refuse to carry weapons.” “It takes a unit to make it through, and a unit means a variety of skills.” “Just have to work together… just have to. There’s no way to win with the Assault guy dead or with the Breach getting flanked or the Support blocked.” “Can they win? No… they can. They will. They must. I believe in them!” “They’re all grouped up, so that’s good. Now, where to go from here…”

Finally, when directing any unit to follow William she says- “I hope he’s not up to no good. He’s just scared is all, nothing to fear…” “We need to keep track of him. He’s in danger for just as long as he’s around these people.” “Keep going after him. I hope he’s okay.” “Where did he go? Keep going after him, or this will become impossible!” “I don’t know why, but he just keeps running. If he doesn’t stop, he’ll probably get hurt.” If past the mission where they take on Lilian, she says either “Keep going. We need to capture him.” or “Follow him! He has to be punished for his crimes.”

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Character Design- Appearance:

William- He has light blonde hair, brown eyes, and stands at about 5’ 1”. Thin but well-toned. He wears light clothing, T-shirts and jeans. He’s meant to seem ordinary.

Dana- She has smallish green eyes that are constantly open and moving. She has thinning dark-brown hair with small chunks torn from it. She stands at about 5’ 8”. Thin, with the skin on her face slightly hollow-looking. She wears a thin layer of clothing over light body armor (light ballistic vest, knee guards) and always wears a hat. Make her seem paranoid.

Jane- Has darker, almost brownish blonde hair, blue eyes, and stands at about 6’ 4”. Burly woman, with large arms and legs. She wears a T-shirt and work jeans. She is also supposed to look ordinary.

Jamie- Has black hair, gray eyes, and stands at around 5’ 10”. Thin. She wears her uniform whenever she is at work, but wears a T-shirt and sweatpants when off-duty. She is supposed to look formal during work hours but disheveled and tired when off-duty.

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Character Design- Personality:

Boy- Supposed to seem mild and well-tempered, though a little defensive. At the end, when his nature is revealed, he is to maintain this appearance until the moment he stabs the Lieutenant in the neck, where he looks deranged. When he knocks out an officer, he acts with certainty and conviction- another way of making sure the player wonders who he is and how he knows to use those weapons those ways.

Dana- Supposed to be a bit twitchy during normal conversation and interaction but completely calm during combat. When the alarm starts to go off, her aim steadies.

Jane- Supposed to seem like a gruff, well-to-do woman of means with a secret to hide. She has to seem fond of her son for the plot to work at all, so this must be emphasized!

Jamie- Supposed to seem very composed, like she has everything planned out. Despite her role as the main strategist for the police department, she doesn’t put nearly as much thought into her off-duty life. When off-duty, she doesn’t react quickly and isn’t very social.

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Now for gameplay-

William’s campaign is a stealth-action game, where he has to sneak past the officers that are trying to apprehend him. He is slower than them, and thus uses whatever he can find to non-lethally take them down. The player wins each mission once he reaches an objective on the map, but loses upon capture.

Dana, meanwhile, acts as a sniper. Her campaign revolves around locating the gang members following the boy from a distance and attempting to neutralize the enemy. There is a stealth element in the form of alarms if the criminals find any of their number dead. Hence, the player can use either a tranquilizer gun (only neutralizes the enemy for five minutes but doesn’t alarm anybody) or an actual sniper rifle (kills enemies, neutralizing permanently but making them a hazard if they get spotted). The alarm makes the mission timed- you only have so long until they notice the player, and if the enemy isn’t dead by the end of the timer, the player loses. The player wins if all enemies are neutralized.

Jane drives around, attempting to draw attention away from her son by making a show of beating down the police. Her campaign is all about locating the police. If the encounter is in a car, the player has to either destroy their vehicles or just get their attention and keep it for two minutes. If the encounter is on foot, the player has to shoot and kill every police officer in the level. Obviously, if the mother dies, she loses.

Jamie’s campaign is an RTS, where the officers have to intercept the boy while fighting back the gang members that seem to be following her too. Each officer belongs to one of three groups- Support, Assault, or Breach. Support officers help by healing the other officers, keeping them alive. Assault officers have powerful weapons with high accuracy, but their armor isn’t the greatest. Breaching officers excel in breaking through enemy blockades- they have exceptional armor, but their weapons have to be light so that they can still move. Defeating all of the gang members in the level is not enough to win- the player must ensure that they have eyes on the boy at all times. The Lieutenant fails missions once 1. All of her officers are killed or 2. The boy has escaped and been unseen for three full minutes.

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