bakerstreet | Only true love's kiss can break the curse

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[meme] shipping

Only true love's kiss can break the curse

love will break the curse meme

You're cursed. Whether it's metaphorical, a destroyed life that has brought you to bitterness, or quite literal, there seems to be no escape. Keyword, of course, is seems. There actually is a way to break it, and as cliche as it sounds, it's simple: true love. You must be loved selflessly and love selflessly in return. This could shatter the hold on you or cure the darkness of your heart.

Yet just when you'd given up, someone comes into your life and turns it upside down. Though things may be rocky at first, you realize soon enough that there's something there that wasn't there before. Your walls begin to come down and your heart begins to soften.

Still, is this wise? Do they really love you the way you love them, or will you get hurt once again? Will their affection be enough to break the curse...and can you let them go once you've found them?

Comment with your character, canon, preferences, and desired role. Magic and curses need not actually be involved.
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[ cursed with the ability to turn into a deadly monster. I would love to do some sort of fantasy/historical AU for this, but I'm down for just about anything - feel free to comment or dm to plot! please note I'll be slow with tags due to work. ]

[I feel like Betty kinda fits the beauty & the beast type theme, but I also have a Natasha if either of them interests you?]

[ I would love a Betty! I don't see her around enough. Would you want to do an AU, or stick to something more canon? We could go with literal Beauty & the Beast where Bruce lives in a decrepit old castle or do something different! ]

[Beauty and the Beast AU sounds like fun to me! Would you like to start something, or shall I?]

[ Excellent! If you could start, that would be great! I may be a bit slow replying, I hope that's okay. ]

Elizabeth Ross, Betty to her friends, had always been an independent sort of woman. More interested in books, and science, and inventions than in snaring herself an eligible bachelor. She was also very stubborn, so the more people urged her to settle down, the more she wanted to explore, travel, discover new things, meet new people. If that meant she would be a spinster for the rest of her life, well. Winter was coming, and without people like her to reinvent the spinning wheel--to spin the thread that would be woven into the fabric out of which people's clothes were made--it was going to be a cold one.

So when her father, an upstanding member of the city watch, returned from his patrols one morning raving about the monster in the castle on the hill, and warning his wayward daughter never to venture too near, that was exactly what she did. She wasn't afraid of monsters, or mad scientists. She didn't believe the rumors people spread about the reclusive lord of the castle. She was only thinking of the resources that were going to waste up there on the unkempt grounds, and the wealth of research material it might house inside.

She was not at all prepared for what she found.

The thing about curses was that they're generally the fault of the person receiving them. It was rare for a witch to come along and curse you because you're a kind, morally upstanding person. Bruce's theory (and he'd had time enough to mull it over, so he was fairly confident about it) was that curses were powered by negative actions: theft, selfishness, acts of pride. So it was with his curse, after all.

All he'd wanted was knowledge. In his ambition, he'd become greedy, and so had invited the wrath of a passing woman who seemed to be little more than a waif. His desire to learn all he could led to the loss of his own humanity, and for that she cursed him. Now his days were full of pain, and anger, and regret.

So by the time Elizabeth Ross wandered into his forgotten home, there was little humanity left in him. At the sound of branches breaking underfoot his monstrous side took over, and within moments his cursed self was crashing through the brush, searching for his latest unwelcome visitor.

He was expecting those watchmen again, men with guns and cruelty in their teeth, but what he saw made him slow down, his monster's eyes narrowing in curiosity and confusion.

A woman? Here?

Betty had a thirst for knowledge, too, though she believed that she was trying to make the world a better place. She was still technically trespassing, or at the very least an uninvited guest, so perhaps she deserved the fright she was about to get.

She heard the crashing, and froze in her tracks, her eyes frantically scanning the treeline. She wasn't certain who or what she was looking for, but by the sound of it, it was obviously very large. Probably dangerous. Knowing a bit about how to behave in the presence of large predators, she hoped that if she kept still for a moment, it might lose interest and pass her by. She had no idea that the creature in question was in fact the master of the house, with whom she sought an audience.

He saw her freeze, but he didn't slow down. If anything, it only fuelled the rage inside his chest. He burst through the treeline with a roar, arms spread wide in a show of of force and defiance; birds scattered from the trees, chirping chaotically, and in their wake they left a silence broken only by the heavy sound of his breathing.

He was truly a monster: huge, with grey-green skin and bared teeth, tattered pieces of clothing hanging off of him like rags. When he stepped towards her his feet left deep imprints in the damp earth, and his expression seemed more akin to an animal than a human.

She was small, this woman, but despite her fear he could see that her eyes were bright with intelligence. Not that it mattered; she was on his land now, and that meant she was at his mercy.

Edited 2018-08-19 15:31 (UTC)

Betty drew a sharp intake of breath at the sight of his ogre-like form tearing throughthe woods. His roaring voice and thunderous footsteps shook her to the core, rattling her teeth, and making her heart beat wildly against her ribcage. Had it not been secure inside her body, she felt it might have followed the birds in their flight. But she did not scream. She did not run.

She took a breath to calm herself as she looked the creature up and down. Now that the initial shock had passed, she noted that he seemed to have been dressed--at one time--in a man's clothing, but the tattered garments appeared to have burst at the seams like a wineskin, shredded by his enormous breadth and girth. Looking into his eyes, she could see a feral sort of intellect, like a wild animal whose territory had been threatened. His posture reminded her of her father, when he was drilling new recruits for the city watch. A show of dominance and strength.

Stubbornly, she lifted her chin, even as she raised her hand with her palms open in submission. "My name is Betty," she said, keeping her voice as soft and steady as she could manage with her heart still pounding in her ears. She wasn’t certain he would understand her but the only way to find out was through trial end error. "I come in peace."

[ why you gotta personally call me out like this tho

ANYWAY. it's snow white! you know the story, you know the happily ever after. except my favorite thing to do is throw a wrench in the works by either a. having her "true love" be as far from a prince as possible or b. making her happily ever after incredibly different yet still content in an unusual fashion. or both!

if you like fairy tales retellings and fantasy (AUs), slide on over here.

prefs ]

[Can be either cursed (wouldn’t be too big an AU stretch from her life) or the curse breaker.]

Edited 2018-08-14 19:26 (UTC)

[ can be either role. ]

[ Tags will be slow! Pre-boot Jason. But imagine this: Jason, Beauty and the Beast style. Transformed into a monster (either literally or metaphorically) and corrupted by his dip in the Lazarus Pit. ]