#anna au

[gildedworld]

[rare-ships-hardy-murphy]

RESULT OF THE GIVE AWAY for@imaginativecrime who requested a The Man from U.N.C.L.E AU. Here's an aesthetic. We didn't stick a lot to the movie except for the "CIA agent & KGB agent have a romance" part. (lol)

There's a little plot to go with it. Beware of extreme crossover AU, suits, embedded betrayals, manipulation, closeted characters and espionage stuff.

This is set during the Cold War, in 1980.

Leonard (Lenny) Miller is a CIA agent sent to a European country to approach the target, some boss of a big company, under the false identity of a business man. He has to help the target to go West, and hence cut one of the supply lines of the USSR.

Leo Demidov is a KGB agent also sent to Europe, pretending to be an interpret, to kill the same target to avoid his defection, and to make sure the company stays under the control of the USSR.

The thing is that the two agents have met years before during a mission, and didn't expect to find each other again, fact that compromises their mission. They tell their hierarchy. Their orders change : Lenny has to convince Leo to defect and switch sides, in order to have a double agent, and Leo has to pretend that he wants to go West too, and become an undercover agent inside the intelligence service of the United States. Also, to kill the target and pretend that others sovietic agents did it and are after them.

They get closer, first as opponents fighting over the same target then, as Leo begins his approach, as agents playing a double game : Lenny has to extract the target, ensure that the defection of Leo is real and, if that's not the case, use him to give false informations to the enemy. Leo has to get Lenny to trust him, infiltrate the American side and get rid of the target if possible without getting compromised.

They get to know each other (kinda since they are both lying), and to see the other one as more than a plain enemy, a worthy opponent or a mean to an end. At the contact of each other their respective manichean vision of the world shatters, and they eventually question their respective side and ideology. Both men of convictions, they discover other ways to think and to put things into perspective. Their trust builds on real elements just as on made-up ones, made to manipulate each other. They end up falling in love, both feeling it deeply but deciding to use it at their advantage in order to achieve their mission.

Eventually, as they collect more informations and the situation changes, Leo leads Lenny into a trap, using one of their rare moments of sincerity, and the American is captured by the KGB. Lenny hits rock bottom as he is "interrogated" by the soviet agents, his target killed and his love interest an actual enemy. Meanwhile, Leo regrets obeying the orders of his chain of command and realizes he should have told Lenny, but his organization has a lot of ways to ensure his loyalty, beginning by his adoptive parents (Child 44 the book, by Tom Robb-Smith, way better than the movie and full of details and subplot lines, everyone) and can easily get him killed if he betrays them. What he does.

But can he help Lenny to survive and escape? Will Lenny trust him again? Can they get away together from the USSR without getting killed or worse? And even if they do, can they have a future together?

Feel free to imagine whatever end suits you most.

(and yeah the quote is from peaky blinders)

[beforethexstorm-archived-blog]

“Why are you telling me that you’re going to get killed…? You’ve been dead for two years.” -Death (you can select which muse you prefer, i have difficulty making decisions)

“What?” Anna blurted, her voice breaking as she looked around her. The kids playing in the garden while her husband watched the from the veranda. Why did he look so old? And so sad? She had a horrible feeling of déjà-vu — maybe because she could but live this scene over and over — but she could not put her finger on it. “What are you talking about?” she roared furiously to the stranger standing next to her. “No, no, no, no! I’m not dead! I can’t be!”

[therewas-a-girl]

ok so I may have a canarrow au where sara comes back in season 1 while laurel/tommy are still together. She reconciles w Laurel (but doesn't tell her about the league) and stays w her so when it's tommy's bday party and Oliver shows up alone (b/c mckenna got called on the job idk) he has the shock of his life. and it's awkward but also they are both so relieved the other is alive. And then all hell breaks loose b/c sara is actually here on a mission to hunt down merlyn (i.e. her s3 mission)

and merlyn's minions are actually after oliver but Sara just steps in front of him and starts speaking fluent Arabic??? and then she pretty much turns into a ninja. Oliver joins in because the day where he doesn't have sara's back has not yet arrived and it never will. She's the woman in black - that much is clear. They kinda snark at each other during the fight. And holly shit it's fun. Then oliver wants to be noble and sara goes "whatever being Waller's minion taught you, I know better so get my sister and your brother out of here and let me handle them" and that's how laurel and tommy both find out who they really are. Sara tells tommy how much of a shady motherfucker his donor really is.

HIS DONOR LMFAO

I KNOW BETTER, SO ... could be Sara’s entry and exit line out of everything. 

this also solves a lot of grief in the merlance thing. laurel and tommy keep going steady, tommy never gets insecure about her and oliver because oliver will be with sara. they all work out their issues, and maybe its slow and painful but hey - as it goes, everything is in place for ALL of them to live - because as it is sara will probably kill merlyn before the undertaking even happens. 

so there. everything turns out better. outstanding. 

[gildedworld]

Rhiannon, Part 2

Rosaria went through the motions of daily life - she woke up, went to her classes, studied with Alex and her friends and then came back. She forced herself to smile and engage with the world around her.

Normal.

Desperately, Rosaria hoped to claw onto some semblance of normalcy and stability.

To her, normalcy was conformity in many ways. She had to fit in. She had to make sure no one else suspected that things were not perfect with her.

And lately, things hadn't been. Ever since that night, Rosaria's life had changed forever. She was used to sharing her mind with others as a telepath. But this was beyond that.

There was a person who lived in her consciousness now. She heard her thoughts, felt her anger, experienced her pain. It was as if Rosaria had two bodies - one in the present, and the second, her.

Others in her life called her Rhiannon. They called her a Queen, a tyrant, a warrior, a prisoner. She styled herself as a survivor who kept her promises.

Rosaria desperately avoided being alone. When her mind was occupied, Rhiannon was at bay. She made sure her days were long - she occupied her time in the company of others around her. Rosaria made sure to participate in as many volunteering activities as she could. She studied late into the night with Alex.

To the world around her, Rosaria was a hard working student who desperately wanted to retain her standing as the top student and the Professor's protégé. And a part of that was true. She hated to loose, especially to Alex.

But the truth was that Rosaria was terrified of being alone. Because when she was, it meant her mind could finally pay attention to the woman lurking in her consciousness - watching her every move, questioning her every decision.

One could call her a ghost but Rosaria knew she wasn't one. There was something that drew her to this woman. And as much as Rosaria wanted her to disappear and leave her alone, there was an element of comfort that Rosaria experienced knowing Rhiannon was occupying her consciousness.

At least with her now, those whispers had stopped.

[gildedworld]

Rhiannon Part 1

Rosaria's eyes snapped open as she woke up covered in cold sweat, her heart racing and her fingers in tight fists.

The sheets under her had melted away, turning from satin to ashes. Her comforter had been reduced to cotton balls, scattered across her room like snowflakes.

Taking a slow breaths, her eyes darted across the familiar landscape of her room. Registering this, her heart beat began to slow.

She had no words to describe what she had experienced. It had started out as a regular night, she fell asleep rather reluctantly well past midnight. At first, it was the same dream again- whispers and tendrils of shadows reaching out desperately to grab her.

Most nights, they would quiet away eventually and she would find herself asleep for a few hours at the very least. This night, that was not the case.

Rosaria recalled seeing a pathway of some sorts form from the shadows, dimly light. For reasons beyond her, she felt compelled to follow it. From then, it was like she was in a different world.

She was in a prison cell in a body that felt like hers but wasn't. She could see memories of a red-haired woman as a queen in a castle and then in the midst of a battle on her horse. These were memories she did not recognize, but felt familiar all the same.

In the prison cell, Rosaria felt her arms bound by chains and overwhelming pain radiating across her body. She felt light headed, having lost blood and a deep hunger for sustainance. In all her life, Rosaria had never experienced such a thing.

She heard voices from around her in an unfamiliar language and saw rats scurrying away in the darkness from the corners of her eyes. From presumably outside the prison walls, she heard desperate cries and echoes.

In the air, she could smell the dampness of the prison cell and a faint burning and ashes from outside.

'If you exist, let me keep the promise I owe them. Take me later. That is all I ask of you,' Rosaria heard a voice speak in her mind.

Hearing voices in mind, hearing the thoughts of others, sharing her mind with the presence of others - these were not new sensations to her. What was new however was that Rosaria seemed to be in someone else's mind this time, and she had no idea who this was.

'The more you fight it, the worse it will be. Accept your fate. Let it consume you. Do not run from it.'

Rosaria heard another whisper. This voice was familiar, and it caused blood in her veins to curl and her skin to crawl. All of a sudden, she felt heat overcome her body. She felt the sensation of fire over come her like a tidal wave, burning everything in sight, everything it touched.

Before she knew it, her vision blurred and all she saw was a blinding light of white.

'You can not fight what you are.'

Rosaria heard the voice whispering again.

And then, her eyes snapped open - her heart racing, her body covered in cold sweat, her sheets reduced to ashes and her comforter reduced to snowflakes of cotton.

Slowly, she raised her hand. The moment she moved her fingers, she felt as if she was being pierced by a thousand needles. Clenching her jaw, she forced herself to raise her left arm above her head.

In the luminescent light of the moon, Rosaria could see light scars of chains across her wrists fading away rapidly.

Was that a dream, she thought to herself. Or did that really happen, she questioned quietly as her arm dropped onto the surface of the mattress like a rock.

Rosaria clenched her eyes closed as she bit down on her lip, pain raidiating across her body.

And that's when she noticed it - she expected blood to fill her mouth from her lips. Instead, all she tasted was ash.

'Flames of creation, flames of destruction, flames of inspiration,' Rosaria heard the words echo around the room - a hollow, unfamiliar voice.

[gildedworld]

Gamer's Plight part 4

Aaron closed his eyes with his arms crossed behind his head. He wasn't asleep, though passerbys would assume otherwise.

Nothing about Aaron was what met the eye. Outwardly, Aaron was a tall, lanky teenager who frequently skipped classes and was absorbed in his own world. One would be pressed to assume that he had been raised by a coven of witches and assassins in New Orleans.

Though it had been nearly 6 months since joining the institute, Aaron still found it hard to adjust to life there. After all, his childhood hadn't been typical by any means.

Though far from conventional, the adults in Aaron's life had stressed the importance of education. Of course, the education was a tool meant to enable his success as an assistan. At a young age, he was expected to be fluent in all Roman languages. By the age of 13, he was fluent in 16 languages, including French, German, Latin, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Romanian, Czech, Japanese, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Sanskrit, Arabic, and Persian.

He was also expected to be an expert in various topics including world history, chemistry, physics, botany, and biology to name a few. Apart from this, Aaron was taught various self defense techniques and could wield multiple weapons. He was expected to be a master in reading body languages and emotions. The idea was that Aaron needed to be able to adapt to all situations incredibly fast and needed to blend into any environment as soon as possible. Moreover, he needed to be able to control the environment and the situation at all times.

To put it simply, Aaron was bored at the Academy. None of the classes remotely interested him. He often knew far more than his instructors. It was amusing to provoke them at first but he quickly grew wary of that too. And he despised reading.

He also was rather apathetic towards the other students on the whole. Aaron found them to be quite forgetable. There were a few exceptions like Alex and Zahara. But on the whole, the students at the Academy were unimpressive to say the least.

When at the Academy, Aaron spent his days on the roof of one of the building. It was a quiet spot and one that was rarely visited. Hidden from plain sight, it also served as a great vantage point. He could observe the entirety of the academy from the roof.

He had always enjoyed watching from the sidelines, quietly observing people go about their day to day life in complete oblivion. It always amused Aaron to observe how careless people actually were. It amused him really.

Of late, his hobbies also included a mobile game called Settlers.

Aaron found most games incredibly boring, but what drew his attention to this game was a particular player, midnightsun82. He had easily conquered most quests and leveled up quite fast since he had started playing. After all, he was a bit of a subject matter expert on assassins and magic. The entirety of the game was essentially completing quests involving magic and escaping or overpowering assassins.

In doing so, he seemingly earned the wrath of midnightsun82. Midnightsun82 had started to send him odd messages accusing him of cheating and 'defying the sanctity of the game'. The accusation was that no one leveled up that fast in such a short perood of time. Prior to his joining, midnightsun82 dominated the game.

While he was initially ignoring midnightsun82, he had started to enjoy receiving them of late. The more he completed quests, the more passive aggressive the messages became. Aaron knew that he was getting under their skin, and he found this amusing.

Over the last few weeks, Aaron had made another surprising discovery. Through his observations, he identified that midnightsun82 was a student at the Academy - Marianne.

Aaron knew of Marianne prior to this, but only in passing. Unlike Rosaria or Zahara, Marianne was quiet. She wore dull, unremarkable clothes and was always in the middle of the class in terms of performance. She was not athletic either. In other words, she was entirely unremarkable. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Marianne was that she was in the orbit of Zahara and Rosaria, who were objectively popular and had no problems drawing attention to themselves.

But it was this quality that caught Aaron's attention in the first place. He wasn't sure if she was actively trying to blend into the background like him, but he was intrigued nonetheless.

Through his observations, Aaron had caught Marianne skipping class. Curious, he followed her to one of the gardens on the Academy grounds. Following that, Aaron observed that anytime Marianne skipped classes and was on her phone, he would receive messages from midnightsun82.

Out of curiosity, Aaron messaged midnightsun82 once during one of their classes. Aaron purposely chose to sit behind Marianne and observed her expression change from neutrality to irritation upon glancing at her phone. But most of all, he heard the slight vibration of her phone receiving the notification against the wooden desk.

Since then, Aaron made it a point to complete more quests. Specifically those that he knew she would be interested in. He knew it would annoy her and would result in a passive aggressive message from midnightsun82. Normally, Marianne was quie, aloof, and introverted. So to see midnightsun82 so riled up about something amused Aaron greately.

[gildedworld]

Gamers Plight, part 3

Rosaria stared blankly at Marianne, listening to her outline her strategy for identifying the identity of magicards through Rose's telepathy.

Rosaria knew Marianne liked online games but she was having a hard time following friend at this moment. She had no idea why Marianne was so bothered by this user.

"So what do you think," Marianne asked, her eyes flashing with excitement as she grinned at Rosaria.

Rosaria couldn't help but roll her eyes at Marianne as she returned to her notebook. "No," she answered flatly.

"What, why?" Marianne asked, her eyes widening s little in shock. "Come on Rose," she begged, trying to convince her friend. "Don't you think its creepy that they messaged me that I wasn't in class," she asked.

"Were you in class," Rosaria asked, her eyes fixed on her notebook as she sketched the outline of Alex's face.

"That's not the point, " Marianne dismissed, scoffing a little.

"That's exactly the point," Rosaria retorted, her attention still on the pages of the notebook, resulting in Marianne rolling her eyes lightly.

"Don't you see what this means, " Marianne asked. "They must be a student here," she explained, using her hands to emphasize her point.

Rosaria nodded lightly, following along as she sketched Alex's hair. "Absolutely not then," she dismissed.

Marianne groaned audioably, earning the attention of the other students in the classroom who looked over curiously, attempting to decipher what was going on.

"Why not," Marianne whined. Marianne did not understand why Rosaria wouldn't help her with this. Rosaria had no issues using her telepathy. In fact, she almost exclusively communicated with Alex through her telepathy. So why wouldn't she help her?

"Because I would be invading someone's privacy," Rosaria pointed out. "I can't just use telepathy and read people's minds whenever I want," she added, adding more strokes to define Alex's hair.

"It's not like they would know," Marianne pointed out, scoffing a little. While a part of her understood, Marianne still did not fully support Rosaria's reasoning.

"I would know," Rosaria retorted calmly. "Besides, them not knowing makes it worse," she added.

Marianne groaned once more before leaning back into her seat and slouching against the chair, her arms wrapped around her waist. Marianne's once enthusiastic expression now had turned sour as she frowned.

From the corner of her eyes, Rosaria observed Marianne's reaction. It wasn't that she did not want to help her. Since learning that she was a telepath, the Professor had instilled specific teachings in Rosaria. Wt it's core, Rosaria had the ability to enter people's minds, read their inner most thoughts, expose their deepest secrets and desires.

Over the years the Professor had taught her the weight of responsibility she bore in not abusing her abilities at the expense of others. After all, unlike the other mutant abilities, hers by nature was invasive.

"But there may be other ways to find their identity," Rosaria thought aloud. As she did, Marianne's eyes lit up as she quickly turned around to face Rosaria.

"What we need is a trap," Rosaria continued, as Marianne nodded along.

"But first, we need to narrow down our target population," Marianne spoke. "We obviously can not monitor the entire academy, nor can we design the trap to entice everyone either. It won't be effective," she added.

"That's a good idea," Rosaria agreed, nodding a little.

"Since they messaged you about skipping class, it is safe to assume that they are in our year and also take one of your electives, " Rosaria added. "We can start from there," she offered.

Marianne nodded a little as she reached for a pen and her notebook. Flipping it open, she began to scribble down names of fellow students by her electives. This was a good start, she thought to herself. Soon enough, the identity of magicards would be exposed.