by

waking up w less than 5 hours sleep:

stage one: this is not bad
stage two: what a refreshing morning, i feel a little tired but otherwise quite peachy. why am i not living life like this every day? why am i not taking advantage of every hour available to me and wasting precious amounts of it on meagre sleep?
stage three: feeling a bit nauseous now
stage four: i’m not really sure why i’m crying
stage five: who the hell enjoys being awake? why has god forsaken me and cast me out into to this blighted land of the woken? when will i return to my slumber dungeon and-

marcuskaen:

Here’s to another great season

by

If TMFU got a Netflix show…

blueincandescence:

Season 1 (Sept. 1963 – Sept. 1964)

  • Arc 1: The trio discovers THRUSH. The team operates on a clandestine scale. They have a small office on Victoria St. and some SIS, CIA, and KGB connections, but they’re mostly reliant on each other. Episodic mission-of-the-week format.
  • Arc 2: UNCLE is established. The discovery of the THRUSH conspiracy puts UNCLE at the top of a lot of spy agency lists around the world. They begin to receive more funding and, finally, earn a permanent support structure. Previous missions all thread together to one big bad.
  • Themes: Genesis. Personal themes of new beginnings, establishing trust, found families, etc. Political themes of the legacy of war/ideology and trying to create a future when the past is so hauntingly present.

Season 2 (Sept. 1964 – Sept. 1965)

  • Arc 1: THRUSH exposes UNCLE. UNCLE opens its headquarters next to the UN in NYC. The trio works less often together, as there are a ton of new agents. THRUSH learns their identities and actively tries to assassinate them.
  • Arc 2: UNCLE exposes THRUSH. Not viable undercover, the trio are tasked with infiltrating THRUSH in ways that cost them: Solo is blackmailed, Illya is captured, and Gaby is a double agent.
  • Themes: Sacrifice. How much are the trio willing to give of themselves to see UNCLE’s mission through? How will their personal relationships hold up to stress and suspicion?

Season 3 (Sept. 1965 — Sept. 1966)

  • Arc 1: THRUSH goes doomsday. Outed, THRUSH extremists start taking huge risks to force World War III and take the world back for the elites. UNCLE is there to stop them at every turn.
  • Arc 2: UNCLE at peak influence. Having stopped THRUSH, UNCLE is now the intelligence agency du jour. The international arbitrators between intelligence factions, they can do some good in the world.
  • Themes: Power. Deep dive into THRUSH ideology, which is Naziesque but even more rooted in hierarchy and elitism. Confronted by UNCLE’s populism and antinationalism, the villains this season are philosophical.

Season 4 (Sept. 1966 — Sept. 1967)

  • Arc 1: UNCLE sells out. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. UNCLE starts getting involved in some shady things, leaving the trio wanting out of the business.
  • Arc 2: THRUSH resurges. The trio return to UNCLE and the intelligence business to take out THRUSH sleeper cells, but nothing is as it was and they are essentially marooned from each other.
  • Themes: Doubt. The trio has given a lot for the mission, and now the mission is failing them. Solo is choking under his contract, Illya is tempted by prestige from the KGB, and Gaby is developing radical political views. The last few years seem like a dream.

Season 5: (Sept. 1967 — Sept. 1968)

  • Arc 1: THRUSH corrupts UNCLE. Like HYDRA, THRUSH is found at the heart of UNCLE — and Waverly is accused of treason against the Crown and UN war crimes. The trio reform from their respective agencies to clear his name and find the real mastermind behind UNCLE’s closing.
  • Arc 2: The trio saves UNCLE. The trio work themselves into semi-retirement to establish UNCLE as an informal network of spies who swear to put the safety of the world above petty politics.
  • Themes: Legacy. Even though UNCLE cannot exist given the politics of the day, the dream of UNCLE lives on thanks to the many intelligence agents it inspired. The trio, free of their obligations, come to terms with how much UNCLE changed them and how much they changed each other through their lasting friendship. 

(If anything above sparks an idea for fic writers/graphic makers FEEL FREE! Just credit me like some who submitted a prompt, so I can find it.)

blueincandescence:

The Red Peril — i am the pain in my mind and the despair in my heart // k.s.

[insp.]

by

Rescue and Adoption

magic-and-moonlit-wings:

magic-and-moonlit-wings:

In the heart of the fairy mound, there were two identical
cradles, each with an identical infant inside.

“One of these babies is the one you bore,” said a fairy.
“The other is the changeling we left. You may leave our hall with whichever
child you claim as your own. Choose wisely.”

“But they are both
my children,” the human mother protested indignantly.

The fairies whispered amongst themselves in surprise and
confusion. At last, one asked, “How do you mean?”

“I came to get back the child you stole from me, the one who
is mine by blood. I never agreed to give my adopted child back to you.”

Perhaps her words touched the fairies’ hearts; or perhaps
her stubbornness impressed them; or perhaps they simply found the argument
amusing, novel enough to merit a reward.

She left the fairy mound, an infant in each arm, and brought
them home.

I HAVE SURPASSED 5000 NOTES ON THIS STORY! 

And yes, to the many, many people who’ve tagged this with ‘The Darkest Part of the Forest’ by Holly Black – I am now in progress reading that book. 

Anyway, in honour of this milestone, here are a few things about this story that got left on the cutting room floor: 

  • Committing to whether this was vaguely-medieval times or modern times; I couldn’t pick so I left that whole thing out by not describing the human culture. 
  • Committing to what sex the baby and changeling are, since it wasn’t relevant to the narrative. 
  • I tried to make it ambiguous if it was the mother or father that came after the baby, or a gender non-specified parent, but went with ‘mother’ because her giving birth made it simpler to set up the language for the riddle/challenge. 

  • Other challenges, like getting into the mound in the first place and other riddles set by the fairies before she even got to the crib challenge; I decided it would be more dramatic (and leave more scope for expanding later if I ever got around to it) to cut it down to just this one scene.

  • The mother is wearing an iron ring. One of the fairies was going to notice, on the way out, that she picked up the human baby with her ringed hand and the changeling baby with her ringless hand, implying she knew all along which baby was which and just refused to ‘pick’ a child on principle. 
  • Once they got home, she was going to find her wife rallying their neighbours to storm the mound, because the changeling baby literally vanished from her arms (as opposed to the first kidnapping, a swap during the night while parents and babies slept) when ‘summoned’ back to the mound for the crib test – to hell with fairy tales’ Rule Of Three, she was not just going to sit there and wait for a third kidnapping to happen. 
  • Continuation of the narrative, with the babies raised as twins and maybe it turns out the human one has some sort of mystical destiny but the fairy one doesn’t, and they end up exploiting their history and connection for some kind of prophecy loophole, but I didn’t really have a cohesive plan there.