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stoat-party · 1 month

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Evaluating Which Details Pose Continuity Issues (yeah, it’s long, sorry)

I’m being relentlessly annoyed by (some) people mad at the show and by (some) people mad at people mad at the show, so let’s clear up where the issues are and aren’t so we’re not just talking over each other here.

Destroying the Strip

Obviously not a retcon. Retcons refer to previously-established events. Some people might have their own problems with it (I definitely saw it cited as evidence of a coordinated attack on New Vegas), but it presents no continuity problems.

2. What exactly is a vial?

I don’t think this changed ghoul lore. They can still go 200+ years without turning, or they can start turning as soon as they get ghoulified. There’s just a new plot element where they can stave off the effects of going feral for awhile if they take this mysterious drug - without the drug, the rules are still the same. The story was NOT clear on this, and it confused me, but if ghouls need drugs to stay sane, Oswald, Dean, Billy, etc. could not exist even if there’s a massive industry in vials of goop that’s never been mentioned before.

3. It took Vault-Tec decades to build all the vaults.

This is something I worried about because there couldn’t have been much time between the boardroom scene and the bombs falling (Janey doesn't age). But I think it makes sense if you assume the vaults were already built and they filled them with experiments afterward. It does leave the problem that some vaults were unfinished but Vault-Tec also dropped the bombs - why would they do that before finishing their vaults? It’s possible that they planned to drop them but got beat to the punch, or any number of other explanations. Clear retcon but not a huge plot hole.

4. House is worse than Caesar all of a sudden?

This one’s a private gripe of mine because House and Sinclair were not originally written to be Actual Sadists Who Hate Humanity. There’s also House’s mastermind prepper attitude toward the apocalypse, which doesn’t indicate that he had a hand in orchestrating it. While the change doesn’t conflict with the text as far as I know, it really changes the flavor of the game, but not as much as:

5. The Fall of Shady Sands

Let’s say that this happened after the first battle of Hoover Dam, so no continuity issues with their ability to win that. (That’s probably why they set it in 2277, so the NCR would have almost four years to recover before NV. As if Caesar wouldn’t have taken half of their land by then, even with his armies crushed, but ok fine he’s going through a divorce, he’s busy right now.)

But are you telling me that a country can lose a massive city containing much of its infrastructure, most of its central government, and ~5% of its population and still be trying to manifest destiny four years later with no mention of it?

Losing the Divide as a travel route almost crippled the NCR in the Mojave for awhile. Now, not only have they lost the Divide and their capital city, but one of their other biggest cities, the Boneyard, is abandoned and inhabited by an apparently-unaffiliated town. (Yeah, Los Angeles is big, but we don’t see any NCR or Followers despite three main characters traveling through it.) Even if there were still people there during New Vegas, how is the NCR still conducting a campaign in the east?

Also, who is Muldover and what’s her position? Why does she have raiders at her disposal? Is that really supposed to be what remains of the government? I get that some of this will be resolved later, but short of complete societal collapse, there’s no explanation.

We don’t see any of this in New Vegas. The president (who was in office in 2277) is still alive. No one mentions losing family in the explosion. Caesar, Ulysses, and House, along with the many other characters who complain about the NCR’s weakness and instability, don’t bring it up. People even mention the politicians in Shady Sands specifically. PEOPLE ARE MAKING JOKES ABOUT WANTING A NUCLEAR WINTER-

Now there’s a saving interpretation going around that “the fall of Shady Sands - 2277” refers to a metaphorical fall, and the explosion was later. I’ll accept this if I have to, but don’t pretend it’s not a strained reading. Every entry on the board is dated. Why would you date an amorphous event and not date the city exploding?

The explosion was nineteen years ago, and it had to be that early because Lucy and Norm don’t remember living there. (Not clear how old they are but probably in their early-mid 20’s.) The earliest you could place the event without it making no sense is late 2282, because with the time skips in DLC, the events of New Vegas are about a year long. Maybe you could put a gap between Lucy returning to the vault and the actual destruction, but not a five-year one. And if it was in 2282, Max would still be a teenager.

There are legitimate concerns here. Between House and the NCR, the show changes a lot about the main conflict of New Vegas. It’s not just side details.

Not telling you how to feel! Just don’t pretend nothing poses any problems and people are crazy for being concerned. I think the vibe right now is to dismiss me as a hater, but I hope you can see I’ve tried to make it all work. Continuity is really important in a multi-decade story, especially to writers.

I will be appeased by a respectful and thought-out New Vegas remake that preserves as much of the original continuity as possible and is also really good and costs $4. Thanks in advance Bethesda.

Edit:

6. Tatoes in the vaults

TATOES IN THE VAULTSSSS? THIS IS MASSIVE DISRESPECT TO THE LORE. EVERYTHING WE KNOW IS DESTROYED. UNFORGIVABLE.

(but yeah there shouldn’t be tatoes in a vault that hasn’t opened)(maybe norm and lucy had seeds in their pockets when they came back, sure)

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mugentakeda · 2 months

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just wanted to let you know i am Eating your dai li lu ten au. long feng doesn’t know how to be Normal towards his new subordinate because everyone in the dai li, including himself, grew up being indoctrinated and turned into human weapons in an incredibly toxic and soul crushing environment (bc i don’t think the dai li only started being Like That after long feng gained control, and i think it’s canon they start training at 13?)…just like the FN royal family grew up being indoctrinated and turned into human weapons in an incredibly toxic and soul crushing environment, so for lu ten there are a surprising amount of uncomfortable similarities…This Is Fine

LITERALLY THISSSS and lu ten is like. his shiny new subordinate. but in order to keep a sharp eye on him obviously lu ten operates as long fengs personal agent. but it develops beyond "I have to have him near me to keep an eye on him". being long fengs Only personal agent makes the way lu ten is treated compared to the REST of the dai li make sense- high clearance, solo missions that take him outside of ba sing se, his room (cell) being personal (its a room. but its a cell. Its still his room. it has a nice bed and lounging chairs and a tea set and scrolls and whatever the fuck else you have in your room) and deep under lake laogai (away from the sun). harsh punishments that are like 2 shots and a blunt away from torture. but the thing is- and this is where the silco and jinx influence comes in- their dynamic is obviously built on manipulation, but long feng doesn't like... actively manipulate him with words or actions. the regularly scheduled chi blocking and dai li-special brainwashing, yeah, but he doesn't add onto it by feeding lu ten ideas or playing with lu tens mind. its not anything like ozai and azula, or mother gothel and rapunzel. its far more casual and trusting. professional, since it is still a boss and his subordinate, but since lu ten is special, there's a taste of domesticity. long feng doesn't make lu ten bust his ass for the paternal mentor side. its like 'dad and the cat he didn't want'. long feng isn't suspicious of what lu ten does on his solo missions. hed get defensive on lu tens behalf if one of the other dai li heads that do know about lu ten being a fire nation prince would imply that he might betray long feng and ba sing se. he doesn't try to push anything onto lu ten because he doesn't have to- everything long feng wants in lu ten as his agent develops on its own, naturally. hes not cold and calculating when hes punishing lu ten for failing a mission, even if the punishments are crazy harsh. he hands over delicate business that could threaten ba sing se's security to lu ten with relief because long feng trusts him more than he trusts the other powerful dai li heads and politicians that are near long feng's level of power in ba sing se- and not even because lu ten will answer to him anyway, or because he has no reason not to- just because he trusts that lu ten will get the job done right. he trusts lu tens productivity and skill not just as a worker, but just as a person. the pride and care is genuine, and it coexists with the fact that he would definitely use lu ten against the fire nation as a last resort defense if worse came to worst. and yeah, long feng notes their similarities and vows that since lu ten is a special case agent, he will be treated by long feng humanly, and with respect and care. it's almost like a parent vowing to not be like their parents before them, but like. dark sided and evil

#IM LIT SO GLAD U LIKE MY NUTTY AU I could talk about it all day really #id highly suggest watching a video with just scenes of silco and jinx from arcane because I feel like it makes more sense then #but silco and jinx have genuine love with no dark sidedness so for long feng and lu ten it'd be like if silco was actually manipulating jin #its not Stockholm syndrome. but it is. but its not. but it is #but that's like the only difference I'm trying to put down. The trust is real and deep and mutual.#dai li lu ten #asks #alicias writing stuff

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stillwintering · 7 months

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All's Fair in Love and Politics (a modern Nessian AU - where Rhys is running for president)

Summary: A modern AU set in the throes of a political campaign. Rhys is running for president. Feyre asks her estranged sister Nesta to join the campaign team. Nesta couldn't turn down a front-row seat to one of the most compelling political stories of the year: a promising upstart with a dream, running a long-shot campaign for president. Little does she know that she's going to have to work closely with Cassian, one of Rhys' top deputies, who infuriates her to no end.

Of course, Nesta and Cassian fall for each other despite themselves. There is drama and politics and idiots in love.

(Nessian focused but lots of Feysand to keep things interesting.)

Read on AO3 / Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Amren was a ruthless campaign veteran. She ran a tight ship. It was a small but efficient operation, with Azriel and Cassian running point on research and fieldwork, respectively. Amren gave Feyre assignments that played into her strengths. Nesta had observed many failed campaigns where the candidate’s spouse was either sidelined or misused. But Feyre was the center of Rhys's campaign, its very beating heart.

By the end of the first week in her new role, Nesta was exhausted but also exhilarated. She hadn't been excited by a political campaign in a long time.

"We will formally announce by the end of the month," Amren said during their Friday morning team meeting. "We need a final push to up our fundraising. Then we can set up field offices in Iowa as soon as we have enough money available."

They were all cramped into Rhys's office, standing room only. There wasn't quite enough space for all of them to fit comfortably. Nesta felt like Azriel and Cassian took up all the oxygen with their imposing size. Cassian always seemed to hover just a tad too close, encroaching on her personal space. She found it mildly distracting.

Nesta held her laptop open with one arm and typed with her remaining free hand, trying not to bump into Cassian's elbow. "We still need to identify your key policy goals for our first ad campaign," she said. "You will need a strong and clear message to build your communication strategy around. I'm not sure the material you have already will play well in swing states."

Rhys nodded. "I'm needed in the House all of next week. We are voting on the new immigration bill. It will be tight." Rhys flipped through his calendar. "Amren, can you find a time for all of us to sit down and discuss this as soon as possible?"

"What about this weekend?" Nesta pushed.

Feyre shook her head. "There's the Hewn charity gala on Saturday," she said. "And Rhys and I are suppose to be at three different fundraisers in Virginia."

Nesta didn't bother looking up from her computer. "Fine then, I'll put something together first," she paused. "You're going to the Hewn charity gala?"

"We're all going," Azriel said. "Rhys needs to butter up some donors."

"I hate those things," Rhys sighed.

Nesta frowned. "In the future, I would appreciate the fundraising schedule earlier."

"An unintentional oversight," Feyre quickly said. Amren waved her hand in acknowledgment. "Things have been moving so fast that I forgot to tell you. Do you want to come?"

The Hewn family were major political donors. They were always looking for ways to bend policy to suit their family's business interests. Keir, the current patriarch, had been particularly brazen in advancing his political agenda among lawmakers with the promise of money and access. Nesta did not trust any politician too entangled with the Hewn family.

But the Hewn charity gala was one of the premiere events inside the Beltway. Despite their terrible politics, the Hewns were old money and high society. Everyone who was anyone in Washington would be there.

"Wouldn't I need a formal invitation from the Hewn family?" Nesta asked, considering. "Is attending the gala a requirement?"

Amren was typing away on her phone, already moving on to more pressing business. "Campaigning is a 24/7 job, girl. Everything is required," she said without looking up.

"You're in the inner circle now," Cassian turned and gave her an impish grin. "Of course, you are invited."

"I'll call Mor about adding you to the guest list," Feyre nodded. "You should be there. If anything, to keep Cassian out of trouble."

---

Nesta was no stranger to black-tie events. But she felt nervous as she entered the stately gardens of the Hewn Mansion. The reception was already in full swing. The gardens were immaculately designed, with well-manicured trees forming a canopy and steel art installations tucked tastefully between flower beds, full of spring blooms. The cocktail tables were spread across the lawn. The large stone patio in front of the mansion was where the dinner tables were being set. A small string orchestra sat just off to the side of the patio, filling the night air with music. The bejeweled crowd was glittering under the gilded lights.

She saw Azriel first. "Please tell me you know where the bar is," she said as soon as she was close enough.

Azriel, dressed in a beautiful midnight blue dinner jacket, smiled and immediately handed her his champagne flute. "I haven't started yet, but you look like you need it more than me," he said. "Don't worry, Cass is coming back with more drinks."

"Thank you, Azriel." Nesta took the champagne gratefully. She took a deep swig.

He watched her with an amused look. "Just Az," he said. "You look beautiful by the way."

Nesta would have normally bristled at the compliment, but Azriel's words seemed sincere, meant to put her at ease. "You don't look half bad yourself," she returned.

Nesta managed to get her finest gown dry-cleaned on time for the gala. It was made of black silk taffeta with a plunging neckline almost to her navel. She wore her hair in a braided coronet and added a pair of her biggest diamond earrings.

She took another drink. "Where is Amren?"

"Oh, she doesn't come to these things," Azriel replied.

Nesta laughed. "Of course," she shook her head in mock disbelief. "And after she said the campaign never sleeps!”

"To be fair," Azriel chuckled. "Amren would definitely scare off all the donors."

"Why is everyone --"

"Az," a sultry female voice called from behind them. "Are you going to introduce me?"

Azriel turned and grinned. "Mor," he said, a tenderness in how he spoke her name. He paused as if taking in her presence. Mor was drop-dead gorgeous -- golden hair and deep brown eyes -- a rare kind of beauty that was both fierce and graceful.

“This is Nesta, she joined the campaign this week."

"Ah yes, the new communications director." Mor shook Nesta's hand. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to meet you earlier. I've been away in California, lining up donors for Rhys."

"You must be Morrigan Hewn," Nesta said.

"We all call her Mor," Cassian walked up alongside her, passing another champagne flute to Azriel. Cassian was dressed in a simple but exquisite black formal suit -- it accentuated his impressive physique. His hair was carefully groomed and swept away from his face. Nesta had known Cassian -- and Rhys and Az -- to be handsome, but seeing Cassian all dressed up made his rugged features sharper, more dangerous.

"She's in charge of sniffing out where the money is," he teased.

Mor swatted Cassian on his side. "I'm in charge of making sure this little show goes on."

Cassian laughed. He threw an arm over her shoulders. "I'm glad to have you back in town," he said fondly. "I don't think I can do one of these stuffy parties without you."

Mor turned, her red dress swishing with her movements. "Come on," she looped Cassian's arm around her own. "I know where my father keeps the good liquor."

Azriel, ever the gentleman, offered Nesta his own arm and they followed Mor and Cassian towards the Mansion. In front of them, Mor was leaning into Cassian, saying something against his ear that made him shake with laughter. They were so familiar with each other, so close. Nesta wondered if they were or had ever been lovers. But then she wondered why she cared.

---

They were all sat at Mor's table for dinner. Nesta found her place card between Azriel and Cassian. Keir Hewn gave a speech, while Mor rolled her eyes. Nesta scrolled through her phone and answered emails, only half listening to the charitable causes of the evening being introduced.

After the 5-course dinner, Feyre finally appeared, looking flustered, dropping into an empty seat next to Mor. Nesta hadn't seen Rhys or Feyre all evening. "God," Feyre sighed. "I think my face hurts from all the smiling."

"Is Rhys still talking to Beron?" Azriel asked.

Feyre nodded. "Yes, the Speaker of the House demands all his attention about the vote next week. I managed to excuse myself," she picked up a piece of bread. "I didn't even have a chance to eat yet. I'm starving."

"Let me guess, Beron wants to poison any chance of immigration reform," Cassian said and offered Feyre what was left on his plate.

Feyre nodded, taking the food gratefully. "He wants Rhys to introduce an amendment to rile up the opposing party," she said. "Beron doesn't want anything to pass that will divert funds from the Defense Department."

"Rhys is not going to do that right?" Nesta asked.

Feyre looked pained.

Nesta felt heated. "This bill is the best thing that has made it out of committee in over two administrations," Nesta started. "Beron is a snake. You can't --"

"Let Rhys handle Beron tonight," Cassian cut in.

Nesta glared. "Don't interrupt me when I am speaking."

Cassian dipped his head. "It's a party," his voice was gentle. "You can chew Rhys out first thing Monday morning for all I care."

Feyre looked relieved. She reached for a wine glass and finished it in one swig. Then, as if remembering something, Feyre picked up her phone. "I have to call Elain!" she exclaimed. "She must be putting Nyx to bed now."

Nesta snapped her attention back to her sister. "Elain?"

Feyre tapped away on her phone. "Elain's been staying with Rhys and I. She's helping with Nyx since we've been so busy with the campaign and all," Feyre explained. "Excuse me," she stood up, pressing the phone to her ear.

Nesta's gaze followed her sister as she walked into a quiet corner of the garden. Her face was full of love and delight -- no doubt saying goodnight to her son over the phone. Nesta's eyes stung. Elain, who hadn't returned Nesta's calls for months, was living with Feyre?

Cassian seemed to notice that something was upsetting her. "I'm sorry if I was rude," he began. "Nesta --"

She gave Cassian a withering look and stood up. "I need to stretch my legs."

Elain picked Feyre. Nesta's head was a roar.

---

Nesta wandered the garden grounds aimlessly, still processing the new information. Growing up, Nesta had always been closer to Elain. The two of them had been thick as thieves. Feyre, being the third, was just a little too young for the activities the two older sisters got into. But since their mother's death and then their father's, the sisters had drifted apart. Nesta took their mother's death the hardest. She was always their mother's favorite. Nesta admitted that, maybe, she had isolated herself long before their father's death six years ago. But she had thought Elain and her were still on good terms. The last she heard, Elain had moved to start a yoga studio in upstate New York. When did she move to Washington? Why didn't she return her calls?

"Nesta?" a man's voice brought her back to reality.

Nesta turned to a pair of amber eyes greeting her. "Eris?"

He smiled; it was practically feline. "Nesta Archeron, as I live and breathe."

She allowed herself to be wrapped in a hug. Eris kissed her cheek.

"I didn't know you were back in the swamp," his voice dropped an octave. "I would have called."

Nesta shoved him away. "You're still the same as ever, Eris."

"And you're still ravishing as ever," he smirked.

She rolled her eyes. "What disgusting hole did you climb out of this time?" Nesta let herself enjoy the distraction. "How many bodies did you have to clamber over?"

"I'm Chief of Staff to the Speaker of the House." Eris was bragging, not backing down.

"Ah, so you're Beron's new lackey," she surveyed him. Eris looked impeccable in his luxurious bespoke suit, not a single hair out of place. He was attractive -- Nesta admitted -- but too slick and calculating. Yet Nesta liked the challenge -- this heady game they played.

"You still haven't told me what you're doing in DC," Eris asked. "Will I have the pleasure of seeing you around these things more regularly?"

"I'm here for my sister." A half-truth.

"I was just beginning to think that this little gala was a giant waste of time," Eris leaned in closer to her, his hand on her back, his breath hot against her face. "It's so like you to always prove me wrong."

Nesta's cheeks flushed. She looked towards the stone patio, where most of the guests were still seated for dinner. She didn't like that they were standing so close together, out on the lawn where everyone else could see them.

Eris looked up from her and towards the party, towards her table where Mor, Cassian, and Azriel were huddled together and cackling.

"Don't tell me you're swept up in that silly little Starborn campaign," Eris said, his voice dripping with contempt.

She didn't bother to reply.

Eris snorted, full of arrogance. "Your talents are utterly wasted there."

Nesta shook him off her. "And Beron is making full use of your talents, I'm sure," she spat back.

He chuckled and let her go. His fingers grazed the small of her back. "When you get bored of that little affair," he nodded towards Mor's table. "Come play with me and I'll show you what real power feels like."

Nesta’s skin tingled in both visceral disgust and -- she hated herself -- anticipation. "You're a pig, Vanserra," she shot over her shoulder as she made her way back towards her seat.

---

Rhys must have shaken a hundred hands tonight. He hated fundraising, hated having to grovel and flatter a bunch of smug egomaniacs with too much money for their own good. By the time Rhys finally made it to his friends, he was exhausted from talking.

"That bad?" Cassian asked when he sat down.

"Beron said he would direct funds from the Congressional Campaign Committee towards us," Rhys said.

Azriel whistled. "And what does he want in return?"

Rhys shook his head. "Let's talk about this later." He slumped against his chair.

Feyre draped her arms around him. "Should we go?" she pressed a kiss to his temple. "Nyx told me he missed how you do the voices in his bedtime story."

Rhys smiled the first genuine smile all night. "Feyre darling, there is nothing I'd like more than going home with you tonight."

Cassian groaned. Rhys and Feyre laughed and walked hand-in-hand inside to make their final rounds.

Mor was distracted. She was looking over them, out onto the lawns of the garden. "Is Nesta talking to... Eris?"

Cassian followed Mor's gaze. He couldn't help the scowl that crept into his face.

"I didn't know they knew each other," Mor said. She was frowning too. Eris was not one of their favorite people, to put it mildly.

"Nesta knows a lot of people who works on the Hill," Azriel supplied. "Maybe Eris had been one of her past sources."

Cassian watched as Eris leaned into her and Nesta pushed him away. The way Eris looked at Nesta -- it wasn't threatening but something else entirely. Nesta seemed only half-hearted in her rebuffs. It made Cassian feel queasy.

Eris Vanserra was a cold-blooded political killer. He had no qualms about who he had to destroy in his path to power. Mor had been unfortunate enough to experience firsthand, many years ago, how ruthless Eris could be for the sake of winning. Cassian seethed.

When Nesta returned to her seat, the table was silent.

"What?" She asked, looking around her. Mor and Azriel did not meet her gaze. "Did you guys all decide to sell the campaign out to Beron while I was gone?"

"We could ask you the same thing," Cassian retorted. He couldn't help himself.

Nesta stood up immediately, angry that she had let herself be seen with Eris. Nesta held the golden fire in Cassian's hazel eyes. She did not want to dignify his remark with a response. "Good night," she said curtly to the table and walked away.

"Where the hell did that come from?" Azriel pivoted to Cassian.

He looked after Nesta as she disappeared into the throng of people around the silent auction inside the Mansion and bit his lip in regret.

---

Rhys and Feyre bid them farewell soon after. Cassian found himself passing around Keir Hewn's 30-year-old scotch with Azriel and Mor. They have been here many times before: at the end of the night, the three of them together, Mor draped over him, and Azriel out drinking them all.

But Cassian couldn't help but replay the image of Nesta and Eris together out on the lawn. Eris was a sly bastard. What did Nesta see in him? He didn't allow himself to finish the thought.

As the night wound down, Cassian tugged off his bow tie. This evening was not one of his finest showings. Mor was busy with something on her phone. Azriel watched Mor. Cassian looked away, running his hand through his hair.

Movements by the Mansion doors drew his attention. Cassian noticed among the crowds exiting the party, Nesta -- in her devastating black gown -- leaving with Eris. He caught Nesta's eye -- blue-grey and steely -- before she turned for the gates with Eris' arm around her waist. Eris's fingers brushed against her bare, exposed skin.

Cassian had a knot in his stomach and he didn't know why.

"You're staring," Azriel said with a knowing smirk.

Mor looked up from her phone. "What's wrong?" she asked.

Cassian sighed, shaking off his feeling of unease. "Just pass me the scotch, Az."

---

Thanks for all the support! I haven't written fanfiction in years. But this little story worm got in my head, so I'm relearning how to use Tumblr/AO3 again. Please let me know if you want to be added/removed from the tag list.

Tag list: @acourtofladydeath @fwiggle @swifti-ed

#fanfic #a court of silver flames #a court of thorns and roses #acosf #acotar #cassian #nessian #nesta #nesta archeron #nesta x cassian #all's fair in love and politics #modern au #political au #feysand

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divine-donna · 3 months

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Girls Like Me Pretend (We Don't Cry)

word count: 2.4k words

alternative link: 🕷️🕸️🫀

synopsis: it's been six months after the events of spiderverse. spider-ling is finally readjusting well to the massive shift in her canon. she believes she's ready to move on, until she sees a familiar face at work.

part 2 | part 3 | part 4

My name is Emma Charoensuk-Hua. And for the past six years, I’ve been the one and only Spider-Ling. My life has been quite complicated. Found out my father was a Master of the Mystic Arts when I was 15. And also that we have like a family feud with this other family for over a millennia. I became a Master of the Mystic Arts and embraced my, supposed, destiny as a sorceress and became Doctor Strange’s apprentice, after the death of my father. He wasn’t around a lot, but I still cared for him. Of course, everything has to go wrong in that my ex decides to try to sacrifice my whole universe so his patron could conquer the multiverse. And I tapped into my Inner Power when I wasn’t ready. It was going to kill me, so Doctor Strange did the only thing he could do: take it out. I came out magicless and wandered around life, obsessed with my coursework. Well, not entirely magicless. I’m still able to do spells, study magic. I just can’t perform anything complicated. And I’m disconnected from my ancestors. So that…sucks. Then of course, the story goes as is. Get bitten by a radioactive spider at 21, learn about heroism, with great power comes great responsibility, yada, yada, yada. So yeah, I became Spider-Ling. Pissed off lots of politicians, do some mutual aid on the weekends. I also got my degrees and a PhD. And I work at OSCORP as a researcher. Oh! I got married! Then divorced. I don’t wanna talk about it. Who ever does? I’ve lost people, lost things along the way. But I’m Spider-Ling because apparently, that’s what the universe wanted from me.

Manhattan — Earth-728

Her hand slammed down hard on the alarm clock, causing it to break. She sat up, hair messy, and rubbed her eyes. “Fuck…” Emma would need to go buy a new alarm clock on the way back or during her lunch break. She slowly crawls out of bed and shuffles to the bathroom where she does her morning routine before getting dressed. Checking that she had everything in her work bag, she leaves her apartment and heads straight to the local bakery to buy herself a steamed bun. The conversation she has with the cashier is brief since she was in a rush to get to work. Once out, Emma checks her phone and the traffic. “Trains are down. Guess I have to find another way around the city.”

She’s mastered the art of changing into her suit by now, able to do it in a quick and easy manner. With her mask on, bag strapped, and bun steaming hot, Spider-Ling takes to the city early in the morning. Besides, swinging around this early was also good for a small morning patrol where she would catch up with some people if she had time. But there was also nothing like starting a morning by flying through the city while eating her bun. There was a certain freedom that came with it, though she tried hard not to swing every single morning. She reached the OSCORP building faster than she ever could on the train and fell into an empty alleyway to change out of her suit and back into her work clothes. She discards the bag her bun was in into the garbage and walks into OSCORP, swiping in. “Morning Emma.” Chester, the security guard, says. “Got a busy day?”

“It’s always busy at OSCORP.” She salutes him as she gets on the escalator. The geneticist makes her way to the elevator and presses down on the 55 button. When the elevator stops and the doors open, she leaves and is met immediately with her supervisor.

“Ah! Emma!” Cynthia pushes up her glasses. “Just in time! There’s coffee and bagels in the conference room. Get your ass in a seat.”

Emma didn’t question it. It was common for them to have meetings anyways. So she went straight to the conference room and sat down next to Shin. “Had a good weekend?” He asks.

She grabs a plain bagel and bites into it. The bun was delicious but that definitely was not enough to sustain her for the rest of the day, especially if she was going to patrol and do her Spider-Ling duties. “Busy. Like usual.” She says, hand covering her mouth while she chews. “What did you do?”

“Had dinner with a friend. Went on a date. Was not so great. Nothing really is better than—”

“Shin, let it go. It didn’t work out and that’s alright.”

“You just don’t like my uncle.”

“Your uncle is a Japanese nationalist. I’m Taiwanese. Put the pieces together yourself.” Emma takes another bite as Cynthia walks in.

“Okay. Happy Monday everyone.” The entire subdivision groaned. “Yeah, yeah. I get it. So before we do a debriefing for what corporate wants us to do for the week, some introductions are in order.” Everyone looks at each other curiously, while Emma continues to eat her bagel. “I’d like to introduce everyone to our newest member of the division. He just transferred from our branch in Mexico City and worked at Alchemax for six years before joining the better company. So, here is Dr. Miguel O’Hara!”

Emma felt herself almost choke on her bagel seeing who walked in. Her Spider Sense went off like crazy, even if the man who had walked into the conference room meant no harm. He posed no threat to her and yet, her anxiety spiked through the roof of the OSCORP building. “Hi everyone.” Miguel smiles widely, eyes sparkling a little. “I look forward to working with you all.” When his eyes travel to her, Emma feels as if he’s looking into her soul. It was…so strange to see Miguel in her dimension. She didn’t even know her dimension had a Miguel. Did the other Miguel know? He looked so different. He was just as big as the Miguel she knew but his posture was a little more slouched. His eyes were warm and brown and he lacked bags under his eyes. It appeared as if his life was put together and he didn’t cause a whole universe to collapse. She also took in his outfit: a blue button down, tan slacks, dark brown Oxfords, and a white lab coat. She could see his OSCORP I.D. card, attached to the standard blue lanyard with white font. He didn’t look like he worked at OSCORP. Then again, they all dressed like that during their first week until Cynthia told them she didn’t care and to only dress formally when corporate came to observe them.

“Emma will show you around once we’re done with the meeting.” Cynthia begins her debriefing on the week’s activities.

Once the meeting is wrapped up, Emma leaves the room and rushes to her office, setting her things down and finishing her bagel. Her Spider Sense goes off again and she turns around, grabbing the nearest thing to throw (in this case, her pen holder). “Whoa! Lo siento.” Miguel holds his hands up in surrender. “Did I scare you?”

She sighs, setting the pen holder down. Her Spider Sense continues to tingle. “Sorry. Rough morning.”

“No worries.” He smiles, putting his hands down. “You have, like, a sixth sense or something? Your back was turned and I don’t think I made too much noise.”

“Ummm…I guess you can say that.” She pulls out her headphones from her bag and sets it on her desk. “I can, um, give you that tour now?”

“That would be awesome.” His smile is so bright that it kind of hurts her eyes. He looks so…happy. And innocent, in comparison to the other Miguel.

Emma shows him around the floor, taking him to the lab and even telling him where the good printers are (not on their floor). It’s a quick tour and she debriefs him about some of the stuff they’ve been working on. She doesn’t notice the little look of admiration in his eyes. She spoke eloquently and carried herself with confidence, even if she looked a little worn out. (Then again, everyone did) His eyes may have wandered a little further down than necessary. But he was subtle and he wasn’t going to lie about her appearance. After the tour, Emma returns to her office. She puts her headphones on and begins working, writing on the reports and editing some of the papers with her name attached to it. She makes her edits and occasionally leaves her office to grab something to drink.

From his cubicle, Miguel watches her. He glances her way, seeing how hard she was working and moves his gaze elsewhere when she glances at him. Of course, his staring doesn’t go unnoticed by the man sitting next to him. “You might want to dial back on the ogling. We have work to do.” Shin crosses his arms as he leans against the cubicle.

“Is she going out with anyone?” He looks up at his colleague.

“Are you thinking about asking her out?” He scoffs. “You shouldn’t. She’s such a workaholic.”

“So…that’s a yes then?”

“What? No! I mean, yes. She’s single…I think.”

“You sound like you have dated her.”

“I mean, we did date for a bit.” Shin sounds smug.

“But you guys aren’t together. So that means it didn’t work.” Miguel has a small smile on his face, thinking about the fact that he could date her right now. Technically. He didn’t really know Shin. So it wasn’t really breaking bro code.

“I wouldn’t say it didn’t work. She just doesn’t like my uncle.”

“Are you Japanese?”

“...Yes. I don’t see why that matters.”

“And what’s her ethnicity?”

“Taiwanese. And Thai.”

Miguel raises his eyebrows. “I think it spells itself out.”

Shin was baffled. Too baffled to speak actually. He just returns to his cubicle and continues working. About an hour or two passes and the new transfer finally stops admiring the woman in the office from a distance and actually does his work. But he soon found that he needed to make copies of something. Miguel quickly found out that the copier on their floor doesn’t work. But he should’ve remembered that from the tour earlier today. It did make for a great excuse to visit her though!

Emma’s Spider Sense tingles a little and she looks away from her computer. She sees Miguel’s hand against the glass, which meant he had knocked. Or was knocking to get her attention. She beckons him inside and slides her headphones down to her neck, pausing the music. “M-Miguel. What can I, um, do for you?”

“I was hoping you could show me where to print? Well, I need to make copies and the copier isn’t working.” He smiles.

“Come on.” She puts her computer to sleep and leads him to the elevator, tapping her ID against the scanner and pressing the button with the floor number five above them.

“Why are we going to the 60th floor?”

“They have the best paper and the ink is always available. It’s because that’s where, like, the upper echelon of OSCORP office employees work.”

“You know quite a bit. Have any friends up there?”

“Used to. She got transferred to a…different division. Elsewhere in the world.” She sighs.

It’s awkward for a moment before Miguel asks her a question. “How long have you worked at OSCORP?”

“Do I count the time I worked as an intern?”

“I guess. Does it add much?”

“Only a year. I’ve been working here since…god, since I was twenty-one. So six years?”

“That’s a long time, especially for someone of your age.”

“I am pretty old.”

Miguel laughs. “You’re nowhere near old.”

“Why? Are you like way older?”

“I’m only thirty-two.”

“That’s not bad. You’re only five years older than me.” Emma exits the elevator with Miguel when they arrive at the desired floor. “How long have you been working at OSCORP?”

“Three years, give or take. I spent my twenties with Alchemax instead. I’m the one that developed an alternative and cheaper medication to Sickle Cell.”

“Oh. Alchemax.” She lets out a small nervous laugh. He pouted on the inside seeing her not react to his little brag.

“Have you heard of it?”

“Of course I have.” She opens the printing room with her keys and turns on the light. Miguel closes the door behind them as she fires up the printer and copy machine. “They’re our biggest competitor. And they rejected my many job proposals because I was overqualified.” She scoffs.

“Soft spot?” He asks while copying his papers.

“Guess you can say that.”

Miguel spends the rest of the time observing her. Even if she was standing idly by, waiting for him to finish. Their silence is comforting, a little bit. He enjoyed the silence. On the other hand, Emma wasn’t used to it. She was still on edge, her Spider Sense tingling in the back of her mind. It wasn’t Miguel. There wasn’t any danger. So why did it feel like she was in danger? When he is done, the two of them return to their floor and return to work. After another hour, their lunch break hits. Miguel quickly packs up so he could try to catch Emma for lunch. Except he doesn’t find her in the office. He feels a little disappointed, walking to the elevator. His face brightens upon seeing her in the elevator. Except she has her headphones on and is looking at her phone. He runs to the elevator, trying to beat the doors, but they close and the elevator descends.

Miguel returns to the office, having eaten a good meal. Halal food was really good and it reminded him of home, going to street vendors and buying his lunch from local people. He even stopped by a modern Mexican joint and bought some horchata. ($8 for a large was…too expensive) It tasted alright and he knew he could make a better one at home. When he gets to his cubicle, he sees a flash of red pass by Emma’s office window. He’s only read about the superheroes that protect New York City. But the red blur had him presuming it was the smaller and more experienced hero: Spider-Ling. About five minutes after that, Emma emerges from the elevator, headphones on. She was busy eating an empanada, and stopped in her tracks when she was approached by Miguel. “I missed you earlier.” He says.

She pulls down her headphones. “Sorry. Had to rush out. I was busy during my lunch break so I only got something small.” She presents him with the bag. “I’m already full though.”

“Are you sure?”

“Mhm.” She nods. “Wait…do you like olives in your empanadas or no?” He shrugs. She gives him her last empanada. “They’re pretty good.”

“You’re going to have to tell me where I can get these.”

Emma laughs nervously. “We’ll see.”

#marvel #spiderverse #atsv #fanfiction #oc x canon #spidersona #miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara x oc

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bat-at-the-disco · 2 years

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Random Star Wars Headcannons I have because I have sw brain rot and no other outlet

Grogu has a whole room in Boba’s palace (well it’s his and Din’s room, but all Din has in there is an armor stand and a mat on the floor with a neck pillow). The rest of the room is filled with toys, many of which are frog themed.

Boba gave Grogu a modified light-saber when he found out Skywalker blackmailed the green bean out of jedi training. It’s one of the ones Boba got off a Jedi bounty, but the kid does not need to know that.

Some of the Tusken raider villages that is sort of extended family with the one that took in Boba found out he was daimyo and gifted him some mastiffs and he absolutely uses them for sand dog-sledding. Grogu likes to ride them like banthas and will even race Boba.

Din teaches Boba Tusken and Boba teaches Din how to use a gaffi stick

Peli gives Boba and Din her eternal loyalty because knowing them has gotten her loads of business from the locals. She absolutely brags about it and you KNOW she exaggerates their friendship— “Who, the daimyo? He’s basically my brother. Family gatherings are wild!”

Darth Vader had a grand total of three coworkers names memorized in his time as Commander of the Imperial Navy— Tarkin, Thawn, and the Emperor. Why would he need to know anyone else’s when he kills so many on the daily? He just reads their mind if he needs to say something to them or just calls them by their status like “Admiral” or “Lieutenant” and whatnot. He ain’t got no time. And if he DOES call anyone by the wrong name, you better believe no one is gonna correct him.

Han Solo equally loves and hates what being married to a politician has done to his fame/career. On the one hand, people are even more afraid of getting on his bad side than before. On the other hand, he can’t do much more than shoplift without getting dragged back home by the ear from Leia.

Cara uses her rare Friend Immunity to share gossip between the Fett and Organa households.

Fennec likes to read and she can clear like three books in a day, easy.

Grogu has diplomatic immunity for being the daimyo’s nephew and the Manda’lor’s son and being pretty much one of the one surviving members of the original Jedi Order.

There are so many stories about Din throughout the galaxy and he has ZERO idea. People will just know him and he’ll just be like “Huh. We’re you a bounty I took down? Yeah that’s probably it.”

Grogu has an art phase that consists of him burning pictures of flowers and frogs and things into the castle walls with his little lightsaber.

Boba collects exotic space animals like a rich guy collects sports cars. The dude has a whole ass petting zoo living in his palace by month two of being daimyo.

Din is a morning person but will absolutely sleep till 2 in the afternoon if you let him.

Ben Solo says Auntie Ahsoka>Uncle Luke any day.

Boba decides that the rancor’s name is Chewie just to spite Han.

Luke and Leia are seldom invited to Naboo Royalty family cookouts because whenever they show up shit happens.

After Luke expelled little green bean, Din either tracks down a force-sensitive mandalorian to teach Grogu or just fucking wings it himself by researching Jedi for like an hour or two then info-dumping to Grogu. “Ok bud you gotta sit still for a while like you did on that weird jedi rock and uhh put your mind in the plants and dirt and stuff and be one with it or something.” “Bah!” “Yes, then we can get second dinner.” Din probably found some old Jedi texts before Luke could get his hands on them. DIY jedi school.

Din and Grogu lightsaber training together!!! Grogu is a lot better at it, needless to say.

#sw #sw headcanons #boba fett #grogu #din djarin #han solo #luke skywalker #leia organa #fennec shand #cara dune #tusken raiders #darth Vader

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palioom · 3 months

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. This “Druckman is a genocidal Zionist so I need to put a lil blurb on my written porn so everyone knows this porn is FOR GAZA” stuff is so out of hand.

If you actually played the game, had an ounce of media literacy, and knew about the Israel/Palestine conflict as deeply as you THINK you know about it, you’d see that you are perpetuating the exact shit the game warms against. That the ISRAELI WRITER of the game warns against. Cycles of violence, from EITHER SIDE, lead to nothing but suffering. If you thought the game was this pro-Israel, fuck Palestinians, blood thirsty Zionist propaganda scheme-then you literally missed the entire point. In fact, if you think that I’d say we must have played 2 different games. It’s a pretty centrist idea, the whole “both govts are bad and have been doing bad things as revenge to each other and gets us nowhere” thing, but hey it’s better then if the game was actually like, made my a right-wing Israeli politician whose idea would be “let’s have Ellie just absolutely DESTROY Abby. And the fireflies. And anybody else. And then she can come back and expand Jackson all the way out to Seattle and everyone will be happy the end.” THAT would be fucked.

Something being made by an Israeli does not inherently make it zionistic or radical or immoral or bad. Especially when that thing is a piece of media that explores the suffering of both populations of a conflict and also of people in war in general.

Anyway, Joel is a Hebrew name that means The Lord is God and Miller is the 3rd most common Jewish surname in the states so Joel Miller is canonically a Jew™️ 🥳 Ellie is also a Hebrew name. Do with that info what you wish.

neil literally stands with israel, there hasn't been shit about the people in gaza. my dude, if you can look at what's happening and not feel the need to speak up, get the fuck out.

plus, i find it important to denounce neil and not give him any further attention or money for his creations because as i said, he stands with israel. i'm not telling people to do shit, but i wish people spread more awareness about what's happening, and i feel better to add masterlists and infos onto my fics, because they have been written already and might be my last joel ones.

also you equating this issue with jews, wanting to go on about how ellie and joel are jewish names when it's not even about that at all, shows me exactly what kind of person you are and how much you think you know.

it's not jews vs muslims, because that's what you're implying. no one even MENTIONED jews until you came in. guess what! there are jews and even christians in gaza that are getting killed just as the muslim population is! this is about a genocidal, occupying force pushing people into smaller and smaller "safe zones" just to bomb them when the world is busy watching the fucking superbowl.

i doubt you've seen the videos that i have seen, dead children, torn limbs, skeletal remains, cats eating the dead, or you wouldn't be coming into my mentions like this.

if you truly cared about what's happening, you wouldn't mind me saiyng i wish we raised more awareness, but as i said before, you showed me exactly what kind of a person you are and you, just as everyone else who thinks like you, can block me.

also no one says it's zionistic cause he's an israeli, don't put your thoughts into my mouth and pretend that's what i said. if he was supporting gaza and the end of the genocide, i wouldn't even be saying shit. but he isn't, so please look at what i actually said before you do all this.

#y'all are tripping fr #i will not be entertaining any further asks like this #don't even try #i said what i said #ask #anon

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conspiracyofequals · 10 months

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tagged by @kommunarde to talk about five things i like. i can definitely do that :-)

1. i like history and recently i've been focusing on the nineteenth century for some reason because it's a time period we tend to not study a lot in schools anymore. and when we do study it i start having amnesia because of unrelated factors (in quatrième i was suicidal and in première i was too busy getting brain damage from supernatural. i only started really killing it in history class in my last year of high school when we talked about economy and politics as factors all the time). it has been crazy to realize specifically the articulation between the french revolution the empire the other revolutions in france the second empire the commune the first world war and so on and so on. like to me until recently there was a huge hole between 1794 and 1914 and i knew about the events that happened in between obviously but i wasn't really connecting them well. and right now i am making the connections it's actually maddening. for example victor hugo author of les misérables french poet novelist playwright politician and overall legend lived at the same time as karl marx which somehow never occured to me. but now it has and i feel like i've unlocked a secret of the universe. & we'll be studying a time period from the late nineteenth century to the 30s next year. i fr can't wait to go back to history class in september it's going to be so awesome!!!

2. dark netflix is one of my favorite tv shows of all time it's basically about becoming your own worst enemy and how fate might or might not be inescapable. it's a circular narrative spanning multiple generations and decades and universes. it's awesome it has everything important namely philosophy failed marriages and killing people with rocks. it's a crime tv show slash horror slash mystery except then it becomes something else i can't tell you about but fleabag voice this is a love story. it's like stranger things if stranger things was better and about something else entirely. it's incredibly smart and it's the only tv show i've rewatched so far in my life because it's just so well made i don't think i'll ever see something like that again. i can't tell you about it without spoiling it and it's definitely necessary to not look at anything online before finishing the show but please watch it please please please

3. i love falling into wikipedia rabbit holes!! everyone makes fun of me for it because apparently that's not a "reliable source" (some students don't go to the source section and look up the sources listed, and instead they mindlessly copy what the page says instead of going deeper in research or at least rephrasing it a little or just. at least at the very least deleting the hyperlinks. that could not be me! wikipedia is a great tool when you know how to use it and when you use it to its full potentialities. i could never hate wikipedia my beautiful website. it's just that some people are really not smart when it comes to plagiarism). and also because reading stuff for fun and remembering all of it forever is not "something everyone does" and i need to "get diagnosed with autism". WHATEVER. i'll remain cool and knowledgeable about many fun facts and you'll do nothing about it. what i have open right now: prépa as a system, the far left in france, a bunch of pages about the weimar republic, republican calendar, pierre-sur-haute military radio station, les cloches de bâle, rené girard, lycurgus, junge welt, sdaj (i've been looking up far left looking stuff i see stickers for as a desperate attempt to understand the political landscape of this country but alas it's something that wikipedia cannot bring me i think), harmodius and aristogeiton, maquis du limousin, acéphale. also chronology of social movements in france (i am cooking something)

4. okay bear with me for this one because it's going to sound insane and parasocial but i'm aware that it is so it's basically fine. maybe. it's not that i "like" him he's just extremely entertaining and something is wrong with him in a way that is also wrong with me. so there's this guy who used to be in charge of the social media strategy for arguably the most famous french left-wing politician (jean-luc mélenchon, our bernie sanders, even though that's not an adequate comparison because france is a pays finito as i like to call it but not as finito as the united states of america. anyway) and said politician is like 70 but every once in a while during the presidential campaign he made this really funny social media post and every jeune con dépolitisé was like oh mr mélenchon you know memes you're so cool i'm going to vote for you. not me because i'm a critical thinker and i can't even vote but i do love myself a good reformist grandpa post i'm sorry. the first half of 2022 was a weird time. and we knew the guy behind that it was the guy i'm going to be talking about next. so we did not win that presidential election obviously (insert image of me crying tears of blood) (it's fine haha reformism is a dead end) and we have this second round between margaret thatcher and a fascist. but since we do not have a loser mindset and need to bounce back (this country is rotten to the core and we are never going to win electorally or otherwise unless a biblical level miracle happens. when i talk to my neighbors and my family members and my classmates i realize how fucked we are and how truly awful it could get and how easy it would be for a lot of us to look away. it makes me a little sick to think about. but there is much pain in the world but not in this room right?) they said hey! vote for us in the legislative elections! and in france we have a constituency system basically you have a local mp. so our social media guy became a candidate! and he was elected! and then inexplicably (i've followed him for several years and can confirm it came out of the blue) the man turned into a hardcore robespierrist like a month into it. i got really into the french revolution in may to cope with well everything so i was like oh okay interesting that's cool. it's cringe because he's a grown man with a job but it's also sort of funny, in an absurd way. it's a waste of taxpayer money but he's a good mp as far as mps go and i don't pay taxes so i don't care. and at first it was just like a few tweets here and there, he also invited a ya author who makes educational tiktoks about the terror to the national assembly in robespierre cosplay, but recently well uh. he quotes either robespierre or the 1793 constitution literally every intervention. he wore a wig. we're technically in the same political movement because i was peer pressured into joining and in my city the choice is between them or maoists (which way modern man). but i don't have the time to be that invested unfortunately since i have to go to my beautiful torture labyrinth (prépa) every day. during the pension reform protests (don't even talk to me about it.......) a few videos of him surfaced going to face the police in order to well i don't know intimidate them with his écharpe de député into not being violent anymore. it didn't work he got hit tear gassed multiple times but then he had proof of police violence and he could say look at this it's not normal and it didn't achieve much because this country may be beyond hope but it's very brave of him i think. or in another video he was being kettled with a colleague and said colleague was like hey antoine can you quote an article of the declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen at this policeman? and he did. like overall he's a really cool mp he's just also very dedicated to rehabilitating robespierre for some kind of reason. and the real life embodiment of this emoji combination 🤓☝️. and he has a child i think. and we're twitter mutuals

5. i like this poem i think about it so often i have bits of it memorized bouncing around in my head like a dvd screensaver. the way i want you has its own climate like how storms are magnetic. shortest war on earth. every room i enter is empty and i wake searching for you still. and so on and so on i actually want to chew on the poem a little it's like a really comfortable mattress but for my brain if that makes sense

okay this got long!! tagging @isaidilovedu2death @brutalistarchitecture2 @vassyflorence @sotiriabellou and anyone else who wants to do it really. please tell me about things you like!! i haven't written most of this tonight but tonight i am sad and there is a chance i'll be sad for a little while so tell me about you. i care. i love to hear about the things you all are passionate about. if not in public send me a dm. actually you can send me a dm about virtually anything

#yelling #tag games

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meltedsimmer205 · 1 month

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twisted generation challenge

hello everyone! a little while ago i became obsessed with sims youtube and started playing sims again, some of the first videos i watched was challenges like "not so berry" "the 100 baby challenge" and etc. so i got inspired and thought "hmm.. why not make my own challenge and my own rules", so i did. i present the twisted generation challenge, inspired by the lovely 'twisted' series by Ana Huang. this is a four generation challenge based on the four books.

this does not mean you should or should have read the books in order to play this challenge, it was simply just an inspiration and the first thing i thought of when i made this. this is simply just a fun challenge i enjoyed making and hope people will like.

general rules for this challenge:

cheats are not allowed, you can use money cheats to settle in the first generation, but try not to use them else.

2. for each generation you can choose yourself if you wanna play as male or female, you must choose, you can't make your own sim and rules.

3. you can only move on to the next generation when all the reguirements are done.

4. i tried to make it as close to the books as possible but you don't have to make them look like how they're described in the books, remember this is just for fun.

5. if you decide to do this challenge please use the hashtag #twistedgeneration.

generation one

Ava Chen

Aspiratian: big happy family

Traits: cheerful, family-oriented, good

Career: writer

have at least 4 children (2 of them must be twins)

master baking, photography and parenting skill

get level 8 in writing skill

take a picture with your family on every holiday

alex volkov

Aspiration: fabulously wealthy

Traits: genius, neat, gloomy

Career: business

reach top of the business career

only have 2 close friends

reach level 8 in fishing and programming skill

get married to your best friend and never ever date anyone but them, not even if they died

generation two

Bridget von ascherberg

Aspiration: renaissance sim

Traits: ambitious, perfectionist, self-assured

Career: politician

master charisma, mischief and violin skill

have a cat

reach top of the politician career

marry a coworker

rhys larsen

Aspiration: renaissance sim

Traits: loyal, loner, active

Career: secret agent

master logic, fitness and handiness skill

reach top of the secret agent career

move away from your home country and then move back later on

pick up an instrument, reach level 4 and then forget all about it

generation three

jules ambrose

Aspiration: serial romantic

Traits: hot-headed, self-assurred, ambitius

Career: law enforcment

complete the serial romantic aspiration

reach level 10 of charisma and mixology, and level 8 in 2 other skills of your choosing

reach top of the attorney career (law enforcment)

go to university

josh chen

Aspiration: party animal

Traits: active, adventurous, goofball

Career: doctor

max out snowboarding and comedy skill

travel to every world with a friend, take a picture as proof

reach level 8 in fitness and cooking skill

complete party animal aspiration

generation four

stella alonso

Aspiration: friend of the world

Traits: creative, green fiend, vegetarian

Career: style influencer

have a well maintained greenhouse

max gardening, wellness and creativity skill

reach top of the style influencer career

donate to charity every week

christian harper

Aspration: computer whiz

Traits: genius, ambitious, art lover

Career: tech guru

complete the computer whiz aspiration and reach top of the tech guru career

max out programming and robotics skill

reach level 8 in the piano skill

reach level 6 in painting skill and hang three of your paintings in your house

i haven't had a chance to test this challenge out yet but i hope you'll have fun!

#sims 4 #sims 4 gameplay #ts4 #sims 4 legacy #sims 4 challenge #ana huang #twisted series

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adamwatchesmovies · 2 months

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John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)

How do you follow a film like John Wick? The 2014 ballet of violence was such a pleasant surprise because it took a plot that’s been done to death and revitalized it. That’s where John Wick: Chapter 2 finds its purpose: by expanding on the world at the characters within it to make what was familiar new.

Set about two weeks after the first film, everyone now knows that assassin John Wick (Keanu Reeves) has come out of retirement. For crime boss Santino D’Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio), this is the opportunity to collect a debt John owes him.

Like before, the stunt choreography is the reason to buy an admission ticket. By now we sort of know Wick’s preferred method of dispatching his enemies but it’s still plenty of fun to watch him efficiently and methodically take out anyone foolish enough to stand in his way. Director Chad Stahelski even throws in a couple of new tricks to make our jaws drop, like a scene in a bar that involves a pencil and not much else. There’s a particular death in that scene that’ll have you squirming, and you’ll love it.

If you think the only appeal is the violence, you're wrong. There are several points where the cinematography and staging are a wonder to behold. A climactic scene set in a hall of mirrors is a great example. Amazingly, cinematographer Dan Laustsen was able to shoot real people performing real stunts in this tiny enclosed space while keeping the cameras out of any reflections and making it look as good as it does. Oh, and shoot it in a way that’s easy to follow, which is the most impressive aspect.

So far, we’ve talked about what you’d expect from a John Wick film. What’s new? The side characters and large chunks of world-building. John is back in an environment he sought to escape. We caught a glimpse of it previously but now, writer Derek Kolstad gives us a good look. This world hiding in the shadows has its own politics, codes of conduct, currency, honor system and rules. Piecing how it all works is loads of fun because it makes so little sense it makes perfect sense. Countless assassins are hiding among us. The busker playing violin in the subway? They’re hiding a gun in their instrument and are ready to take someone out as soon as they get the call. Think that’s weird? Try wrapping your head around the secret society of killers disguised as vagrants! You have to believe these people spend most of their bullets taking each other out rather than high-ranking politicians who’ve made enemies, which actually makes the movie much more digestible than you’d expect. Like Sin City’s Marv said “I love hitmen. No matter what you do to them, you don't feel bad.” When these hired killers take each other out, they’re not people with jobs; they’re targets for John to take out. The secret society is so busy with itself that there's no room for police officers to respond or innocent civilians to get in the way/be taken hostage. Anyone and everyone has a gun hidden on their person. It’s so absurd it removes you from the weight of what all of these deaths would mean had this film been set in the real world.

John Wick: Chapter 2 (which is not going to be the last in the series) is not as surprising or fresh as the first but it makes up for it. Common, Ruby Rose, Laurence Fishburne and Claudia Gerini all play memorable characters with small but important roles. They join Lance Reddick, John Leguizamo and Ian McShane in the pool of actors who give the world a lot of personality. Once again, the fight scenes and gunplay are spectacular. It’s got more than a few brilliantly shot scenes, and its fast pace means the 122-minute running time flies by like nothing. If you liked the first, you'll want to see this one too. (March 26, 2022)

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amarriageoftrueminds · 2 years

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Forgive me but can you outline how nazis infiltrated PC's organization 4 times?

(👉in ref to👈)

No problem, but it’s actually six times!

1. CATFA.

Peggy claims she's in charge of supervising all SSR operations.

(Nothing any man says or does, or anything in the sets, script, or costume design, supports this claim- and in fact a lot of what she and other characters do appears to directly contradict it- but anyway!)

Obviously shady saboteurs are loitering outside the Top Secret SSR lab in Brooklyn.

She fails to clock them.

The SSR has been infiltrated under her watch, and is sabotaged.

(This happens in more than one universe.)

Because she/Hayley Atwell is busy channelling Marlon Brando, groping and and/or keeping the inconveniently pretty nurses away from CEvans/Steve, she is not paying attention.

So she fails to stop the Nazi saboteur stealing serum, killing Dr. Erskine, detonating two bombs (including one on a crowded public street), and getting away (despite firing five shots at him, including when he was in the same room as her).

For this failure, she blames... Steve??

All this is incompetence.

If they had simply not said that she supervised all SSR ops, none of this would’ve been her responsibility, and thus her fault.

In fact, if she was, eg. just a secretary, it would’ve been both brave and going above and beyond duty, for her to follow the saboteur out of the Lab with someone else’s gun! (Someone else’s, because she has not been given one of her own. Important person, how?)

But they wanted to make her a Badass.

(By having... all of the men, including the superhuman one, somehow not be able to keep up with a woman in high-heeled shoes, for like minutes of screentime. The only way she looks good is if there's literally no one else there to make her look bad by comparison? 😬)

Instead they made her incompetent and a failure.

2. Agent Carter (a).

(set during the time period in which the main films and her own short tell us she had already co-founded SHIELDra, released and employed Zola. But anyway!)

In the first instance of them stealing Bucky’s war record for her, supposedly Great Spy Peggy leads the Howlies in a non-spy commando mission somehow despite not being a soldier.

So, she is in charge = is responsible for what decisions are made.

( Disclaimer: she was NOT shown being a commando or a soldier or a spy during the war, not in the film or script for CATFA.

There were NO armed female British combat troops, and if there were in the ‘verse of AC, then she should NOT be treated as if she’s the Only Woman in all of Europe who is Special Enough to be given a gun! (This is just more Not Like Other Girls nonsense!)

In CATFA she is explicitly shown and described in the script as doing a desk job, a job she asked for, a job she explicitly whines about having, in Allied-held locations (totally-useless locations for Allied spies to be stationed btw). She is told off and threatened with sacking for exceeding her remit and doing non-administrative things, she is told she is completely expendable, and she has an image of her face broadcast in a propaganda reel (again: not a soldier, not a spy)

She only appears in a battle once they’re taking everyone, even old men and scientists. But anyway!)

During the AC mission, she fails to clock that scientist Johann Fennhoff, the Soviet mind-control expert, is a bad guy who is pretending to be trustworthy.

She releases him from prison, and she alone recruits him for the SSR.

(Not Howard Stark. Not Col. Phillips. Not the Howlies. Not the other (male) SSR Agents. Not some nebulous unnamed higher-up politician man invoking Operation Paperclip. Her, Alone.)

Fennhoff gets up to a bunch of stuff in NYC, massacres 40+ innocent people (great job, Peggy!) and another SSR agent, and his mind-control thing is eventually uncovered.

At the end of his run, Zola is shown openly recruiting a muzzled Fennhoff, with tremendous ease, because Fennhoff is put into the same prison cell as him. 🤦‍♀️

This is implied to be the origin of the Winter Soldier mind-control program in which Zola tortured Bucky.

So Hydra’s Winter Soldier program, Bucky’s torture, was only possible because Peggy failed to clock a bad guy and committed the catastrophic idiocy of recruiting him into the SSR. Which she is shown having the authority and impetus to do, even before she is a Director.

This also makes her indirectly responsible for the mind-control enslavement of little girls in the Red Room (which she also knew about since the 1940s, as shown in both her show and in at least one other universe in What if). Because that tech was stolen from the Winter Soldier programme while it was stored in an American SHIELDra lab (the North Institute) in Ohio in 1995.

Incompetence again!

(And is she fired for her incompetence once again endangering her own colleagues and leading to the death of double-digits civilians and another SSR agent?

Pff! Of course not! Don't be silly, her daddy’s friends with a Senator!)

3. Agent Carter (b).

Peggy’s show also has (suddenly-giving-a-shit-about-feminism-once-she’s-being-criticised-for-things-she-actually-did) Peggy saying that her male colleagues can’t see what a great spy she is because she’s a woman...

While she has failed to notice that a Black Widow (y’know, an actually competent female spy) has moved into her apartment building.

And she continues to fail to notice her... right up until that spy is literally kissing her full on the mouth. 🤦‍♀️

If Hydra and the Red Room are intimately connected, as Fennhoff and the Black Widow movie imply, (and this Black Widow is shown working for Fennhoff), then this is a subset of Peggy yet again being incompetent when it comes to spotting Hydra operatives right under her nose.

And it gets worse...

Given her later behaviour, guess what Peggy does with this Hydra spy after she has found out that she is one?

That’s right!

She... uncuffs her (to show off how un-afraid She is... because that’s what really matters, right? Peggy looking good?), frees her, and collaborates on missions with her, which in one instance leads directly to the only-named Jew in the entire MCU being rendered infertile via GSW (despite Peggy being impaled in the gut and just walking it off. But the lone Jew gets sterilised.) Because Peggy is knowingly walks into another villain’s trap, in pure hubris.

Both incompetence and deliberate collaboration.

4. CATWS.

Reveals she hired Zola in 1945 (less than six months after Steve sat in a pub, crying, saying he wanted all of Hydra dead or captured. Zola had already tried to kill Steve once at that point, had tortured members of the 107 to death, and tortured / 'killed' Bucky. But anyway!)

As a result of which, Hydra flourished throughout the 20th century.

She also oversaw Zola being literally immortalized and turned into an AI and kept in the Camp Lehigh bunker (her preferred haunt) which had her photograph on the wall, and with her office a mere elevator ride away (as shown in EG *ach-tw*)

Was she wandering around with her eyes closed and her fingers in her ears for decades singing LALALA?

Zola being hired was front page news, also. And he was even photographed. I know she hates paperwork, but is she too stupid to read or look at pictures?

Freeing a Nazi and then making them immortal (in multiple universes, mind you) is the precise opposite of ‘dead or captured’, like Steve and all decent people wanted.

Old Peggy knew Zola was alive, but even when she was having lucid episodes she didn't warn Steve on any of the occasions when he came to visit her.

When Steve voiced his completely-justified and understandable doubts about his current SHIELDra employers... she laughed at him, dismissed his doubts, said he was being ‘melodramatic’ and didn’t warn him, instead told him to move on.

'Don't think about SHIELDra being suspicious Steve! move on! it's not that deep!'

As a result of which, Zola was free to try and kill Steve personally again, for the second time, alongside Natasha and millions of other innocent people.

And she could've warned him, but didn't.

This isn't merely incompetence. She collaborates with Nazis and then endangers innocent people to cover up her own culpability.

This is directly endangering Steve and millions more.

(Not the first time! Interrupting the Valkyrie run at a crucial moment, to make him kiss her. A Nazi spy would've done the exact same thing.)

5. What If (a).

Zola exists as an AI in the universe Clint & Natasha are from (where Ultron won).

It is mentioned that the Camp Lehigh bunker version of him we saw in CATWS existed there (since the Soviet bunker version of him, which Nat and Clint get a hold of is, a copy of that first Zola. Further linking Zola and Fennhoff and Soviet Hydra from the live-action universe and AC.)

Which means Zola was also recruited by SHIELDra in that universe.

And if all those plot points are the same in that universe, it also means Peggy was co-founder of SHIELDra in that universe, and did the recruiting of Zola.

(As we’ve already seen; it’s her that does that. Not Stark, or Phillips, or any other AOS, or government official. Also, if Nat exists as a Black Widow then the Red Room also exists. And if that's the same then Peggy knowing about the Red Room for decades and doing nothing about it also happened. But the sycophants running the writing think Nat would want to be her 'bestie.')

So that’s three universes in which Peggy has willingly hired and collaborated with this specific Nazi, who tortured and killed soldiers of the 107, leading directly to Zola being immortalized, (in more than one way!) as a world-threatening A.I. and other people’s lives endangered.

(Which makes WI(b) doubly her fault).

Again: not an accident.

6. What If (b).

They come up with Plot Reasons why the heroes have to collaborate with Nazi Zola (to excuse collaborating with a Nazi) to stop Ultron.

Peggy is put in charge of the team (so, again, she’s responsible.)

She finds out Zola is alive and an AI.

They say she wasn't aware of that in this Captain Karter universe...

Because they time-jumped her over the period in which she, canonically, they are aware, was doing all this original heinous shit.

(‘She’s not a bad person! She didn’t do any of that evil in this universe!’ OK but she would though?? you already proved she literally would?? and she's literally working with the exact same guy she's claiming not to know about working with, in this episode?? And you also just admitted that the only reason she wouldn't do that again is if she physically could not? 'I didn't know we worked with leopards eating peoples faces!' says Woman currently working with leopard eating peoples faces, after working with leopards eating peoples faces in other universes. Dear writers, it's not giving what you think it's giving.)

To reiterate: this is specifically done to whitewash the fact that she was not only aware but also directly responsible for Zola’s employment happening in the main MCU universe AND the universe which this-Zola comes from.

What's fascinating about this is:

The circumstances in which she works with a Nazi -- on screen, in front of you -- are identical to the circumstances she described in her Agents of SHIELD cameo, under which she admitted she would consider working with a Nazi.

So she's following through on her own, admitted, pro-Nazi-collaborating stance.

(See below.)

So. She oversees the team working with Zola.

And guess what happens?

That's right! Surprise surprise! Zola immediately proves untrustworthy once he takes over Ultron's vibranium body, which Peggy helps him to do.

(It’s Clint’s arrow, and IIRC Nat stabs it into Ultron, but they can only do so because of Peggy’s help).

Deus ex Machina Sorcery Stuff has to happen and that entire universe sealed up just to prevent this from hurting trillions more people.

Incompetence again!

(Sidenote: This episode is of a piece with the recent rightwing Disney media, wherein Colonial-power characters and Nazis (not ever actually called Nazis) are either heroes or allies, but leftwing people -- especially black leftwing people -- are villains, and Nazi villains are only kept villains after they have been reconfigured as leftwing, or recast as black.

See: Nazi Cynthia Glass being given Peggy Carter’s name and future, as if she was really in Operation Paperclip, thereby implying (viz: propagandising) that Cynthia's originally-Fascistic traits are positive, and rewarding herself with superserum (like many other villains, and even another Nazi villainess who infiltrated Project Rebirth in the comics: Krieger Frau). Or villain Stormtroopers now reconfigured as black people in Star Wars. Grindelwald no longer wizard Hitler tyrant but now gay leftist revolutionary with the popular vote. BLM villain Killmonger opposing Heroic ‘Harmless’ Friendly neighbourhood CIA Agent Everett Ross, (who is only interfering in a resource-rich African country’s elections for their own good!) The now-POC socialist villain BLM Flagmashers of FATWS while our black Cap is allied with CIA Sharon, thinly-veiled-Nazi Zemo (no longer explicitly a Nazi except in every single characteristic but one. DOGWHISTLE) & Walker (who, like Peggy and Red Skull, also stole serum for himself!), while saving the lives of white government officials. The High Evolutionary with his eugenics obsession in GOTG3 now recast as a black man so that white supremacy is visually no longer linked to Nazi eugenics, etc. etc. Even though Zola is a Nazi, in this WI episode, Killmonger is implied to be equal in villainy? Alarm bells should be ringing! )

+2 Bonus Times!

7. Ant-Man.

where smirking Hydra Baddie Mitchell Carson is head of Defense at SHIELDra when she is supposed to be Director (ie. in charge of hiring).

If you pay attention to the scene, like (almost all) Peggy scenes, the men simply ignore whatever she is saying. Therefore, what she says has absolutely no impact on the course of the conversation or the trajectory of the plot, and she could be cut from the scene entirely or replaced with a piece of furniture without anything changing.

(This what we mean when we say she fails the Sexy Lamp Test).

A charitable interpretation is that they're trying to imply it's only obliviousness and powerlessness against men which makes Nazis keep happening on her watch. That she simply can't clock a bad guy when they're right under her nose and that she would be ignored if she objected, anyway.

But again:

A) her own show bends over backwards to say that she does what she wants, regardless of men,

B) she knew Zola was a Nazi before she employed him

C) she alone definitely recruited him and the Nazis by her own admission.

(Howard and Mitchell Carson don’t seem to get along. Even more likely Mitchell was her hire.)

It’s nonsense to say she would be shocked and not happy to find out Carson is a Nazi when she has already given a job to Red Skull’s chief scientist and right hand man and he's acting just like a Nazi in front of her and she's not doing anything about it.

D) powerless pre-serum Steve clocked villains and punched their clocks, consequences be damned. ”The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” But Peggy isn’t a man, so it doesn’t apply to her?

E) Hank Pym finds out someone in his organisation is openly doing wrong, because they're Hydra, and what does he do? He confronts them, punches them, and leaves the organisation in protest.

Peggy finds out the exact same things about Carson in the same scene as Pym and yet she's happy to stay put.

Her own actions prove she wouldn't do right even if she knew wrong was happening in her organisation, under her auspices, even in the same room as her.

oh and:

F) in other universes where they bend over backwards to show that Peggy definitely is in charge... (What If s1) she still ends up working with Nazis!

It's incompetence, collusion, or cowardice, but not an accident.

8. Agents of SHIELD.

Lying about her war-record and stealing Bucky’s again, despite her lack of any military rank, and despite CATFA movie and script clearly indicating that Peggy was in a bunker in London and only once on the frontlines (alongside old men and scientists; other non-coms)...

She is again shown leading the Howlies, to capture SS Officer Doctor Werner Reinhardt (AKA Daniel Whitehall).

Later, Peggy interviews Reinhardt in SHIELD prison.

So... once again:

It was NOT Howard Stark, the science guy, doing Nazi scientist prisoner interviews.

NOT Col. Phillips, any other Agent of SHIELD, or any other government official!

It was Peggy, on her own.

This (and WI) contradict CATFA, where it was Col. Phillips who went to interview Zola.

They’re in such a radfem rush to give Peggy all the stuff to do, stealing deeds already shown being performed by male characters, that as usual they haven’t realised what it is they’re implying:

That it was definitely she alone who is in charge of dealing with Nazi prisoners who are later given jobs.

( Like in WhatIf episode 1, where she --- it’s hinted -- tortured Zola. Another attempt to steal from male characters to retcon her close relationship to Zola, which lasts... until the end of that season? 🙄 )

During her interview with Werner Reinhardt, Peggy is asked:

“So, curiosity brings her back. Have you come to make a deal?

I considered it. As you said, the skies might open up one day, your work would be valuable. But if that day comes, I know who I'd want by my side. It isn't you [...] Instead, we'll forget... forget you, forget your work. When I leave, no one else will come, no one to hear your stories, study your deadly artifacts. You'll be buried.”

The writers think they have created a scene proving that Peggy wouldn’t work with Nazis.

But, as usual, they fuck that up.

Because:

A) she admits that she alone listened to a Nazi’s arguments for why he should be employed, and thought they were important enough to memorise them.

B) she admits she did consider it.

(And we know that she’s lying when she claims she wouldn’t work with a Nazi or a villain, because by this point she already has; she already has employed Zola, and Fennhoff, and Dorothy Underwood. It's a moot point. It amounts to saying 'I wouldn't work with THAT Nazi... because I already have one.' And thinking that makes her Good.)

C) she describes a Nazi’s torture experiments and discoveries, not as reprehensible, but as “valuable.”

(Top of the list of ‘Things Steve Rogers Would Never Say.’)

This is textbook ends-justify-the-means speak, which honourable Steve showed he abhors when he objected to Hydra guns and Project Insight.

He and Peggy are not the same.

Peggy says she wouldn’t want to fight alongside Nazis? Not if her own neck was at risk?

D) Except ... as I said ... that’s exactly what she did do in What If; the skies did open, and she did openly fight alongside a Nazi.

This cameo has her, herself describe the exact circumstances in which she would work with a Nazi and then WhatIf shows her doing just that.

(Because the writers think the circumstances excuse that, just like the US did with Operation Paperclip).

Her other-universe selves betray her hypocrisy and lies, in both universes.

She can make all the pretty speeches she likes, but Peggy’s actions speak louder.

( And in What If they made all the true heroes work with Nazi Zola, too, to make it seem less egregious that she did.

(Multiple wrongs make a right?)

Yet none of those heroes had Steve crying over his best friend, having been murdered by that same Nazi, and saying that he wanted all Nazis dead or captured...

And, in that universe, neither did Peggy, because they also cut that scene out, to further whitewash her canon treachery and hypocrisy.

And to imply that

1) wanting Nazis dead or captured isn’t an intrinsic part of Steve’s character since cartoon-Steve doesn’t do it in another universe (What If...I Punched These Writers In the Face?), and

2) working with Nazis was only wrong of her to do in the OG timeline because it would upset Steve?? 🤦‍♀️ )

What really comes across is that it is Peggy’s pride moving her to claim that she wouldn’t work with Hydra.

She thinks she isn't the sort of person to do that, even when she's literally describing circumstances in which she would...

Even though she already did do that in her own show... and the films... and the other show... multiple times...

(Oh! And the Illuminati? Also not great! Comics Steve was kicked out for protesting them!)

She, the actress, and the writers, have an ironclad image of Peggy as an honourable decorous person, which appears to continue untouched by the exactly-contradictory facts of her history.

Ironically, Peggy claims that the Nazi scientist will be forgotten.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that her collaboration with Nazi scientists will be forgotten, by Her as it is in Disney.

(No points for guessing why; Disney would want people to forget or get over collaborations with Nazi scientists. They were happy to associate with Leni Riefenstahl (Hitler’s ‘perfect german woman’ whom Walt gave a personal studio tour), and Wernher Von Braun, pictured alongside Zola in CATWS, the guy who drew slave labour from Buchenwald concentration camp... who was also eulogised in Iron Man 3 to handwave another Stark’s arms-trafficking past. Disney were also happy to employ openly pro-Nazi voice-actors -- such as Christian Rub, the man who voiced Geppetto in Pinocchio -- and early animators had regular fisticuffs with antisemitic colleagues.)

The other reason that this Peggy scene with Reinhardt is so damning, and the writers clearly don’t realise:

Both characters’ dialogue makes it absolutely 100% clear that, at this time, it is Peggy’s decision whether a Nazi will be freed and employed.

(Meaning the decades prior, when Nazis were employed? Her decision.)

When she arrived, Reinhardt didn’t ask if someone else, some higher-up man, some government official, had come to a decision about him; only Peggy, and she never mentioned anyone else’s opinion as having an impact.

What is true of this employed Nazi repeats the pattern of employment shown in the Agent Carter show and in other universes in What If: Peggy alone decides whether a Nazi is allowed on the team.

So when there is a Nazi on the team, it has been okayed by her.

And, by her own admission, after she leaves, ‘no one else will come.’

She appears to be under the impression that her word alone is definitive, when it comes to Nazis.

Yet, incompetence strikes again.

Because Reinhardt is later released from custody (just like Zola) the same year as her retirement, and allowed to continue his work torturing and experimenting on humans, with disastrous consequences for the main characters of the AOS show.

(So, Peggy was both incompetent to believe her word was final, and negligent not to have put in place any guarantees that this one specific Nazi could not be freed later, after she had retired.)

They again attempt to whitewash Peggy’s culpability for this by attributing this decision to Hydra Head / then-Undersecretary of the World Security Council, Alexander Pierce, not Precious Miss Miaow-Miaow, after her tenure.

But:

if Peggy had done what Steve wanted ( all Nazis dead or captured ) Hydra would never have re-grown.

There would never have been a Head of Hydra.

So no Nazi would ever have been in a position to release more Nazis.

Pierce’s power is a direct result of Peggy's delusional hypocrisy and knowing collusion.

This is also not an accident.

9. *UPDATE* After What if season 2...

We are shown a universe where SHIELD is founded and run by some of the same people... (Hank Pym, Howard Stark, and Bucky) ...except for Peggy.

And in that universe, where Peggy is not in charge of SHIELD, there are no Nazis mentioned as being employed by SHIELD.

If her absence in SHIELD = absence of Nazis, what are we supposed to infer about her presence in SHIELD?

(No mention is made of Col. Phillips in this universe. So I think we can assume he wasn't part of SHIELD, either. But, of the three OG founders, he is the only one to specifically mention wanting to fuck up Nazis. To "personally escort Adolf Hitler to the gates of Hell." )

We're also shown a moment where Peggy and Howard meet the Winter Soldier (whom Peggy refers to as an "it," not a human being) and both reveal that they knew The Winter Soldier was Bucky for decades and didn't do anything about it.

Like the Ant Man cameo this reiterates:

Peggy is the common denominator in Nazis being employed in SHIELD.

If Howard knows something it's likely Peggy knows it too. In the main timeline Howard not only recognised TWS as Bucky (a man he was never shown meeting) 40+ years after Bucky is supposed to have died, when he's standing on a dark street, with long hair in his face, and while Howard was disorientated from a head wound, with blood in his eyes, and when TWS was sent without his identity-concealing mask on for the only time ever, while Howard has WS serum in his trunk that he could only have got from Bucky. AND! When he recognised Bucky, he didn't sound surprised. He knew. Ergo, Peggy knew.

mythbusted: the idea that Peggy and Stark can't have known about bad people in SHIELD because they would've done something about it if they had. Here again is the proof that Peggy wouldn't.

unlike heroic selfless Steve, Peggy is likely to ignore it if she sees "a situation pointed south". Just as likely as Howard Stark. As Peter Parker said in CACW: "when you can do the things that I can, but you don't, and then the bad things happen... they happen because of you."

Conclusion:

Every time Peggy (says she) is in charge, and Nazis are around, they end up either on her side with her blessing, directly aided in their endeavours by her, and/or getting away with whatever they want to do, when she’s supposed to be in charge of making sure they are not doing that. And when she isn't in charge of SHIELD... there is no mention of Nazis being employed there.

A common defence of Peggy I see is that she’s ‘just’ one of three founders and that, even though they never show it, she could have objected to Zola’s employment, etc. etc.

But this is a pedestal fallacy, because:

A) If it isn't shown they don't get to claim it happened. That's not how writing works.

B) multiple TV shows have her unwittingly revealing that she wouldn’t object to working with Nazis because she admits she would and then does work with Nazis, as she does in the films (More on this below...)

C) multiple TV shows also make it explicit that it’s her decision alone to employ Nazis, before other characters became involved with that decision-making.

D) she is also shown being friendly with Howard Stark (in a way which allows her to shatter a glass ceiling that would otherwise limit her power as a woman) during the period in which he is friends with Arnim Zola and has given Zola the nickname ‘Arnie’ and Zola's computer/brain is shown under her office. She cannot be friends with a known Nazi’s friend, when that Nazi is almost literally right underneath her nose, and not do anything about that, and still somehow be a good, competent person.

E) so she’s a girlboss right up until she’s supposed to take responsibility for the things she’s responsible for?

This isn't strong feminist writing of a character, it's benign misogyny and peak white feminism.

Either she’s important and responsible, or she’s not important, and is therefore a delusional egotist for believing she is and claiming otherwise (which is at least more interesting).

In turning her into a white feminist/2nd wave feminism's self-insert Mary Sue, the center of the universe- nay, of all universes!! -What If s2 has shown that the writers at last believe she is important.

Which means she is responsible. Not a hapless helpless bimbo.

And if she were, she's a coward for not doing the right thing despite being the underdog the way Steve would (or even Hank Pym would!)

Because:

F) being institutionally powerless does not excuse collaborating with Nazis.

Steve was powerless, and he was willing to fight Nazis despite experiencing both considerable societal pushback and physical weakness, both before and after serum.

If Peggy is supposed to have been an anti-Nazi spy as a woman during WWII she doesn’t get to suddenly play the woman-card as an excuse for doing nothing about Nazis post-WWII.

She can punch a US private for questioning her authority, but she can’t punch Nazis?

If a random computer nerd nobody in CATWS can refuse to launch Nazi helicarriers, even with a literal gun to his head, if a mere scientist like Hank Pym can punch a Nazi and leave the organisation in protest, there is absolutely no excuse for Peggy.

She is not exonerated of blame just because she’s female.

#long post #antipeggy #antisteggy #p*ggy meta #mcu meta #mcu critical #steggy is hydra trash party #historically accurate stucky tag #meta #dat's me #toAyourQ #the AC Anon #antiendgame #endgame steve is a skrull #Fool me once shame on you / Fool me EIGHT TIMES??#🙂🙂🙂#yet each man queues the thing he loves #my meta

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md-guel · 1 year

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another episode 19 frame that occurred to me suddenly and now I can't stop thinking about it. the earthian doctor said to leave the deal-making to the politicians and considering the economic structure of this anime, it's easy to muddle the words. but when we really think about it, miorine and her ilk aren't politicians in the strictest sense. they're business owners whose business is profit and not social responsibility. so that's one scary part right there: this impoverished population is already so abused by these business owners but they have no choice but to rely on their profit-driven mindset because there's no one else in this economy

the other scary part is that miorine may be president of gund-arm inc but she's only just a business student, she's an undergraduate who's not even 17 yet. and she's brilliant, let's not get that wrong—but what does it say about their society that a kid has to step into 2-3-inch high heels to speak with adults and not be questioned about what she's doing out there? basically, what I'm trying to say is, anime age aside, the fact that this is normal to them means that they probably have very lax laws about child labor and it's probably something that was driven by need in the past and it just...never changed. and now people like miorine see it as normal when if she were born in a slightly more functional society, she would at best only be an intern in her dad's office and someone else would succeed him until she came of age and got all her education.

#g witch #gundam witch #this also sounded much better in my head

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metataxy · 1 year

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I share my dreams with ghosts, #3

Summary: The man who calls himself Luthen Rael was a Jedi once. This is how he survives Order 66, and what comes after.

Not posting to AO3 until I figure out where this is going!

Part 1 here , Part 2

It is a long time before he sees another Jedi.

Six months passes. He rebuilds his business. His mother’s interference in his life recedes with her concern. He passes one tenday in four with her on Alderaan, escorting her to society parties and speaking cordially with what eligible ladies his cousin hadn’t repulsed. He would not enjoy it, except for the obvious pleasure Menica derives from his company and compliance. From the dossiers provided by the Shadows on his cousin, Luthen Rael had ignored his mother to the point of disrespect.

It would be safer for his cover to be cruel. But with what few years left her, he thinks his mother prefers he risk being a compassionate son.

He tells himself that so he can pretend he does it for her.

Mostly, he does it for himself. He cannot help it. Making himself happy is impossible. Making her happy is the easiest thing he has ever done. He is, after all, a student of Dooku, and the man had been exacting in training him to blend with the nobility. He dances the Alderaani waltzes with aplomb and works quotes from Nubian literature into his conversation, patronizes the appropriate gentleman’s clubs, and in every way, convinces everyone that Luthen Rael has become no more or less than the best version of himself.

Along the way, he sells antiques and makes polite enquiries and learns a thousand small secrets: who is sleeping with who, who can be bought, who can’t. He learns about the quiet investments of supposed philanthropists in ‘re-education facilities’ that churn out fortune commodities with their unpaid inmates, and their trade in ‘personal care workers’.

He learns nothing about why the clones turned on them, or how many of his people remain.

One late night on Coruscant, as he sorts through a cache deeded to Luthen Rael by the Shadows, the deadbolt slides itself open from the inside.

He stops, then draws his blaster from his holster and ducks below the table. The doors opens. He can only see the being’s knees from this vantage. He primes himself for whatever will happen next.

Quinlan Vos laughs.

“You could just tell me you didn’t want to see me, Rael. No need to hide yourself on my account.”

He drops the blaster, though the safety is off and he’s told initiates a thousand times never to do just that. He rounds the table, and there is Quinlan. He’s cut off his dreads and he’s either removed or covered his facial tattoo, and his eyes are the gold of the Fallen. But he’s Quinlan, and otherwise as he’s always been, dressed in spacer garb and smelling faintly of deathsmoke and spices.

Rael embraces him and damns the fact he can’t feel him in the Force.

“Oof—that’s a bit more like it. Got some brew in here?” Quinlan asks. Neither of them mention that the other might be crying.

They settle down over an antique table carved from Worrosshyk wood and a bottle of Corellian brandy.

“So, old man. You’re alive,” Quinlan observes, after swigging his first shot.

Rael ignores the ‘old man’. It’s accurate anyways. “Yeah.” He sips his brandy and rolls the first mouthful around his mouth, savouring the burn. “Didn’t expect that.” He pauses a moment. “I’m Force-Null. Burnt out my connection.”

Quinlan leans back in his chair. “Thought so. Fuck.” He tops up Rael’s glass, then refills his own. “Rough, man.”

There is an awkward silence at the understatement.

“Why,” Rael’s voice cracks. “Did any of the Jedi actually assassinate those politicians?”

“Fuck no,” Quinlan says, then pauses. “Not that I know, anyways. Wouldn’t make sense, they were mostly on our side. Had to be Palpatine.”

“Right.” He sips again, glances down at the Ruusan commemorative coin on the table. “The clones?”

“They did something to them,” Quinlan said, sipping his drink carefully. “I’ve grabbed a few to check them out. They’re completely loyal to Palpatine. And once they realize you’re a jedi, they turn into meat-droids. All ‘Good soldiers follow orders’ and that nonsense.” He fixes Rael with his hawk’s eyes. “Kill any if you get the chance. They’re not people anymore.”

The assessment is harsh, but he doesn’t argue with it. Maybe some of the clones could fight whatever was wrong with them, but he didn’t think it was worth the lives of the remaining Jedi to test that. Speaking of which…

“Did any of us survive?”

Quinlan’s right eye twitches, and he puts his glass down. “Can’t tell you that,” he says reflexively, then thinks about it. “Yeah. Some of us survived. The Medicorps I was supposed to get offworld, when you gave me the assist? They got offworld. Thanks. Can’t say more than that.”

Luthen feels satisfied in a way he has not for a long time. “Did anyone kill Skywalker?”

Quinlan’s face darkens, and Force-Null as he is, Luthen must be imagining it, the way the air feels charged, the faint smell of ozone. “Obi-Wan went after him. No one heard back from either of them. Hopefully Obi killed that fucker.”

“You can’t sense Kenobi?”

“If I could, I couldn’t tell you,” Quinlan reminds him, picking at the cuff seams on his nerfhide jacket. “No. I can’t. You ever see a storm on Kamino? Thousand foot waves. Water spouts. Absolute madness. That’s the Force right now, and you’re floating on a life raft in the middle of that. Be glad you burnt out your connection when you did,” Quinlan says bitterly. “Anyone left who’s remotely functional had to Fall to cope with it. The ones who didn’t are all mad or catatonic.”

“You can’t tell me a lot of things,” Rael muses, looking out into the dusty shelves of curios piled in the cache. “I’ve seen the wanted posters. They’re still hunting us. How? They caught us off-guard with the clones, but it should take a squad of bounty hunters to take down a Knight who knows they’re coming, if they can even find him.”

Quinlan taps his finger against his empty glass. Rael does not refill it, and pointedly caps the bottle and moves it out of the man’s reach. Quin scowls. “First, they’re not all Knights. We’re moving Padawans and Corpsmen and even freaking families who were going to give up their infants to the creche. Second,” his voice tightens, “it’s not bounty hunters you need to worry about. It’s traitors.”

“Who?” Rael demands, mind considering the possibilities.

Quinlan scowls at him.

“Geez, man. Shields.”

Rael gives him a pointed look.

“Dude. Don’t give me that stare. I’ve met lifelong Force Nulls who block better than you are right now. With all the intel knocking around your head, you have to get your shit together,” Quin tells him, serious. “Or you’re a liability.”

Only after this discussion, when Quin has gone, does it occur to Rael what a Shadow might have to do under this new Empire, with someone with too much information and no way to protect it.

“The traitors,” he repeats.

“The traitors,” Quinlan agrees. “I don’t have names. No, I’m not lying. Anyone who’s met them in person is dead. We’ve gotten some blurry security footage and some text intel though. Based on fighting style, one’s a former guardian. Tall, slim, humanoid, wears all black—” Quin glances down at himself and scoffs, “though I guess that’s standard for darksiders. “Skin looked pale. Was wearing some kind of ear protectors, might have been a Pau’an.”

Bile rises at the back of Rael’s throat. A guardian? It feels perverse. The Temple Guards, like the Shadows, are an Order within the Order. He doesn’t know their Oaths, but he does know they are stricter, more binding, than the Oaths of ordinary Masters. A Jedi Master vows to follow the will of the Force and the guidance of the Order. There is a great deal of flexibility in that promise though, and Rael’s lineage-brother, Qui-Gon, had been famous for exploiting it.

But a Guardian is sworn and bound to a Temple, through means that Dooku suspected to be the lighter counterpart of Sith Magick, and everyone forgets that Temples are not safe. Any place persistently inhabited by Force Users begins to acquire a sentience of its own. The location of the Coruscant Temple might have changed many times in the past few millennia, but its blocks and foundation are ancient. He imagines places like it inspired stories of primitive gods.

In those stories, oathbreaking never ended well.

“I hope the Temple eats him alive.”

“It’s been corrupted somehow.”

Rael swallows back his gorge and somehow refrains from asking how?. “Any good news for me tonight?”

“Well, the other traitor we’ve heard about recently has a breathing dysfunction and is on a respirator. We found that out by listening to the comms while he slaughtered two knights and a master, by the way.”

Rael laughed helplessly, because he couldn’t cry. Quinlan waited for him to stop.

He was waiting awhile.

“There have to be others though. We’ve had too many reports of Jedi killing Jedi, or civilians, for it to be made up.”

“How do you know they were Jedi and not more of Palpatine’s plants, trying to make us look culpable?”

“They used telekinesis.”

Rael went silent.

“Not all the ones killing civilians are traitors either. Some of them just went mad. Met a couple. The killing started as self-defense, when the mobs turned on them, and now? They can’t stop. It’s addictive for Fallen, you know.” He didn’t. “It’s mostly the younger ones who have the issue. Grew up in a warzone, getting shit from civilians for not protecting their posh asses well enough, this just tipped them over.” He steals the bottle off the shelf with a telekinetic tug Rael can no longer counter and pours himself another drink. “Offee wasn’t the only kid we fucked up. Just the only one with the balls to tell us to our faces.”

Rael, like most Masters, does not like thinking of Barriss Offee, of the Jedi she could have made, if only they kept her in the Halls of Healing, if only they hadn’t sent her into an active warzone, if only they’d noticed how she was struggling.

He likes even less thinking that there are others as lost as she is out there, easy targets for the Sith to recruit if they are gathering Fallen Knights.

“How can I help?”

Quinlan smiles, slow and genuine.

“Now that’s just the question I hoped you’d ask.”

----------------------------------------------------------

The details are straightforward. Before the first untimely demise of Luthen Rael, he’d been a shareholder in several businesses whose chief commodity was sentient life. No reason he couldn’t revive that revenue stream. The Empire was even more willing to disregard such foibles than the Republic. In fact, Quinlan muses, they might well award him for ‘providing a livelihood’ to otherwise ‘unemployable citizens’.

This time, however, the skinhouses where Rael offloads his merchandise will be fronts for the Underground.

It’s clever. It’s nothing he hadn’t done before. And he doesn’t like it, because, “My mother won’t like it.”

It isn’t a protest. He already knows he’s doing this. Quinlan already knows he’s doing it. So why does he bother to even say it?

“Right,” Quinlan says, annoyed. “Luthen Rael is all reformed. Heard he’d even gone altruistic. Thought even the excesses of the Empire had pushed even that skeevy old man to shape up, didn’t know it was you.” He’d lit a deathstick, and Rael’s fingers itched to have it in his hand. “You got to cut it out.”

“No one knows it’s me.”

“No one’s paid attention to you. Yet. Keep attending all these charity galas and chatting up the political hotspots, and someone will. Compassion leaves a fucking trail, man,” he flicked his cigarette, “and we can’t afford to have anyone outed. Your mother doesn’t have to know about it. She’s what, 90?”

“84.”

“Exactly.”

That is how Luthen Rael starts trafficking in ‘slaves’, some legitimately bought up out of rehabilitation facilities, some fleeing the Empire using falsified indentures from the Outer Rim. He deals with the paperwork. Quinlan handles the rest, so Rael rarely meets the refugees in person.

He continues to trade in antiquities, and alongside those, in secrets.

With the Shadows’ caches open to him, his own growing network of contacts, and a measure of luck, he gains a reputation as one able to source anything.

He takes care never to go to any event high-profile enough to host the Emperor or his acolytes, but some of Palpatine’s lackeys visit his shop, looking for curios to curry favour with their superiors. He sees the man’s sycophants at parties.

At this point, it is fairly obvious Chancellor Palpatine is the somehow the Sith Lord, and not just because he is best placed to benefit from the deaths of the Jedi. Sly Moore and his cronies come to parties wearing kyber amid so many other cheap baubles. ‘Tokens of the Emperor’s favour’, they boast, and Rael does his best to look suitably impressed, and ask appropriate questions. Where did the gems come from and how did he get them and who did they belong to.

The answers come easily. No one is expecting a spy at these banquets. Rebels are rimscum, too poor for anything but ammunition. Also, Sly and his ilk have all but rehearsed their responses in anticipation of these very questions.

They tell him the names of the Jedi who owned the Kyber, and their bloody histories in the wars. As importantly, they tell him how those Jedi died.

“Killed by Darth Vader, you know. One of the Emperor’s foremost generals.”

“The Grand Inquisitor. Not a very sociable chap. Almost feral—” the thick-waisted moff leans in, “they say he was a jedi before the Emperor rehabilitated him, and you’d believe it. Teeth like knives. Half expected him to tear out my throat!”

He gives a delicate shudder. Rael imagines the protest of the kyber strung about his triple-chinned neck. Hopes the man cuts himself on its facets as he strokes it with his fat fingers. According to the moff, it had been taken from the saber of a Jedi so bloodthirsty ze’d been field-promoted to General when zer superior died. Ze’d gone on to slaughter half their troops when ze’d been declared traitor.

Kyber are inorganic lifeforms. Perhaps they are not quite sentient, but they approach in developing feelings and opinions alongside their Jedi. For this kyber, for its Padawan, who had lost zer Master too early and had been forced to fight so fools like this moff could live easy, Rael could have cut the man down.

Instead, he drinks his champagne, and asks the senator at his side about his acquisition.

A gold-eyed Falleen servitor across the room smiles at him, flashes what all the dandies in this room would see as a flirtatious wave. Rael smiles and signs back.

He won’t be seen leaving the party with the servitor. Luthen Rael’s tastes were too well-established by his predecessor: he prefers human girls.

Jedi Shadow Tailen Fuugo meets him instead at his shop days later, to pawn off some valuables of dubious provenance before he flies offworld.

In an hour, the unidentified Falleen will flee the shop after injuring Rael, and Rael himself will call the authorities, claiming someone was trafficking in stolen articles. In an hour, Rael will send some of those stolen articles back to their undeserving owners, thus cementing his repute as a reputable component of Imperial commerce. In an hour, Fuugo will stripped off his disguise and vanished into the underworld of Coruscant.

Inside that hour, and the sanctity of Rael’s backroom, they are two Jedi.

It is dangerous to acknowledge each other, more dangerous to meet.

They do it anyways. They need to, to exchange intel, and who else can they trust these days?

“Don’t even trust former Jedi,” Fuugo warns him. “Not unless you know them personally. Not even if they haven’t Fallen.”

The Sith are doing something, to the Jedi they capture. Twisting them, indoctrinating them. There are ways to break a Jedi, ways to enslave Force-Sensitives. Rael underwent a fair number of them to order to gain resistance when he became a Shadow. He experienced or learnt of others under Dooku’s tutelage. Force cuffs are standard. Psychotropic and addictive substances are favoured by the Hutts and the cartels. All of these, along with pain and violation of the mind and body, were employed by Sith during the wars a millennium past.

He doubts so effort or technique will be necessary for the Jedi of this age. Most of them are already broken.

----------------------------

Notes: Yeaaaaah, just more sad Jedi, because who doesn’t enjoy torturing a protagonist? Poor Luthen.

Go to Part 4 -->

#Andor #Luthen Rael #Quinlan Vos #Order 66 #Star Wars #Jedi

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theconstitutionisgayculture · 2 years

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(1/2) Speaking as a staunch Conservative, Conservatism absolutely has an inclusivity problem. Their PR mostly presents the "ideal" American family as white and Christian. You can definitely be non-Christian, non-white, and still love America and support small government. Why can't they promote black families? Or a Jewish or Muslim conservative? The also need to stop disparaging unwed, childless women who haven't been fortunate enough to find their person yet.

(2/2) Judgmental shit like that is what turns people off from right-wing circles. You know who doesn't tell women they've "hit their wall" by age 26? Left-wing feminists. You know who doesn't assume Christianity is the default religion for a person? Leftists. I know being non-white/non-Christian/unwed/childless isn't mutually exclusive from Conservatism, but right-wingers really need to show it better.

What the hell are you talking about? There are hundreds on non-white conservative/right wing voices out there. Candace Owens, Colion Noir, Eric July, Tim Scott, Marco Rubio, etc. There are dozens of non-white Republicans running for office nationwide in just over a week, at least. Republicans have been running Spanish language ads in majority Latino neighborhoods this year. The last 7 years has seen historic shifts of minorities leaving the Democrat party for the Republicans. Donald Trump is the only president this century that enacted meaningful prison reform, and he had several initiatives aimed at helping black families and black owned businesses. I could go on for practically forever just about the last ten years alone.

What you're talking about isn't an "inclusivity" problem. The right is much more inclusive than the left. What you want is to be pandered to. Sorry, but if that's what you want, the left is right over there. You can get all the soft-bigotry of low expectations and shallow attempts at representation you want, all while they take your vote and ignore you the other 364 days of the year.

As for why the American religious right mentions Christianity so much, it's because most Americans are some form of Christian.

The biggest group outside of Christianity are atheists, not Jews or Muslims. Which is why you've seen a softening of the hardline religious arguments on the right in the last 15 years. Even the pro-life arguments from very religious people have started to include secular and science based arguments against abortion, instead of just religious ones. But even when religion is mentioned, it's mentioned broadly. Faith in God is mentioned more than faith in Jesus. Aside from Mormons who tend to speak "as Mormons" or "to Mormons", you don't have right wing politicians speaking only to Protestants or Baptists or Lutherans or Catholics. They speak of God, and of having faith in God, and in needing to return to God, if they speak of religion at all. Those are all broad ideals. A Muslim has faith in God the same as a Christian. That they call that God Allah means little. The bigger differences are the beliefs and practices of their religion, what kind of God God is, who his prophets are, what doctrine is the official divine word and what's heresy or blasphemy, etc. But faith in God? That's universal to every Abrahamic religion.

As for disparaging unwed, childless women, outside of some trad circles, no one does that seriously. What people on the right tend to do is disparage women who sleep around. They don't like OnlyFans and many of them don't support porn and promote abstinence. For a "staunch conservative", you don't seem to have much experience with modern conservatism as a whole.

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lake-archive · 6 months

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Track 3

Fandom: Hypnosis Mic

Series: Three CATZ In The Bag

Characters: Eli (by @watersofcamelot), Ole (OC), Ann Wolff (OC)

AO3 Link

Track 2 - Track List - Track 4

Life moves on, it continues no matter what one does or says. The only option is to make the best of the situation you are in. As long as you live, who really cares? At least that had always been on Eli’s mind. What is the average citizen going to do against an entire organization? One has to see the bigger picture, the entire picture even. Besides, wasn't it a matter of time? When looking at history this was long overdue. It was only a matter of time until a group of women would stand up and cause a riot. That was just how this went, he had decided to just accept it. It was human nature, seeking revenge for being wronged. He didn't know the details nor will he ever know, he just heard things before and was not too dense to understand the climate before the H Age. It was the human cycle, someone will always suffer. Voicing any type of opinion would be useless, especially if the voice was used to oppose the faction in power.

And not like he really cares anyway. He was able to live so long as he was acting within boundaries and just barely scratched the line, one tiny step behind the line he could cross, he should be fine. No, he will be fine. So honestly, why should he care about the affairs going on at a higher level? He ain't a politician and life wasn't all bad. Move where you can and pay the somewhat high taxes. As long as they ain't killing anyone he won't worry about it. Only those who adjust will survive, that was the only thing he was truly worried about. As long as he lives though, what does it matter?

This day had been like any other, just a little dark and rainy. Then again, given the season it may as well be nothing unusual on its own. At least he had brought some protection for said rain, even if it was a bit of a pain to carry around while walking home after a day of work. Well, said work was handing out food for those who are in a pinch and need it but it was work nonetheless. Besides, they compensated him enough to get by so he was not going to complain. He was just a guy going home. All while passing by all the people, everyone having the same ordinary worries he has and couldn’t be bothered with the climate going on around them. Which was fair, not even he could be bothered. Just a dude living his life, that’s what he is. One of many. Just a walk home…

And yet, there was some feeling he had while taking step after step, that something might happen which usually doesn’t happen. Maybe his gut was very far off however and he was just imagining things, or a desire for something to happen. Life was dull recently after all, maybe it was some type of desire for something to happen. Even his best friends from the police were nowhere to be found these days. Not even the hypocrite of a cop. Then again, he might be busy with some shady business all the same. And that guy has the guts to be a part of the ‘force preserving justice’? Now, not like Eli necessarily cared, but it was laughable to be honest. Justice his ass.

Or any official of the Party Of Words he could piss off for fun, then have the second big boss appear in person to defuse the situation. It was fun, mainly because of her reactions. Honestly, provoking such people was honestly a pastime. He was just barely crossing the line after all, always so close, but they had no proof nor a case to lock him up. Unlike the excuse of a cop who just caged him in due to being a ‘public nuisance’. But Eli got out within a few hours so whatever. Not like it mattered to begin with. He wasn’t fired from his workplace, mainly because it is voluntary anyway and they needed all the help they could get. Better than sitting around bored after retirement, isn’t it? Well, he wasn’t an old man but he retired for a while now after—

Ah, nevermind, not important. He would rather not recall the time in any way. It was for the best honestly if he did not recall. He didn’t want to recall it to begin with. Besides, not like it was going to matter ever again.

Not to mention that he would come to a halt anyway when having spotted something from afar, or rather someone when just about to cross the streets.

There was someone, a young woman with long, brown yet messy hair and a skirt. She looked hunched over, a little dirty even, and her clothes were all see through. In general she was soaking wet from the rain. Under her skirt was a cat which sheltered itself from the rain and tried to dry up. Fur all black, the ears pointy which suggested its age, green wide eyes and white on the belly and the front of the paws, one could jokingly say the cat was wearing ‘white shoes on the front paws and boots on the back paws’ – Oh, and the white dot on its nose stood out as well, it may as well be his trademark.

Given the combination he had been spotting under the street light in this corner was none other than Ann and her cat. It was hard to miss them to be completely honest, at least for him.

Eli had gotten to know the two by chance, shortly before Ann was growing busy, some time to get to know another and grow close yet only somewhat. Still, he felt closer to the two than most other people.

Apparently with work within the party, something her mother edged her on to do and Ann complied. Combined with studies this would pack things up and the two got not too much time to converse and speak. At most he had a gut feeling that she was struggling here and there but heard it never from them directly. But one look at her and Ole told him all he needed to know.

Thus he approached the two. It was difficult to ignore them for him personally, before standing in front of them. The old cat had noticed right away, lifting his head up in an instance and looking at the young man with his green, wide eyes. It didn’t look like much else, only a quick look upwards from a cat who heard someone approach.

As for Ann… She did not have the same reaction. She was lost in thought, facing the cold and wet ground beneath her, too deep in thought. Probably thought long enough though, so Eli decided to speak up. “Ann?”

That had gotten her attention, making her own head lift itself up to stare right at the young man. She didn’t respond verbally yet she didn’t have to in the first place. He could already tell. Her eyes had never been very lively yet this time she looked extremely in pain, a little uncomfortable even. She was holding onto her own body and her legs in front of it as well, as if trying to cover it up. Did she want no one to look? Maybe, possibly. Not because of her shirt, no. There was another reason for it. All while Ole was resting yet still seemed to be on alert, given his tail was not even swaying and his ears were all up. If necessary he would probably jump at anyone looking weird at his owner or something like that. Then again, he was a cat who was always awfully aware of his surroundings. Eli could tell.

It took no guesses and he was just asking for the obvious. He had eyes, there was no need. And yet, he wanted to hear it from her directly in some way. “Something happened, didn’t it?”

It didn’t take long yet she nodded weakly, trying to not look at him, as if in shame. And yet, she was not going to run. Maybe because they were not strangers. And besides… She looked like she needed help.

“You two, come home with me. You need to bath and warm up first.” He suggested, almost commanded yet in a more soft tone. Not even bothering to wait he turned around, only quickly gazing behind himself to see if Ann got up and Ole started to walk. It took a bit yet he saw her getting up and the cat following right next to her. He nodded as a result before leading the way. They were in need after all, he couldn’t leave them alone. A contradiction perhaps but… He always had the urge to help the two if they needed it. There was something about them after all… At least to Eli.

Track 2 - Track List - Track 4

#Nimue's Lake #fanfiction #fanfic #fic #original character #male original character #original male character #original fiction #hypnosis mic #hypmic #hypnosis mic oc #hypmic oc

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