#If you decided to have the mask off in public during the swap | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

solarlunarsstuff · 4 months

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𖦹- SOLAR'S KINKTOBER M.LIST 2024 !!!

Hõla and welcome to my 2024 Kinktober masterlist!!! (YIPEE) This is going to be my fisrt one (besides the cancled one), I AM so happy to be apart of this for this year! Be sure to check the warnings and if you're uncomfortable, please ignore!!! (WARNING! ALL IS WRITTEN BY MINOR!!!)

1st "KEEP IT ON" Suguru G.

⁀➷ <clothes> Suguru forces his poor baby into wearing her skirt while pumping her until she can't breath.

2nd "NICE AND TIGHT" Timothée C.

⁀➷ <collars/bondage> Tim loves seeing the red marks on your skin from the tight collars he puts on you.

3rd "MY PRINCESS" Yuji I.

⁀➷ <nicknames> Yuji swears he never uses more than one nickname on you during sex (he's lying)

4th "CALL ME DADDY" Muzan K.

⁀➷ <roleplay> Muzan takes full control in bed but oh does he get worse when you both roleplay.

5th "POPPED BUTTONS" Simon R. (Ghost)

⁀➷ <suits> You'd never think your big boyfriend would look that good in a suit.

6th "KEEP IT LIKE THAT" Satoru G.

⁀➷ <sex toys> He gets so turned on to see you twitch as you cum for the nth time.

7th "LOOK HOW PRETTY YOU ARE" Walker S.

⁀➷ <mirror/window> Forcing your pussy to take him as you see how pathetic you are.

8th "COVER YOUR EYES" Arataki I.

⁀➷ <blindfold> 'Taki is so in love with the fact that you both like feeling than seeing.

9th "ITS GOOD, RIGHT?" Billy (The Kid)

⁀➷ <food> Billy thinks that gagging you with long foods is hot. >-<

10th "I HAVE TO WEAR THIS?" Ellie W.

⁀➷ <crossdressing> Ellie and you decided too swap clothes for a day just for fun and it ended.... Well?

11th "HOW ARE YOU THIS WET?" Toji F.

⁀➷ <wet> You love Toji so much he can't believe how ready you are for him!

12th "WAS I TO ROUGH?" Billy (Ghostface)

⁀➷ <aftercare> Billy is an intimidating man but flips the switch once he finds out you pass out.

13th "MY MARK" Paul A.

⁀➷ <biting> Paul hates going on hour long missions, so he tries to get a taste of you!

14th "YOU LIKE THAT?" Coriolanus S.

⁀➷ <dom/sub> Coryo, well, he's Coryo. He's a bit extra in bed.

15th "KEEP IT DOWN" Mahito

⁀➷ <muffling> His family is in the other room. So hush up before he slaps you harder.

16th "TAKE IT OFF" Luke C.

⁀➷ <striptease> Finding an 19 year old boy at a private strip club is rare but twice the fun!

17th "ON YOUR KNEES" Jeff (Da Killa)

⁀➷ <pet play> Forcing you into acting like his pet is one way of intimacy.

18th "RIGHT HERE?" Peeta M.

⁀➷ <public> Peeta is a sweet boyfriend but sometimes the relationship calls for desperate mesures..

19th "DO IT QUICK" Charlie B.

⁀➷ <mouth/oral> Before Charlie goes out for a Grammy award, he needs to 'feed' his pretty girl his mouth full.

20th "STOP SQUIRMING" König

⁀➷ <handcuffs> You messed up a bit (a lot) in training so König needed to 'tutor' you.

21st "RECENTLY MANICURED NAILS" Mike S.

⁀➷ <scratching> Oh how Mike loves to see his back all scratched up from you the night before.

22nd "TOO BAD!" Tom B.

⁀➷ <teasing/edging> Tom sees how hard you cum after edging your cunt a couple of times.

23rd "YOU NEED ROPE TO WHAT?" Alhaithem

⁀➷ <ropes> Keeping you in place with rope that way he could make you cum for as many times as he wants you too.

24th "THATS A NICE COLOR" Wriosthesley

⁀➷ <lingerie> In a dressing room of an adult store while putting a show on for your boyfriend is....Suggestive...

25th "SUCH PRETTY HAIR" Sejanus P.

⁀➷ <hair> Either in bed or in public, Sej always has his hands in your hair.

26th "YOU LIKE MY NOSE?" Hiromi H.

⁀➷ <face riding> From you using his pretty tongue to his nose to reach your own high for the night.

27th "YOU LOVE ME MORE THAN HIM?" Diluc

⁀➷ <polyamore> Diluc, you, and some other friend are in a relationship. But he's sure you love him more.

28th "DROP TO YOUR KNEES" Finnick O.

⁀➷ <begging> Before the reaping, Finnick just needs one long-lasting touch from his gorgeous girlfriend.

29th "WHERE'S THE MASK?" Choso K.

⁀➷ <cosplay> Choso thought 'scaring' you with a Ghostface mask would scare you but it did something else.

30th "WE NEED TO TALK" Megumi F.

⁀➷ <punishment> If you did something stupid, be worried that your fiance will be waiting...with a belt.

31st "DOES IT TASTE GOOD?" Shiu K.

⁀➷ <romance> A nice home prepped dinner with your husband is another way to spend a cozy night.

(BONUS) 1st "FULL LIKE A DOUBLE-STUFFED DOUGHNUT!" Pyramid H.

⁀➷ <size> How he would love to force himself deep in you. (Raw)

All fics will vary from 250-1k+ words !!! All will be posted on the days thay are assigned at 12:00 PM . And of course, the crossed out fics means I will not be doing them but maybe on a later time !!!

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writing-in-april · 3 years

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Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde (1/?)

Part One: The introduction

Spencer Reid x Female Reader

Summary: Reader meets a mysterious stranger at the library during a book club meeting.

Part Two, Part Three

Series Masterlist

A/N: Hey Heyyy! This is my first Dom!Spencer fic in so long!!! My last one was also funnily enough for a fic swap as is this one! I had @aperrywilliams for the fic swap organized by @imagining-in-the-margins. I had so much fun writing this one- it’s based on a prompt that I got from @andiebeaword and @spencers-dria helped me by guiding me with the book club idea- with a little twist! I am considering making this a series, if y’all are interested PLEASE let me know- I really want to because I had so much fun writing this. Thanks to all y’all for reading and requests are open!!

Warnings: 18+, Dom Spencer, Public Sex (is anyone that surprised??), Impact Play, Post Prison Spencer, Use of the nickname Doctor during sex, Spencer is a brat tamer, Spencer is morally ambiguous but doesn’t do anything explicitly immoral

Main Masterlist Word Count: 3.0k

As soon as you walked in through the large wooden doors it felt like history hit you over the head with a book. Even though it was on the small side for a library it still probably held more books than a normal public library, almost every wall was adorned with built-in shelves stacked from bottom to top with old books. They ranged in every subject you could think imaginable, from every point in history imaginable, and from every point of view that was imaginable. When you had first discovered this place it had felt like you had been transported to another world. You were surprised that more people didn’t know about this old library nestled in the corners of D.C, it was just sitting there idly watching as history passed by day by day, while it sat writing down all its secrets.

A meeting of the classics was scrawled on the standing white board you saw right when you walked into the library. A meeting of the classics from 7pm to 11:30 in reading room C were the exact words, you didn’t even really need to read them as you had been looking forward to this event for weeks.

You made your way down to the reading room that was specified, only encountering a few stragglers similar to yourself on the way down. You were somewhat new to the events that this library ran, only coming to the past four months. It was quickly becoming your favorite thing to do every month.

There was always a theme to each of the parties, ranging from different eras of history, specific novels, and including things that were open to interpretation. Tonight’s theme was as stated on the white board, a meeting of the classics, which had been described as “Pick your favorite literary icon from a classic novel and dress up as them.”

You had decided to not pick a character from a classic novel, but rather an author, Mary Shelly. You based your entire look on the iconic writer of Frankenstein (with a twist of course) because it had been your favorite novel as a child, it still was your favorite novel.

Once you had made it into the large reading room you took in the full room like you did every week. People were dressed as many outlandish characters, with some being more difficult to decipher than others. As you walked around the reading room you could feel the eyes of another on you.

You could feel his stare following you intently as you walked around mingling with the others that you had met before. The eyes belonged to a man you hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting yet, a man dressed as someone instantly recognizable, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. What other iconic character would be split down the middle, half innocent doctor and half evil alter ego.

Even behind the costume you could tell how attractive the man was. He was extremely tall and lanky, with deep brown eyes and the fluffiest brown hair you had ever seen.

“Who’s that?” You asked the married lady and gentlemen dressed up as Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Maybe it was shameful that you didn’t know their actual names, but you guess that’s what some people want when they come to an event like this

“That’s Dr. Spencer Reid, he hasn’t been here for a while and he sometimes misses things because of work. You didn’t hear it from me, but I heard he got in trouble with the law, that’s why he hasn’t been here for almost six months.” Her gossipy voice was drenched in fake sugar that made you gag on the inside. You still did appreciate her information as it gained you the name of the man who couldn’t stop staring at you like he was trying to figure you out.

“Must not have been that bad if he’s already out now, or maybe he’s innocent.” Ms. Bennet shrugged her shoulders at that. You may have even been naive to not heed her warning, but the idea of getting to know the mysterious fluffy haired man that had been staring at you all night was too intriguing for you to ignore.

“Who are you?” The mysterious man asked when he finally decided to approach you instead of staring at you from across the room.

Trying to maintain the same level of mystery as the man had you dodging his question with a simple redirect, “Who’s asking?”

“I thought it was quite obvious who I was.” He was right it was obvious, but why would you let him know that despite the fact that you knew what character he was you could tell the man underneath was the real mystery of it all.

“You’re the one who is not obvious.” The back and forth you had already picked up with him was thrilling, you sensed the fact that in most conversations you would have with him it would be a kind of battle that you would have to win.

“If you must know, kind sir, I am dressed as Mary Shelly, author of Frankenstein, with a bit of a modern twist.” You made sure to call him sir instead of his earned honorific this time, to see if it would poke any buttons.

“I am not a sir since my name is Dr. Spencer Reid. I can see now who you are dressed as, but I would still argue that it is not what the intentions were when they set this up.” You could tell that he was only teasing you with the way the inflections of his voice sounded, you were glad your teasing had been a moderate success.

You did also provide him your name before deciding to poke his buttons once more,“But, isn’t she a classic, Dr. Reid?”

“But, you have not made her a classic anymore by putting as you say a ‘modern twist on things’ though I must say it does look well made.” You would’ve been offended if you could not tell that it was all in jest, though you still got the sense that you still were not seeing what all this man was about.

“Thank you, Doctor I made it myself. However, you still haven’t answered my question yet, Dr. Reid.” You asked the next question hoping he would get what you were implying, “Who are you?”

“I suspect you may already know, but I am dressed half as Dr. Jekyll and half as Mr. Hyde.” At least he started to somewhat catch on to the hidden meaning in your words, though you still had not dug up the real answer you were looking for. He was too intriguing to persuade you to stop digging, you wanted to find who the doctor really was, not the partial mask he was still using.

“Yes, I suspected as much, but aren’t you breaking the rules by dressing up as technically two characters?”

“Were there rules that said I couldn’t dress up as two characters?” He fell nicely into the small trap you had set for him, retorting quickly without thinking. Which you found odd for a man that was clearly intelligent.

“No, but were there rules that said I couldn’t dress up as a classic author with my own twist?” The look on his face had let you know you had won the debate. You smirked with triumph as you glanced over the man, taking note of each of his handsome features in case you would never see him again.

You decided to pivot the conversation to another question that was on the forefront of your mind,“Do you have a dark side, Dr. Reid?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” He was deflecting, but he didn’t seem agitated by your question, simply amused by your dogged curiosity.

“I am curious though, what are you exactly underneath it all Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde?” Your coy smile was most definitely not lost on him, he could see right through your facade. He could see right through Mary Shelly to find the true you underneath. You only wished you could figure him out as well, you wondered how he got so good at being able to read people in an instant.

“I haven’t figured that out yet.” Well, at least you got the answer to what you were looking for, even if the answer wasn’t as straightforward as you may have been expecting. But, you were realizing that Dr. Spencer Reid was probably anything but straightforward.

Your heart was pumping fast, his words had a bigger effect on you than he had probably expected, your panties hidden underneath your long dress were dampening quickly. Though as you saw the smirk on his face grow as you fidgeted in your chair you realized that maybe this was intention all along.

You excused yourself for a moment with a veiled excuse of going to the bathroom. You hoped he’d follow right behind you, to see that you were going to one of the empty reading rooms. If you had read his intentions correctly the heavy doors on each of the rooms should significantly squash any noises he or you would make.

Sure enough after an appropriate amount of time had passed so as to not raise suspicion, the good doctor (that may or may not be good at all) entered the empty room.

He brought you into a dominating kiss that made you want to cower at the same time as be completely defiant. You fought with valor as he tried to consume you entirely with the kiss, not letting his tongue slip into your mouth for as long as you could hold off. In the end you still lost the fight when he lifted you up onto one of the large wooden desks in the room, causing a gasp to fall from your lips that finally gave him full access to your hot wet mouth. He suddenly pulled away to pinch your cheeks together with his hand to make you look at him which made you whimper pathetically at first, but you appreciated his next question immensely.

“Do you want this?” You nodded as vigorously as you could with his hand pinching your cheeks.

He however was not satisfied with my eager nod and prompted you to confirm once more with an even harsher tone, “Speak up when you’re talking.”

“Yes, Doctor.” You replied with his honorific instinctually and you were pleasantly surprised with the eager groan that came from his lips in response. Plus, you were slightly rewarded with being able to feel his lips on your collarbone, sending even more shivers down your spine.

“Let me know immediately if that changes.” The contrast of his sweet meaning words with his hand gripping your jaw was jarring, but you couldn’t deny that you enjoyed it. It just made you want to be as bratty as possible because even if he was harsh there was still the underlying care in everything he did, you felt safe.

“Maybe I should just call you Mister instead, since that’s clearly your dominant side.”He growled into your neck that was quickly getting covered in hickies, next thing you knew he flipped you around to face the desk closest to you with your back to his chest.

“Bend over.” He commanded, to which in response you opened your mouth to retort. Instead of letting you run your mouth as you had done before he wound his hands through your hair and pushed you down to take the position he wanted. He then pulled up your dress to uncover the panties you had soaked through. You thought maybe he was going to give me some relief of the ache in my core, but you were given a harsh slap on your ass instead.

A whimper involuntarily came out from your lips from the harshness of the slap that you assumed was revenge for not following his commands. He then spoke with deadly conviction, “I want you to say thank you, doctor after every time I spank you.”

You only agreed because you were afraid that if you did not comply now he may not give you what you wanted. So, as soon as the next stinging slap came down on the same spot as before the phrase fell from your lips, “Thank you, Doctor!”

He continued his repeated hits onto your ass and you made sure to never miss thanking him with a cry. Once he was satisfied with how much you were punished for your sassy remark he rubbed over the inflamed skin of your ass with his large, unbelieving hands. He moved your panties to the side to dip his deft fingers to run through your folds, collecting some of your wetness. You whined loudly and perhaps pathetically in response to him only lighting touching you instead of obliging the heat you felt everywhere.

“Be patient, you’ll get what you want since you decided to start listening to me.” He snapped which caused your knees to buckle again.

“I can be patient, Doctor.” He definitely appreciated the continued use of his honorific in this scandalous situation as he let out a groan almost every time you said it. Instead of answering you he started to undo the pants of his outfit, a pair of slacks that were also equally as split as the rest of his costume. You didn’t look back to see his cock because you did not want to be punished by him twice in one night. But, you certainly felt it.

You could tell just as he was running the head of his cock through your folds and pulling your panties to the side again that he would be the biggest you had ever been with. What should have worried you slightly only ended up sending a shock through your core instead. He was at least somewhat gentle when he finally started to enter you, letting you get somewhat adjusted before sinking in all the way to the hilt.

As soon as he sensed that you had adjusted he started a rough brutal pace, not that you were complaining as he hit all of your most sensitive spots as his cock dragged through your walls.

He made no effort to stifle the loud moans that were coming from your mouth, maybe he thought the thick wooden doors would stifle the noises. But, there was no way no one would be able to hear the unintelligible wails that were coming from you.

“You like bringing out this side of me don’t you?” He rasped out after he pushed your torso back down to flat on the desk once you started to lift yourself up on your elbows. When you only answered with a noise that was not understandable he prompted you to speak up with another slap on your ass and said, “I said earlier to speak up when you’re trying to talk to someone.”

“Yes, Doctor!” You finally were able to cry out with a few more slaps to your ass from him.

Each time you kept getting close to the edge he’d pull away from you slightly dashing your orgasm away from you cruelly. Each time you decided to whine out loud to voice your displeasure even if it was involuntarily he would just prolong edging you for even longer. You were babbling incoherently when he pulled you by the hair so your back was pressed into his chest and after a few more moments of hearing you beg nonsensically with tears in your eyes he finally gave you the command,

“You can cum.”

“Thank you, Doctor!” You wailed as your orgasm washed over you in devastating waves, you were sure no other man had made you finish so hard in your life. You kept repeating, “Thank you, Doctor!”over and over until you had completely come down from what was arguably the best orgasm of your life. Your own orgasm helped propel his forward, and you made sure to confirm out loud that you were ok with him cumming inside you. The warmth that filled you as he pumped into you a few more times caused one last groan to come from you that was weirdly harmonious with the groan from the doctor.

Normal aftercare wasn’t really applicable in this type of situation, you hardly knew him and the added fact that you were in an old library with a party down the hall didn’t help either. He still cleaned you up with a softness you had yet to see from him during your short encounter. Aloe probably would’ve been the best option to soothe your raw bottom, but he did massage you for a few minutes after he cleaned the rest of you. He had even made sure your clothes that were not period accurate, as he had pointed out earlier, were neat before you both left. There were no cuddles and soft loving words exchanged, but you still felt immensely cared for by a man who claims he might not be a good man. He was a strange case.

“You still never answered my question, Doctor.” You stated as you stood on the steps of the library after you two had slipped out to leave.

“That’s because I still don’t have an answer.” And, with that you parted ways into the cool air of D.C. You hoped he had the same feelings as you when you had both parted ways, you wanted to see him again. There was another meeting next month, maybe then you would get your chance again.

The thrill that ran through your veins whenever you interacted with him, whether he was fucking you or having a rousing conversation about classic literature made you want him no matter whether he was Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde. You’d take them both.

Part Two, Part Three| Series Masterlist

———

Tag list (message me if you want to be added):

All works:

@shotarosleftpinky @90spumkin @kyra-morningstar

Spencer Reid/CM:

@calm-and-doctor @destiny-tsukino @safertokiss @slutforthegubes

Dom Spencer (new tag list):

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid smut #spencer reid fanfic #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds #mgg #mgg x reader #matthew gray gubler x reader #matthew gray gubler smut #spencer reid fanfiction #matthew gray gubler

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

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Efficiency is very inefficient

Doctors use the term “crisis” to refer to the crossroads where the patient improves or goes into terminal decline. In that sense, we are living through a major crisis, a juncture revealed by the pandemic that we have yet to traverse.

For 40 years, the gospels of market efficiency and shareholder value have demanded that we dismantle the state (because markets are efficient, while states are not) and hollow out companies (“trimming fat” to serve the almighty shareholder).

Thus state capacity has waned while companies themselves became more brittle: their employees turned into contractors, their cash-reserves liquidated as dividends and buybacks, their supply chains stretched over impossible distances with multiple critical points of failure.

Human civilization became increasingly fragile, while the threats it faces increased in suddenness and severity.

Today, “the world has run out of everything” from microchips to lumber to housing to running shoes to specialised resins used in car paint. As Peter S Goodman and Niraj Chokshi write for the New York Times, these shortages share a common underlying cause.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/01/business/coronavirus-global-shortages.html

In the name of efficiency, companies have offshored their manufacturing or outsourced it altogether. Chasing cheap labor and lax regulation while shifting of risk to subcontractors half a world away works great, but fails very badly.

Now, companies whose entire production has ground to a halt because the distant factory that is the sole source of a key input are scrambling to introduce slack and buffers into their “lean,” “just in time” manufacturing systems.

But they’re hamstrung. First, because it costs a lot to build new onshore capacity, especially after four decades of dismantling the supply-chains that serve domestic manufacturing and sidelining the skilled workforce that operated them.

Intel, for example, is spending $20B to build new chip fabs in Arizona — sounds great until you learn that Intel spent $26B on socially useless stock-buybacks in the two years leading up to the pandemic.

But it’s not just a lack of funds that stands in the way of onshoring production (after all, the corporate-friendly Trump stimulus poured trillions in public money onto the largest companies’ balance-sheets).

The hard part spending on measures whose benefit is broadly shared, among workers, customers, and society, rather than providing immediate benefit to shareholders who don’t care if the company folds, so long as they get to liquidate their shares at a profit first.

And this shareholderism extends to the insurance industry and other risk-mitigating systems like default swaps, whose own shareholders and issuers and regulators have shown repeated willingness to sacrifice long-term health for short-term gains.

Whether that’s AIG writing policies on garbage CDOs to maximize quarterly revenues despite trillions in exposure, or Deutschebank underwriting the mass fraud of Greensill.

As the Harvard Business School’s Willy C Shih told the authors, “Consumers won’t pay for resilience when they are not in crisis.” What Shih means is, “Shareholders won’t accept lower returns for resiliency, which means the burden must be carried by consumers.”

Despite papering over that difference, Shih isn’t wrong. Companies — increasingly responsible to just a handful of private equity barons and reps from massive index funds — are in no position to put their long-term health ahead of those powerful, unaccountable shareholders.

And yet, the crisis is upon us, and even if we weather it, there are more crises on our horizon. Wildfire season is almost here, more floods will come this summer and fall, and the eviction mill is about to go into overdrive.

The last time we faced a crisis of this kind was after the 2008 crash. Boy did we fuck that one up. Take California: facing a budget crisis as state taxes collapsed, the legislature cut everything it could lay its hands on.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/29/grifters-gonna-grift/#austerity-kills

One of those cuts was to the Health Surge Capacity Initiative, created after the 2006 bird-flu scare: a $200m stockpile of 50m N95 masks, 2400 portable ventilators, 21000 on-demand patient beds, and the gear to establish three vast emergency hospitals on a moment’s notice.

The stockpile came with a $5.8m/year upkeep bill — charging the batteries in the ventilators, paying for the warehouses, etc — and in 2008, California decided it couldn’t afford that bill anymore so it sold off the stockpile for pennies on the dollar.

One thing we learned (again) during the pandemic is that deficit spending isn’t itself inflationary: when there is slack in the economy, the central bank can create trillions of dollars without inflation risk.

After 2008, we gave banks a blank check, but told the states they were on their own. California saved dollars (created by typing zeroes into a spreadsheet at the central bank) and lost ventilators (created in factories that ran out and then shut down during the pandemic).

Today, the GOP is stalling Biden’s infrastructure bill, and their anemic counteroffer is to claw back the money committed to the states — to force the states to jettison whatever stockpiles and buffers they have managed to cling to, to tee up the next crisis.

The doctrine that governments can’t do anything to prepare for the future and that businesses shouldn’t do anything to prepare for the future has produced fantastic wealth for a tiny handful of people and put the rest of us in mortal peril.

That’s the crisis and the crossroads — not a chip shortage or even a runaway virus; but rather what we do about these facts. Do we reform our markets and rebuild our states, or do we surrender to a future spiral of worsening emergencies with no end in sight?

#pluralistic

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ellenripleysbelieveitornot · 3 years

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What about an Akechi/Joker role swap AU where Akechi is still the detective prince and Joker is still the Shujin delinquent, but the major difference is that Morgana never lost his memories and found Akechi before he approached Shido with his metaverse assassination plot?

Like, imagine Akechi, bitter and jaded, who has just awakened Loki and felt the terrifying and thrilling rush of the berserk power. He's formed a plan to get back at his piece of shit father, even managed to set up a meeting, which he had to set up months in advance, and on the day he's going to present Shido with info on the metaverse, he winds up arriving a few minutes late, because even though he intended to be early, he was accosted by a talking cat (he's been in the metaverse, so he can hear him) on the way over, and in the whole wtf-ery of the moment, lost track of time. Shido, being Shido, refuses to see him and will not reschedule because he doesn't like having his time wasted.

Pissed off, Akechi leaves to find Morgana still waiting for him outside. So he doesn't look like an idiot yelling at a cat on the street, he brings Morgana back to his shitty apartment, where Morgana explains why he had found Akechi and whats up. He doesn't know about Yaldobaoth taking Igor's place, he just knows there's two champions, and Akechi was the one he found first, so he must be Igor's chosen champion. (It is my theory that it doesn't actually matter who was Igor's and Yaldobaoth's champions, it was more about the choices they each made and where they ended up.)

Akechi has no interest in saving the world, but he knows that if he wants to get back at Shido, he needs to become someone of consequence, so he agrees to undergo Morgana's training, since Morgana clearly knows more about the metaverse than he does, and he can use it to solve cold cases, earning him a place as the Detective Prince. He changes a few hearts, to pacify Morgana, too. It takes a couple years, but during his senior year in high school, he makes it, earning himself the cooperation of the police and the spotlight of the public eye. He's getting so close to making Shido notice him that he can practically taste it. Also, what’s this ‘velvet room’ he keeps dreaming about?

Then Morgana finds Kamoshida’s palace and is like ‘heyo, you thought changing hearts in the metaverse was cool, check this shit out’ and Akechi is admittedly intrigued , so he takes a look. He sees the inside of Kamoshida’s heart and is appropriately disgusted and says to Morgana, ‘hey we should totally kill this guy’s shadow.’ Morgana’s like ‘why is your first suggestion always murder, we don’t know what would happen if we killed his shadow, Igor wasn’t very clear about that bit, we should try stealing the treasure instead’ and Morgana has been useful (and it’s been really nice to have the company these past two years, though he won’t admit that) so Akechi agrees ‘fine, we’ll steal the treasure, but if that doesn’t work, then I’m killing his shadow.’

And that’s when Ryuji and Ann make an appearance (’ohmigawd, goro, be more careful with that damn app, i s2g.’) Ryuji’s mom apparently thinks Akechi is pretty neat and watches all his interviews, so Ryuji knows who he is and is delighted to find out that the lame-ass detective his mom has talked about is actually a grumpy badass in the metaverse, with this shadow that has some kind of insane power, and hey, he helped them bring down Kamoshida (alive,) so maybe he is actually pretty cool, even though sometimes he spaces out and talks about evil twins and some longed-nose dude. He decides then and there that he’s going to be Akechi’s best friend, since he apparently has none, and Ann is all too happy to join in for the ride, and all of Goro’s protests have fallen on deaf ears, and they know about the whole detective prince thing being a facade, so he might as well indulge them for now.

The ‘Phantom Thieves’ (a name that makes Goro want to roll his eyes whenever he hears it, and why is everyone calling him ‘leader?’) gain fame and change hearts, gaining new members such as this weird-ass artist dude who fights with ice, and oh, god, one Nijima is bad enough, don’t tell me there’s two! and she uses nukes, wtf?!

Around this time, he also meets Shujin’s delinquent, enigmatic transfer student whose talk of hope and justice never quite seem to reflect in his stormy grey eyes, and he and Goro are clearly birds of a feather in a way, he can tell, there’s just something about him, and he thinks this guy might actually be his best friend, but don’t tell Ryuji that, he’d never hear the end of it.

Akechi learns the truth behind Akira’s arrest and Shido’s involvement and he is disgusted to find that he genuinely wants to help this guy, and he can’t do that if Shido’s dead, maybe he doesn’t want his revenge as badly as he thought??? Oh, ew, I have feelings that aren’t anger and it’s all my friends’ fault, I can’t just leave them and go off to get revenge, they’d literally die without me, those lovable idiots. Also, when Ryuji saw his home, he pretty much insisted he stay with him instead, and Ryuji’s mom reminds him of the good times he had with his own mother, and he honestly doesn’t think he has the strength to disappoint her like that. So, he decides to change Shido’s heart, but he knows that there’s no way that this little group of miscreants is strong enough to take on the fucked up bullshit that he’s seen in Shido’s heart, so let’s hit pause on that for now.

Shido had Wakaba killed via completely non-supernatural ways and stole her research, same as before, so Futaba still has a palace. He found out Akira worked at Leblanc a while ago and started dropping by, and then somehow Ryuji found out about it, and now all the Phantom Thieves know, so much for a peaceful place to get away, but he actually doesn’t mind that much, and Akira lets Akechi keep an eye on the shop when there are no customers so he can go out and do errands and Boss doesn’t mind, so they’ve ended up hanging out there as a group from time to time and talking Phantom Thief business, so Futaba knows who they are, and asks for their help.

Okumura’s palace pretty much goes the same, Okumura dies somehow, are we responsible, why does murder actually make me feel kinda bad, stupid friends and their stupid good influence.

Goro attends the Shujin student fair as guest speaker, whoa, the class president being friends with Akechi does have its perks, doesn’t it? Akira finds them all there together and approaches them, tells them he saw them go into the metaverse, awakened his own persona, and saw a guy in a black mask kill Okumura’s shadow, hey why don’t I join you, you probably need all the help you can get, who’s heart are we stealing next, how about Sae, she knows my probabtion officer and has been giving me hell, plus I already checked, she definitely has a palace.

They agree, and oh, hey, Akira can hear Morgana talk now, but WAIT A MINUTE?! Didn’t he hear Morgana talk before when he told Goro that Leblanc didn’t sell sushi, even though Goro hadn’t asked for any?

They hack Akira’s phone, learn that Shido (Akechi recognizes that voice) will have thugs waiting to capture them when they leave the palace. They plan around it, pull the metaverse switch and manage to sneak a heavily drugged Akechi out of the warehouse Shido stashed him in by traveling through the metaverse. Shido’s lackey’s have written a fake suicide letter from the leader of the Phantom thieves, and the chief of police, under Shido’s orders, delivers a statement confirming its authenticity, and look the plan succeeded. All they need to do know is take down Shido.

Things are going great, until they get to the engine room, where Joker, having realized what happened, is waiting for them. Joker, who lost everything after he transferred, who discovered the metaverse completely alone, who didn’t mean to kill that guy’s shadow, but he attacked him first, and Shido had somehow known, had been keeping an eye on him, had him convicted for a crime that he didn’t commit in the hopes that he would break because he needed an agent in the metaverse, and so far he’s had no luck. Joker, who had nothing left to lose and had accepted the only hand that had reached out for him.

They fight, and when it looks like things are going badly for Joker, he pulls out... a second persona?!?! At least, it looks like a persona, but something about it is off. it looks familiar somehow. And then Akira asks if they knew it was possible to fuse personas and Akechi realizes what he’s looking at. These aren’t the clean executions that Caroline and Justine perform, these are personas that have been ripped apart and haphazardly thrown back together with no thought to form or elegance, look, there’s a Yaksini’s arm, and that bit right there clearly used to belong to a Rangda, and I think that piece might have belonged to a Seiryu, and Akechi should stop listing personas now because Ann thinks she’s going to be sick.

They keep fighting. Joker can’t understand the difference in power between them. After all, aren’t they the same? Unloved, unwanted, soldiers pitted against each other by some bullshit higher power?

When Joker shoots the bulkhead door closed and Futaba reports that she’s lost Joker’s reading, Akechi vows then and there that he’s going to kill Shido after all. And he almost does. He stands there, with his gun pressed to the head of the shadow of his father, his friends can’t blame him, and even Morgana knows better than to try and stop him. But he doesn’t. He remembers Akira’s madness there at the end, and wonders what he would have become of him if it weren’t for Ryuji, who somewhere along the way, he’d realized he’d stopped tolerating and started actually liking. Ann, who shared his woes about being in the public eye and swapped tips with him about how to handle the press. Yusuke, who, although he was still completely bizarre to him, appreciated the beauty in life and didn’t tease Goro for his taste in Grandpa clothes. Makoto, who knew the importance of hard work and who, between herself and her sister, had caused Goro to pick up some healthier coping mechanisms. Futaba, who made fun of him for his food blog, but liked the same nerd bullshit that he did and would bombard him with memes until his day somehow became a little less shittier. Haru, who dreamed of starting her own business and actually cared about Goro’s opinions, and could threaten someone with a smile in a way that even Goro was jealous of. And Morganna, who had reminded him what it was like to not be lonely, and demanded more sushi than he could afford, but always made sure Goro ate his fill, instead of getting so focused on his work that he forgot.

Akechi guesses that he must have turned soft somewhere during the past several months, but after seeing what happened to Akira, he can’t help but be grateful, knowing with certainty that if things had turned out differently, that would have been him. Hey, Morgana, you know that world-saving bs you talked about two years ago? Let’s leave this piece of shit here to rot and focus our attention on that instead.

And you guys know the rest.

Or, at least, that’s how I thought it would go. Feel free to share your thoughts. :)

#shuake #akeshu #akechi goro #akira kurusu #ren amamiya #Shuake roleswap #roleswap #persona 5

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bokunoheroanalysisforthefuture · 4 years

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And we’re back for the second chapter, which is a lot shorter than the last - only half the size, thank goodness. I have a feeling this will go by somewhat faster than the first chapter, if only because there’s so much less happening per chapter and less worldbuilding to pick at.

Being up to forty followers already is actually really neat - I was expecting this project to go under the radar a bit longer. Thank you for all the likes and comments, and especially the reblogs!

[No. 2 - Roaring Muscles]

Have to admit that the title page is definitely something - it’s deliberately styled in the same format as Western comic book covers. And in so, you can really see the difference in art style between the Westernized All Might and Horikoshi’s normal style for Izuku.

The next page is a full body shot of All Might posing (RIP all the pens that died inking that one image), with some background panels covering the basics about the man - that his age and quirk are unknown, and that his strength has made him popular even since his debut. He’s got a lot of merch, branding, magazine covers, newspaper headlines, movie adaptations, etc etc. and, of course, that creepy fucking mask.

If Izuku has one of those, I am both disappointed and completely not surprised. I both look forward to and dread the day someone draws him wearing that monstrosity. Also-

Is that the same keychain Ochako gets during the Secret Santa swap in some hundred and twenty or so chapters?

Alright, not the same one, but a similar pose. Not surprising, since I doubt Hori even remembered this panel at the point Ochako was given it, but it would have been an interesting little callback if it had been.

Moving on, we learn that since he became active, there’s been a notable decrease in the appearance rate of villains - with a graph showing the decline. His existence alone is a deterrent to villainy, which in no way will cause issues decades down the line. But yeah, basically Izuku confirms that All Might’s earned his title of ‘Symbol of Peace’ - and that the same man with so many accolades just told him he could be a hero.

(That last panel, of just Toshinori and Izuku, which is so uncluttered compared to the other panels… mmm, gotta love it. Makes it feel so much more poignant and dreamlike, which it probably was to Izuku at the time.)

The next page gets right to where we left off, with Izuku on the ground crying his eyes out while his mind plays through all the doubts and negative words thrown at him over the past chapter years. However, he’s finally heard what he’s always wanted to hear from this Alolan Exeggutor lookin’ dude:

Who also happens to be the No. 1 hero and Izuku’s idol. Izuku wonders if he could wish for anything more than that, so of course, Exeg- I mean Toshinori continues on, saying Izuku is worthy of inheriting his power. Which snaps Izuku out of his happy crying to actually look up at his idol, confused as heck.

BABEY.

But yeah, Toshinori laughs at Izuku’s expression and says that it’s a proposal, and that there’s work to be done. Also, this is the first instance of ‘my boy’ shown in the manga - while I know in Japanese it’s supposed to be just a translation of ‘young man’ or something close, I choose to see it in a different manner, as per my Dad Might agenda:

Look, you have to admit things went from 0 to 100 real fucking fast here, I will not take criticism on my interpretation. While we’re on the topic of ‘0 to 100’:

Toshinori please get that checked that’s a lot of blood jesus fuck. But yeah, he offers Izuku his power (which outside a shounen manga is questionable, kids, don’t trust that.) Izuku is still confused, naturally, so Toshinori clarifies he means his quirk. He explains how the tabloids like to guess what his quirk is, while he avoids answering with jokes, because All Might has to come off as a natural born hero.

(Also that dramatic posing, he’s such a fucking loser, I love him so much.)

You can really fucking tell he’s a performer at heart. I feel like it fits with his love of movies too - he probably liked acting out the dramatic hero speeches and fights in old superhero movies. Which I mean, also makes sense since heroes in the current era are as much actors and performers as they are public servants who handle crime and disasters.

Toshinori explains his quirk was passed down to him like the Olympic torch, which Izuku mentally stumbles over, and when that is confirmed, Izuku falls into a dazed rambling over this, completely tuning out of the outside world; he thinks about all the previous theories put out there, then basically confirming that his power being passed on is nothing anyone has ever considered, in part because there’s so little known about quirks, and even the reason ‘quirk’ [which in Japanese is ‘Individuality’] is used, because they’re unique to the person who wields said power.

(Also, I want to know what the other six mysteries of the world are, Izuku. Why won’t you share that important tidbit with us? Worry about the quirk later!)

Toshinori cuts into his rambling, asking if Izuku really doubts him and that it’s nonsense, he has secrets but he doesn’t outright lie. Izuku does snap out and try to apologize, but Toshinori continues on:

One For All. Certainly a power that comes with no downsides, hidden legacies, or enough mysteries to fill the other six damned slots of the mysteries of the world. Izuku repeats the name slowly, and Toshinori goes on to explain it:

A small detail to note, there’s eight lights in the background, already revealing how many holders there currently are at this point. Notice how much weaker OFA must have been back at the beginning, compared to the power Toshinori has, and then expand that to what Izuku starts out with. And interestingly, it’s called a ‘crystalline network of power’, and that it ‘links those crying out to be saved and those with brave and true hearts.’ For our first description of OFA, it… sure seems poetic and almost romantic. Wonder if that will hold up in the chapters to come.

Anyways, moving on from that, Izuku asks why him, and Toshinori says he’s been looking for a successor, and that he believes Izuku worthy. Even as someone who is quirkless and a ‘mere hero admirer’, he was more heroic than anyone else there. Izuku tears up again, and Toshinori slaps himself in the forehead, saying it all depends on what Izuku says.

Izuku gets to his feet and rubs away the tears, thinking about what he’s been told and how Toshinori’s greatest secrets (hah) have been divulged to him. He asks himself if he has reason to refuse, and immediately decides that no, he doesn’t, and tells Toshinori he accepts while reaffirming he’s got no reason to refuse. Toshinori says he expected nothing less than that quick answer.

Seriously, look at the intensity of that reply, he is down and willing to do this. No second guessing, no hesitation.

This seems like a good stopping point, since the second half of the chapter is all the training, including the montages, so I’ll finish things up in the next one (yes, I know, not taking five posts to get to the point, who would have thought?) and we can get into the crazy fun stuff.

#chapter 2 #opening arcs #readthrough #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #yagi toshinori #midoriya izuku #ofa afo #figures I should tag that since this is the first mention of what it's all about #we'll see how that explanation gets built on later #also no hesitation at all #Izuku is READY for that quirk #which makes sense when he wants to be 'the strongest hero... like All Might'

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thenixkat · 3 years

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Avatarverse rewrite 9

The Other Avatar

After the fall of Ba Sing Se the Avatar line of succession split in two with Aang’s death and resurrection. The Avatar Spirit basicly saw that Aang kicked it and hopped into a newborn in the Foggy Swamp Tribe and then got very confused when Aang was alive again and it was suddenly in two mortal bodies. Eventually the Avatar Spirit got over it but the split does mean that there’s a glitch in the Avatar line where the Branch line skips over Avatar Aang and the Branch Avatars can’t communicate with the Mainline Avatars from Aang onward. Both Avatars cannot be in the Avatar State at the same time.

The public generally refuses to believe in the existence of two Avatars, generally leading that the one who’s at the wrong phase of the cycle and the wrong age is likely an imposter or con or some spirit shenanigans.

Because they are in a different place in the Avatar cycle than where the cycle should be the Branch Avatars are never discovered by the proper process or announced. Whatever teaching they find they find on their own and do not have the support of nations or the respect someone of their position should.

A decent amount of spirits are of the opinion that there should only be one Avatar. That the Avatar split could be a terrible premonition of a world swamped with Avatars. How to make there only be one Avatar? A few spirits think that ripping the Avatar spirit out of its mortal form and shoving into the other Avatar would work. Would it work? Who knows. The Avatars say no thank you at the idea.

Branch line Avatars:

Avatar Jian

- Born in the Foggy Swamp to a Foggy Swamp tribe nonbender and a western Earth Kingdom refugee who was also a nonbender.

Never really referred to herself as an Avatar but was aware of it and allowed others to do so. Met Avatar Roku and Yangchen in the swamp and learned from them who she was.

Because of being raised in the swamp she was an extremely spiritual person and managed to reach her own form of enlightenment in her 20s. She was like most swampfolk a pretty mellow and relatively unflappable person. And from the Earth Kingdom and Southern Water Tribe refugees that integrated into the swamp she gained a strong sense of justice and morality.

Her animal guide was an absolutely massive catgator nicknamed Ol’ Snaggletooth by the community decades before she was ever born. ‘Tooth took a liking to her when she was but a toddler and they were all but inseparable for the rest of her life.

Only mastered waterbending (Foggy Swamp style, SWT style, vinebending, healing), energybending (chi reading, distant sight, healing, spiritbending), and earthbending (Common Omashu style, Foggy Swamp Style, metalbending, invented woodbending) in her lifetime. Learned a little firebending from a few of the firebending Earth Kingdom refugees. And figured out a little airbending by copying the local birds and bugs.

Was born in the last year of the 100 year war but as a child experienced the fall out of it as well as the effects of the Fire Nation’s ongoing colonization. Started fighting back with a group of her friends against a lot of injustices as well as providing aid and medicine to people.

Got off on the wrong foot with Aang and stayed on the wrong foot. Came to blows more than once which were more about distracting the other Avatar and his friends from what her comrades were up to than actually defeating Aang (the difference in their age and experience tended to give him the advantage).

Retired from active freedom fighting in her 40s to become the new protector of the Foggy Swamp after her teacher Huu’s passing. For another 20 yrs she fended off all threats to her swamp as a new city grew up inside it and passed away peacefully surrounded by friends and family.

B/c of her strong spirituality she continues looking out for her swamp after her death and is a willing teacher of both ecology and the spiritual arts.

Avatar Onini

- born in the slums of Ba Sing Se to a carpenter (untalented earthbender) and a mask maker (nonbender).

Lost their bender parent at age 8 due to a workplace accident. Lost their nonbender parent at 10 to being disappeared by the Dai Li for being critical of the Earth Queen. Spent another 4 years just trying to survive on the streets, mostly working odd jobs and doing crime and befriending and defending other street children.

Did not actually know that she was a bender until she jumped from the inner wall of Ba Sing Se after a major heist after being cornered by the Dai Li. After deciding that she would rather die than be captured and be imprisoned or worse brainwashed by the Dai Li she flipped them off and walked backwards off the wall. On the way down she discovered that she was no longer falling and flew out of the city. (If anyone ever told her that unaided flying was something that only super enlightened and detached Air Nomads accomplished every once in a blue moon she’d give you a weird look and point at the newborn air bison just levitating like its nothing)

Animal guide is a cuttle-dragon (cuttlefish-monitor lizard) named Yami who was found during a successful heist in the upper ring of Ba Sing Se from an exotic animal collector’s home. Yami is calm and calculating, extremely intelligent, and likes to steal treats and shiny trinkets. As a smaller animal, it rides on its master’s shoulder, often while invisible or impersonating a garment

Has definitely heard of the Sisterhood of Serpents what with the whole life of crime thing. Wants in. Is currently a junior member doing errands outside of helping various resistance movements.

After discovering that she can bend, really isn’t that big on it. Would rather use weapons or bare fists in a fight. When she does bend air is her preferred element for its evasiveness. Is a master airbender (Teo’s Kin and Nomad style, soundbending in the Nomad style, self taught lethal airbending techniques, self taught unaided flight), a master level waterbending healer, and a darn good energybender (astral projection, distant sight, chi reading, spiritbending). Most of the other elements she uses for noncombat things.

Does have a private life aka does big revolutionary stuff and Avatar business while wearing a Python mask styled after the Python Spirit thief/assassin character in EK plays.

Does part-time work as a healer for probending teams while staying in Republic City under a nickname. Made some decent coin returning people’s bending to them (and also giving nonbenders who want to bend bending and swapping people’s bending element to something they like better)

Finds and frees Zaheer from his prison and gifts him airbending, knowing that he’ll free his comrades and ignite the chaos that comes before true anarchy (the plan she agreed upon with her revolutionary comrades).

Refers to herself as the Avatar while under her persona, tho she does use her real name.

Just fucking closes the spirit portals b/c why the fuck would you leave those open?

Does not care about how Korra feels about her. Tends to call Korra a cop b/c of her vibes.

Assists the Krew against the Equalists. Assists the SWT in fighting the NWT but opposes Korra’s decisions on the portals. Assists the Red Lotus. Wants the western EK occupied by the United Republic to be returned to the EK.

Has a rather strong moral compass. Does not believe that murder, robbery, or kidnaping among other things is inherently immoral.

Is an old friend of Mako and Bolin which leaves the boys conflicted about a lot of things.

#nix meows #avatar rewrite #avatarverse #aus #long post

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alloveroliver · 5 years

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Smut | Fluff | Kinks Prompt List

Dialogue Prompts By: AllOverOliver

Sinful Smut

“Try to stay quiet for me. Can you do that?”

“Spread your legs. I want to feel how turned on I made you.”

“You can add another finger. I’m ready,”

“I want to watch you take off your clothes.”

“You’re so turned on already? That was fast,”

“Lay back and touch yourself. I want to watch.”

“You want to do this right now? Even though we could get caught?”

“You’re nipples are so sensitive today,”

“Do you want to continue this in the shower?”

“You look so beautiful tied up to my bed,”

“I want you to be rough with me, please leave marks on my skin,”

“Say my name,” “Louder,”

“You say you want me, but your body seems to like it when I tease you,”

“Call me ‘Sir’ when we're alone like this,”

“No, I’m the one that’s supposed to be making you feel good,”

“Don’t stop, whatever you do. I like that, a lot.”

“I love hearing you moan,”

“Blindfolds heighten your senses, maybe that’s why you’re whimpering louder than usual.”

“I was wondering how long you two were going to make out like that before you realize you weren’t alone.”

“Sorry, did that hurt?” “No, I’m just a little sore from last night.”

“I want to hear you beg for it.”

“I’m not wearing any panties,”

“I want to kiss every inch of your body before I fuck you,”

“I don’t have the patience to remove your clothes right now,”

“Your pussy tastes so sweet,”

“I can’t wait until we're alone. There are so many things I want to do to you right now.”

“Bite me,” “Where?”

“Were you just touching yourself?”

“What do you want for breakfast?” “Why are you asking me that at 10 o’clock at night-OH.”

“The game is, either of us is only allowed to touch the other with their mouth.”

“I love how your body loses control when you cum.”

“Fuck me like a starved animal or leave.”

“Spank me,”

“Show me how you like to be touched.”

“Harder, Deeper...”

“I want to fulfill that fantasy you’ve always wanted.”

Fluff

“I missed being with you like this,”

“I’ve been excited to see you all day.”

“You’re my perfect match,”

“No one else can compare to your loveliness,”

“The way you smile like that always turns me on,”

“Can I at least shut the door before you decide to pounce on me the moment I come home,”

“I know you said you didn’t want to be late, but you look amazing, and I’m trying not to kiss you senseless right now,”

“I’ll keep you warm. Hold me closer.”

“Kiss me again, like you mean it.”

“Can I have a message?”

“Truth or Dare?” “Dare”

“Move away if you don’t want this kiss.”

“If you keep kissing my face like that I’ll have to retaliate.”

“Are you my secret admirer, the one that’s been sending me all the flowers and notes?”

“Does this kiss tickle~? Haha. Why are you laughing so much?”

“You're supposed to be washing my hair, but this feels more like a massage.”

“Hold my hand tight. I’ll protect you.”

“When do you think help will come?” “Not for a while, I guess we’re stranded here alone for the time being.”

“Can you pretend to be my partner for my friend's wedding? I told them I’d have a plus one.”

“I’m in love with you.” “Are you finally confessing to me? Because I feel the same way.”

“Apparently all our friends have a bet going that we end up together.

CW: KINKS/FETISH/TURN-ONS: Below the Cut

69 position

Accidental stimulation

Anal

Angry sex

Anonymous sex (one night stands, masked identity)

Begging

Being filmed

Being recorded during sex

Body worship (Specify body part)

Breeding kink

Choking

Clothed sex

Clothes swap (Wearing your lover’s clothes as you fuck or vice versa)

Confessional sex

Crying

Cuckold

Cum play

Daddy Kink (mild, no age play)

Degradation

Dirty talk

Double Penetration

Dub-Con

Edging

Erotic Humiliation

Exhibitionism (Public or semi-public sex)

Femdom

Fk/Sex Machine

Forced Orgasm

Forced orgasm

Fucking Machines

Glove Kink

Gun-play

Hickey/bites or marking fetish

Humiliation

Innocent/First time sex

Knife play

Medical Kink

Mommy Kink (mild, no age play)

Nipple play

Non-Con

Orgasm denial or edging

Overstimulation

Party Sex (being fked in front of consenting ‘party goers’)

Pegging

Pet play

Praise Kink

Public Use

Religion Kink

Restrained/Bondage

Roleplaying

Ruined Orgasm

Sex toys

Sex ‘Pollen’/’Magic’ ect

Simultaneous orgasms

Somnophilia

Spanking

Voyeurism

Washing (one’s partner to clean them/get them off)

#smut prompts #fluff prompts #prompt list #smut prompt list #fluff prompt list #smut and fluff prompts #diologue prompts #diologue smut prompts #dialogue fluff prompts #flash fiction event #flash fiction

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tabloidtoc · 3 years

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Globe, January 4

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Ghislaine Maxwell buying her way out of prison

Page 2: Up Front & Personal -- Gavin Rossdale playing tennis with his pup Chewy, Brooke Burke holding holiday balls topless, James Franco takes his cellphone into the sea

Page 3: Leighton Meester surfing in Malibu, Robbie Williams, Lisa Rinna wearing two masks

Page 4: Angelina Jolie is bracing for major humiliation after being dragged into Johnny Depp’s latest legal showdown with ex-wife Amber Heard -- Angie’s run-ins with Johnny who she starred with in 2010′s The Tourist are coming under intense scrutiny as Depp gears for a second court battle with Amber -- Angie and Johnny were so coy about their white-hot connection at the time even though their romance was an open secret but they got lucky because nobody had the smoking gun to prove it but now it’ll all come out in the open -- at the time Johnny was still dating Vanessa Paradis while Angie was five years into her doomed love-in with Brad Pitt -- there’s talk bisexual Amber was kind of obsessed with Angie so Angie is central to the plotline whether she likes it or not

Page 5: The Bachelor host Chris Harrison is worried he’ll follow Dancing with the Stars host Tom Bergeron out the door -- both these shows have been on TV forever and the world has changed around them and to keep up with Black Lives Matter and the #MeToo movement changes are being discussed and that’s left Chris fearing he’ll be the next Tom Bergeron and replaced by a woman of color

Page 6: Aging divas Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton are caught in a bitter country catfight and long-dead Patsy Cline is the excuse -- although there’s been little love lost between the Nashville icons for nearly 50 years their simmering feud exploded weeks ago when Dolly apparently took some veiled public shots at Loretta’s BFF Patsy who was horribly disfigured in a car wreck two years before dying in a 1963 plane crash -- in an interview Dolly recalled standing in the wings of Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry at age 13 and watching Patsy perform and she remembered thinking about how awful it was that she got her pretty face scarred up like that -- Loretta was fit to be tied over the comments Dolly made about her old pal and thinks Dolly should stop running her mouth about Nashville legends like Patsy and Johnny Cash -- Dolly’s heard about Loretta’s complaints through the grapevine and brushes them off as quarantine boredom mixed with old age

Page 8: Blake Shelton’s going bonkers after fiancee Gwen Stefani told him she wants to skip the mega-million star-studded wedding shindig he’s been planning and elope -- Blake is all bent out of shape over Gwen’s latest switcheroo which calls for them to get hitched on the sly at a Mexican resort and she’s got him so mixed up he can’t think straight because for the longest time she wanted the Hollywood-style wedding with all the bells and whistles and was very particular about details but now she’s telling him to ditch those plans which have already cost them a small fortune and book a trip somewhere exotic so they can just just get it over with -- Gwen wants to elope so they can hitched at the Riviera Maya resort in Cancun where they could swap vows on the beach witnessed by her three sons and Blake has no choice but to give in to Gwen and he’s saying he’s fine with it as long as she’s sure this time

Page 9: Hollywood horndog John Mayer is back sniffing around old flame Jennifer Aniston after his mom gave him a shove -- John and Jen had a steamy fling for about a year before he dropped her in 2009 and now John’s mom Margaret Meyer is scolding him for letting Jen go and John’s mom is always on him about settling down and she feels that at 43 he should be married and she recently had a heart-to-heart talk with him and told him she thought Jennifer was the most down-to-earth of all his exes and because John considers his mom one of the smartest people he knows he decided to reach out to Jen and he’s always admired Jen and thought of her as a classy lady and now he’s reaching out to her again in hopes of getting her to agree to see him again once things leave lockdown

* FKA Twigs has socked actor Shia LaBeouf with a bombshell lawsuit claiming he subjected her to relentless physical, emotional and mental abuse and gave her an STD and she also accuses him of sexual battery, assault, and infliction of emotional distress -- although Shia says she’s lying Twigs insists Shia once choked her in the middle of the night and kept a loaded firearm by the bed leaving her terrified to get up at night for fear he’d think she was an intruder and shoot her -- she claims during an incident around Valentine’s Day 2019 Shia threatened to crash his speeding car unless she professed her love for him so when he pulled into a gas station she got out of the car but he threw her against the car while screaming in her face then forced her back into the car -- Shia also had rules about how often Twigs had to kiss and touch him -- Shia has been arrested several times on now-dismissed charges including assault and disorderly conduct

Page 10: John Lennon didn’t have to die -- that’s law enforcement experts’ explosive analysis after reviewing newly discovered evidence about the Beatles legend’s December 8, 1980 murder in NYC -- an odd series of coincidences and simple decisions put Lennon and his killer Mark David Chapman in the same place at the same time -- a review of the details concludes Lennon’s death was a strange result of flukes including his penchant for running around without protection and a missed appointment with his photographer and without these quirks of fate John would still be alive and recording hit songs

Page 12: Celebrity Buzz -- Pink flashes her bandaged thumb after getting stitches in Santa Monica (picture), Amanda Seyfried confesses she made a terrible decision for turning down the role of a lifetime as Chris Pratt’s love interest in Guardians of the Galaxy and now she’s watching from the sidelines as the director’s second choice Zoe Saldana skyrockets in the money-making Marvel franchise, Katherine Heigl will star in the upcoming limited biopic series Woodhull about Victoria Woodhull the first woman to run for president in 1872, Big Brother alum Zach Rance has come out as bisexual after admitting a sizzling same-sex romance with his former reality show housemate Frankie Grande who is the real-life older brother of pop star Ariana Grande

Page 13: Jaime King slurps down a meal on the streets on L.A. (picture), Jax Taylor mowing the lawn (picture), Guns N’ Roses axman Slash loads up on supplies at an L.A. grocery (picture), former teen heartthrob Chad Michael Murray admits his inflated young ego got the best of him and now he looks at photos of himself and thinks what a dweeb

Page 14: Julia Roberts is headed for the small screen headlining the limited TV series The Last Thing He Told Me where she’ll form an unexpected relationship with her teenage stepdaughter while searching for the truth about her husband’s mysterious disappearance, Emma Stone is also heading for the flat-screen in the comedy series The Curse alongside Nathan Fielder about a couple starring on an HGTV-style show who are trying to conceive a child amid an alleged curse, Nicolas Cage is hosting a new series called The History of Swear Words in which he’ll delve into the origins and pop culture usage and science and cultural impact of profanely shocking expletives

* Fashion Police -- Peyton List 8/10, Sofia Carson 9/10, Vanessa Hudgens 2/10, Neve Campbell 1/10, Chelsea Handler 4/10

Page 16: Cover Story -- Jeffrey Epstein’s madam Ghislaine Maxwell’s $30M jail break -- terrified and tortured Ghislaine risks family fortune to buy her freedom -- the accused sex predator and her fat cat inner circle are set to plunk down an obscene $30 million to buy her way out of federal prison in what outraged investigators fear is a brazen plot to cheat justice

Page 19: 10 Things You Don’t Know About Mayim Bialik

* Lizzo is admitting she’s having negative thoughts and is hating her 300-pound body but adds she knows she beautiful

* The Spice Girls were likely liquored up on cut-rate champagne when they made their first album according to Emma Bunton a.k.a. Baby Spice who says she and her bandmates swilled the cheapest sparkling wine in the studio

Page 20: True Crime -- a chilling message left by the elusive Zodiac Killer has finally been cracked by a team of code breakers after 51 years -- a hodgepodge of numbers, symbols and letters called the 340 cipher was sent to the San Francisco Chronicle in 1969 and lawmen believed it contained key clues to the serial killer’s identity but the truth is even more chilling -- according to the experts the message says I hope you are having lots of fun in trying to catch me, I am not afraid of the gas chamber because it will send me to paradise all the sooner because I now have enough slaves to work for me

Page 21: Caitlyn Jenner is terrified after learning her skin cancer has returned a second time -- she was diagnosed with basal cell skin cancer a few years ago and had an entire layer of skin removed from her nose -- since then she’s been slathering on sunscreen but a new red spot on the right side of her nose popped up along with some crusty areas on her scalp but the nose patch was not cancer but hypertrophic keratosis or scaly damage from sun exposure -- however the dozen spots on the top of her head was squamous cell carcinoma which is a skin cancer that’s known to be aggressive so her doctor burned off the offending spots -- her doctor recommended she replace her 1960 Austin-Healey convertible but the chances of Caitlyn selling her prized ride are slim

Page 23: Your 2021 Horoscope -- love, luck, health, wealth, happiness -- plus surprising celebrity predictions -- Elton John, Valerie Bertinelli, Johnny Depp, Jessica Simpson, Matthew Perry, Cameron Diaz, Will Smith, Katy Perry, Howie Mandel, Savannah Guthrie, Justin Timberlake, Carrie Underwood

Page 30: Larry King has reached a deal with estranged wife Shawn but she’s royally peeved about the payoff -- Larry has agreed to pay her a lump sum of $20,000 plus $33,000 a month in spousal support which lasts until at least their next scheduled hearing in April but Shawn claims the 33Gs only covers a third of her monthly nut which includes $25,000 for rent on her home, $12,000 on clothes, $3500 on groceries and $4500 for hair and nails and pet care and gym

Page 31: Kim Kardashian is reading husband Kanye West the riot act over his junk food benders that are sabotaging her healthy eating program and it’s led to more than a few arguments with no peace in sight -- he’s telling her to chill and let him live by his own terms but she can’t do that because it’s driving her crazy -- what really ticks Kim off is his junk food has totally taken over her section of fresh cut veggies, fruits and water and she wants him to get his own storage in a different part of the house where she won’t have to see it or hold her nose

* Kardashian momager Kris Jenner’s faux reality TV home is on the market for nearly $8 million even though she never lived there -- the L.A. estate was used for exterior shots of the image-conscious family’s compound on Keeping Up with the Kardashians but it was all for show -- dubbed the Iredell Estate the house also appears in True Blood and Chelsea Lately

Page 33: Health Report

Page 34: Wrestling Ring Kings: Where Are They Now? Sable, Bret Hart

Page 35: Lex Luger, Steve Austin, Ric Flair

Page 36: The Undertaker, Tito Santana, Diamond Dallas Page

Page 37: Kane, Kurt Angle, Sunny, Mick Foley

Page 39: Despite an astounding 30 No. 1 country music hits legendary singer Charley Pride took a haunting regret to his grave that he never made it as major league baseball star -- Charley had so much success but he died tormented his baseball career short-circuited -- Charley was singing and playing guitar by the time he was 14 but his real goal was to pitch for the New York Yankees -- Charley signed with a Yankees farm team as a flame-throwing phenom at 17 but in his rookie season he threw out his arm and was just never the same -- after he struck out in baseball he put his full energy into singing but faced an uphill battle -- Charley was the Jackie Robinson of country music and he endured a lot of racism

Page 40: Kelsey Grammer admits he often breaks down and blubbers like a baby and it makes him feel better and he cries when he’s upset or sad or scared and it provides him a lot of relief and he believes years of tragedy in his life taught him to cry as a healing mechanism and now he sheds tears whenever he has sad feeling bottled up inside him

* A moneybags James Bond fan coughed up a whopping $256,000 for the handgun 007 Sean Connery toted in the first spy epic Dr. No -- the disabled Walther PP semi-automatic was supposed to bring in no more than $200,000 but the unidentified American buyer who claims to have seen every Bond epic went even higher

Page 44: Straight Talk -- Miley Cyrus is now blabbing about why she broke up with husband Liam Hemsworth after years of togetherness and just nine months of marriage and it sounds like a case of the pot calling the kettle black

Page 45: Furious Queen Elizabeth has booted Princess Eugenie and her husband out of Prince Harry’s Frogmore Cottage home in a bit to foil Meghan Markle’s plan to completely cut him off from England and the royal family -- pregnant Eugenie and her booze-seller husband Jack Brooksbank were ordered to quit the cottage and move back to Kensington Palace just six weeks after Harry and Meghan secretly leased them the home meaning Harry and Meghan are still on the financial hook for Frogmore which was a gift from the queen and they will have to underwrite the cost of keeping up the property and it also ensures Harry has a home in Britain if he ever wants to come back -- by moving Eugenie and Jack out the queen has made sure Harry still has a place to hang his hat if he decides to come back to leave his American wife

Page 47: Bizarre But True

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gabriel-agreste-has-no-rights · 4 years

Link

Rating: T

Chapter Summary: Chat Noir brings up some renovations the base could use. Also, he and Ladybug flirt decide to study together.

Word Count: 2065 | Chapter 2/?

XXX

It was almost funny—in a twisted sort of way—how she could go from fighting for her life to panicking about her grades.

Today’s akuma had struck while she was supposed to be studying for her first physics exam. Even with Rena Rouge and Carapace providing backup, the fight through Lord Labyrinth’s twisting maze had taken three hours.

And, to top it off, she was stranded on the opposite side of the city.

“I’m sorry, Marinette,” Tikki said, curled up into a ball in her palms. “You’re sure you don’t have even a crumb left?”

She patted her empty pockets. “Nothing.”

Tikki had already eaten her five backup macarons, two emergency protein bars, and even a crepe she’d snagged with the last of her change. She couldn’t afford much more on a university budget. Tikki didn’t always need to recharge after using Lucky Charm anymore, but she also couldn’t go on forever.

“The hideout is closer than your school, right? We could stop there, then I can transform you and get you home.”

“Good idea, Tikki.” Marinette pressed a quick kiss to her head before slipping her into her backpack, which had reappeared once she’d detransformed. The heavy weight of her laptop and notebook pulling on her shoulders only added to her exhaustion.

“There’s a good entrance the next street over…”

Soon enough she was dropping down into the damp sewer. In comic books, didn’t the heroes have cool hideouts? But she couldn’t complain. Chat may have been the one to suggest the location, but she’d agreed that it was the safest bet. At least it would be a place she could rest for a minute.

The secret base was disguised from the outside, thanks to Rena Rouge’s new long-lasting illusion. Marinette could only spot the door by looking for a specific pattern in the wall—four slightly shimmery bricks at about eye level. She still patted the wall in three different places before brushing the secret handle.

“Finally,” she breathed, fumbling for the padlock. Once she pulled it just out of the illusion’s range, she could enter the password. Four letters, one on each dial.

HOME. She’d thought it was too obvious, but Chat Noir had teared up once he’d seen the lock’s default password, and she couldn’t bring herself to change it.

With the lock still in hand, she stepped into the room—

—Only to hear someone yelp and fall off the couch.

“Who is it? Who’s there?” Chat Noir’s voice rang out.

Marinette nearly jumped back and slammed the door. But thankfully, Chat’s hand was covering his eyes.

His ungloved hand. Thankfully, he’d at least had the sense to cover his miraculous with some kind of… hair scrunchie? Oh well, whatever worked.

“Don’t look!” She said redundantly. If he’d gotten a glimpse of her, it was already too late.

“I won’t, I pawmise.”

She took her fake mask from its hook and slipped it over her face. Then she shoved her backpack and shoes into the cabinet labeled LADYBUG, exchanging them for a long green hoodie that was too big to wear in public. Thankfully it was cool down in the sewers, even during the late summer.

The wooden cabinet door hadn’t been the product of a Lucky Charm, and it hung at a lopsided angle when she shut it.

“Alright.” She sighed. “You can look now.”

Chat Noir dropped his arm and stood, his eyes widening beneath the fabric mask as he took her in.

Strangely, she wanted to squirm under his gaze. It wasn’t like she looked that different outside of her suit, and the fake mask would still hide her identity. But Chat’s eyes… the black fabric didn’t change his scleras, and she found herself transfixed by the new shade of spring green. She hadn’t seen him like this since they’d swapped miraculouses while fighting against Reflekta and Reflekdoll.

“What? Hotter than you expected?” He grinned, flexing his arm under his Ladybug-themed hoodie. At least he’d been smart enough to bring an outfit change too.

“Trying to win me over by buying my merch now?” She raised an eyebrow. Pretty eyes or not, he was still Chat Noir. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of getting flustered.

“No, I’m trying to win you over by being pawsomely charming. This,” he tugged at the hem of his hoodie, “is just because I have taste.”

“I guess I can’t fault you there.” She stepped over to him and straightened the drawstrings hanging from his hood. It was still weird, seeing him in normal clothes, being forced to confront the fact that Chat Noir was a regular university student, just like her. She knew that, of course, but with his over-the-top puns and flirting, it sometimes felt like he belonged in a comic book.

“We need a doorbell. You could’ve seen me before I had the chance to put on my mask.” She couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of that sooner. She’d assumed heroes would stop here individually, or arrive transformed. It wasn’t like her to miss such an obvious problem; the stress of classes must be getting to her.

“You could’ve just knocked, you know.” He smirked.

“...I didn’t expect anyone to be here,” she admitted, face heating. “The lock was still on. How did you even get in?”

“I had Plagg put it back on just in case I ended up taking a catnap. But don’t worry about it, bugaboo. We’ll both be more prepared next time.”

His smile hit differently outside of his transformation. Stupidly, she found herself just staring into his eyes again.

“Great, now we’re going to have to watch the lovebirds in person.” Plagg gagged from his spot on the counter. It didn’t stop him from swallowing a wedge of cheese immediately after, though.

“And I’m going to have to smell you in person,” Tikki said, waving her arm in front of her face.

“We’re in a sewer! How much stinkier can it get?”

Marinette laughed. It wasn’t often she got to see Plagg, much less him and Tikki together.

“When it comes to month-old camembert, it can always get stinkier,” Chat said. “Trust me.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Marinette didn’t have a very good sense of smell, anyway. That was convenient when your secret base was located in the sewers.

“I think we’ll be fine coming here without our suits as long as everyone knocks first,” Chat said, plopping back down on the couch. “We’ve already got changes of clothes that won’t identify us. Rena and Carapace dropped theirs off when they were adding their improvements yesterday.”

“Improvements?” Marinette raised an eyebrow, not that he could see under her mask.

“I told them it would be okay; I didn’t think you’d mind. Carapace just thought it would be smart to put a Shellter around the Miracle Box. The kwamis can phase through it with their miraculouses, but no one can reach inside to steal them.”

She stepped up to the entertainment center and opened the cabinet with the miracle box. Sure enough, there was a glowing green barrier around the red egg.

“That’s a good idea, but… what if the kwamis don’t know they’re needed? They can’t hear us when they’re inside their magical world.”

Chat’s face fell. It was weird, not seeing his ears and tail droop, but the rest of his body language was still so expressive.

“I didn’t think of that.”

“It’s okay.” She stepped over and put a hand on his shoulder. “It really was a good idea. You didn’t know.”

Master Fu had given her more training on being the Guardian than he had Chat Noir. All the Master said on the matter was that Chat’s schedule wouldn’t allow it.

He nodded. “I’ll have him take it down next time I see him.”

Maybe they could still use Shellter in other ways; she’d have to think about that. If only all four of them could control the shield. That would make an excellent way to protect the base.

“You said Rena made some changes too?”

“Oh, right!” He sprung up again, then vaulted over the back of the couch to reach the kitchen. Apparently he was athletic even without the suit. “She brought some cooking supplies. Also, she was asking if we had any plans to add a bathroom.”

“A bathroom? This isn’t a hotel.” Marinette rubbed her temples. She wasn’t a plumber. She couldn’t just Lucky Charm up a functioning toilet.

Plagg let out a loud burp. “She’s right. Who needs a fancy kitchen or a bathroom when you’ve got a fridge full of cheese?”

Chat glared at him. “Some of us aren’t magical kwamis who never need to pee.”

“That’s what the sewer’s for, isn’t it?”

“Not that kind of sewer!” He smacked his forehead.

Marinette was doing her best not to burst out laughing. Chat Noir might wear the clown suit, but Plagg was the clown suit.

“I’ll see if I can come up with anything,” she assured him. Having a bathroom down here would be nice, though she didn’t know how to pull that off yet. There was a locker room for sanitation employees that they could probably use, but it would be risky, whether they went suited up or not.

This was supposed to be just a simple meeting place. She should’ve known that doing anything with Chat Noir couldn’t be simple.

Maybe we should’ve gone with his first idea of renting an apartment, she thought as she poured herself a glass of milk. It looked like Alya had brought disposable cups along with the griddle, spatulas, and utensils strewn on the counter. She really should try Lucky Charming up some drawers. Or at least break out the dragon miraculous and cut a few more cabinets into the rock.

“So what brings you here, anyway?” Chat asked while lounging against the counter. “Hoping you’d run into a handsome black cat?”

He slicked his hair back in a way he probably thought was suave. Instead he just ended up skewing his mask, and he blinked in surprise. Or maybe winked. It was hard to tell with the fabric covering up one of his eyes.

“Tikki needed a break before heading home. You saw how many Lucky Charms I used today.” She held out her cup, letting Tikki dunk her cookie in it before she took another sip.

“You were amazing. Building a trebuchet out of the pieces it gave you? Genius.”

She punched him lightly. “Flatterer.”

“It’s not flattery if it’s true, my lady.” He winked.

Stop that, she told her heart when it picked up its pace. It didn’t listen, especially when he leaned in towards her.

It’s those stupid eyes. Those stupid, gorgeous eyes.

“I still can’t believe you launched my staff at just the right angle to hit the akumatized object over the wall. You wouldn’t happen to be a physics major, would you?”

“A what?” She blinked before his words actually sunk in. Then she nearly dropped her cup of milk on the counter. “Oh no! The physics exam!”

“...So that’s a yes?”

“No.” Her face flopped on the stone counter. Ow. “I’m terrible at physics. I just have to take the intro class, and I was supposed to study for the test today, but then Lord Labyrinth took forever and,” she took a deep breath, “I just really don’t want to.”

She’d never procrastinated in her life. Well, not on purpose, anyway. She just had too much to do to afford it.

“Even superheroes need breaks, you know.” He rubbed her shoulder, his touch gentle without his claws. “But if you do want to study… could I help you? I’ve took a few physics classes last year. They were a-mass-ing.”

“Really?” They didn’t talk much about their school lives—mostly for identity reasons, but also because they usually didn’t have the time. She never would’ve picked him out as a science guy. Theatre, maybe.

“Yeah. You could say I had a lot of potential.”

She groaned. “Oh no. I can’t take cat puns and science puns. If you keep this up, I’ll just take my chances with failing.”

“What? Do you think there’s too much friction between us?”

“Chat.” She glared on principle, even though she had to admit that one was almost funny.

“Alright, alright, I’m done.” He grinned. “Grab your notes and we can get started.”

#tali writes #ladynoir #home base #fic tag #if youre not following me on ao3 #just know that i posted this chapter weeks ago #there are like 5 chapters of this fic out already #i am slow at crossposting to tumblr

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quicksilversquared · 5 years

Text

Lost Heart: Chapter 24

A Christmas Battle

Magic can be a dangerous thing to play around with, particularly when that magic is tangled up in a curse. When Nathalie Sancoeur experiments with magic that she doesn’t fully understand, it sends her on a path to become Paris’ most dangerous supervillain and tips the balance between superheroes and supervillain.

But which way will the balance fall?

links in the reblog

The text came two days after Marinette and Adrien had gone shopping for a present for his father. Thankfully Marinette was free and her parents were busy with the bustling bakery downstairs, so it was no effort at all to quickly call up Adrien to make sure that he had gotten the text, too, and then transform and start racing across Paris.

Her first stop was the Grand Paris, where Emilie was waiting anxiously near her balcony door.

"I'm more nervous than I thought I would be," she admitted with a laugh as she let both superheroes in. "I just keep remembering what it felt like to transform before, and even though I know it'll be different now, I can't help but worry. And I've never seen proper combat."

"You're more for a surprise element than for fighting," Chat Noir reminded her quickly, holding out the Peacock. "It's a good thing Ma- Jade Turtle came over yesterday to reset the bond. I know he mentioned being busier than usual recently."

Ladybug nodded as Mrs. Agreste took the Miraculous, letting out a delighted gasp as Duusu popped free. Master Fu's sudden uptick in business had been concerning in terms of making sure that their plan went off smoothly, but she couldn't bring herself to be that surprised. People were taking off work now, wanting to catch their moments of relaxation while they could. Thankfully he had left his bracelet with her for just that reason- he couldn't exactly dash (or, well, his version of a dash. A speedwalk, perhaps?) out of his shop to pass it off to her when there was a client with him. He had worked all day, then gone to the hotel to meet up with Mrs. Agreste before eating a very, very late dinner.

His commitment was truly astounding.

"All right, I'll just go ahead and transform, then," Mrs. Agreste said, her eyes on Duusu as she pinned the Miraculous to the center of her shirt. "And I know to wait until I'm needed in the fight, so I'll keep out of the way. Duusu, transform me!"

With an excited squeal, Duusu dove into the brooch. Blue light lit up the room and when it cleared, Paon stood in the middle.

She cut a striking figure. Tall and slender, the base layer of Paon's blue suit clung to her just like Ladybug's. A skirt hung around her waist in blues and greens, open and shorter in the front and long in the back with a gorgeous feathered pattern half-hidden in the folds. Blue and green spiraled through her ponytail, and a sparkly blue and green mask hid the upper half of her face. Knee-high black boots and gloves stretching to her elbows broke the silhouette up.

"Okay, I feel underdressed next to you two," Ladybug admitted with a laugh. "I think my outfit might need an upgrade."

"Ooh, like what?" Chat Noir asked, interested. He glanced up and down Ladybug's suit, trying to imagine it changing. He was coming up blank. After fighting side-by-side with his partner for so long, that was just what Ladybug's outfit was.

"Like..." Ladybug thought about it, then frowned. "I don't know. I've looked like this for so long, I can't really picture it any other way."

Paon clapped her hands together. "Oh! I have some ideas that you might be interested in trying out. I can make sketches later, and you can see if you like any of them."

Ladybug beamed at her. "I would appreciate that, thank you. But for now, I think we have several more heroes to round up. You know the plan?"

"I'll keep out of sight," Paon promised. "And Jade Turtle told me how to track you guys on my fan, so I can find where the fight is. I'll be there."

With that, the superheroes headed back out. They had done a quick Miraculous swap earlier, so Chat Noir could grab Queen Bee, who would be easy enough to find in the hotel, and Dragoness, who...

Well, he had her number, at least. Both as Chat Noir and Adrien. He would be able to track down Kagami. For her part, Ladybug would go grab Alya and Nino.

It made things a hundred times easier when they ended up being together.

"I've not heard anything about an akuma yet," Alya said dubiously as she accepted her Miraculous. Nino was looking frankly startled that they were being tapped again after the fiasco at the end of the previous fight. "Are you sure there wasn't just a false alarm on Twitter or something?"

"We have an inside source," Ladybug said shortly, stepping back to her window. They didn't have any time to waste. Chat Noir had just sent her a quick notification that Queen Bee and Dragoness were ready and were on the lookout for anything strange. As soon as the akuma showed its head, they had to strike. "The Purple Lady was headed to her lair to send out an akuma. We're going to hit before she's ready."

Nino and Alya exchanged a look, then transformed and followed Ladybug out the window. She kept low to the rooftops and out of sight, checking her yo-yo for any notifications. Within a minute, one popped up.

Akuma at the Arc de Triomphe. Purple Lady spotted.

"To the Arc," Ladybug ordered, changing her direction at once. "You two will be on the akuma."

She didn't miss the 'as always' that Rena Rouge muttered, but she decided to ignore it. Now was not the time to get into another argument with them.

...but they also weren't getting their Miraculous back after this battle was over. If the superheroes were needed again for whatever reason and they needed more than just Ladybug and Chat Noir, there were three other options to go to first. Rena Rouge was turning into too much of a wild card and Carapace would always follow her lead. It stunk- after all, Nino and Alya were good friends- but Lila had their ears, it seemed, and that made them liabilities.

People taking the initiative was good, generally. But the superheroes had to act as a team, and Ladybug and Chat Noir were meant to be the undisputed leaders in these battles.

Then the Arc appeared up ahead, and there was no more time to mull over their misbehaving superheroes. Ladybug had one second, two, three to take in the scene below- the rampaging akuma that looked like a knock-off Bubbler in the street, the Purple Lady on top of the Arc, the three other members of their team coming in from the other direction-

And then Ladybug plunged into battle.

The Purple Lady was at the top of her game. Within a couple minutes, it was obvious that Dragoness and Chat Noir would have to be the ones facing off against her, with Queen Bee back on the akuma and both her and Ladybug on standby, ready to abandon the akuma and join the other two with the Purple Lady.

He had briefed Dragoness and Queen Bee on the way over. The akuma was a secondary concern; once the Purple Lady fell, the akuma would be lost and easy to take down. If Carapace and Rena Rouge could at least keep the akuma from interfering with their fight, they would be good. Ladybug and Queen Bee would not get too tangled up in the akuma battle, so they could jump over to help Chat Noir and Dragoness. Once Paon showed up- and yes, he told them about her- then Dragoness could retreat and, once they had the situation under control, go try her hand at battling the akuma.

Chat Noir couldn't help the way his lips quirked up at the memory of when he had told Dragoness that. She had groaned loudly- one on one combat was more her thing, and sword-on-sword instead of whatever... well, whatever akuma attacks were- but agreed. After all, the others would be rejoining the akuma battle shortly enough and getting it wrapped up quickly.

Hopefully.

Fighting the Purple Lady was a whole lot of trading off, darting in at her from opposite sides to keep her guessing. Chat Noir had to keep all of his focus on her, his feet moving fast as he and Dragoness parried blow after blow. The Purple Lady was getting frustrated, it was obvious. She had tried firing off a couple spells as he and Dragoness approached that Chat Noir had just barely managed to block, and she was clearly itching to try more.

But she couldn't. Not with both of her hands and all of her brainpower occupied by her fight with Chat Noir and Dragoness.

His mom had to be moving into position now, Chat Noir knew. The news about the akuma was out now, and their dots would have stopped moving across the city on her communicator. She had to be careful not to get spotted- after all, the public still thought that the Peacock Miraculous was on Hawkmoth's side, and if the Purple Lady caught any sign of her then their element of surprise would be lost- and had to find the perfect spot to hide until she spotted her opening.

They just had to hold the fight until then.

Sword clashed against baton, then against sword. Yells from the akuma fight echoed across the square. Chat Noir let Dragoness take the lead, since he had to keep track of- well, everything.

How Ladybug did this during their other akuma battles- keeping track of everything enough to figure out how to proceed while still fighting- was beyond him. If Dragoness weren't such a strong fighter, he would have to commit all of his energy and attention to the battle and he wouldn't ever get to glance around to see what else was going on. As it was, most of his attention had to stay on the Purple Lady so that she wouldn't catch him by surprise.

Fencing bouts had never been this difficult. His breath was coming heavy, his heart racing. There was absolutely no time for reactions as he countered every strike that the Purple Lady made. He could only breathe when she switched the bulk of her attention back to Dragoness, and even then it was just a short break before he had to be fully in again so that his teammate could catch a breath of her own.

Three minutes later, his baton buzzed. Chat Noir nearly missed it- he had been about to pick up the fight from Dragoness- but when he realized what it meant, he managed a competitive smile.

Paon was in position. Another buzz- a double one- would go off when she was coming up. Down on the street, Ladybug yelled something to her teammates before swinging into her own position, enough behind the Purple Lady that she wouldn't be noticed. Her yo-yo dangled just from her fingertips, ready to strike. Chat Noir chanced a proper glance in her direction and Ladybug gave him one of her determined little nods, focused and ready to work.

That expression on her face was actually pretty adorable, especially paired with the tiger ears and whisker stripes that she had adorned at some point during the fight, but Chat Noir didn't exactly have the time to appreciate that before the Purple Lady's attention was back on him. He parried and went for a blow, forcing the Purple Lady back half a pace. She recovered quickly, going for a heavy blow in his direction that he dodged. Their weapons crossed again in a quick one-two-three-four.

Bzzz. Bzzz.

Two buzzes. Paon was moving up. Chat Noir forced himself to split his attention, waiting for exactly the right moment to move back. A flash of blue in the corner of Chat Noir's eye caught his attention and he grinned, gesturing to Dragoness to flip back and bouncing back several paces himself to get out of the Purple Lady's reach. She stepped forward, as if to follow him, when she noticed Paon, now fully on the Arc and straightened to her full, commanding height.

The Purple Lady froze, eyes wide and disbelieving. Chat Noir nodded to Ladybug, but his partner was already in motion, her yo-yo lashing out and wrapping around the Purple Lady, pinning her arms to her sides. The Purple Lady shrieked as she realized that she had been caught, thrashing to try to get free, but Paon and Chat Noir didn't give her a chance. In unison, the mother-son duo struck, knocking the Purple Lady to the ground and sending her sword clattering to the side. Without any hesitation, Chat Noir reached over and grabbed her Miraculous. The transformation released in a second, an exhausted Nooroo coming free and bowing to the pair of them before returning to his Miraculous, leaving Nathalie furiously struggling on the rooftop.

He barely recognized her. The muted warmth in her eyes was gone, replaced by an icy coldness. Or, rather, an icy fury.

"Queen Bee!" Ladybug called, her voice carrying easily above the sounds of the still-raging akuma battle. Glancing over, Chat Noir saw that Dragoness had already joined the battle on the ground. "We need your Sting!"

Queen Bee appeared in a blur of yellow, dashing towards them. She pulled out her trompo, activating it in a flash before stabbing Nathalie's side. She seized up in a heartbeat, and Ladybug took the opportunity to recall her yo-yo, drop off of the roof, and dash over to the police barricade that was starting to form around the outside of the area. She was back thirty seconds later with two pairs of handcuffs. One pair got snapped around Nathalie's wrists, and the other was hung from Ladybug's waist, ready for when Mr. Agreste appeared.

And just like that, it was over.

Chat Noir swallowed hard, the adrenaline surging through him congealing in a lump in his throat. That made it more real. His father would be going to jail tonight and likely would not be coming out for a long, long time. Even if he had gotten used to the idea- he had certainly had a decent amount of time for it to sink in, and recent days aside, his father hadn't acted very fatherly for a very, very long time- seeing his father behind bars still wasn't something he felt particularly prepared for.

He didn't know if it was really something anyone could have felt prepared for.

"I'll sit with her," Paon promised, settling next to Nathalie. "Right now, I think there's an akuma still for you guys."

Chat Noir nodded, following Ladybug down to the ground. Carapace and Rena Rouge looked frankly baffled when they appeared, glancing up to where the Purple Lady had been, but they didn't question it, particularly when Ladybug's yo-yo snagged the final akuma and sent them flying straight into a lamppost.

With its power leaching fast, the akuma wasn't hard to defeat. Ladybug cast one final Miraculous Cure, the magical ladybugs sparkling just a bit brighter than normal as they put everything back to normal.

Or maybe that was just his imagination.

"It's over," Ladybug sighed, her entire body relaxing as the last of her Cure faded away. "It's really, actually over. That's just..."

"We still have to give a police report and get the Miraculous back," Chat Noir reminded her, wrapping an arm around Ladybug's waist to keep her upright. He paused when beeping reached his ears. "...okay, how many people used their powers? Queen Bee, obviously, but...?"

"Both Carapace and I did, because all of a sudden there were only two of us fighting the akuma," Rena Rouge piped up, appearing at his side with one hand on her hip and an irritated look on her face. "Well, three at first, but Queenie didn't exactly have her head in the game."

Chat Noir picked up the irritation in Ladybug's expression and hurried to answer before she could. "That was because she had been told to keep an eye out for a signal to come help us with the Purple Lady. She was just following instructions-" he couldn't resist the small dig, he really couldn't- "and it all turned out fine in the end, didn't it? The akuma was defeated, the Purple Lady has been contained and had her Miraculous taken away, and Hawkmoth will be coming to turn himself in soon."

The speed with which Rena and Carapace's expressions changed from annoyed to startled and shocked was almost comical.

"But if you've used your powers, you'll be detransforming soon," Ladybug chimed in. "So if we could head over to that alley over there-"

Rena Rouge nodded at once, snagging Carapace's wrist and practically dragging him off in the direction that Ladybug had indicated. Chat Noir couldn't help but frown in confusion- wouldn't they want to be present when they turned the former Purple Lady over to the police?- before he realized what must be happening. Rena Rouge was Alya, who was the moderator of the Ladyblog. She had just been told that the Purple Lady and Hawkmoth were de-masked and were going to be turned into the police. Of course she wanted to be detransformed and streaming the whole thing live.

"I can stick around," Queen Bee spoke up. "I have snacks for Pollen with me, in case the Sting wears off. Or if we have to stick around after the Purple Lady and Hawkmoth get turned over to the police. And it's not as though everyone doesn't already know who I am."

Chat Noir grinned. "Good. And Dragoness?"

Dragoness popped open the hilt of her sword to check the time on her communicator. "I have the time to spare, as long as we don't end up in a super-long press conference. And since it's just the once..."

It didn't take Ladybug long to return, tucking the extra Miraculous back in her safe box on her way. It went back into her yo-yo- and the look on Dragoness' face when Ladybug tucked the large box into the small yo-yo was absolutely hilarious- and then the yo-yo clicked shut with finality.

"Time to get Nathalie down!" Ladybug called, already heading for the Arc de Triomphe. "And then Mr. Agreste is going to be here in a couple minutes. He's having his driver bring him over."

Dragoness sucked in a startled breath, and Chat Noir suddenly remembered that while Queen Bee knew everything (or near enough, at least), Dragoness hadn't been told about the identities of the supervillains. Of course it would come as a shock to her. Not as much of a shock as it had been to him when they first found everything out, of course, but still a shock.

Before Ladybug could reach up, Paon appeared at the top of the Arc with the still-frozen Nathalie in her arms. She leapt down easily, landing lightly and straightening before making a beeline for the heroes.

"I can feel her trying to twitch," Paon reported. "I wouldn't be surprised if she needs to be kept sedated until we can undo the effects of the curse on her, just so she doesn't end up injuring herself. She would try to fight too much."

Chat Noir nodded. That was a good thought. There was probably something in the grimoire that would help.

Besides, Master Fu couldn't just quit brewing potions cold turkey, surely. He would miss it too much, after spending almost all of his free time whipping up potion after potion for them.

"And I just sent a text to the police, so they won't all clear away," Ladybug added, giving her yo-yo one final tap before closing it completely for the second time. "Hopefully they'll keep two cars for us."

Chat Noir nodded. If Nathalie hadn't already figured out what had happened, she would work it out soon. And it would not be pretty.

"It looks like most of the police cars are over on that street," Dragoness said, pointing. "And some are starting to clear out. Maybe we should go over there right away, just in case they don't get the text."

Paon headed that way at once, with Chat Noir following right behind her. It took him a minute to realize that Ladybug wasn't following. When he glanced around, he saw her standing next to the Gorilla's car, exchanging a few words with Mr. Agreste before putting him in handcuffs. The two of them headed after the rest of the group, walking quickly to catch up.

Or, well, Ladybug was walking quickly. Since he was so much taller, Mr. Agreste was just able to keep up without hardly trying at all.

That was actually annoying.

"Chat Noir," one of the police officers greeted him, and Chat Noir had to pull his attention away from his father and Ladybug to focus. "Can I ask- was this the Purple Lady?"

"M. Sancoeur was the Purple Lady," Chat Noir confirmed. "She's not in her right mind at the moment- she was using the Peacock Miraculous, which had a curse on it until we recovered the Miraculous and removed the curse. The curse pretty much took away a bit of her humanity every time she transformed into Mayura."

The policeman nodded, looking a bit puzzled. "Okay, uh- we're going to need statements as soon as possible. And Hawkmoth...?"

"Was Gabriel Agreste. Several weeks ago, we confronted him and he gave in, telling us his identity and what was going on. He's been working with us ever since, giving us the Peacock Miraculous once M. Sancoeur took his and surrendering the books and scrolls that he had." Chat Noir took a step back to gesture at the rapidly-approaching Mr. Agreste and Ladybug. "Today, he warned us when Nathalie headed up so that we could strike as soon as the akuma appeared. He agreed when we first confronted him to turn himself in once everything ended."

"Cooperation always is a good thing," the police officer agreed. "That should help him, but of course it depends on the full story. Which- well, I assume that there's more?"

Chat Noir nodded. "There is. We'll come in right away after Ladybug and I recharge."

The officer nodded, opening the car door so that Paon could set Nathalie inside. "Okay. We'll take both of them in. And, uh- was the rest of your team involved in discovering their identities?"

Dragoness shook her head right away. Queen Bee was slower, and Paon looked to Chat Noir for guidance.

"Most of the rest of our team was just involved in the akuma battles," Chat Noir said immediately. "We can fill you in on the roles that everyone played at the station, and you can decide after that if anyone else should come in and testify."

"Very well."

Mr. Agreste arrived then, and a second police officer guided him to a second car. He went in without a fuss, settling in and inclining his head to the superheroes. His gaze turned to Paon, and a small, sad smile played across his lips before he nodded to her, too.

Chat Noir didn't look to see if she had returned the gesture.

It didn't take long to get the cars ready to go. Before they did, the first officer returned to Ladybug and Chat Noir.

"Thank you for your service to the city," he told them. "With Hawkmoth and the Purple Lady's reign gone, Paris can resume its normal life again, just in time for Christmas. We'll prepare a statement at once, and perhaps after your visit to the police station for statements you can join the Mayor for an announcement to Paris?"

"That sounds great," Ladybug said, speaking up from Chat Noir's side. Her hand sneaked around his waist, resting reassuringly on his opposite hip. "We can't wait to tell Paris. It has been a long time coming."

It didn't take long to get the Dragon Miraculous back, thank Kagami, and let her go on her way. Paon kept her Miraculous- they knew where to find her, after all, and she had been a superhero all on her own before they even reached the scene- and she went back to the hotel while Ladybug and Chat Noir headed for the police station. They stopped and recharged on the way, and Marinette made sure to check that Adrien was holding up okay. Giving statements would be hard on him, after all, having to relive the discovery and learning about Mrs. Agreste's condition.

Thankfully, he was holding up all right. Having his mom recovered and previously out with them no doubt helped.

Giving statements wasn't that bad. She and Chat Noir had to give them separately, of course, so that they wouldn't influence each other's statements, but it wasn't hard to remember everything once she made sure to take her time. The police recorded everything, taking notes as well as taking video of her statement. They had a few questions to clarify certain points, then they were free to go. The police wanted Chloe and Mrs. Agreste to come in as well, along with Jade Turtle, but those could wait until after the holidays. Ladybug had to show the police the Butterfly Miraculous, too, but they didn't even try to request that she leave it with them.

And then it was time for the big announcement. They did tell the eager reporters who Hawkmoth and the Purple Lady had been- there would be no point in not saying that, because the Ladyblog already had video of Nathalie and Mr. Agreste being put in the police cars by the superheroes- and make sure that they added in the fact that Nathalie had started helping Hawkmoth all on her own but had been cursed into her current condition and that Mr. Agreste had switched sides as much as he could towards the end. No one else had willingly worked with them, including the rest of the household staff and Mr. Agreste's son. Mrs. Agreste had been cursed into a coma after using the Peacock to do good, and she had been woken up recently.

There had been a lot of questions, of course, and a lot of gasping at the reveal of who Hawkmoth had been. But eventually the reporters settled down, after being reminded by both the superheroes and the mayor that the investigation was technically still ongoing and therefore they could only say so much.

"We want to thank Paris for cooperating during akuma attacks," Ladybug finished, beaming out at the crowds. "And for being patient with us as we worked to defeat Hawkmoth and the Purple Lady and then prepare for the final confrontation. We're very, very pleased that everything got wrapped up before Christmas."

"It's our present to you," Chat Noir agreed, ducking his head in so that he could speak into her microphone as well. "We'll be going into the new year supervillain-free. Happy holidays, Paris!"

#Miraculous Ladybug #My writing #Lost Heart #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste

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lostsummerdayz · 4 years

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Lost Summer Deep Dive - Christie Monteiro Part 1

An In-Depth Look At A Capoeirista Forgotten By Lore

by Nay Holland

When one thinks of capoeira, it is impossible to mention the impact video games had in bringing the art into the public eye. Sure, there have been movies, books, and capoeira schools for as long as the art existed, but video games were arguably the form of media which made the art popular. The same could be said for its representation in video games.

While you had capoeiristas like Richard Meyer and Bob Wilson in the Fatal Fury series, it wouldn’t be until years later that a rich Brazilian capoeirista known as Eddy Gordo would set the bar. No, he wouldn’t just set the bar, he would be the bar himself.

In arcades during the year of 1997 and home consoles the following year, many a player felt rage from a single man. A man whose flips, spins, handstands, and kicks, would bring awe to those who played him, and frustration to those who fought against it. He was both famous for moves never seen before in a 3D fighter, and infamous for being the definition of “cheap.”

Regardless how you felt about him, there was no denying that Eddy was different from the rest of the cast. In a game where homages to Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Tiger Mask were evident, there was nothing who was comparable to Eddy at the time. His unique, yet slightly exaggerated, homage to capoeira brought new fans into the art. Capoeira became a popular buzz word for fighting enthusiasts almost overnight.

But was Eddy always considered to be the face of capoeira?

After Tekken Tag Tournament, Eddy was noticeably absent from the main roster. In place of him was a young Brazilian woman by the name of Christie Monteiro. A fresh face for a game that represented a new era in Tekken, her moves were very similar to Eddy’s.

In fact, apart from her normal throws, her movelist were identical to Eddy’s in every way. Eddy being a palette swap for her in Tekken 4 and Tekken 5 brought the “Christie is Eddy” angle to its head. At the time, although Eddy was included in these two games, Bandai Namco was trying to push Christie as the new face.

At the very least, they were trying to push a woman as the capoeira representative from the very beginning.

In a 1998 CVG interview, following the release of Tekken 3, the development team discussed how the concept of Eddy came about. When asked how the team went about designing its roster of characters, the team replied with the following.

“A good example is Eddy, since he wasn't planned to be the character you see at first. The development team wanted to include a character who used Capoeira, so the idea was passed on to the artist team. Mr Kimoto requested the artist to make a female character for Capoeira. However the artist said it was too difficult to design a female character who used Capoeria, so there came Eddy.”

It wouldn’t be until Dark Resurrection that Eddy had his own slot on the roster for the first time since Tekken Tag Tournament.

With the separation of the two characters at last, Christie’s push would be put on the backburner in lieu of Eddy’s importance to the story. Christie’s relevance came to a screeching halt in Tekken 7 as Eddy was one of the final main roster characters revealed without a Brazilian woman in sight.

NO!!!

Anyways, Christie wouldn’t make another official appearance until the mobile Tekken game, but considering the mobile Tekken game is literally a dump of old characters that didn’t make the cut in Tekken 7, that’s hardly a victory.

I started writing this back in early 2018, and since then, we’ve gotten Marduk back from the graveyard!

However, I’ve long since stopped holding out for hope. If she shows up, she shows up. If she doesn’t, well. It still won’t dilute the amount of love I have for this girl. Hopefully by the end of this I can shed some light on what makes Christie amazing to me.

So, what happened? How did the one who was pushed to be the babyface of capoeira after Eddy’s origin ended up becoming the queen of the indies known as mobile Tekken? What is it about Christie that makes me admire her as a character? Well, let’s start with her design.

Appearance

So, imagine the year 2001. You’re in the arcades and you see Tekken 4 for the first time. The attract video plays and you’re in wow at the graphics. Especially considering this is the first Tekken on a new engine in the arcade at least. Then suddenly you see this mami twirling and making sensual poses, flashing the biggest grin.

It was at this point you dumped quarters in the machine. Don’t lie. This totally didn’t happen to me at an arcade while I was in the Poconos. Nope.

I remember the rumors at the time. Everyone thought the designers took inspiration from Tyra Banks and Harada himself de-confirmed this.

Wearing a low-cut green floral blouse that cuts above her midriff, black leather hotpants with frills at the end, black fingerless gloves, and Spartan-style sandals, Christie’s primary outfit was made to turn heads and accentuate her features. As with most outfits and hair designs in this game, Christie’s design was also made to show off the new graphics engine for Tekken. Christie’s long brunette hair, coupled with her loose-fitting clothing, flows with the wind with every kick and acrobatic motion. Her design was made for comfort in mind as well as ease of movement.

Christie’s competitor’s outfit is a brassiere-style top with silk training pants and green fingerless gloves. Wrapped around her waist is a capoeira belt, much like Eddy’s competitor’s outfit. Whether this is an actual representation of her rank, or just a design choice, is up in the air. I’d like to say it’s the latter, though I believe a purple belt is a high ranking in capoeira.

Comparing Christie and Eddy’s competitor’s outfit, they aren’t too different from each other. In fact, side by side they appear like partners rather than a radical difference.

Following her debut, her primary outfit changes from a green to a light purple top and black to white colored hotpants. The top of her competitive gear is more confined and stylish while retaining the same effect as it did before. As the series progressed, her butterfly motif became more prevalent in her clothing.

With such a dynamic taste in style, one would think that her personality is just as bubbly, and you’d be correct to think so.

Personality

Pointing at her opponent with finger guns and firing off in their direction, Christie enters her ginga stance with a declaration…

“Here we go!”

Oozing with confidence no matter who she is fighting against, Christie never backs down from an opportunity to show off her studies in Capoeira arts.

Christie makes it clear to her competitors that if they take her lightly, they will pay for it in a loss.

Perhaps one of my favorite exchanges with another character is when she fights Bruce in Tekken 5. Bruce exclaims that the “competition has gotten easier on the eyes,” in which Christie taunts him in return. When Bruce questions if her capoeira can stand up to [his Muay Thai], she replies with a sultry tone of confidence.

Ultimately, Christie would win the bout and she toys with him, saying that his lack of rhythm will be the reason why he will never defeat her.

It’s exchanges like this, as well as her other intro pose where she blows her opponent a kiss and declares them to “go easy on her,” that she uses her looks to her advantage. It’s almost as a form of intimidation, being caught off guard by swift kicks coming at you at every direction while she emerges the victor, leaving the battle almost unscathed.

There is a depth to this. When things get serious, Christie has a sense of justice within the confines of her own capability. This is commonly brought up whenever Eddy runs off headfirst into danger.

In the same game, when she runs into Eddy, she doesn’t back down from fighting Eddy to save her grandfather’s life. Win or lose, she will fight her hardest for those who she loves, even if it means fighting the one person, she loves the most.

She’s also highly emotional as an individual as evident when she shows her disappointment at the end of her winning the 4th Iron Fist Tournament. This changes to a complete 180 as she sees the one person who she has been looking for all tournament, immediately returning to her bubbly cheerful self. A dark version of this trait shows when she is overburdened with emotion to the point of tears upon discovering that her grandfather passed away.

This combination of a flirtatious happy-go-lucky capoeirista who revels in her fights and a woman who is bound to protect those who she holds dear comes into full force in Tekken 6. Although in the overall canon she takes a backseat, controlling her in Scenario mode reveals hidden layers about her character.

One of the hypothetical scenarios that is brought up is when Christie and Eddy do cross paths in Scenario mode. If the former approaches Eddy, he will exclaim that she shouldn’t be here in high concern. If the latter approaches Christie, she will appear angry that he has, once again, decided to be inconsiderate in being brash for considering working with “Public Enemy #1.”

Both Eddy and Christie wish to protect each other, yet they do so by ironically placing themselves into harms way. While on a larger scale, they are two small fish in the giant ocean that is the Mishima bloodline story. If one zooms in on the microscope, you see two troubled young adults who wish to live in peace. One is bound by vengeance while the other is bound by duty.

Story

While Tekken 4 is the first time we see and hear of Christie, that game is not the first time we hear of her story. In Tekken 3’s prologue, Eddy was incarcerated after being framed for the murder of his father. During his sentence, he learns the art of capoeira from an elderly master. Up until his release, Eddy perfected the art of capoeira and entered the third King of Iron Fist tournament to exact

That elderly man was none other than…

Well…

The old man never had an official name. The Tekken wiki has his name as

DENSETSU NO KAPOEIRA MASUTAA

or the “Legendary Capoeira Master.”

For a while, the urban legend regarding his name was “Ho Chi Myong,” but unlike the Tara Banks inspiration, this wasn’t ever confirmed by Bandai Namco. I don’t think it ever will.

The one thing that was confirmed, however, was that the

DENSETSU NO KAPOEI---I’m sorry.

The elderly capoeira master was Christie’s grandfather. How did Christie herself know capoeira? Through Eddy, as a form of mutual respect for her grandfather teaching him the art. Suddenly Christie and Eddy having identical moves isn’t farfetched.

However, I always wondered why Christie’s grandfather never taught her capoeira himself? The obvious answer would be because he, too, was imprisoned. Still, you’d consider that maybe he would have taught her when she was a child or began to teach her. Who knows?

At the end of the King of Iron Fist Tournament 3, Eddy finds out that it was Kazuya Mishima who orchestrated the events which led to his father’s murder and his own imprisonment. Since then, he has sought out to find Kazuya and settle the score on his own terms.

Enter Tekken 4, where a concerned Christie realizes Eddy has gone missing. In her response, she spends the 4th Iron Fist Tournament looking for Eddy, sensing trouble brewing on the horizon.

Honestly this was Eddy’s fault to begin with. Had Eddy not told Christie that he was going to avenge his father’s death, she wouldn’t have bothered to put herself in harm’s way. However, Christie’s story had to start somewhere yeah?

In the end, Eddy doesn’t find Kazuya, but, if we take Christie’s ending in Tekken 4 as canon, we can deduce some details.

Christie wins the iron fist tournament, incredibly bemused, as she failed at her original goal in locating Eddy. However, seeing a familiar face in the crowd, she runs over to Eddy in a full embrace. Eddy appears in this ending with a cast on his arm, so it is assumed that his progress in finding his father’s murderer ended prematurely. Even so, despite his lack of success, he still shows up to his girl’s victory match in support. What a romantic.

Several months later, tragedy strikes. Christie’s grandfather is inflicted with an illness and the race to find enough money to pay for the operation begins. In the end, no matter who wins the tournament, they use their prize money to pay for the operation which turns out to be a success. Christie, Eddy, and her grandfather are all seen at a park practicing capoeira and everyone lives happily ever after, right!?

Unfortunately, not.

Several years later and the climate is different. Jin Kazama wages war against the world and it turns out that neither Christie nor Eddy was able to win the tournament after all.

Running out of time and resources, Jin makes a deal with Eddy. If Eddy works for him and helps exact Jin’s vengeance against Kazuya, then Jin will help pay for the operation. Considering this as an opportunity to become in direct contact with Kazuya, the murderer of his father, it’s a win win for Eddy.

He didn’t want to be a part of this war, but for the safety of the one person who was a father figure for him and the chance to kill the one who has caused him years of torment, he will take up a gun for Jin.

So, where does this leave Christie? Back to where we once were in Tekken 4, on the lookout for Eddy and her grandfather.

Do you see where I’m getting at now? “As the series progressed, Christie’s role became diluted?”

The sad part is that Christie is not the only character to suffer through this “character dilution.” The4thSnake’s video on Asuka Kazama goes over the same points that I could ever make, so please give that video a watch when you can. In Tekken 6, if it wasn’t Mishima related, it was on the backburner.

youtube

Once again, both parties are unsuccessful. Christie never finds a cure for her grandfather’s illness and he succumbs. Eddy is deceived by Jin, refusing to hold his end of the bargain, and is unable to save his master’s life. While visiting his grandfather’s grave, Christie discovers Eddy.

Instead of a warming reunion, Christie, in a fit of rage and sadness, slaps him while demanding where he was. In response, Eddy stands there, motionless, as he throws his Mishima Zaibatsu pin to the ground.

This is where Christie’s story ends. Officially.

What began as a bright young capoeira student ended a grieving shell of a person, thanks to the dishonesty of Mishimas and Eddy for pulling a Knuckles and believing Eggman---Jin Kazama.

If we look at the Tag 2 endings and assume, they take place after 6, Eddy takes a page out of King’s book and opens up a capoeira school for orphaned children. After some time passes, he embarks on a trip to become the world greatest stuntman the Mishima Zaibatsu has ever seen!

No of course not he’s going to confront his father and master’s murderers of course! What else would Eddy POSSIBLY do at this point!?

In Christie’s ending, as a continuation, she catches wind of this and chases Eddy, but, as history tends to repeat itself, she’s too late. Eddy is already on the train.

Some. Things. Never. Change.

At least she was spared a grim fate, unlike our friend here.

Conclusion

So. Where do we go from here? From the beginning, we know that Eddy is an integral part of Christie’s story. However, there are signs in her design that shows she can hold her own, both in a fight and in her sense of justice.

I recommend anyone to play through Scenario mode with all of the available roster and not just Lars, but in Scenario mode, Christie has a sense of justice that almost felt refreshing. It wasn’t just simply “where’s Eddy,” but it was also “I have to stop the messed up things from going on in the world”

Earlier I posted a photo where she confronts Eddy for working with the Mishimas and she has no qualms in defeating him to knock sense into him. I also mentioned the confrontation between Bruce and Christie, which is just about non-canon as far as Tekken 6 is confirmed. They treat their encounter as if it was the first time they’ve ever met. Bummer.

But there are signs of life for this character and when it shows, it’s refreshing to see. Christie is not the only character who suffers from this, but she is the one who is marred by the reputation of “always being in Eddy’s shadow.”

When discussion is brought up on why she shouldn’t be in the game? “Eddy is already in there.”

When the game throws her into a repeat storyline for the third straight game in the series? “Eddy is already there.”

Why is Christie out and about? “Her grandfather, but Eddy is there as well.”

Part of the reason why I considered myself a Christie main is because Christie is an underdog in the Tekken universe as well as within the competitive scene.

The irony here is that Christie was meant to replace Eddy, but the inverse happened.

One day, Christie can exist without having to worry about being in Eddy’s shadow. A fan can dream. Until then, I’ll always consider her my favorite fighting game character so there’s no replacing that at least.

There will be a Part 2 to this as there’s one key game that she’s a part of where she does regain some of that luster I wish she had in the main series. A game that is largely underrated but a game where Christie has had her moment in the sun.

Stay tuned for Part 2 soon! If you weren’t sick of me talking about Christie and made it this far, congrats! Stick around for the follow-up!

#tekken #tekken 7 #eddy #christie monteiro #video game

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howtohero · 4 years

Text

#272 Secret World Governing Societies

Superheroes wield an exorbitant amount of power. They can move mountains, they can evaporate oceans, they can walk around out in the open wearing a cape and nobody makes fun of them or throws cabbages at them. And you know what they say, with great power comes great hubris. The hubris of superheroes, at times, knows no bounds. As superheroes grow more powerful, and rack up more and more victories, they’re going to start seeing themselves as more than just superheroes. It is possible that they might see themselves as messianic figures, destined to shepherd society into a brighter and greater tomorrow. But society doesn’t really liked to be shepherded into any sort of future by pantaloon wearing demagogues. So oftentimes what happens is that superheroes will just band together with other heroes that they respect and create a secret world governing society to govern the world in secret. And it is always a bad idea!

You see, the world is a very complicated place. And a good many of those complications stem from the actions of superheroes. Yes, it’s true, when you defeated the Fur Trapper by hurling their ginormous mutant polar bear off of a cliff and called it a day, it actually survived and procreated and now there’s a herd (sleuth) What? (A group of bears is called a sleuth.) Really? (Yeah.) Like a detective? (Yeah I guess.) So you’re telling me that Sherlock Bears, the group of bears that are both detectives and roommates and who are all named Sherlock is literally a sleuth. (That’s not at all what I was telling you, but I guess it’s true.) This is the best day of my life. [Focus.] Right, so anyway, now, thanks to you, there’s an entire sleuth of mutant polar bears. The actions of superheroes frequently have unintended consequences that occasionally cause the world to become weirder and more dangerous. Now, if a bunch of superheroes were to join together in order to manipulate world events from behind the scenes, they would doubtlessly only serve to make things even more dangerous and weird. They would then, of course, try to fix that and only make things even weirder and dangerouser.

What’s more, we already have a term for super powerful people who try to consolidate their power in order to guide and influence world events, we call them supervillains. If you want to go ahead and create a real life Illuminati or Stonemasons or some other elite secret society composed of the smartest and most powerful “superheroes” then you should know that doing so would effectively make you supervillains. Superheroes are powerful heroes who know that their job is to combat evil, not alter the course of history by meddling in affairs they have no business meddling in. Superheroes acting unilaterally, in secret with zero oversight from non-powered people is a recipe for global cataclysm. How long before the heroes decide that the governments of the world are not smart enough, or handsome enough, or powerful enough, to be able to run the world. (As if being able to use magic or stretch your limbs to impossible degrees somehow makes you qualified to run a country.)

And another thing! Superheroes meeting in secret in poorly lit rooms to discuss their visions for the world is going to look stupid as hell. Superhero costumes are not designed to look imposing or powerful in dark conference rooms. They’re designed for broad daylight. They’re designed to look appealing to an adoring public on the ground as you streak through the sky on your way to fight MegaMole the giant mole! If you’re aiming to be taken seriously during one of these backroom meetings you’re going to need something dark and foreboding. Maybe swap out your cape for a cloak. Maybe get a helmet instead of a domino mask and whoop! You’re a supervillain again. And don’t think you can show up to these meetings without your costume. You definitely don’t want this powerful cabal of heroes to know your true identity. How long do you think it’ll be before one of them decides that you’re a threat to their new world order and uses one of your society’s vast and sprawling connections to get rid of you. (Trust us, it’s not going to take long at all. After all, anybody who wants to be part of a shady world-governing league, is probably going to wind up being a threat at some point. You’re all going to turn on each other relatively quickly.)

Herein lies another problem with forming a secret cadre of superheroes, in order to properly influence the world from behind the scenes, you’re going to need to utilize some less than savory methods. If what you’re doing needs to be secret then there’s a better than even chance that it’s not going to be moral. Take it from me, when you try to run the world in secret, you need to do business with many shady individuals. Other superheroes, for example, are not going to want to participate in your little exercise. They believe in things like freedom of choice and autonomous governments, and besides, you don’t want to include them anyway. You only have so many seats at your skull shaped conference table. (Skull-shaped was just the only shape they had at the conference table store. Don’t read into it.) So that means you need to rely on supervillains to act as your agents in the field. But of course you can’t call them supervillains. You don’t want to call attention to the fact that you’re employing supervillains to reshape the world in your image. You’ll probably spend a lot of time trying to come up with something to call them only to realize that you’re wasting valuable time that could be better spent figuring how to launch Rockblock into space or something. (You see, Rockblock is incredibly powerful, and has been known to have temper tantrums. It’s only a matter of time before the harm he causes outweighs the good he does. It is in the Organization’s best interest to get rid of Rockblock before this happens. So off to space he goes!) To save time you’ll give them no official title and just refer to them derogatively as goons or thugs or what have you. Honestly it’d be quicker to just refer to them with a catchall like “henchmen” or something.

Soon, you’ll find yourself having to work with other unsavory figures in order to protect your Earth. (You’re also going to start being very possessive about the Earth. After all, you’re putting in a lot of hours to make it the way you’d like it. You’ve earned the right to call it yours.) You’ll make deals with alien civilizations that had no plans to invade the planet until you started trying to negotiate with them. You’ll enter into contracts with demons, for it is better to promise half of Earth’s souls in exchange for a promise to not invade the surface world with the legions of Hell. Worst of all, you’re going to be using a lot of math in your work. You’re going to be doing prioritization on a global scale. When you decide the entire world is your jurisdiction, you’re quickly going to realize that you’re ok with sacrificing certain places for the benefit of other more high profile locations. And that is a very dangerous path to travel down.

All in all, a shady secretive organization made up of superheroes who wish to take greater control of the world and everyone in it is only a hop, skip and jump away from becoming a shady secretive organization made up of supervillains who wish to take greater control of the world and everyone in it. So if you’ve got a problem with the world, step up and solve it. But do it in the light, with help and guidance from others. There’s nothing wrong with trying to fix some of the world’s problems, as long as you go about it in the right way. If you find yourself sitting in a poorly lit room, you’re doing it wrong. If you find yourself sitting across from someone named Horgoblith the Soul Torturer, you’re doing it wrong. If you find yourself ordering hit jobs on other superheroes, you’re doing it wrong. As a rule of thumb, if you find yourself doing anything that a supervillain would do, you’re dong it wrong.

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devilgem-archive · 5 years

Note

Can we hear more about the swap au?

yes absolutely!!!i got some basic info for the ones with distinct roles (most of which are based off personal hcs ive conjured in chats) the rest will come as soon as i have concrete stories for them!!

the story revolves around angel, an ex-mobster slash p*rn star, who decides to abandon his vices to better himself and those around him. because he lacks a higher status in hell’s society, he has a harder time gathering funds and support, so his hotel is a lot more run down compared to canon charlie’s. many dub him as a “nobody trying to be somebody”

ANGEL DUST

swaps with charlie

gay trans man

grew up in a mob family during the 30s-40s. his relationship with his family remains difficult

he’s a lot more optimistic here, still values innocence and all the littlest things that make the world go ‘round. he’s still angel dust tho,therefore has moments where he’s just a plain jackass

continued his line of Shady Work in the afterlife for survival. retired decades later to pursue his Dream Project in running a rehabilitation center in the form of a hotel. the public was baffled at his choice to step down from crime, why give up all of that for…this? is he stupid? whatever respect they held for him was snuffed out quickly and angel became a laughing stock

is very much aware of the doubts, even those of his friends’ and frankly…it stings. tries to mask it with sunshine and rainbows

still struggles with addictions + suffers from episodes of alcohol withdrawal himself. despite everything he keeps pushing forward- lowkey has a habit of brushing off his own problems in favor of others’

CHERRI BOMB

swaps with vaggie

trans lesbian

was an orphan in life, turned to crime as a bomb specialist as she grew

had canon!cherri’s personality and appearance up until angel made his ambitions known; she chopped her hair short and sports a more formal fashion to honor his new passion

is best friends with angel and looks up to him like a father. while she does offer her best support, she is not without doubts regarding the hotel’s success. not that she’d outright say it ofc

despite her own concerns, she wont hesitate to fuck up anyone who insults or otherwise jeopardizes angel’s hotel

she jokingly suggested angel turn to the princess of hell for assistance…only for the man himself to take it as serious advice. angel dust is a synonym for absolutely fucking stupit

CHARLIE

swaps with angel

bi trans girl

the princess of hell. an absolute bratty delinquent who loves using her status to get what she wants– or get away with the trouble she stirred up

only cared about her status, wealth and vaggie before the hotel.

she’s the carlyle to angel’s barnum

angel sought her out for support–though she initially snorted at the very idea of a rehabilitation center in hell,she found herself begrudgingly funding the hotel. even checked in as the very first patient, fun for the entire family huh.

she truly has a heart of gold beneath the hardass exterior and it gradually shines through the more time she spends at the hotel

VAGGIE

swaps with cherri

lesbian + demigirl

is charlie’s girlfriend and partner in crime. together, theyre ur typical Mean Girls that enjoy making snide remarks at the expense of others

has an arsenal of knifes and spears she uses to win turf wars and lovingly defend her still-ditzy gf from danger.

is more cool and collected- gotta do what it takes to come out the winner! only loses her temper when her loved ones are threatened/insulted

retains a difficult relationship with angel

only checked into the hotel, which she is skeptical of, to keep charlie company. and to see how fast this dump falls apart lmao

just like charlie, she gradually softens up and befriends the others

ALASTOR

swaps with husk

pan/ace trans man

he is biracial

was an ex-radio host that succumbed to the great depression in Every sense of the word. no really. alastor is a disaster

he pushed away his friends and family and loyal fans that reached out in support, destroying whatever positive relationship he had left. who needs people when you got booze!

is a complete shut in. dont talk to him, do not even look at him.begone thot. remained stubborn at the idea of opening up, even in a place as disgustingly positive as angel’s hotel

1000/10 capable of ripping your guts out if you test him

still enjoys the good thrill of hunting deer every now and then. probably the one thing that makes him feel anything

hates hate HATES the permasmile with every ounce of his being. he wouldn’t be wearing a smile if frowning wasnt so damn painful

SIR PENTIOUS

swaps with katie

bi trans man w a pref for Wahmen

he was a well-known journalist in the 1800s.

in hell, he adapted well enough to have his own “picture news show”

vocally, he isn’t very pleasing to listen to, but! he has a knack for grabbing the most sensational stories to keep the attention of his audience unwavered

has an ego the size of jupiter

is completely uninterested in anything that doesnt give his rep a boost

enjoys sciencey stuff and reviews the latest trends/memes on occasion

mocking the hell out of angel and his stoopid hotel is his second hobby

he has ‘friends’ but rarely, if ever, treats them well

THE EGGBOIS

swap with tom

they all hate penti

penti still enjoys pushing them around. sometimes would use them as anger/stress-relievers

i do not have a lot for them

#askies #anon #headcanons #trash aus #hazbin hotel #hazbinswap au

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magic-and-moonlit-wings · 5 years

Text

Chapter 34: Making Arguments

This didn’t get posted last week because it didn’t match the theme of my April Fools’ Day prank. Thank you for your patience!

Content warning for this chapter: the ‘farming humans as food’ concept is discussed and Changeling!Jim doesn’t quite get why the humans are horrified.

Becoming The Mask

Nomura had successfully avoided Barbara for the entire class. She hadn't been partnered with her, or even made eye contact. Now she just had to get to her car and she would be in the clear for another week.

"Zelda!"

Curse how the human had longer legs than Nomura did in this form!

"Can I talk to you?"

"Can I stop you?"

Jim leapt over a spinning blade as it erupted from the floor, and used it as a shield from the fire jets, giving him a moment to catch his breath before the floor began to tilt and he had to run again.

He was surprised to realize he'd missed training in the Hero's Forge during his week away from Trollmarket. The Forge was like a friendly rival. It didn't actively wish him harm, not having a conscious mind, but it would utterly crush him if he didn't put his all into one-upping it.

He put on an extra burst of speed to cross the path of a pendulum-axe … but not fast enough to compensate for the tilting floor. The axe clipped his calf. Jim cried out and fell on his stomach.

Barely, he grabbed a floor groove and pulled himself up and forward, so his legs were out of the axe's path on the backswing. Jim climbed to the top edge of the floor section he clung to, and slid down it to the Forge's centre.

"Master Jim!"

The arena rumbled. The training equipment returned to starting positions. Toby and Darci weren't standing alone – Claire and Mary had rejoined them, and Blinky and AAARRRGGHH were at the Forge's controls.

Jim stretched his arms and flexed his hands as he walked over. He should start doing chin-ups or handstands or something. Despite Coach Lawrence's rope drills, Jim wasn't used to suddenly having his full body weight on his hands. If you did the rope drill right, a lot of your body weight was on your legs.

"You're limping," said Blinky. "Let me see your leg."

"I don't think it's cut, I think it's just bruised from impact force."

Jim vanished the armour from the knee down on his aching leg. Blinky practically pulled it out from under Jim. Jim reeled forward and AAARRRGGHH caught him.

"Also, I'm pretty sure this is a yoga pose." Jim stuck out his arms like he was playing airplane. Toby snickered.

"You are correct that your leg isn't cut." Blinky poked and prodded at Jim's calf muscle. "Hard to tell just what condition it's in, through this material, but it doesn't seem severe enough to require that you disrobe for a more thorough examination.”

Blinky released Jim's leg and AAARRRGGHH tipped him back upright, giving Jim a gentle one-fingered tap on the top of his head as though to make sure he was properly balanced.

(Jim held down an impulse to rub his forehead against AAARRRGGHH's hand. That would be … weird. Like hugging Mr Strickler in public.)

"I thought the armour was an all-or-nothing deal," said Darci.

"No, it adjusts. I've been experimenting." Jim reconjured his leg armour and closed the helmet's faceplate. "Amazingly, I can see through this."

Reluctantly, Nomura let herself be dragged off to a coffee shop. She picked at a scone while Barbara poured out her problems, clumsily avoiding any direct mention of trolls or Changelings.

"I feel like I'm seeing things more clearly now, after talking with Walt. He explained a lot about … mmm, cultural differences. History. What I might expect from Jim, going forward. But I don't want to just base all my judgement on one source, so I wanted to talk to you, as well …"

"As fascinating as the Amulet's properties are, we have other matters to discuss. Claire has updated AAARRRGGHH and myself on certain … recent developments."

"She spilled the beans on Not Enrique," said Mary. Jim glared.

"His name is Enrique until he says otherwise. More than one person can have the same name."

Claire made a noise not unlike a growl. "He already took my brother's life, he doesn't get to keep his name, too!"

"Claire, what the heck?" said Darci. "This was not the plan!"

"Plan?" repeated AAARRRGGHH.

"We were gonna play it cool and encourage Jimbo to bring the Changeling thing up," explained Toby, "so we'd know he really had told you, like he said, and you guys weren't going to arrest him or something for it."

Blinky, standing between the rest of the group and the Forge's main entrance, stretched out his lower arms like a barrier, patting the air in a quick 'keep it down' gesture with his upper hands.

"Trollmarket at large has not been informed. It would be in Master Jim's best interests for it to stay that way." He frowned at Jim. "You arranged for Claire's younger brother to be replaced?"

"Don't sound so disappointed. This was months ago, back when I still worked for Gunmar. You hadn't even met Claire yet. Also, technically all I did was make a suggestion. I don't actually have the authority to decide who gets swapped."

"Oh – question!" Darci half-raised her hand. "If we weren't friends yet, why did you, you know … 'suggest' Enrique, specifically?"

"Mrs Nuñez is active in local politics and it's always useful to have an eye on the inside." Jim grimaced. "Sorry, that's the, ah, Changeling reason, I guess. We might not've been friends, but," he gave Claire a hopeful look, "we were at least friendly. We've done projects together, we got along. You talked about your brother so much, I thought you'd be happy he was off the menu when the Gumm-Gumms invaded and ate everyone."

"How would I possibly have known that?" She had backed up to the weapons rack but not reached for anything yet.

"Okay, that part I didn't really start thinking about until after we were friends," Jim admitted. "I had a few arguments prepped for how you'd be more useful kept alive, too, but I didn't get a chance to present them before I changed sides, so that's not relevant anymore."

"What arguments?" asked Mary.

Jim froze. He'd been exaggerating – he'd really only come up with one argument.

"I thought you guys could be … useful … for something I found out wasn't going to happen anyways. So it doesn't matter."

AAARRRGGHH must've caught on, because he stepped back, looking stricken.

"You can't just say something like that and expect us to drop it," said Claire. She had her hands on a spear now. Her back was to it, and her grip was more like she was holding a guardrail than clutching a weapon. That could change quickly.

"Well, it turns out Gunmar's primary goal is to permanently blot out the sun, which is self-defeating because then all the surface life the Gumm-Gumms want to be free to hunt is going to die off, so farming humans wouldn't work out, and –"

Jim hoped to jabber out some long string of something to bury 'farming humans' in the middle of a ramble. He didn't speak fast enough. They all gasped.

"You thought," said Claire, "I'd be grateful, that you stole my baby brother, so he wouldn't get eaten by trolls, and were keeping me alive, to have more babies, who would get eaten by trolls?"

In the interests of sustaining a genetically diverse breeding stock, they probably wouldn't all get eaten, Jim had the sense not to say.

"That," said Darci, "is literally one of the most horrific scenarios I could possibly think of."

Mary looked green. Toby was shaking his head, an expression of disgust growing on his face.

"I know I'll regret asking this but I'm not gonna be able to stop thinking about it if I don't," said Toby. He swallowed. "What about your mom?"

"All these years of secrets and sneaking around, and I want to believe he means well, and I want to understand where he's coming from, but I still get so angry thinking about it …" Barbara stirred her coffee with a biscotti. It had been in her drink for so long it was probably mush below the waterline. "What do you think I should do?"

"… Personally? I think you should let Jim come home, and go about your life pretending you never found out about any of this."

Really, what was the woman expecting from her? Nomura didn't remember volunteering to be the human's confidante.

Barbara sighed heavily and got up.

"Well, thanks for letting me vent."

"Mom's a doctor. She'd be totally useful alive."

"That's … that's messed up, dude. What made you think she'd even go along with that? I mean, what's to stop her just mercy-killing everyone?"

"Bribery," said Jim simply. "I'd go back to living as a troll full-time, and Mom could have Jay-Jay back to reward her compliance and as a hostage for future good behaviour. Which would also extend her life, because if she taught Jay-Jay medicine apprentice-style, then once she got too old to practice, he could take over, but she'd still be kept alive as his reward-slash-hostage."

"I am incredibly creeped out by how proud you sound of that plan."

"Well, I know now that it wouldn't have worked out," said Jim defensively, "but it felt totally reasonable when I came up with it." Back when he'd thought Gunmar had considered the practical concerns of running the world after taking over.

There was a rumbling noise. The Soothscryer rose and glowed.

Because of course the Ghost Council couldn't have called him in three minutes ago and let him avoid most of that conversation.

The last thing Blinky said to Jim, before Jim went into the Void, was, "This conversation is not over."

The first thing Kanjigar said to Jim, the second time Jim was in the Void, was, "I did not say that."

"Didn't say what?" Jim rubbed his head. The abrupt shift in location and topic of discussion left him with whiplash.

A vision floated in the air beside them, of Jim talking to Draal after the Trollhunter's first summoning by the Soothscryer. In the vision, Jim was claiming Kanjigar had instructed him to tell Draal that Kanjigar loved and was proud of his son, and how sorry he was for pushing Draal away.

"I did not say that," said Kanjigar sternly.

"Yeah, well, you should have. Because maybe if you'd said that to Draal while you were still alive, he wouldn't have been so damn desperate to inherit the stupid death-sentence amulet, because he'd know you valued him just as much as you valued being the Trollhunter. Forgive me for trying to give your son closure after he found out I could go chat with his dad's ghost and he wasn't invited."

"I wanted to keep Draal as far away from the amulet as possible! You have only encouraged him to endanger himself!"

"By refusing to sideline a skilled and powerful warrior for sentimental reasons?"

"You dragged my son into your fight with Bular –"

"I don't know what fight you were watching, but I did not drag Draal anywhere. He had at least two chances to run after the fight started."

"And thanks to Draal, Bular is dead." The eyes of the past Trollhunters' bodies sometimes lit up when they spoke. Deya the Deliverer, on the highest pedestal in the Forge, had her eyes glowing. "The Changelings have a point about the efficiency of fighting with backup."

"Thank you." Jim nodded to her.

"This is not why we called you here," said another Trollhunter; one who looked like Kanjigar, but had died in a fighting stance, sword in hand.

"We told you before;" this speaker had long, wavy horns that stuck out to the side, like Vendel's; "if you wish to protect your human friends, you will need to kill Bular, and Gunmar."

The wispy lights began circling Jim.

"You have defeated the son, but not the father."

"But there's no way to kill Gunmar."

"He's invincible."

"No, he's not!"

"So far as we know," the previous voice clarified.

"What do you know?"

"He may have started a cult around himself, but he's not a god," said Jim fiercely – and blasphemously, having being raised in that cult. "And besides, tons of myths involve gods being killed."

"Legend has it that Merlin found a way," said Deya. "If he did, he never told his Champions. I suggest you talk to your mentors."

Barbara knocked on the door to the Domzalski house. After a minute, she tried the doorbell. She hoped Nancy was home, and had her hearing aids on.

A cat came out as soon as the door opened wide enough. It wound itself around Barbara's ankles.

"Barbara, dear!" said Nancy warmly. "What a nice surprise."

"Hi, Nancy. Can we talk?"

"Of course. Come in. Is this about how Jimmy's been staying here for the past week? I was starting to wonder if you were out of town and I'd forgotten."

Previous Chapter (Claire tells Blinky she knows Jim’s a Changeling)

Table of Contents

Next Chapter (Jim and Strickler find out the human kids know Strickler’s a Changeling)

#Changeling Jim #Tales of Arcadia #Trollhunters #Becoming The Mask chapters #fanfiction #Monday is fanfic day!#Claire Nuñez #Tobias Domzalski #Darci Scott #Mary Wang #Blinkous Galadrigal #AAARRRGGHH #Kanjigar #Deya the Deliverer #Dr Barbara Lake #Nomura #Nana Nancy Domzalski #My Fanfiction

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secret-diary-of-an-fa · 5 years

Text

Brie Larson and Captain Marvel Are Very Different People (Thank Fuck)

WARNING: I’m about to insult one of your favourite celebrities EVEN WHILE COMPLIMENTING A MOVIE THEY’RE IN. Because I’m on fire, today, that’s fucking why.

As you might have noticed, we all have to live through a pretentiously-titled and idiotic ‘Culture War’ because dumb people from every corner of the political spectrum have decided that liminal, cultural space is limited like actual physical territory and therefore every single scrap of IP needs to be fought for. For the record, this fighting is usually at the cost of the gentle nerd villagers who live there and would rather not see their cultural settlements bombed to dust by dueling factions of slobbering fuckwits. On the one hand, you’ve got your rightwing neocon bastard-holes who think that there’s a conspiracy of ‘Cultural Marxists’ out to ruin culture by SJW-ing it up a notch- which is stupid, because I’m a Marxist and I can promise you none of us asked for Ghostbusters 2016 either. Nobody fucking did. Anyhoo, on the other hand there’s a bunch of quasi-liberal representation hipsters who lack the imagination to create original IP and so keep colonising other peoples’ with cheap and lazy gender-swaps and other ill-advised ‘reimaginings’. As some of you might have figured out, I like to think of myself as broadly impartial war correspondent in this idiotic struggle for western culture’s fractured zeitgeist. Impartial, of course, in the sense that I wish everyone involved would fall down a gigantic fucking well never to be seen again.

Anyway, the latest battle in the culture war (a term I have only used twice and already fucking loathe) really does plumb fresh new depths of the Great Grey Idiotsea. As some of the more astute of you may have noticed, Captain Marvel has caused a bit of a skirmish, despite being fundamentally inoffensive. I mean, it’s made by Disney (who are evil on a corporate level), but what isn’t nowadays? As a piece of media in its own right, it’s basically fine. It’s not a lazy hipster reboot of something that was already done better; it’s not displacing any of the existing pieces of media in its genre; it’s just a superhero film that happens to star An Woman. The fact that it’s in any way controversial is mad, mad, mad, mad. I’m as pissed off as anyone about the way something that should be good (i.e. improved representation) has been used to co-opt geek spaces into the mainstream, but this isn’t even that. So yeah- shocking people who haven’t paid sufficient attention to the nuances of my opinions on this, I’m actually on Captain Marvel’s side on this one, at least nominally. It’s insane that this mid-tier, fairly-true-to-recent-source-material comic book movie has pissed off so many people.

Of course, there were always going to be a few people who hated the film just for existing, but they might not have gained so much traction if it wasn’t for the fact that Brie Larson (the actress playing the titular Captain Marvel) literally cannot keep her fucking gob shut for five minutes at a stretch. During a press conference, she was basically supposed to talk about how the film was going to be screened for (and reviewed by) different types of critic from different genders and ethnic background so that reviews weren’t weighted as much in favour of older white male film critics as usual. That’s fair enough. Unfortunately, because Brie is Brie (and what can you expect of someone who’s named after cheese), what she actually said was “I don’t care what some 40-year old white guy thinks” and other such deliberately antagonistic phrasing, designed seemingly to alienate every member of the critical press NOT in a Larson-approved demographic. Naturally enough, a bunch of nerds on the internet felt this was an attack on them and kicked off against the film...

... Which gives me the opportunity to address an important point. Specifically: Brie Larson is NOT Captain Marvel. She is not the character, nor is she representative of the vast, complicated, interconnected multiplicity of production teams behind it. She’s just one actress. Her on-screen role is major; her actually-being-allowed-to-make-important-decisions-role is probably pretty negligible. That doesn’t mean she’s not a chippy jerkoff who needs to learn to either Engage Brain Before Opening Mouth or (failing that) Not Open Mouth At All. It just means that you shouldn’t judge the film on her (admittedly antagonistic and irritating) antics when she isn’t reading from a script.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret: while intelligent, thoughtful actors and actresses do exist (I just started dating one) most Big Names are either dumb, or simply terrible people. Chris Pratt is a big game hunter, apparently- he spends his free time killing innocent animals with a gun ‘cause he’s a prick. Michael Fassbender beat his wife. Allison Mack cheerfully joined a sex slavery cult. Let’s be frank, here. As much as I’m grateful that the acting profession exists (without it, movies wouldn’t happen), the most well-known people in it aren’t, as a rule, normal, functional human beings. To be an actor or actress on that level, you kind of have to be a needy egomaniac who doesn’t mind being gawped at by strangers for your entire professional life.

So, Brie Larson is a tool and her professional I’m-Not-a-Tool Mask slipped off for a minute when she erroneously thought the Real Her might be acceptable for public consumption. You know what? It doesn’t fucking matter. She doesn’t have to be the type of person you’d want to spend more than two minutes alone in an elevator with- she just needs to be good at acting, which she mostly is. Captain Marvel looks like a good movie, so if it’s your sort of thing, go see it and just try to forget that Captain Marvel is, of necessity, played by a real human who happens to be a dipstick. There are lots of truly terrible media products swimming around, waiting to have your ire and mine sprayed at them. Save your rage for those.

And if you are going to buoycott Captain Marvel, maybe consider doing so because Disney (who own Marvel Studios) exploits the workers who make its merch to the extent that they’ve actually been known to use sweatshop slave labour. ‘Cause that’s still a thing everyone ignores, regardless of which side of the fucking “culture war” they claim to be on.

#Secret Diary of a Fat Admirer

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