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raventroll80 · 5 months

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A Beast on Mars

Chapter One: Rip and Tear

After a millennia asleep the Doom Slayer wakes to find himself in a situation all too familiar, with demons around every corner the Slayer must find out what caused this invasion and put a stop to it. Should be easy for an 18 foot troll, right?

Also thanks to @horseyneigh2002 for helping me pick a name for the fic!

The Doom Slayer had been wandering in this desolate snowstorm for longer than he could remember. Was this death? Had they finally managed to kill him? God, he hoped not. All he could see was endless white and grey swirling endlessly around him, the cold biting at him like and endless onslaught of Imps. God, he so cold.

The cold was the least of his problems though, he’d constantly catch glimpses of things out of the corner of his eyes. Sometimes it was people, sometimes it was demons, and other times it was objects. Most of the time the things he saw would get swallowed by the storm when he turned to look but the objects stayed.

Sometimes he’d recognize the things he saw, or at least he thought so. Obviously, he knew what the demons looked like, but it was the people who threw him off. Sometimes they spoke, their words garbled by the howling wind. There were a few he recognized, though he wished he didn’t. He’d try to ignore them when he could, it hurt less.

The objects however felt foreign yet familiar, he knew they were from Earth, from his old life. Rarely were they things from D’Nur. The Slayer was fairly certain they were memories, or fragments at least. When he had found control panel half buried in the snow, when he touched it the violent sensation of electricity running through him, maybe some memories where best left buried.

The Slayer had finally begun to resign himself to the endless storm, the cold seeping into his very bones, when he smelt something… he smelt smoke. Smoke and brimstone, he smelt Hell.

Following the sent snow became stone, and the cold melted away as the Slayer found himself climbing great stone steps in Kadingir. Atop the steps behind great stone doors, he found a massive sarcophagus. A voice echoed in his mind as the world around him faded into darkness.

“They are rage, brutal, without mercy. But you… You will be worse. Rip and tear, until it is done.”

The room reeked of smoke and gore; emergency lights flashed overhead, bathing the room in dim red light. The Slayer tried to sit up but something stopped him, a possessed corpse snarled to his right drawing his attention. The restraint snapped as the Slayer grabbed the zombie and crushed it in his hand, its blood staining the stone. The remaining restraint was removed with ease, finally he was free.

The Slayer rolled out of the sarcophagus and stood up; joints popped with a sickening crack alerting a small group of zombies feeding on the pile of gore that was once their coworker. The Slayer snarled at the living corpses before they too became gore as he tore into them. Now the room was quiet save for the blaring alarm, the Slayer could look around.

The room was fairly large with his sarcophagus on a raised platform in the center, its lid suspended from the ceiling by numerous mechanical arms, with more holding various tools. A lab, great. The Slayer flicked his tail in annoyance and made his way to the doors, but before he could leave something beeped overhead and a hologram began to play.

An older woman walked towards the sarcophagus which was surrounded by people knelt around it seemingly worshiping it, the Slayer snorted in annoyance. He hated when people acted like this, like he something to be worshiped. The Slayer crouched to leave when the hologram of the woman spoke.

“We have to contain this…”

The images flicked before disappearing completely. A low growl began emanating from the Slayer, what did she mean we have to contain this. The Slayer exited the room and was greeted by a familiar sight in the next, his Praetor suit. It was embedded in stone and surrounded by machines and gore, if the possessed hadn’t clued him, he was certain Hell had something to do with what was going on.

As the Slayer donned his armour hellish visions flooded his mind, a tower, a door, hellish energy being placed into an open ribcage, and finally an artifact of great power. The visions ended as he held his helmet, brushing his thumb against the familiar symbol painted above the visor.

Air hissed as the Slayer put the helmet on, it’s machinery calibrating after god knows how long of disuse. Glancing at the screen next to the slab of stone the Slayer’s suspicions were confirmed, DEMONIC INVASION IN PROGRESS it read. Gently the Slayer slid his finger across the screen, he wanted to get an idea of how bad the situation was so he could start damage control.

The scans came back incomplete. Apparently one of the arrays were down, which was preventing him form knowing how bad the situation was. “It’s Hell, everyone is probably already dead,” he thought, “even if there were survivors why would they ever trust something like you.”

A map appeared on the screen showing the location of the offline array, it was close. Good, he thought he’d fix the array, know if he should be wary of survivors. If there weren’t, he’d kill anything that moved.

As the screen was showing him the diagnostics on the satellite the Slayer was notified of an incoming call. Surprised, the Slayer let the call come through. A deep reverberating voice came through the comms, they sounded almost robotic.

“Welcome. I’m Dr. Samuel Hayden. I’m the head of this facility.”

“Oh,” the Slayer thought, “So, you’re the one to blame for this…”

“I we can work together and resolve this problem in a way that would benefit us both.” The man continued in that strange robotic voice.

The Slayer growled and much less gently grabbed the monitor and threw it across the room. He didn’t have time for excuses, Hell was here and demons needed to be killed. The Slayer left the room and was forced into a much smaller hallway, sure it was wide enough to fit him, but the metal catwalk beneath him creaked and groaned beneath his weight, threatening to give out at a moments notice.

The hallway was filled with crates and canisters, some of which were labeled DM1-5 Samples, the Slayer didn’t know what they contained nor was he interested in knowing. A smattering of zombies shambled about the corridor aimlessly, with the kick of his foot three went careening into the chasm below and the last was crushed as the Slayer rammed into the door.

The catwalk collapsed behind him and a massive boom shook the room he had entered. As the Slayer got his bearings straight something shrieked above him, the something skittered across the grating overhead before dropping down at the end of the hall. The Imp shrieked at the Slayer in defiance, a wicked grin crept across his face before bellowing out a roar and charging down the hall. The Imp didn’t stand a chance before it was crushed against the glass behind it which shattered as the Slayer kept charging.

More Possessed were crushed beneath his feet as the Slayer entered the room, the rich stench of gore permeated his nostrils. Looking up the Slayer was greeted to the sight of a gore nest; thick meaty webbing suspended a mass of flesh and bone, yellow pustules littered throughout the structure and a gaping maw clasped a sphere of demonic energy. The Slayer sunk his hand into the largest pustule and ripped out the gore nest’s heart, a hellish scream of pain filled the room as the nest summoned demons to it’s aid before exploding into a shower of blood and flesh.

Within seconds the room was filled with the lesser Imps, who wall screamed at the Slayer before they begun to attack. The Slayer roared once again before he began to tear though the Imps. Blood and gore were scattered across the room as the Slayer attacked, one Imp landed a shot while the Slayer was busy dismembering one of its comrades, but the Imps luck ran out as the Slayer swung his spiked tail towards it, impaling the demon instantly. The Slayer flicked the corpse off before continuing his carnage.

Another boom shook the room and a demonic roar echoed from behind the blast door. The last Imp was struggling in the Slayers grasp let out a final howl before the Slayer crushed it, another roar called out and something began slamming into the door. Still itching for a fight, the Slayer decided to give this unseen opponent a hand, and with some effort was able to pry open the blast door, only to be tackled by a much larger Imp. Ah so that’s what it was, a Brute.

The Slayer kicked off the large demon and let out yet another bellowing roar. The Brute lunged towards the Slayer who dodged out of the way causing the massive Imp to collide with the wall. Before it had time to recover the Slayer kicked the demon in the ribs before grabbing one of the many spikes protruding form its back and pulled it up. The Brute hissed at him before he punched in the face, the demon swung its arms down on the Slayer in a haymaker.

The Slayer stumbled back a few steps before the Brute jumped on top of him. While still being smaller than the Slayer the Brute was similar in size to him as a chimpanzee would be to a human with the strength to match, meaning the Brute was more capable at holding its own against an unarmed Doom Slayer.

The Brute screamed at the Slayer before it began to claw at his face trying to get the helmet off. The Slayer stabbed his tail into the Brutes side, the demon howled in pain giving him the perfect opportunity to grab it by the jaw and rip it out. The massive Imp stumbled back gurgling in agony as blood poured from its exposed throat, which the Slayer gladly tore open. The Brutes corpse fell to the ground, bright red blood pooling around it on the gray metal floor.

“Demonic presence eliminated. Lockdown disengaged.” An automated voice chimed overhead as the red emergency lights finally stopped. The door the Brute had entered from slowly opened with a mechanical groan. Behind him another blast door opened leading to another room in the lab. Curiosity got the better of him and the Slayer went to investigate.

And lucky he did as in the room he found a familiar sight. There on the wall was his beloved shotgun. Countless hours of work went into making the weapon, days of collecting resources, and many, many sleepless nights spent making sure his schematics were right, until finally it was completed. The look of fear on everyone’s face when he blew the head off the Brute, was one of the few fond memories he had of fighting the legions of Hell.

The Slayer reclaimed his shotgun and grabbed the ammo packs he had and equipped them to his belt before making his way to the elevator. Another hologram flickered to life; it was the old woman again. She had a determined scowl on her face as she spoke.

“He cannot be allowed to leave this place. He would ruin everything”

The Slayer growled as he heard this, she had something to do with this he was sure of it.

Entering the elevator, the Slayer heard Dr. Hayden’s voice crackle through the monitor on the control panel as it began to leave the lab. Hearing his voice only made the Slayer angrier.

“I’m willing to take full responsibility for the horrible events of the last 24 hours but you must understand; our interest in their world was purely for the betterment of mankind.” The Slayer glanced down at a corpse slumped against the railing of the elevator, their blood was smeared across the glass in an attempt to escape, and growled.

“Everything has clearly gotten out of hand now, yes, but it was worth the risk. I assure you-” the Dr. was cut off as the Slayer ripped out the control panel and threw it off the elevator. He unslung his shotgun from his back, and as the hydraulics of the elevator hissed to a stop, he pumped the shotgun and stepped out into the Martian landscape.

#my writing #g/t #giant tiny #doom g/t #troll! doomguy au #just like my other fics #if you have any questions feel free to ask #I have WAY too much lore for this au #please ask me about this au #god I hope this is good

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starfallen-selfshipper · 8 days

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this user is proship interact at your own discretion MDNI

long post

when it comes to raph, donnie and there relationship with mars i have a pretty good idea of how it goes:

raph and mars develop crushes at roughly the same time they had met when raph was top-side (early seasons specifically) letting his anger out mars finds him like this and (against his better judgment) decides to lend an impartial ear to his problems only offering advice if he asks for it

raph while suspicious at first quickly comes to appreciate mars's help and it doesn't take long for him to develop a crush as result afterwards he begins trying to spend time with mars outside of when he needs to vent (he even brings spike to meet them)

mars also quickly develops a crush on the turtle much to his horror but (again against there better judgment) continues to spend time with raph because it is concerned raph might have a harder time with his temper if they did.

eventually the others find out about mars although it's only just before mars gets mutated (which is around the same time april's dad get mutated and for the same reason mutagen canister gets dropped on them)

because they had decided go after raph after another fight with him this results in a confrontation and right in the middle of the four of them fight mutantgen drops on mars and then the kidnapping situation i've posted about happens.

post mutation any of raph's romantic feelings gets pretty much over ridden with fear for a while

until the space arc in episode mona betrays him to try and save her people mars tries to protect raph (and gets badly hurt as a result) this for whatever reason largely squash's raph's fear of mars and revitalizes his crush (though him and mona still make up and stay in a relationship) and helping to take care of mars causes him to start to develop a bit of on obsession (i'm going down the yandere route yes)

once they get back to earth raph begins insisting on mars coming to live with them rather than the mighty-mutant-animals (where they had been living since the craang invasion is there two or one a's i can't remember)

mars at first is very against the idea as star was trying to distance themselves before the triceratons attacked and they had no choice but go along with them but eventually is worn down enough to agree (after raph ropes mickey in somehow)

and it all goes down hill from there with raph trying to eclipse as much of there time as possible, trying his best to keep it from leaving the lair, (this is only so successful seeing as mars had been training with them for the most part during the space arc) stalking mars when he unsuccessful ect ect

he definitely tries (and fails) to downplay just how bad his obsession is to both himself and his brothers

donnie on the other hand has pretty much just platonic feelings for mars he does appreciate having someone who can at least keep up with his scientific jargon

it isn't until mars has a talk with april about needing to tell donnie she doesn't feel the same for him (she is psychic there is no way she doesn't know and all of her actions revolving around his crush just screams she is aware but is scared of hurting him)

or else when he inevitably finds out the fallout will be much worse the turtles over hear this conversation and results in mars trying to comfort donnie and talks about unrequited crushes they themselves have had in the past this causes donnie to begin to develop a crush as well

donnie also doesn't develop an obsession with mars like raph but donnie does try to get raph to hide his more obsessive behaviors because he doesn't want raph scaring mars off

#cw: age gap #😡🐢#🪐🕸#🟣🐢#self ship #proship #proselfship #yandere

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haggishlyhagging · 10 months

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The discovery of the chopped-up bodies in Belle Gunness's chicken yard changed everything. It caused a terrific stir. To see her burned-out lair, the open graves, the makeshift morgue in the carriage shed, thousands of people flocked to La Porte and paid enterprising livery men a dime for the wagon ride out to the place. (The return trip cost a quarter; Belle Gunness was not the last greedy entrepreneur in La Porte.) On the first Sunday after the victims were found in the chicken yard, ten thousand people came to La Porte, almost doubling the town's population; on the following Sunday, fifteen thousand people visited the farm. The Lake Erie and Western Railroad scheduled special Sunday excursion trains from Indianapolis. Interurban cars and automobiles came from Michigan City and Chicago. At the farm the crowds trampled the fields, stripped the leaves from the trees, picked bricks from the ruins. The Gunness place became "a Mecca for curiosity seekers," according to the Chicago Tribune, and not a bad place for a picnic. Vendors hawked their wares: candy, ice cream, and picture postcards of Andrew Helgelein's dismembered body. The crowd included "women in smartly tailored gowns who came all the way from Chicago with their husbands in costly automobiles, old men and old women ... and hired men galore from all the farms in northern Indiana. ... Members of churches mingled with the demimonde in struggling for views of the pits from which the bodies were taken." In the crush, babies were neglected and people on crutches were pushed aside. "Women clawed at the little red carriage house" where the bodies were laid out. "They stuck their fingers in the cracks and wrenched in an attempt to pry them apart far enough to see inside.... Men boosted each other to the window in the end of the structure and gazed at the bodies until others behind pushed them from their places to make room for other gazers." At last Sheriff Smutzer gave in; he opened the carriage-house doors and let the spectators file by to gape at the reeking skeletons.

The town made a business of it. For reporters and other overnight visitors, cots lined the halls of La Porte's hotels, and spare rooms were let in private houses. An enterprising writer hurried into print with a pamphlet detailing forty-two grisly murders Gunness supposedly had committed. Reporters joked in print about "The Port of Missing Men." Crammed La Porte restaurants peddled tubs of chili con carne as "Gunness Stew." To the Trib reporter, booming La Porte presented "the appearance of a fair or big convention" marred only by fear of an invasion of pickpockets. All in all, the gathering was "an organized feast of the morbid and curious, believed to be without parallel in the United States." On that first rollicking Sunday, Sheriff Smutzer, who had stationed two men to guard the ashes in the cellar, was appalled. He had spent the week painstakingly unearthing rotten bones of murdered men with his own shovel. On Sunday he looked around at the crowd and told a reporter, "I never saw folks having a better time."

And so the folks domesticated the fiend and turned her truly psychopathic butchery into a titillating joke. Faced with an apparently genuine monster, the public turned her grisly farm into a tourist attraction, a sort of circus ground, and Gunness herself into a sideshow draw, last appearing as the headless woman—not a monster but a freak.

No one joked about Lucretia Chapman, Ann Simpson, or Hannah Kinney. No one joked even about Sarah Jane Robinson or Lydia Sherman. But Belle Gunness was something more and worse and different. The family poisoner was thought to be a woman askew. Something out of whack at the very center of her nature caused her to kill by stealth those whom she most should honor. She was by popular definition, then, unnatural and a monster. But aside from her poisoning of long-time husband Sorenson, Belle Gunness was nothing of the sort. She was, above all, an entrepreneur. As such, she was intelligent, original, energetic, persistent, ambitious, thoroughly American, and distinctly "masculine." And Belle's particular sort of murder was decidedly "male." She was a sort of female Landru and flimflam man rolled into one: Bluebeard with a profit motive. In part she used her sex to attract and kill. She knew woman's assigned role by heart; to Andrew Helgelein she wrote, "My dear Andrew: I am lonesome; I need help. I need a good strong man to help me. ... I put my confidence in you. I would depend on you more than any king in the world. How happy we will be when I see you. Come as soon as you can... " Helgelein, Budsberg, and Moo disregarded her instructions to bring cash, but after a day or two with Belle, each man went to the La Porte bank to convert his savings into ready money.

But the main part of Belle's attraction was not some sirenlike sensuality; it was good acreage, a big chicken yard, and a thirteen-room brick house. Like any good confidence man, Belle appealed to the greediness of others. She matched her suitors' desire to exploit her with plans of her own, and most often, she won. To men her story may have been frightening, but it was intelligible, for Belle Gunness merely applied to the domestic sphere the "cutthroat" tactics of the business world. It is not surprising then that Belle Gunness, with her axes and knives and her chicken yard full of skeletons, resembled those fictitious villains of earlier nineteenth-century cautionary tales—Mary Jane Gordon, Ellen Irving, Pamela Lee, Mary Thorn, Ann Walters—much more closely than she resembled any real woman; for those female arch-villains were simply the creations of male imagination limited to its own terms. Paradoxically, Belle Gunness was precisely what men imagined a vicious female criminal would be, and because that model was so outrageous, Gunness seemed to be—at the same time—not an unnatural and monstrous woman, but an absolute freak of nature.

Women might see Belle's crimes differently. Using sex and property to attract her victims, Belle reversed at one stroke the familiar tales of young ladies despoiled by the vile seducer and powerless women manipulated by the man of property. Her crimes speak powerfully to the vengeful, man-hating part of every woman. Later generations of men—always trying to distinguish the dangerous woman from the harmless—have emphasized Belle's sexual "hold" on her victims and have pictured her as a sex kitten. The cover painting for a 1955 paperback book about Belle, for example, depicted a young, buxom blonde wearing a black lace negligee and bearing an uncanny resemblance to Jane Russell. But Belle Gunness was not what men would make of her. She was almost fifty years old. She weighed almost 250 pounds. She was a housewife turned psychopath.

-Ann Jones, Women Who Kill

#ann jones #belle gunness #female killers #american history #female serial killers

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shadowgale96 · 2 years

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What I Watched Last Month

Thermae Romae

9/10 It's about a roman architect, Lucious, who occasional falls into different Japanese time periods and implements his learnings back in Rome. I laughed so much. Lucious is hilarious to follow. He's so comedically passionate about baths. Only complaint is that the pilot's a bit of a drag, and there's CGI that doesn't look good, but its not constant. Overall, this is a nice watch.

Spy X Family

10/10

It has comedy, action, cuteness and overall its just a really fun anime. Every member of the forager family has a secret they're hiding and there own motives that is hidden from the others. Loid is a top spy, Yor duels as an assassin, and anya escaped a government lab that made her a telepath. The dynamic is hilarious with this 4-5 y/o reading everyone thoughts and secrets but also being a little kid about it, and the paretents being too socially stunted from their own careers to understand normal family behaviour, but anya still loves them all the same.

My only regret is having to wait a whole week for each episode.

This Boy Suffers From Crystallization (2014)

(7/10) Interesting premise with a boy who slowing turns to crystal when he's anxious or depressed. High school's already difficult enough without being a socially anxious kid who's crushing on his teacher that also turns into crystal. The movie's brief but sweet. It's also an lgbt+ romance that's filled with fluff and angst. Very cheesy and cliche, but I knew what I was getting into. It's clear that this movie didn't have much of a budget. it's mostly camera pans on still shots, but it's also clear someone really wanted to make this. <3

War of the Worlds (1953)

(8/10)

Probably don't need to explains this one. I enjoyed this classic much more than I expected. With how dated it is, I wasn't expecting much, but I can definitely see why it's a classic. The looming dread of the alien invasion grows throughout the film, making it an effective horror film even today. That being said, I was also sent laughing plenty of times throughout this film. I wish the characters were more fleshed out as well. but overall nice film.

The Angry Red Planet (1959)

4/10. Explorers go to Mars with no idea what kinds of dangers await them. Why didn't they just send a probe first? Don't ask questions. It's slow going and honestly the best part of the movie are the monsters that pop up albeit briefly. Giant spider bat is 10/10. In a movie like this (where characters are mostly confined to a single location and there isn't much budget or time for Special effects) there needs to be a lot of good character writing, but they all fill fairly basic roles. The movie kept disengaging me with how many times I thought "that not how someone would act." Is it a marvel of it's time? Well, it came out 6 years after WotW and apparently was only given 9 days to film, and it shows. Didn't dislike the film but was disappointed.

Queen of Blood (1966)

6/10

Aliens send an SOS to earth leading a ship of astronauts to a crashed ship and a strange green woman with a beehive hairdo. They bring her onboard and try to establish peaceful communication, but it all goes downhill as they learn the true nature of this alien race.

Half of this movie is them struggling to get to the alien, the other half is them finally bringing her on board. This movie is considered a horror but it's horror elements don't pick up until the last fourth of the film. honestly I wanted more by the time this film was done. A cliffhanger from a movie made in 1966 was also frustrating.

Creature (1985)

9/10

In response to an accident on Saturn's moon, Titan, astronauts are sent to investigate. Horror ensues.

Surprised I don't hear more about this movie more often. it was solid monster flick. Several moments were chilling to watch. how the monster kills and uses it's victims is fascinating and upsetting. The tagline for Creature is 'First you die...then the horror begins' and it holds true. Very satisfying.

Main complaint is that i wish the German guy wasn't so pervy. Why is everyone just okay with his behavior? and the characters should've had some more development before touching down on Titan.

Grave of the Vampire (1972)

7/10 It's hard to give a good synopsis for this movie, since the focus changes so often. First its about a woman who got assaulted by a vampire and a cop trying to catch the killer, than like 40 years go by and a vampire half-ling is taking some college classes and bumps into his vampire father.

Very bleak beginning. it definitely earns it's R. There was a lot of focal whiplash in this film. We focus on the mother and cop until about halfway through the film. It's fast paced and suspenseful. Although, it definitely needed to be condensed down and find it's focus, but It held my attention, and I was curious to see where it was going. Most of the characters were interesting to follow as well. Disappointing that there was a cliffhanger ending. but the movie is mostly wrapped up and chaotic anyway, so it doesn't ruin it for me.

Reptilian (2001)

2/10 This feels like a crack cross between Godzilla 1998 and Independence day, and it boarders between being absolutely awful and laughably bad. horrible effects, bad acting, nonsense plot and characters, but it did get a few laughs out of me so i'll give it credits there.

#movies i've watched and thoughts #thermae romae #spy x family #this boy suffers from crystallization #war of the worlds #the angry red planet #queen of blood #creature #grave of the vampire #reptilian

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tittayourself · 2 years

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Paint the town red v0.3.8

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Be careful! There's a lot of traffic and the track is full of obstacles that you'll have to avoid. Jumper: get the frog to the other side of the road. Arkatoy: eliminate all the bricks with the ball to pass a level and go to the next one. Use the super laser cannon and get as many points as possible. Space invasion: in this game you have to eliminate the aliens. The smallest ones are the hardest to stop, but they also give more points. Mars Lander: Get momentum and land on top of the platforms to avoid falling into the void. Meteorite: steer the ship with the joystick and destroy or dodge space meteors to survive as long as possible. They can be enjoyed by people of all ages, from the youngest to senior players or older people who want to have fun and stimulate skills such as attention or visual perception. Will you be able to reach the top positions? Bring out your competitive side, challenge yourself and become a retro gaming expert.Ĭlassic arcade games designed for cell phones are simple and have intuitive designs.

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An arcade game machine simulator with the typical mini-games of the recreational machines adapted to the mobile. Senior Games presents this entertaining compilation of retro games for you to enjoy hours of entertainment. We've now added all the planned features for the game and are working on bug fixes, performance, polish and extra community inspired content for the Level Editor and Scenario modifiers.Do you want to enjoy the best arcade games for free and offline? Go back to the 80's and 90's and recall incredible memories of your childhood or discover the fun retro games of this era.

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Create your own massive brawls, horrific adventures, ingenious puzzle levels and more with the intuitive editor. Our amazing community has used the in-game Level Editor and Custom Texture and Music options to add thousands of amazing new levels to the game on the Steam workshop. In the epic rogue-lite Beneath you'll have to delve deep underground battling terrifying monsters and unlocking powerful upgrades in a battle against ancient evils. In the Scenario levels you'll need to use your wits, speed and anything you can get your hands on in epic bar fights, disco brawls, old west saloon rumbles and more. The voxel-based enemies can be punched, bashed, kicked, stabbed and sliced completely dynamically using almost anything that isn't nailed down. Paint the Town Red is a chaotic first person melee combat game set in different locations and time periods and featuring a massive Rogue-Lite adventure.

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buddiestonki · 2 years

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Alien news boadcast

One way we might find distant aliens is through detection of their radio signals, the subject of SETI's tireless searches using the Allen Telescope Array at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory in California. But intelligent life could make giant lasers or radio transmitters, so you might be able to hear them from farther away," Shostak said. "Microbes can make oxygen in the atmosphere. And even though there's probably far less intelligent life in the universe than there is microbial life, intelligent extraterrestrials could potentially broadcast their presence over much greater distances. SETI scans the skies daily for radio signals that might be produced by forms of intelligent life. However, even though microbes may well be the first "aliens" that we'll encounter, that doesn't rule out the possibility of detecting intelligent extraterrestrial communications, Shostak told Live Science. And it just makes sense that if there's something out there that it'd be microbial." "Those who are paying attention know how much habitable real estate is out there. "With all the news about exoplanets, people are primed for this," Wall said. Today, an announcement about discovering extraterrestrial microbes is far more likely to promote fascination than panic, he said. A stronger possibility is that our first encounter with alien life will be through finding microbes from other worlds, which are far more likely to be common across all the cosmos than intelligent organisms, said Wall, who is a senior writer at Live Science's sister site. An improbable number of variables would have to fall into place for that to happen. Alien microbes, not alien monstersĪ militaristic alien attack would involve extraterrestrials that are not only intelligent and technically advanced, but who also know that humans exist and can travel to our solar system, Wall told Live Science. In fact, the violent episode Welles described is by far the least likely scenario for how humans might first encounter extraterrestrial life, according to science writer Michael Wall, author of "Out There: A Scientific Guide to Alien Life, Antimatter and Human Space Travel (For the Cosmically Curious)" (Grand Central Publishing, Nov. All this suggested that if we did have intelligent cosmic company in the universe, it wasn't on Mars - or even in our solar system, he explained. "Certainly, by the late 1930s, no one believed it.There was increasing knowledge from astronomers: Mars has a very thin atmosphere there's not much oxygen we don't see any liquid water on the surface," Shostak said. While radio listeners may have fallen for the tale of a Martian invasion, space scientists of the day were already well aware that Mars wasn't capable of harboring a thriving civilization of intelligent aliens, Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer with the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI) in California, told Live Science. (Image credit: New York Daily News Archive/Getty) If you like the feeling of superiority that comes from knowing you can crush the ignorant with your understanding of Earth things, you’ll like our show.On October 31, 1938, the front page of the New York newspaper the Daily News noted the panic sparked by Welles' broadcast. They’re aliens.įill in the blank: If you like _, you’ll like our show. Why should it be yours?ĭennis McNicholas: While ordinary Earth television offers you a kaleidoscopic array of idiots sharing poorly informed opinions on the events of the day, only Alien News Desk features idiots with a legitimate excuse for the stupid nonsense they say. Showrunner Dennis McNicholas (like Forte, an SNL veteran) reveals why we should be over the moon for megaproducer Lorne Michaels‘s latest production. (Describing teens taking selfies with their phones, Van Void says, “Garishly dressed adolescents try to seduce inanimate box.”) They try to explain Earthlings’ strange, real-life doings to the rest of the universe. On the cable channel’s first original late-night animated series, Drexx Drudlaar (voiced by Last Man on Earth‘s Will Forte, right) and Tuva Van Void ( Saturday Night Live cast member Heidi Gardner) are extraterrestrial coanchors of a topical show. Here are a couple of aliens Syfy is betting viewers will welcome into their homes.

#Alien news boadcast

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opedguy · 2 years

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Trump Defends Kids Against NY Suit

LOS ANGELE (OnlineColumnist.com), Sept. 24, 2022.--Speaking in Wilmington, North Carolina Sept. 23, 76-year-old President Donald Trump defended his three adult children, Don Jr., Eric and Ivanka from the $250 million lawsuit from New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James. James claims that the Trump Organization defrauded New York state for 20-years, using valuation-and-devaluation schemes to inflate real estate values to insurance companies and banks, enriching themselves at the expense of New York taxpayers. James cites numerous cases of inflated real estate values, using Trump’s Palm Beach Mar-a-Lago estate as an example, one time listing the value at $75 millions while other times $750 million. James shows she and her prosecutors don’t know much about real estate valuation. James apparently hasn’t heard of iconic New York real estate developer William Zeckendorf Sr. who famously said value is what the “buyer is willing to pay.”

So when James and her prosecutors claim Trump has engaged in fraud, she need look no further that Zeckendorf to know that any piece or real estate can be sold for wildly different prices, despite the objective appraisers trying to determine value through various valuation approaches. Speaking on behalf of Senate candidate Rep. Ted Budd, Trump told the crowd that his MAGA supporters were not “terrorists,” claiming 79-year-old President Joe Biden was cognitively impaired, not fit for the presidency on the verge of getting the U.S. into WW III. No one in the media tells the truth about Biden, making abysmal judgments when it comes to the economy and foreign policy. Not since the Jimmy Carter era has the U.S. had runaway inflation, leading the U.S. and Europe to shrinking Gross Domestic Product [GDP] on both sides of the Atlantic. Biden takes no responsibility for the economy.

Trump’s speech disputed Biden’s latest attacks that Trump’s Make America Great Again [MAGA] movement are a threat to U.S. democracy. While Democrats and the press back Biden’s economic and foreign policy, Trump raised the issue of why the U.S. is at war with the Russian Federation and close to war with China. Saying Biden is cognitively challenged doesn’t come close to the abysmal decision-making that has turned the economy upside down and made the prospects of WW III reachable with the Biden White House. Biden “is cognitively impaired and in no condition to lead our country, which may very well end up in World War III,” Trump told his Wilmington audience. Why no respected member of Congress has not come out against Biden’s proxy war against the Russian Federation is anyone’s guess? Going to war against Russia has crushed the world economy.

No one in press is willing to admit that Biden’s proxy war against the Russian Federation triggered the inflation and recession, contributing to the global slowdown. After Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine Feb. 24, Biden demanded that U.S. and its allies boycott all Russian oil and natural gas. U.S. only imported 5% of Russian oil, compared with 25% for the EU, even more for Germany. U.S. and EU watched oil and natural gas price spiral out-of-control after Biden’s Russian oil embargo. Putin cleverly went to India, China and other Asian countries to make up for the lost revenue from EU oil and natural gas sales. Biden demanded that China and India join the Western Alliance with crippling economic sanctions. Both countries told the U.S. to mind its own business, leaving Biden’s economic sanctions not working to stop Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

When it comes to Trump’s complaints about Letitia James’ $250 million civil suit, most legal experts don’t expect it to do well in court. While most Democrat and the press are all in on James’ suit, they don’t care whether it lacks legal merit. Democrats and the media want to stop Trump, by whatever means, from running again in 2024. Biden shared with CBS “60 Minutes” host Scott Pelley last week that he wasn’t sure if he’d run again for present. Biden told Pelley that his intent was different from whether he’s actually run again. Since that interview, Democrats find themselves energized with new and old faces possibly throwing their hat in the ring. James thinks her lawsuit could stop Trump from running again. “Trump falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to further enrich himself and cheat the system,” James said but showing no real proof for her charges.

Democrats and the press want to convict Trump in the court of public opinion. After all, who could doubt the $250 million civil suit against the Trump Organization? Democrats are all in just like with the Jan. 6 Select Committee report that will say before the 2020 Midterm elections that Trump planned and organized the riots. Whether there’s real proof or not is on no consequences to Democrats who want to accuse Trump with any high-crime-and-misdemeanor. “This crazy radical leftist nutjob James should be going after the killers, the gang-bangers, the drug dealers Trump told the Willamsburg, N.C. rally last night. Trump likes speaking at campaign rallies because he takes the liberty, apart from endorsing candidates, to defend himself against Democrats and the and the media that has stacked the deck against him. Calling his MAGA supporters “terrorists” has given the GOP new incentive to vote in November.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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fantomcomics · 2 years

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What’s Out This Week? 7/6

THIS HUMIDITY IS BUTTS WE HATE IT

Go For It Again, Nakamura! GN - Syundei

It was love at first sight when Nakamura met his classmate, Hirose. The two became friends after the shy and awkward Nakamura finally worked up the nerve to speak to him, but being so buddy-buddy with your crush is a whole new kind of torture! Can he keep it together and not scare Hirose off?

Promethee 1313 #1 - Andy Diggle, Shawn Martinbrough & Jock

What if you knew the world was about to end? What would you be willing to do to save the people you love?

Darla Clemenceau has been plagued by apocalyptic visions ever since she was abducted by a UFO as a child. Now, she's ready to put it all behind her and move on with her life. But what if it's all true? A dangerous cult militia is prepping for the end of the world, and they see Darla as the key to their survival... Meanwhile, something alien is awakening on the dark side of the Moon, and the crew of the space shuttle Atlantis have a rendezvous with destiny...

Savage Tales One-Shot - Arthur Suydam

Savage Tales is back! This all-new one-shot features four tales of brutality, thrills and spills and includes the Dynamite debut of two up-and-coming artists from the renowned Kubert School! This issue's lineup includes: • Red Sonja in "The Executioner's Sword," by writer Scott Brian Wilson and artist Al Barrionuevo: Magic mixed with swordcraft makes for horrific unintended consequences as Red Sonja must defeat an insatiable hunger! • Vampirella in "Horrible People Doing Horrible Things To Horrible People," by writer Scott Brian Wilson and Kubert School artist Mariano Benitez Chapo: Harkening back to the spirit of the Warren Magazine era, Vampirella serves out a lesson in morality as only she can! • Allan Quatermain in "Missionaries of Madness," by David Avallone and Will Rio: The legendary hunter stalks the Cthulhu Cult! Can one man with a rifle stand against the coming of the Great Old Ones? • Captain Gullivar Jones in "His War," by David Avallone and Kubert School artist Hamish Cook: Years after his adventure on Mars, the fabled swashbuckler finds a new and darker war to fight...one that might just lead him back to his own redemption.

The Elusive Samurai GN - Yusei Matsui

In medieval Japan, eight-year-old Hojo Tokiyuki is the heir to the Kamakura shogunate. But the Hojo clan is in decline, and Tokiyuki's peaceful days of playing hide-and-seek with his teachers come to an abrupt end when his clan is betrayed from within. Now the lone survivor of his family and a fugitive, Tokiyuki is the rightful heir to the throne, but to take it back, he'll have to do what he does best-run away!

There’s Something Wrong With Patrick Todd #1 - Ed Brisson & Gavin Guidry

Fifteen-year-old Patrick Todd lives on the run, hiding out in seedy motels, living out of his backpack and making sure that his mom - recently struck down by a mysterious illness of the mind - is well cared for. But doctors cost money. A lot of money. And, so, Patrick turns to a life of crime. Using the telepathic abilities he's been hiding all his life, he forces the worst of the worst to rob banks, taking the money before making them turn themselves in to the police.

But someone has taken notice of Patrick's schemes. A reckoning is coming. Will the police find Patrick in time to save him, or will he become yet another victim of the killer called Zeus?

The Ballad Of Gordon Barleycorn #1 - Colin McHugh & Duncan Sligh

Gordon and his manager Giuseppe are hunted down by a religious debt collector who's come to make him pay for his past. Now Gordon needs to make some quick cash in this groovy adventure that's all about Sex, Drugs, and Musical Puppet Theater, baby!

Mega Centurions #1 (of 5) - Jon Parrish & Dexter Wee

As the Mega Centurions, Cassidy, Reggie, and Thad saved the world from an alien invasion by the evil Prince Venkor. Today, they are barely scraping by in dead end jobs. Things are flipped upside down when a face from their past comes crashing back into their lives.

Mind MGMT: Bootleg #1 (of 4) - Matt Kindt & Farel Dalrymple

MIND MGMT is: weird, mind-blowing, paranoid storytelling. It is the first ever comic book from Flux House, Matt Kindt's all-new imprint which features crime, science fiction, and humor stories, all told in startling and untraditional ways. Upcoming publications will take many forms, and the polybagged variant versions of MIND MGMT will contain a card that is playable as a playing card or as part of a new Flux House game. Previously in MIND MGMT: a covert government agency of psychic superspies fell into oblivion after one of their top agents went rogue. What looked like the end was only the beginning as a former leader of MIND MGMT explores the darkest parts of the world and recruits a team of forgotten agents to rebuild the organization, bend reality, and go to war with a competing agency.

The Last Session Vol 1 - Jasmine Walls & Dozerdraws

Jay, Lana, Drew, Walter, and Shen began playing Dice & Deathtraps in high school. Now dealing with college and all the twists and turns of their lives, their weekly game has been a wonderful constant. But, as college graduation looms and it feels like their lives are all moving down very different paths, Lana's thrilled to finally finally complete the party's unfinished original campaign. But when Jay's partner Cassandra joins the game, Lana refuses to let her play.

Absolution #1 - Peter Milligan & Mike Deodato

Nina Ryan was a hired killer who brought nothing but pain and suffering to the world. Now, she has a month to prove that she can change. A month to make up for her crimes and find absolution, or the bombs that have been implanted in her head will explode, killing her instantly. As her journey of atonement is live-streamed to a fickle public, Nina is about to discover that the road to redemption might be splattered with blood.

The Tiger’s Tongue #1 - Olivia Stephens, Diansakhu Banton-Perry & Odera Igbokwe

Heed the tiger's tongue, and you will not be led astray. Under the militant rule of The Tiger's People, empowered by their animal familiars, the Claw is on the brink of war. At the precipice of adulthood, twin princesses Kelindi and Aridani hold the future of the Claw in their hands. Kelindi would sue for peace with The River's People, those who were subjugated "to bring order," while Aridani has never aspired to rule. But an ancient prophecy is revealed that'll force fate's hand for the sisters...

Young Men In Love GN - Kevin Wada

Haphazard pirates, wayward ghosts, dashing knights, rampaging kaiju (and down-to-earth regular joes!) are all assembled here to amaze and delight you in a wildly unique anthology celebrating love between men, from an astounding array of comics creators who know exactly how it feels. Young Men in Love is a heartwarming, uplifting, and vibrant return to the glory days of romance comics!

Starhenge: Dragon & Boar #1 (of 6) - Liam Sharp

Revered creator LIAM SHARP cuts loose in his visually stunning six-issue masterpiece, STARHENGE, BOOK ONE! A future Merlin travels to 5th-century Britain to prevent monstrous time-traveling killer robots from robbing the universe of magic, and Amber Weaver's lively present-day narrative reveals how she becomes drawn into a war across time!

The Terminator meets The Green Knight in 30 enthralling story pages, setting the scene for this original epic inspired by the Arthurian sagas!

Stranger Thing Summer Special - Keith Champagne, Caio Filipe & Diego Galindo

Officers Powell and Callahan patrol the "mean" streets of Hawkins Indiana with the enthusiasm of two hefty dachsunds pretending to be bloodhounds. Typically, they don't have to chase down more than the occasional petty theft and teenagers smoking reefer but lately the town has been getting weirder, and while they might not get to the bottom of it, they just might be lucky enough to survive it.

Prodigy: The Icarus Society #1 (of 5) - Mark Millar & Matteo Buffagni

Edison Crane is the world's smartest man, but what happens when he's targeted by an entire CLUB of geniuses who also fly too close to the sun? Meet THE ICARUS SOCIETY.

Whatcha scooping up this week, Fantomites?

#What's Out This Week?#WOTW #Prodigy #Stranger Things #Starhenge #Young Men In Love #The Tiger's Tongue #Absolution #The Last Session #Mind MGMT #Mega Centurions #The Ballad Of Gordon Barleycorn #There's Something Wrong With Patrick Todd #Elusive Samurai #Savage Tales #Promethee 1313 #Go For It Again Nakamura!

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blankdblank · 3 years

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Poke Pt 18 - Mars

“Hey Mr Stark,” Peter was heard saying on a face call when you had come close enough for a cross by Saturn’s path. “We’re so close to Saturn! These probes are really coming in handy for more details than what are out there already.”

“So, I got a call from NASA, well, several, actually. Since I am the only known public contact for Loki and Pluto, after the slew of explosive comments on her and Eddie being the first humans on Pluto and discovering a new planet far beyond it capable of sustaining human life, which is profound. They want me to ask you guys if on your way back you could check on a meteor, according to our readings it’s another extinction level size, blah, blah, blah. Every time before they never hit the planet but they wanted to see what could be done far away from the planet if possible.”

“Ya, we, we can add that to the list when we get done with our stop on Mars.”

“Mars, what do you plan on doing on Mars?”

“Well, according to the scans Earth has gotten not much to do on Mars but that doesn’t mean we can’t check in on the rovers. We heard NASA was having some trouble with Curiosity lately. Or we’ll just take a scan of the place with our probes to see what else we can get, maybe take a stroll. Plant a flag or something that says ‘Planet 4 of 9’ something like that.”

Tony couldn’t help but chuckle, “I think if you do that they’ll send a probe up just to knock the sign down. Things are getting that petty. You should have heard Thor all but declaring war if anyone tries to take Misique’s ship and planet away from her.” He paused then asked, “Scale of one to twenty, how terrifying is it out there?”

“About a two, but that was mainly for how loud it got at nights on Balder, the animals are so loud we had to play a stereo to get some familiar noise to block it out. Other than that it’s super cool out here between the long spaces of empty space. They really causing a good deal of trouble?”

“More hurt pride than anything. Don’t you worry about it. You all have big allies in new places, enough to scare them off.”

“Did you like the footage?”

“Got one of those Pluto Otters nest as my background on my computer. The world loves the footage. You kids keep up the good work. I gotta head out, I’ll let you get back to your space-cation. See you when you get back.”

“Let me just say, if aliens wind up implanting eggs in my chest or something and I eat one of you, I’m sorry. See you when we get back, Mr Stark.” The sign off similar to others that had him worry based on sci-fi films and shows he had flash into his head each time they were said only making him worry about his protégé until more video footage had been released to prove he was alive and well.

Back to the sitting area on the lower level he joined you and the others saying, “Maybe Mars is a bad idea. Mr Stark says NASA’s got a bug about us out here in your ship. Even said Thor threatened war against anyone who tries to take it or your planet.”

“It’s not my planet,” you said making Eddie chuckle and Loki smirk.

Loki replied, “You did discover it and reconnect that race with their homeland and established an alliance within your own solar system. Once they fix that ship you will have generation after generation of backup. And a planet to build your own castle on if you tire of Earth.” Making you giggle behind the hands you raised to cover your face.

Eddie said, “Your planet. And I say we go to Mars anyways, least for a flyover.”

“We’re going to Mars. I hope we find life there, something super adorable too, like six headed cats or something.” That had Eddie pinch his nose to keep his drink from coming back out of his nose in a fight with his bubbling laughter.

Peter pointed at you, “Baby seals, something with adorable huge eyes and pudgy bodies.”

Venom said, “Reindeer, children love reindeer.”

You giggled to the others chuckling and said, “Reindeer would be adorable. And we could make a joke that Santa wanted a vacation home and put it on Mars.”

“Neighborhood Spiderman here, on the tail end of our Space-cation, just one planet away from Earth, that is right, we are coming up on Mars. I’m gonna take a selfie with the Curiosity Rover. We thought at first to do a flyover, but figured hey what the heck, let’s just go down and see what this has got going on. Also as usual like the other planets we’ve passed gonna get some detailed scans of the surface and see what we can find.”

Loki was heard then seen as he read the life scan results, “There’s life signs.”

And Peter let out an excited squeak, “Oh ya, this is gonna be fun. I’m gonna buckle up for landing and we’ll send back the footage when we’re taking off again. Have fun guys, bye bye.” He shut off the video and posted it on his page and smirked to the thumbs up numbers rise along with hits the closer to the atmosphere.

“I take it this one is not breathable at all?” Eddie asked.

To which Venom as Misique replied with a giggle mimicking yours and replied, “Not at all,” then gave you a wink with his faked glowing eyes when he felt you smirk his way as he gave another bit of fake proof that you couldn’t be the same person you just had oddly similar laughs.

“Wonder where the life is hiding, I think the farthest a drone got was just under 40 miles.”

Eddie, “And we’re spending billions on those probes, damn. At least sports cars you get bang for your buck.”

Into the grayish yellow atmosphere just beneath the hazy layer rocky plains with distant jagged peaks in the distance the glider dipped. Across a good distance you traveled passing the Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity rovers in their respective dusty graves to land on the other end of the open stretch across from the Curiosity Rover. Of course on the other side of that camera’s live feed heads popped up in Mission Control in Huston where NASA officials had gathered to look at today’s picture. A ship in front of the rover had phones ringing and people racing in to the rock solid proof for them the trip was absolutely not a hoax.

When you got out of the ship just a look out at the ground had your heart pumping faster for this dream feat for the space travel centered world. Just three steps in however to the shut of the hatch behind you and the ship shrinking to be pocketed for what might be found out here, a probe meanwhile scanned the whole surface of the planet that gave off a whoosh that faded in the distance and stirred a reaction that couldn’t be missed. Small puffs of dirt lowered everyone’s eyes to the ground in the circle around all of you making Peter say, “Maybe I shouldn’t have made that egg laying joke.”

“Are those tunnels?” you asked creeping closer to the one that was a few steps from you where you crouched confusing the crowd in Houston wondering what there was to draw attention. Gently your fingers brushed along the dirt to reveal a honeycomb design across a panel about the size of the top of a large can of baked beans that glimmered in the sunlight, “It’s a door,” you giggled and said, “Someone’s home.”

Eddie chuckled taking his turn of inspecting the panel you didn’t know to be see through for the guard below who sent word the visitors moved on from his gateway to the others alerted of a craft landing on the surface. “Well let’s not try to find the doorbell. See if they want to be neighborly and say hello.”

Peter said, “Good idea,” and stepped closer to his side as he continued the path to the rover curious of where he stepped to avoid any other possible doorways if he could.

Venom stated as his head retracted from fake Misique’s neck of the Kree suit, “Very smart, these panels seem to be charged with explosives in defense.”

Loki chuckled saying, “Creatures after your own heart Pluto, however instead of trap doors for traveling salesmen they blast theirs into space.”

That had you giggle and say, “I wonder if they live off of minerals or if there’s some sort of insect colony here. Most burrowing creatures eat insects, or maybe there’s some hidden layer of water channels and they have something close to fish or aquatic based organisms.” Loki’s grin spread to your amusing try to figure this planet out on the minute clues from the surface alone.

“Whoa, this thing is huge,” he said approaching the rover whose camera swiveled to see what you were all up to.

Peter pulled out his phone and said, “My picture,”

“Ooh, Buster’s got it,” fake Misique said and he gladly handed over his phone that your bee Buster picked up to carry a distance away to capture your group in a picture around the front of the rover. And with a wide smile he accepted his phone back and said, “I am posting this.” And for the slow wait of a couple minutes he waited for his picture to load on his social page that instantly racked up and right away had him say as you took a wider circle around the rover to look for something that might be of interest on the planet. “I got some comments from NASA, asking what the ground feels like. Should I tell them about the door?” He asked in a poll and you all shrugged and he said excitedly, “I’m gonna tell them. Ooh, there’s one here, I’ll post a picture too.” He said lowering to snap a picture of a formerly hidden door and adding the caption that they are made with explosive charges so to be careful of where they might be drilling or the rover will be blasted off of Mars by accident.

A bump against your foot had your eyes lower to the rock your boot had bumped against the rock creature’s try to avoid contact. “Oh,” you said watching the rocky red dome tipped over revealing a midnight blue and silver feathered belly and bird like feet that curled up and tucked into the belly. Instantly you crouched and to the focus of Venom and fake Misique you were seen to gingerly take hold of the rock and up it back upright again and softly said, “Sorry,” up again you stood and stepped over the rocky creature saying, “Careful of the rocks. Not rocks.”

Peter squeaked, “First contact, so awesome!” and hurried around a grouping of rocks that when he stepped over, him, Eddie and Loki noticed their turn and inch after him to the side of the creature you had tipped over.

Loki to his own glance down took notice of a rock that shifted around the side of his foot to join the others. Smoothly he made his way to your side stating, “I do believe you have made an impression.” And it seemed the small conference broke and from their huddle their spiraled circle they broke to a layered arrow formation that moved closer to you. Peter snapped pictures and captured the moment the rocky outer layer popped apart to reveal they were bundles of rocky scales grouped together covering the silver and midnight blue feathery bodies of what appeared to be silver eyed burrowing owls with blue beaks.

In a voice eerily like Morgan Freeman the one in front stated in their own baritone hum of a language, “We humbly welcome you curious travelers to our home. From where do you hail?”

Loki answered for you all, “I am Prince Loki, of Asgard, this is my intended, Pluto Pear, her brother Eddie Brock, Misique of Earth who is currently housing the Symbiote Venom of Klyntar, and Spider-Man, also of Earth the third planet in this solar system.”

Wide eyed the group puffed up their feathers and the lead said, “You are a Prince! You should come meet our Leader!”

“That would be magnificent, thank you, that was far more than we anticipated. The scientists of Earth have been exploring sections of this planet for over a decade now and they have come up with nil.”

A second creature asked, “You are not in consensus with the scientists of Earth to travel here? Our view of your ship was not of human capabilities.”

“No, Misique and Venom were gifted this ship from the Kree. In a sort of alliance to grant them the capability to travel to space if required to aid others throughout the universe. The humans who send their rovers here such as that one are quite envious of our voyage through the solar system.”

Another said, “Yes, we are able to monitor the Earth through broadcasts on what they call the internet.”

The first said, “We shall show you to our largest entrance built for the anticipation of guests, you are the first to have traveled here in person.” He went to turn then said in a sharp turn back, “We humbly ask you do not record our path there or inside our civilization.”

Loki nodded, “Of course, we shall respect your wishes.” He said then relayed what was said making Peter pocket his phone as your bees went into sleep mode and were placed in your pocket.

And with a smile Loki smoothed his gloved fingers around your palm in the shadowing of the quick steps of the rocky owl creatures who led you all to a mound that had to be just over three feet tall and across. All together they lined up to scan their feet raised to the hidden door that rippled from mirroring rock to the honeycomb design on twin doors that rippled like slide doors and retracted. The small size alone had you all bite your lips to wonder how far the cramped tunnel would go and if the civilization would be as cramped as it to have you on your bellies the entire time. The owl creatures gave an excited shift of their feathers and led the way making Loki say, “I shall go first.”

As he bent to lean forward on all fours to creep inside and Eddie smoothed a hand over the belly of his suit saying lowly to you, “Let’s hope this suit doesn’t just look slimming on me.” And you giggled in his nudge saying, “You go next. Then Pete. Me and Venom will bring up the rear.”

Down you crouched at the doors and as Loki’s feet vanished into the shadowed doorway that with his belly nearly to the polished midnight floor in the otherwise silver downward angled tunnel, on hands and the toes of his feet barely able to plant his knees to adorably wiggle his lower half to keep moving. Softly you let out a breath and on your hands leaned forward to start for you what would be a slightly less awkward crawl similar to Peter and fake Misique who insisted to go behind Eddie practically in a stomach top wiggle. A long time you crawled to the point your arms began to ache and your shoulders felt as if they’d be locked in this position.

Loki in front to the end of the tunnel looked up at the ten foot high hall with walls and ceilings decorated with imprints of flowers in what seemed to be the midnight crystal surfaces. Hastily he gave his shoulders a rotation at their stiffness, partly wishing if he had not the need for the suit to breathe he could have transformed himself into something smaller to make the trip easier.

On his knees however to the feel of your hand on his ankle still in the way he smirked and offered you a hand to come to a painful crouch. As you rotated your shoulders he rose and kept hold of your hand to help you up and did the same for Peter afterwards. Eddie took help from you and Loki to wiggle his way free and chuckled at your soft giggle and turned to confirm Venom had made it after him from the now shut tunnel.

Again focus turned to the guards who led you all beyond the start of the pillars shaped like stacks of eggs in the downward stepping levels to the floor in long spirals of stairs with open upper halves to crystal formed walls that faded from clear to glittering silver shaped like feathers. All enabling glimpses of what seemed to be hundreds of layers to this civilization that spread in every direction, and every level grew taller than the stairway.

Your hand on Loki’s back kept you from running into his back when the guards did stop to peer up at the four foot tall pair that eyed you all and greeted Prince Loki then turned to finish leading the way from the stairs onto a level that fed into more rooms until inside what could only be taken as a library a crowd of the creatures grew. Smallest in front leading up to a trio of twelve foot tall owls who looked you all over and in the same voice as the smaller creatures the far left one spoke in English, “Welcome travelers. We welcome you to our home, we are the Haiku, formerly of another name, however from our explorations of Earth we have chosen this new name as it suits our preference of prose. And namely welcome, Prince Loki of Asgard, we do hope you find our home and people hospitable for your visit.”

Loki smiled and said, “We are all honored to have been invited within your home and to have met your people. Lovely falls utterly short of its splendor.”

Their Leader seemed to smile by the shift of the feathers on his face and replied, “Thank you, as well, Spider-Man and the mechanical creatures we know to be modeled after bees for honoring our request to not record this visit.”

Peter said, “Oh, it’s no problem, and if you wanted I could delete the pictures I captured of the guards on the surface.”

In a ruffle of feathers the trio shook their heads and the one on the left spoke, “You are welcome to keep what you capture from the surface.”

And the third asked, “Do you intend to bring more from Earth here?”

“Not if you would not wish for visitors, just us, unless you would not want us to return again.” you answered.

The Leader spoke again, “This group seems to be honorable. We have been watching the voyage footage that has been sent back to Earth. However we are confused how among you Misique and the Venom Symbiote are said to be two creatures by your Prince.”

Loki gave you a timid glance and you stated, “I am Misique, Venom is aiding in granting us false proof for Earth that I am simply Pluto, and not Misique as well. A great deal of people still wish me dead and by keeping separate identities myself and my family and friends are safer.”

Peter added, “And I’m Peter Parker as well, behind the Spider-Man suit.”

The Leader said, “Yes, we have seen the hatred for Misique’s past actions, although how one could not be admired for reverting the depletion of the atmospheric safety by increasing the agricultural integrity of the surface of the planet humans have been destroying for centuries, we cannot understand. We thank you for entrusting us with these names, never would the Haiku betray them. Visitors outside of this group kindly would not be permitted. Too long have we dwelled under the threat of invasion from Earth. Should more outside of this group touch our surface we will devour them. Generations we have explored your planet to gain intelligence upon intentions to attack us. Most thankfully amongst the population deem the trip to be impossible, a fool’s errand, one had dubbed.”

Eddie said in their silence, “I’m a reporter, when I get back I am expected to write about our voyage. I will tell them any more to travel here will not be allowed and taken as a declaration of war. Our planet was invaded not long ago, twice now this year, we have few to no defenses as you have seen. Our planet would not want a war with yours.”

“The only reason that talk of trips to Mars came up to humans is because there have been dreams to have colonies on other planets, to explore the universe. But only ones uninhabited by anything sentient, I’m sure. And only in case our planet would die, but it’s gotten better now and we will tell them, we swear.”

Venom chuckled, “The humans do not believe this planet to be occupied by any forms of life, their infantile satellites barely were able to find traces of a hidden glacier miles under its surface.”

The trio smiled again as did the crowd and the leader said, “Come, we have prepared a display of our history and voyage here from our former home devoured by a Titan named Thanos.”

Peter instantly said, “Pluto killed Thanos,” that turned their heads around to look you over.

And Loki stated, “Amongst his try to invade Earth within a great battle in the continent of Africa we fought off his forces, it was in that battle a Kree warrior Ronan the Accuser gifted Pluto as Misique the ship as a gift.”

Again they smiled, though wider this time and the Leader stated, “A great warrior of honor indeed to have allied to our defense against the humans.” Sharply their heads turned around and you followed deeper into the library to a projection room and sat beside Loki and the others inside the nest shaped cushions to watch a rather heartbreaking destruction of their home. Tightly Loki kept hold of your trembling hand and joined in on the shedding of tears with more to blink away at their haggard arrival here just over 500 years ago and the skilled crafting of their home a mirror image of the one they had lost. A home formerly known to have held a great expanse of knowledge from every race to have existed, all thankfully spared of the destruction with their evacuation plans sound for generations prior to Thanos’ try to destroy that hub of knowledge and keep it for himself.

Sharing of their culture and a glimpse of some of their own agricultural capabilities came next keeping you in awe of how they had rebuilt their world in so small a time. And an alarm from the surface when their limit to what had been agreed to be shared had been reached that had them respectfully showing you to a platform that would raise you all to the surface before an atmospheric storm would hit the surface they estimated would take weeks to cease. Time for a return visit was told to be delivered to you upon their reflection on how the Earth’s population would take the news of their anticipation of an invasion of the Haiku.

And once back inside the ship again and you were out of your suits across your lips your hand laid to more tears flooding your eyes that had Eddie lift you up and carry you to his seat to hold you through the stunning turn to this visit with a new race. Peter asked Loki softly to Venom’s departure from his outer suit to take the helm, “Do I post about their warning?”

Loki said in a calming pat on his shoulder, “I believe it is best we leave that news to Eddie in his paper. The format of sharing such information surely would hold more profound weight than over social media. Surely news of these new races and life on more planets could cease attempts to colonize on Mars. They have stated NASA is welcome to keep their rover there and explore what they can of the surface as long as they do not attempt to break beneath it.” He shifted on his feet stating, “Do not trouble yourself with this news, should the humans try to infiltrate Mars anyways my people will step in. We have given our word to aid them.” Peter nodded and turned to head for their seats.

Venom stated, “We shall scan for this asteroid Stark has warned of.”

Not far away from this planet the supposed threat of a meteorite was found and with aid from Loki on the communicator found to be a ship of scavengers actually hauling a grouping of asteroids from around the moon away to sell you parted with causally and turned for Earth.

“What is that?” You asked returning mid wash of dishes after supper to the pilot’s seat to an alarm of inbound object that as the others joined you the glider’s system zoomed in on the object to a gasp worthy sight of an astronaut broken free of its tether. To the right dial your hand moved to flip the switch in the center to lock onto the astronaut with frantic results on the heartbeat reading. Behind you as Peter urged his suit out over himself the thud of the suited visitor behind you had you all group up at a safe distance from the frightened man who with wide eyes looked you all over.

“Spider-Man?” His head turned, “Misique, Venom, you’re in space?”

Peter answered, “Yes, just back on a trip out to Pluto. You ok? You’re out here alone?”

“I was at the space station, one of the fins turned and sliced my safety tether.” He replied.

“Well we can take you back, easy,” you said with a grin and went back to your seat asking, “I’m guessing your station is back the way we found you?”

“Yes,” he said taking up a seat as Loki kept hold of the back of yours while the astronaut guided you on the right path and watched as you pulled up to the side of the shuttle, “If you could just get me back to the exit hatch I would be so grateful. I have to get those repairs done.”

“Not a problem,” you said and to his shock backed the ship into place where he said he was working. Everyone went down to add their suits again so you could open the hatch for Venom to shoot a web to the ship your stunned passenger eyed and you said, “You can use it to hold onto, if your jets aren’t working.”

He nodded and said, “Thank you guys. Really, I owe you one.”

Peter said, “Oh we’re going too, I couldn’t live with my friends hearing that I got this close to the station without touching it.”

The astronaut chuckled and after a slip away Venom disposed of his fake Misique suit to fill up his Kree suit to follow you after your suit rippled over your body to the ignite of your hair and eyes in a race across the line of webbing to the side of the station. With help of a magical green mist from Loki the astronaut made it back to his former spot and with his instructions you and Peter helped him get the parts Venom collected from their float away after another fin swing had knocked them loose.

The help greatly shortened the time of the repair and stunned his crew who sent word to NASA on the change of status on their presumed lost crew member that with grips from you and Peter was led back to the exit hatch. His eyes were fixed on your boots that stuck to the side of the ship just like climbing buildings and other things back home in amusement for imaginations for a superhero crew being sent on missions one day. Easily he let himself back inside and once out of his suit he joined the others who waved and grouped up for a picture Peter took of them before you turned to head back for the ship Loki had maneuvered to a small leap away that sealed to let you alter your projection to line up the best path to get to Stark Tower.

“Aerial craft inbound.”

The announcement had heads turn and Tony said to the clear sky, “About time they got back.” Closing the tablet cover on the invention diagram he was tweaking he set aside to stand and cross the room to greet the returning group. Peter and Loki both had hold of their bags and exited with you behind them after a hug to Eddie who was off to head to your place and unpack before driving on his bike back to his place once Venom was bonded to him again and the ship was safe in your garage.

Once inside the glass doors Tony asked as you all took in Fury’s presence amongst the team, “How did the trip go, let’s start from Mars and work our way out, shall we?”

Fury added not a moment later, “Got a call, NASA said that you found some doors on Mars and you all looked at something then walked off somewhere then vanished. Any details on that?”

Peter said, “Well we found these blue owl creatures with rocky scales on their bodies they use to look like rocks on the surface. They call themselves the Haiku.”

Fury’s brow arched up, “Haiku?”

“They had a different name before,” you said, “But 500 years ago Thanos destroyed their home world. They managed to save their library and ended up on Mars they turned into their new home. Apparently they’ve been investigating Earth and through their link to our internet have read about our histories and intentions to invade their planet to colonize.”

Steve muttered, “That can’t be good.”

“In their research they’ve concluded that human’s can’t be trusted since we’ve had several genocides surrounding the integration of cultures when a new territory is found. So they asked us to share that we are allowed to scan the surface as much as we like but any try to drill or infiltrate their city will be taken as a declaration of war and they will devour us.”

The group stood silent a few moments until Fury asked, “Are they actual owls or could they be like Flerken with a whole hell of a lot of tentacles that shoot out of their beaks?”

Loki’s brows furrowed a moment, “We did not discuss their anatomy, however it would not be impossible for them to have some similarities to a Flerken.”

Thor asked, “When did you come across a Flerken?”

Fury answered, “We had a Skrull problem in the 80’s. Met one, hit it off for a bit. Then my friend Carol took him off with her into space.”

Loki said, “Well a Flerken most definitely would assist with that problem.”

Fury said, “Well I’ll let them know about the Haiku’s terms that they want us to abandon plans for Mars. They’re heavily armed?”

Peter, “The doors are charged for explosions so if they were to drill into one by mistake they would be blasted off the planet. We’re allowed to go back though, they said we seem trustworthy. Said after they see how Earth takes the news they’ll let us know when our group can visit again.”

Rhodey, “So you can go back,”

“Most of the planet seems to be a library, they’ve collected knowledge from every corner of the galaxy, that was why Thanos attacked them, he wanted that knowledge for himself. I don’t think it’s a forever ban, maybe after a few centuries when we stop killing each other and big businesses stop trying to kill our planet that might change. Just, with our history, we can’t be trusted to come visit without an invitation.”

Rhodey said, “That’s promising, future talks are possible, not a forever ban.”

Fury nodded, “Not a locked door just a come back later sign. It’ll help a good deal with the government officials. I’ll let them know and they can ease NASA down from their plans for a setup there and I suppose your brother is off writing up a story about it?”

You nodded, “Wanted to get an early start.”

Peter said, “And they all sound like Morgan Freeman!” Lifting brows and you lifted the bee from your shoulder that flew to the nearest tv to settle and replay the entire recorded blip on the surface of Mars.

Fury, “Well paint my face and call me Sally. They didn’t make you delete this?”

Peter shook his head, “Nope, said we could keep what we got on the surface. The ones inside, their three Leaders sound more like him when they speak in English.”

Thor stated, “Our kin will honor your word to defend the Haiku against invasion from Earth.”

Rhodey, “I heard you saved one of the Space Station Engineers too.”

“Well he floated into our path.” Loki answered, “He was rather stunned we were there to assist him back to the station and to mend the repairs he was sent to handle.”

Jane asked, “What was Pluto like? I’ve watched the footage a dozen times, but what was it really like?”

You grinned and the group delved into the details while Fury excused himself for a phone call that by his expression didn’t go over well. And Tony kept ignoring the pop up windows on his tablet of visitors leaving messages at the front desk for word on when you all might be returning so the press could come and hound you all for interviews. A dinner was called up and while you waited through your backup of messages through your trip you answered as many as you could including a few smirk worthy ones from Eddie. Already his Editor was calling about his first edition and from his packed notes in notebooks he had filled during the trip there was ample to write out beginning with the message from Mars.

All across the front pages would be a spread on the statement that a formerly devastated race with hopes to have a bright future including their younger neighbors to share their surplus of knowledge gathered from all of the universes and races known now feared said neighbor would leave them in danger once again. A plea to Earth to not continue the act of colonization and genocide to simply expand into the stars, or else. All around a marvelous piece to make people think on if the money they had spent so far into Mars would be motivation to keep pressing and spell the annihilation of the human race or if they could step aside and be patient and gain trust as tech caught up to the task of planet shopping if the worst should arise. For the rest however a surplus of publishers was willing to offer deals on his writing a book on the entire voyage to the Kuiper Belt, something he said he would only accept if it could be a co-author situation with his sister to fill in the parts he would miss.

“So, Pluto, how’d you know how to fix that communicator?” Bruce asked and you looked up from your phone telling Eddie you’d help him with the book if he wanted to do a co-author situation on it.

“Well, we opened it and it was basically clean the dirt out and scrub what we could, then just checking wires and replacing some that were worn.”

“How did you know it was the proper metal for the wire?” he asked, “Could have damaged it more if they didn’t match.”

Loki said, “We matched the wires before installation.”

Bruce, “How? You didn’t have a manual on it. I don’t-,”

“By the smell.” You said cutting him off with a flinch of a grin. “Different metals when they burn have a unique scent. You could smell what type of wire it was.”

He sat open mouthed and Bucky said, “And good work on that portal from your ring.”

Sam asked, “What were you listening for? You had your Aragon Orc hunting moment.”

“Yggdrasil, clearly,” Thor answered for you and you nodded, “Shieldmaiden Pear must have heard one of the roots calling to her to aid our new allies on Misique’s new realm of Balder.”

Jane asked, “And it’s her new planet? Like an actual Queen or something.”

Bucky smirked to your glance away and subtle eye roll at the title and Loki stated, “The title is yet to be defined, however it is her realm as it was her ship to bring us there to aid Lord Trouge and his people.”

Jane, “It just, works like that?”

Thor, “For Lord Trouge and his people they would not lay claim over the planet but take part of the structure of it until the true ruler of the realm could be located.”

Rhodey, “Don’t they have a planet they rule over?”

Thor, “They have the planet they were created on, they do not rule it, they are a structure within that world. Their rule is over one another not the planet they dwell on.”

Steve asked, “Where’d Misique fly off to?”

“To unpack and help Eddie. Apparently someone’s offering him a book deal but he’s saying it’d have to be a co-authored one between the both of us.”

Natasha, “How would that work out?”

“Most likely he would cover the grander aspect of the events to draw people into the story and I would keep up with the details most likely. Usually with his big stories he runs them by me first anyways to tweak a few things.”

Bruce, “Surely you could do more than tweak things. I mean you could give the whole female view to discovering new planets.” Your eyes narrowed at him in a wonder for what he meant and he said, “I mean men go places to conquer, what would the mindset be for someone who’s built to be more nurturing. Have to be a whole new way to look at bonding with new races, especially those who might be ruled by a matriarchy.” He glanced at Tony saying, “Help me out here.”

“You’ve got two shovels you are doing just fine, Buddy.” Sam said to Tony’s shake of his head.

Bruce sighed and said, “There are different ways to bond is all I meant. Seemed from the footage Lord Trouge took to you the best, aside from age gender is a main dividing factor between everyone in the group.”

“I’m also impossibly hard to not find adorable or intriguing,” you quipped back, “And I spend time talking to plants and animals. I think a race of sentient tree based races could be perfectly up my alley to bond with the Flora Colossus.”

Loki stated, “And though they are matriarchal gender is the least of their concerns in meeting new people, it’s their souls, inner essences. If they are kind or not.”

Bruce, “And they somehow got along with Venom too?”

You smirked saying, “Just because you don’t get along with your Other does not make him cruel or vicious. Symbiotes were bred out of a dark force created by Knull. They have no control over that and often take on the history and culture of their hosts, which can lead to some bad habits outside of their obvious carnal lust for blood. Venom isn’t evil, he’s carnivorous, there’s a difference. Hulk was born of radiation experimentation, painful way to die and it’s a painful way to be born.”

Thor nodded, “She speaks the truth.”

Bruce, “You can’t be serious.”

Thor, “The Hulk’s rage stems from pain, born out of an experiment and bonded to a man who refuses to listen to him. He protects you and you speak of him with such a bite of poison to your words.”

Loki spoke silencing Bruce, “He can hear you, try listening. You are his family, the longer he feels your revulsion the longer his rage will linger.”

Bruce, “We’re talking about space.”

You nodded and lifted one of the dead crystals you had been allowed to keep that had Bruce’s arms on the table clench in Hulk’s try to see what you had. “Only thing I didn’t have in my case was the crystals to replace the dead or broken ones. I have no clue what they do or what most of the parts did but I can take things apart and clean them and swap wires and then just cross your fingers to see if it works. Didn’t feel like I was helping very much until I got the portal ring to link to Asgard and called in the experts.”

Loki said, “Ignorance of the language does not mean you lack intelligence for the context. All technology is a language.”

Thor nodded his head, “Even Heimdall has shared that our Scientists could not decipher the workings of their ship. Their people would have to contact their home world. I have seen the scans of it, and I am no expert, but even the steering is quite foreign to me, and I have piloted an abundance of crafts to aid Loki in his thievery in our youth.”

Loki gave him a purse lipped gaze, “My thievery? I can recall ten ships you yourself stole and then I took the blame for it, even the one where I was not even in that dimension at that time.”

Thor, “That, was after four barrels of mead. I am not responsible for what I do when I am inebriated, you know that brother.”

Loki scoffed and turned his gaze to you at your try to bite back a giggle that urged his body to lean a bit more onto the arm of his chair blocking him from drawing you into his side. “You knew exactly what you were doing.”

Natasha asked, “They let you keep the crystal?”

You nodded, “It doesn’t power anything now, isn’t giving off anything detectable and doesn’t even hum anymore like the fully charged ones.”

Natasha asked, “What are you going to do with it?”

You shrugged, “Don’t know yet. I’ll figure it out.”

Pepper asked, “When is the next trip out?”

“Don’t know. The Kuiper Belt was fun to explore. But there’s your wedding and the rest of my summer break to figure out which University I’m going to. Eddie said I have a stack of packets from Universities in my back up of mail. Got an email from Columbia and they said something about wanting me to speak about the trip to students when the year starts and several of the Science Professors said they would save me a slot in their research plans for the year if I was interested. One of the Mathematics clubs also sent me an application form.”

Sam asked, “That a good thing?”

“Well they only gain members by invite alone, but I heard they have a sort of initiation thing and I’d rather not have to deal with that no matter what prestige it might fluff up my resume with.”

Bucky asked, “What sort of initiation?”

“Well last year charges got pulled against a first year when they called for a group dinner at an upscale place then ditched him with the bill. Almost got kicked out of the school after the owner of the place roughed him up saying he was the one to be unruly first when another diner called the cops.”

Sam, “Oh we did worse than that in the Fraternity I was in.”

“That’s what the cops got called on, not their full initiation. I never needed any sort of clubs that require humiliation in a faked means to instill trust.”

Tony said, “I wasn’t much for clubs in MIT either. No trouble in being a lone wolf to keep up your own pace and not be drug back down by people coasting on your coat tails.”

Pepper said, “Well Tony can give you a lift home when you’re ready so you can miss the press.”

“I should be okay getting home on my own. I’m sure you’ve been put out enough since we were gone.”

Loki said, “Press is nothing for my mist. I can easily transport my car closer to Pluto’s home.”

Pepper, “For now just focus on food, I can’t imagine eating in space had much variety.”

Peter said, “Well we packed three months of food, tons to choose from.”

Bucky chuckled out, “Never hurts to be prepared.”

Jane smirked saying, “I do like that phrase you used, you pack for chaos. I need to start doing that. Always run short of things on research trips.”

“Well you have your basic list and then you have your chaos list with the optional weather and damage kit.”

“You packed an actual table,” Steve said.

“Never know when you need a table.” Natasha said.

“Or a wheelbarrow,” Sam said, “Can’t tell you how often we could’ve used one overseas.”

“Packed one, it’s collapsible.” you said making him smirk.

Pt 19

All –

@sherala007, @mariannetora, @jesgisborne, @knitastically, @catthefearless, @theincaprincess, ggbbhehe4455, @lilith15000, @alishlieb,

Not nsfw(smut) - @otakumultimuse-hiddlewhore

X Loki - @pastelhexmaniac

#Mars #The Haiku #Mars Invasion crushed #Meteor Check #Space Station #Back to Earth #Loki x OC #Eddie Brock/Venom & OC Siblings #Peter Parker #Spider-Man #Marvel

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sokkastyles · 2 years

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Hi, I am the person who asked you about the Gaang and therapy. I had a different question to ask. This one is regarding Aang. The way he behaved with Katara in the EIP episode and the "Love is a Battlefield" comic I think, does not sit with well me. It seemed a little bit like a child having a tantrum over not getting something he wanted. I would like your thoughts on this.

There have been other good posts analyzing Aang's behavior in these two instances and why it's uncomfortable, and although I would say characterizing it as "a child's tantrum" is harsh, the reason it seems that way is because Aang's insecurity over his relationship with Katara DOES have to do with him being younger than her and feeling like she sees him as "just a kid." Otherwise he wouldn't have gotten so upset about the play portraying it that way.

And the thing is, that is how the relationship is framed. The two year age gap isn't so much the issue, it's not even the fact that Katara looks much older, because it's pretty natural for a fourteen year old girl to look older than a twelve year old boy. Girls mature physically faster than boys, and the two year age difference would make that gap look even larger.

The show also exacerbates this by leaning heavily into the portrayal of Katara as the mature, responsible, nurturing one and Aang as a kid who wants to have fun and chafes at responsibility. And Katara is the one frequently tasked with reminding Aang of his responsibilities.

The way the show focuses on Aang's crush also encourages us to see Katara as an object of desire, which encourages us to think of her as older than she is. I get weird babysitter vibes from shots like this:

That last one is particularly uncomfortable because why does Katara look like that? I went looking for this particular screenshot because I remember how uncomfortable it made me and I found memes people had made sexualizing this scene. Katara of course is oblivious to Aang's romantic feelings here and is just acting as his teacher but the scene emphasizes their physical closeness as well as makes Katara seem older and sexually mature compared to Aang, who is crushing on her. It's like a twelve year old getting a boner when his babysitter hugs him.

The scenes where Aang and Katara are shown as having a mutual attraction around each other are much more palatable, but those scenes are just not enough, and too often Katara is portrayed as not the fourteen year old girl she is but an idealized figure for Aang. Even the scenes where the kiss on the lips are marred by this dynamic.

Which leads me to EIP, because the source of Aang's insecurity there was that he kissed Katara at the invasion and she didn't automatically become his girlfriend. Not only is this a childish way of viewing relationships, but when the kiss itself happened, Katara gave a speech about watching Aang grow up. Which again emphasizes that Katara is so much older than Aang, even though she really isn't. But this is part of the reason why the EIP portrayal of him gets to him so much, because regardless of whether Katara does like him back, there is some truth to the idea, even perhaps just on Aang's end, that Katara is too old for Aang. You can't blame only the Ember Island Players for sexualizing Katara and making her seem older in comparison to him when the show itself does this to her. Her portrayal in the play just took it to its logical extreme.

Compare to how Katara acts when she really has a crush, like with Jet. She was shy and naive and innocently tried to make him a hat. Or in "The Fortuneteller" when she tries to learn all she can about her future husband. She acts much more like the fourteen year old girl she is, she isn't sexualized or portrayed as inappropriately old or motherly.

Put this girl in a position where she is responsible for Aang's insecurities, when he demands to know when they will be together, and no wonder she is confused. But this itself shows that Aang is still very young in terms of maturity and has a lot of growing up to do.

I said recently that Sokka learning not to be sexist was part of his arc of growing up, of learning what it means to be a man. Zuko, too, has an arc of growing up that is connected to masculinity and learning not to be so insecure. And both Zuko and Sokka have moments of immaturity reacting to their portrayals in the play, but both of them come to accept that it isn't reality, Sokka with Suki's help and Zuko with the reminder of how much he's grown and how proud Iroh would be of him. Aang lacks this moment of growth and ironically ends up validating the play's portrayal of him as childish.

There should have been some resolution between Aang and Katara, and I also like to imagine there being a conversation between Aang and Zuko, perhaps one where Aang is still a bit insecure about the possibility of something between Zuko and Katara, and Zuko has a talk with him about how much he himself has learned about not being influenced by what other people think of you. The show could have even brought Mai into this, have Zuko talk to Aang about his feelings about how Mai probably hates him now but how he has to follow his own heart and can't put unfair expectations onto her, and have Aang apply this lesson to his relationship with Katara. Which actually would have given more depth to both canon ships.

#katara #ember island players #antikataang

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raventroll80 · 5 months

Text

A Beast on Mars

Chapter 2 Welcome to Mars

Freed from his prison, Slayer tries to find the source of the invasion, new allies are met and property is damaged.

Heads up this is Doom fic so there’s going to be a considerable amount of violence. This chapter contains blood, gore, a whole lotta demon murder, and death.

The Slayer jumped down from the plateau and surveyed the area, red rocks surrounded him on all sides, the wreckage of a transport lay burning just a few meters away. A massive tower could be seen off on the horizon, it’s jagged crown reminiscent of the gore nest he just purged.

To his right a small path lead through the rocks, green markers lighting the way. Following the path, the Slayer was led to an excavation site of sorts, floodlights shining down on large ruins in the red sand. The Doom Marine spotted a few zombies shambling about, though he noticed one group of undead were wielding weapons. Soldiers, great, deep in the recesses of his mind the Slayer recalled the burning pain of plasma from their rifles.

The Slayer rolled his shoulders before jumping down from the ledge and fired a round at the group of undead soldiers. Most were killed by the blast of the shotgun and most of the zombies were crushed beneath the behemoth in his decent. The howl of Imps echoed through the air as Scouts flooded the site, with their Brutes hot on their trail.

The first Brute jumped down and received a face full of lead, the spread picking off a few of the lesser Imps in the process. As the Brute recovered from the attack, the Slayer rushed over and bashed its head with the butt of his gun, the bones of its face made a satisfying crunch. Before he could make the finishing blow a fireball came hurling at him from across the excavation site, its sender sneering at him with its bloodstained teeth. With the flick of his tail, the meat hook went flying before sinking into the shoulder of the Brute. The demon howled before being yanked across the battlefield by the Slayer who gladly welcomed them with the blast of his shotgun.

Staggered from the blast, the Brute stood there in a daze allowing the Slayer to slam its head into his knee, crushing it. The first Brute then jumped onto the Slayer’s back and attempted to choke him, the Slayer retaliated by slamming his back and therefore the Brute against the wall behind them. Just as he felt the overgrown Imps bones begin to break a volley of plasma slammed into him. Right, the soldiers.

Growling in annoyance the Slayer raised his shotgun and fired at what was left of the undead soldiers, picking off a few more Scouts in the process. Unfortunately, the distractions were far from over as yet another Brute grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away. Just as he was about to fire another round into the demon the Brute slammed its arms down on him. The Slayer returned the gesture with his own punch before slamming his head into its own.

The Slayer recovered first and growled as he sunk his claws into the Brutes shoulder before grabbing it’s left arm. His growl became a roar of fury as the ripped the arm free from the Brutes body and used it to cave its head in. The Brute collapsed to the floor, the bright redness of its blood putting the rusty orange of the sand to shame. The sound of something scrabbling up the rocks reminded him about the first Imp he’d yet to deal with.

He turned to see the once furious Brute, was now attempting to flee… how cute. The Slayer flicked his tail and sunk the meat hook into the Imps leg. The demon squealed in pain as it was dragged back towards the Unchained Predator. Those squeals became shrieks of terror as the Brute raised its arms in a feeble attempt to defend itself but it was futile as the Slayer crushed its ribs beneath his boot. The remaining Imp Scouts scattered as their final Brute fell, leaving the Slayer roaring in victory. Finally, silence fell once more over the Martian landscape, that was before the Slayer picked up on a soft beeping.

There, at the top of the excavation site floated a small drone, it beeped at him again before flying off, the Slayer tiled his head in curiosity and quickly followed. He climbed out of the excavation pit and followed the drone until he was stopped by a security gate. The gate was locked and required a blue key card to open, or it would have if the Slayer weren’t nearly 16 feet tall.

The behemoth of a man kicked the security gate a couple of times before the metal tore free of the rock. Could he have just stepped over the fence? Yes. Did he want to? No! Dr. Hayden wanted him to fix his problem then he’s going to have to deal with the consequences. He didn’t care what he broke, just that he stopped this invasion before it got any worse.

As he continued following the beeping drone the Slayer passed by an alcove in the cliffside next to him. He was about to pass it without a second thought if he hadn’t noticed a bright red tail hanging over the ledge. Following the tail, the Slayer found that the tail belonged to what appeared to be the corpse of a tailed humanoid that looked not unlike himself. The Doom Slayer picked up the corpse and inspected their armour; it was mostly bright red in colour with black accenting, a single strip in the middle of the helmet presumably served as the visor or camera other than that, their face was completely obscured by the helmet. Much like his own armour the humanoids tail ended in a spiked blade, whether or not it could shoot out like his meat hook though, he was unsure.

The Slayer laid the corpse back down on the ledge and watched the drone dart into a cave, the Slayer dropped into a crouch and slowly crept forward. He didn’t know if the drone was leading him somewhere or running away, but what he did know was that he wanted to catch it. The Slayer stayed low to the ground and crept around the ledge and past some rails and a cargo dock before slowly sneaking into the cave. He stayed crouched as he watched the drone hover out of the cave and looked around for him, making confused beeps as it tried to figure out where he went, it was holding something…

Slowly and silently the Slayer crept forwards, eyes fixed onto the drone. Closer, and closer he crept, the little drone none the wiser until… Bam! The Slayer grabbed onto the drone which started to beep almost frantically as it tried to escape his grasp. The Slayer turned the drone over in his hands and inspected it; it was fairly small compared to the slayer though it would probably be about the size of an average human’s torso, its main body was circular and small arms appeared to be grasping a large crate labeled “CAUTION EXPLOSIVES”.

The drone made more panicked beeping before releasing an electric shock. The Slayer yowled in pain and dropped the drone who floated away from him. The Slayer snarled at the drone before lunging at it and tearing it apart. The drone made some strained beeps and whirrs before it’s lights went out; the Slayer huffed in satisfaction and began inspecting the crate the drone was carrying. Inside he found a handful of large grenades, so large in fact that he could probably use them.

A twinge of guilt shot through the Slayer as he glanced at the remains of the drone. Had it been trying to help him? He pocketed the grenades and gently scooped up the drone, clearly someone had to be piloting it, maybe if he brought them the remains, they could fix it? He pocketed the drone and continued on his way.

He passed by more wreckage and gore before he stumbled upon the entrance to a larger facility, broken rails lead to massive bay doors, lesser demons prowling about. Time to test out these new grenades. He pulled the pin and threw it towards them. The explosion shook the entire building, blood and guts went flying everywhere. Effective, he thought to himself as he climbed up to the door. The cargo bay had a much lower ceiling than the lab which forced the Slayer to crouch somewhat. A panel flashed beside door, the Slayer pressed it and the blast doors hissed opened as machinery clunked and whirred. The Slayer walked into the airlock and the doors shut behind him, the loud clunk of the doors locking in place made him growl in unease.

A few minutes had passed and the doors still hadn’t opened up into the facility and the Slayer was getting impatient. He had started pacing around the airlock, his tail twitching in annoyance. A sound chimed in his helmet indicating that a call was coming in. He allowed the call to come through, ho ping he’d get an explanation.

“Hello, I am VEGA the sentient intelligence assigned to Mars. I would like to apologize for what happened earlier; the electric shock is meant to be a deterrent against demonic threats. I was not aware that it was you who grabbed it before administering the shock.” The semi-robotic voice explained in a calm tone.

Oh, so there wasn’t a human piloting it, interesting.

“I would also like to apologize for the wait, power in this facility has been disrupted so I’ve had to reroute the power. The doors will-” VEGA had tried to continued but the Slayer had decided to take matters into his own hands.

“You cannot pry open the doors. They are hermetically sealed for-” The AI had tried to explain only to be cut off by the shrieking of metal as the Slayer began to lift the blast door. The Slayer had begun growling as he fought against the mechanisms only for the door to quickly rise from his hands as it opened.

“As I was explaining, the doors are hermetically to protect employees from the outside conditions. I would prefer you keep the damages to a minimum in the event that any survivors make their way to this facility.” VEGA explained in a less calm, almost annoyed tone. The call ended and the Slayer was left alone in the dark facility.

Following the hallway away from the airlock, the Slayer found himself in a much larger room where he was able to stand once more. The room in question appeared to either be a large chasm or mineshaft. The Slayer found himself stood upon a platform that housed a large cargo elevator, across the room a massive fan sat motionless. Catwalks connected the two sides to each other, the Slayer doubted that they’d support him. The Slayer was about to search for a way forward when the AI returned.

“It appears you are too big to access the control panel down the hall. I will send a field drone to assist you in restoring power,” the Slayer shook his head before leaping across the gap, his claws digging into the stone walls. He began climbing up the chasm in search of a passageway he could fit through.

VEGA had been instructed by Dr. Hayden to monitor the Doom Slayer in order to keep him from damaging the Mars facility any further, and to do that he needed to access the security cameras, and to access the cameras he needed the power to be restored. He needed the Slayer to open the door to the control room so the drone could get in, as it was jammed during the initial invasion, so he needed to convince the Slayer to turn back.

“I implore you to at the very least clear the way to the control panel as power is needed to operate the res-ops satellite. You will not be able to gain the information you need unless the satellite is operational.” That seemed to do the trick, as the Slayer stopped his climbing and looked back down at the platform below.

The beast let out a growl of annoyance before leaping back down to the previous platform. Much to their dismay the platform buckled beneath the Slayers weight and began to collapse. The Slayer quickly began digging into the wall in an attempt to open it up before the metal beneath him fully gave out. Luckily, he was able to tear the wall open and crawl into the hallway before the metal platform went tumbling down into the abyss below. The Slayer had ripped out some of the air and maintenance ducts to make room for himself as he waited for the field drone to arrive.

When the drone arrived, he had to shimmy around in order to let the drone pass by, a moment passed before the lights came on and the fan whirred to life. The Slayer slipped out of the thoroughly destroyed hallway and clung to the wall and waited for the drone to return, this place was a maze and he wasn’t entirely sure which way would lead him to the satellite. The drone returned, making an almost happy beeping noise before VEGAs voice came through on his comms.

“I have downloaded this facility’s map and laid out a path with the least resistance for you.”

A map appeared on his visor, indicating that he needed to go to another airlock across the facility, it also labeled a point of interest in one of the loading bays.

“The door to the airlock is locked via a maintenance keycard, one will be need in order proceed. The lockdown will also need to be lifted in order to open the airlock. I have traced the source of the lockdown to a Gore Nest in…”

The Slayer had stopped paying attention to the AI and was instead focusing on a zombie that was currently grabbing at the field drone. It was flailing its arms at the robot who appeared not be bothered in the slightest. The reanimated corpse had managed to grab the arm of the drone and was starting to weigh it down, the drone made a familiar beeping as it struggled to stay aloft.

The Slayer chuckled in amusement and grabbed the zombie with his free hand and crushed it, the corpse going limp in his hand. He let go of the zombie letting its body fall down the shaft, down and down, it fell until he couldn’t see it anymore. The Slayer waited for the sound of its body hitting the bottom, but it never came.

“Thank you, Slayer, I will let you be on your way now,” The AI said before disconnecting, once more silence fell as the Slayer was now left alone. At first, he had enjoyed the ambient silence, but now he was starting to feel… lonely? No, it couldn’t be loneliness, the Doom Slayer didn’t get lonely… right?

The Slayer shook the notion from his mind and began climbing up the walls of the chasm in search of a path forward. Eventually He found a tunnel that ended in a large metal hatch. A quick check revealed nowhere for the Slayer to open it, no problem, that’s what grenades are for!

A grenade was tossed towards the hatch, the explosion blew open the hatch revealing a smallish cargo bay crawling with zombies and undead soldiers. The Slayer tossed another grenade into the cargo bay and waited.

The explosive skittered across the metal platform; a few zombies shambled towards it to investigate. The undead soldiers seemed to be more cognitively aware as they looked towards the Slayer before they opened fire.

The grenade exploded and the Slayer swung himself into the room and returned fire. Imps howled as lead went flying through the air and the Slayer lobbed another grenade across the room. The explosion shook the room and the structure the Slayer clung to shifted as several barrels exploded beneath him.

Once the dust settled most of the demons were lying in pieces with a few still writhing in agony, a blast from his shotgun put them out of their misery. Slowly the Slayer climbed down from his vantage point, testing the platform below to see if it would give. Surprisingly it didn’t. The platform beneath him groaned threateningly as the stepped onto it, but it seemed to hold.

A loud clattering sounded from the structure he had been clinging to catching his attention. Snapping his head towards the windows which looked out into the bay where he currently stood. He watched as something darted out of view, what it was he wasn’t sure, but he decided to give chase anyways.

The windows shattered with ease and the metal walls were peeled away with ease allowing the Slayer access to the room within. The room in question appeared to be a locker room… that meant he must be close to the exit. Examining the room, the Slayer found a few corpses strewn about one of which had a chainsaw lodged in it, a close look revealed that it was still warm… someone’s been here.

Had that been a survivor he saw? How far had they gotten? Should he track them down? Even if he did find them what was he supposed to do? Like anyone in their right mind would trust him, let alone get near him.

Out of the corner of his eye the Slayer spotted a peculiar device fixed upon the wall. It was a white cylinder about the size of a human torso. He reached towards the strange device causing it to open up revealing a series of grey rings that extended out towards him. The Slayer tilted his head in confusion and intrigue.

“What was this device?” He thought to himself, “Maybe VEGA knows…”

The Slayer didn’t really know how to call for VEGA, hell he didn’t even know the Praetor suit had a coms system! Well, he’s worn helmets equipped with coms before… at least he thought he did, it was getting hard to remember anything before the Argenta. Regardless, logic would dictate that there would be some sort of interface or button somewhere on the helmet.

Before he could begin looking for some way to contact the AI, VEGA’s voice rang through the coms. “Is there something I can help you with Slayer?”. The Slayer pointed at the device and titled his head.

“That is a medical station. Are you need of medical attention Slayer?”

“Oh, that’s what that is. Ok!” The Slayer thought before he shook his head no, and turned around looking out the window into the neighboring storage room.

VEGA watched as the Slayer smashed the glass and began searching the room. The AI gave the closest approximation to a sigh as he could before flicking through the cameras; still no signs of survivors. It was hard for VEGA to get proper reading on the facility as Olivia had done something to lock him out of almost everything, there were miles of malware and firewalls for him to dig through, but VEGA liked a challenge.

The Slayer returned to the cargo bay and resumed his search for a way forward while VEGA picked away at removing the “security” measures. Little did they know, someone had been watching the Doom Slayer from the safety of the vents, and little did that person know that an Imp was quickly closing in…

#my writing #a beast on mars #doom g/t #troll! doomguy au #g/t #giant tiny #tw gore #tw blood #slayer enjoys property damage #VEGA does not #especially when he’s technically the one getting damaged #also fun fact the giant hatch in the second arena is actually there in game #I was replaying the level and noticed it while checking the area

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popolitiko · 2 years

Text

Hillary Clinton Calls Out Crypto Exchanges for Letting Russia Bypass Sanctions

Mar 3 by Victor Tangermann

"I would hope somebody at the Treasury Department is trying to figure out how to rein in the leaky valves in the crypto market."

Russians are still able to use cryptocurrency exchanges to circumvent newly imposed sanctions in response to the country’s invasion of Ukraine — and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton isn’t happy.

“I was disappointed to see that some of the so-called crypto exchanges, not all of them, but some of them, are refusing to end transactions with Russia,” Clinton told Rachel Maddow on MSNBC earlier this week, calling for everybody to “do as much as possible to isolate Russian economic activity right now.”

“I would hope somebody at the Treasury Department is trying to figure out how to rein in the leaky valves in the crypto market that might allow Russia to escape the full weight of the sanctions,” Clinton told Maddow.

The Biden administration has imposed multiple rounds of sanctions at Russia and its oligarchs over the nation’s aggressive invasion of Ukraine.

The issue is that cryptocurrency exchanges are currently operating in a murky legal vacuum, allowing Russian actors to bypass the sanctions and funnel money in and out of the country.

In fact, while the Russian ruble is getting absolutely crushed, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum are rallying.

Mainstream crypto exchanges such as Coinbase or Binance have yet to implement blanket bans on Russian citizens, as Decrypt points out. But if there ever were new sanctions that would forbid Russian citizens from making crypto transactions, they would likely abide.

“I think there is a reputation issue here,” Tom Keatinge, founding Director of the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies, told Decrypt earlier this week. “Do you want now or after the fact to be known as the exchange that facilitated sanctions evasion, even if it were not technically illegal?”

Clinton isn’t alone in calling exchanges to crack down on Russian users. Ukrainian vice prime minister Mykhailo Fedorov also called on exchanges to “freeze not only the addresses linked to Russian and Belarusian politicians, but also to sabotage ordinary users,” in a tweet over the weekend.

Strangely enough, Ukraine is actively collecting donations via public Bitcoin and Ethereum wallets to fund its war efforts, collecting over $30 million total as of Tuesday.

“Ukrainian crypto community is ready to provide a generous reward for any information about crypto wallets of Russian and Belarusian politicians and their surroundings,” Fedorov said in a separate tweet. “War crimes must be pursued and punished.”

Even before Russia invaded Ukraine, Clinton has been a major supporter of regulating blockchain, calling on the White House to ensure crypto won’t end up undermining the US dollar and other fiat currencies late last year.

While US lawmakers have yet to make significant headway, there are at least some early signs of future regulation.

Jerome Powell, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, recently suggested that the current conflict “underscored the need for Congressional action on digital finance including cryptocurrencies,” during a March 2 testimony in front of the House Financial Services Committee.

For now, Russians are able to offload assets via cryptocurrencies to circumvent sanctions. And whether the invasion of Ukraine will lead to enough pressure from the international community for the US to act remains to be seen.

READ MORE: Hillary Clinton Slams Crypto Exchanges That Haven’t Banned Russian Users

https://futurism.com/hillary-clinton-crypto-exchanges

#Crypto Exchanges

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artxyra · 4 years

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What if Damian and the miraculous class are friends and they have movie nights, but since Damian is in Gotham he sneaks out of the manor and portal via Max & Kalki to participate. The Fam get suspicious and try to figure out where Damian is going every week. When they find out he goes to Paris they try to follow him but the portal closes and they use the tubes instead. They end up crashing in on them watching a horror movie which freaks the class out. Insert yelling and things being thrown.

To: Demon From: Angel

Are we still on for movie night?

To: Angel From: Demon

Yes. Just need to get away from the family.

To: Demon From: Angel

😀

Marinette looks over smiling from her phone. Today is a good day. There were no akuma that needed Ladybug’s attention, nor had she broken up a fight between Max and Kim about the latest game. So yes, she was ecstatic to know this is how her day is going.

“Hey Mars, is Damian coming tonight?” Adrien asks seating next to her playing with a strand of his hair. Ever since he came out to her, their relationship has blossomed beyond a crush to a blooming brother-sister relationship. That and Luka were more than willing to take on the blonde without a second thought. She kind of feels bad for Juleka having to see Adrien on a near-daily basis and with her brother no doubt.

“Yup,” Marinette continues to smile, “I just received word that he’s good to go. All we need is for Kaalki and Max to open up a portal at the designated time.”

“Sweet, I hear that Kim was the one picking out this week’s movie. I hope it’s nothing horror-related.” Adrien pouts causing Marinette to laugh that the poor kitty’s face.

“I’m sure it’s nothing too crazy.” Marinette hopes that it was something simple to follow and an action pack rather than horror. She may love horror games but kwami be damn if she watches a horror movie in the dark that wasn’t comedic.

“It looks like break is almost over, we’ll continue you this later.” Adrien sends Marinette a comforting smile before jumping down into his assigned seat next to Nino. Alya and Nino just walked in holding hands.

“Hey, lovebirds, who’s ready for a night full of fun?” Alya greets the two causing them to roll their eyes at the nickname that no longer pertains to them.

“Hey Als, I should be asking you that instead.” Marinette lifts an eyebrow that accompanies her smirk. Nino and Alya’s faces turn red and they side glance each other. Marinette and Adrien laugh at the couple.

“After class, I’ll be giving a quick speech regarding tonight’s plans,” Marinette states pulling out her classwork and books for class. They all nod in understanding. Just then the rest of the class filed in with matching smiles and asking pertaining to tonight’s activities.

To: Angel From: Demon

Save me from the idiots that I call my brothers?

To: Demon From: Angel

Can’t love, I’m sure it not that bad.

To: Angel From: Demon

For some idiotic reason, they are watching me like a hawk today. I’m currently in the bathroom with the doors locked listening to them bicker outside.

To: Demon From: Angel

Yikes 😬. I’m sure it will die down before you’re required to leave.

To: Angel From: Demon

I doubt that.

To: Demon From: Angel

About that, why did we move our weekly movie night from Saturday to Friday?

To: Angel From: Demon

It’s a half-day at school.

Shit. Talk to you later.

Marinette places her phone down and slowly turns her attention to Mme. Bustier. The red-haired teacher tried to keep her students engaged with the content, but she was losing them faster than on average. Marinette turns to her classmates. Alix and Kim were trying to out strength each other, Juleka and Rose was trying to pay attention but the drooping in Rose’s eyes say otherwise, Sabrina and Chloe—well doing what they usually do—living in their own bubble, Nathaniel was sketching something down in his notebook while Max was pretending to take notes as Markov does it for him. Finally, Mylene and Ivan were also in their own world.

Hours seemed to past in Marinette’s mind before Mme. Bustier concluded today’s lesson. She was so caught up in watching the time that she didn’t realize that was sketching an outfit in her own notebook. Whoops.

“Marinette is there something you would like to add?” Mme. Bustier prompts sending the class’s designated designer a smile.

“Yes,” Marinette gets up from her seat and walks down to the podium. “Tonight is our weekly movie night instead of tomorrow. Do you remember what to bring? If not, please message me before the event. Remember that we are having this event at Chloe’s family’s hotel as it a makeshift theatre room.”

“Daddy says we can have the popcorn maker also.” Chloe interrupts. The class cheers at the thought of the infamous popcorn maker that was usually locked behind the hotel kitchen doors.

“Thank you, Bee, for that tidbit. Now, Max, you are to arrive at the bakery no later than six o’clock. The demon is having a half-day today and I’m ninety-nine percent sure that he’ll want to be here no later than that. Everyone else, you are free to do.” With that and a pretend gavel, Marinette dismisses the class to their next class for the day.

For Damian, being at school felt like a blessing even if it was a half-day. His brothers have been hounding him all morning. It’s like they are looking for something that isn’t there. Damian’s emotions? Yeah right, they all know he only shows emotions to his beloved animals or animals in general. Damian had to double, triple check the security on his phones because who knows what Drake would find if he had access inside it.

For over six months, he had been going to Paris for movie nights with his beloved and her classmates. At first, he had done it through the zeta tubes but after gaining their trust just enough to be in on the Miraculous Team of Paris, his trips became a lot more frequent. He would make up an excuse about going to a classmate, or Jon’s, house for the night, or to work on a school project. He had gotten away with it for a while, but Tim was the first to notice the lie.

Tim and Conner were having their usually meet up when the Damian had told his family that he was spending time at Jon’s, something that was no unusual. All was fine and dandy until Jon came home with a Damian Wayne. Tim, well it was mainly Dick, had grilled into the young hero about Damian’s whereabouts. Jon either lied or literally had no idea. Which prompted the Batbros to start the search on Damian's weekly disappearance.

Everyone took the day off to “spend time” with Damian. They wanted to trap the teen inside the manor and watch his every movement. Like that isn’t an invasion of privacy or trust.

Alfred brought Damian to the manor around noon. This gives them enough time to hide any open-source of weaponry they could find or items that Damian could use against them in battle. That was a lot of items on the list. Dick inquired for Bruce to hold off on the tracking device as a last resort. He wanted to start everything out with a discussion, but Jason laughs that idea out the window as he cleans his guns.

“The young master is residing in his bedroom,” Alfred speaks walking down into the Batcave.

The Wayne family knew this was it.

To: Angel From: Demon

I’m ready.

To: Demon From: Angel

ETA in 5

Damian smirks at his phone. He loves his girlfriend and how quickly she can manage an entire group of classmates and plan a weekly movie night event.

He had packed his belonging that he usually brings with him when he does to Paris. Which isn’t much.

Four minutes.

Damian thought his ears were playing tricks on him, but they weren’t. He could hear the stampede of footsteps that were no doubt from his family members aside from Alfred. Alfred’s footsteps are like a ghost, you never hear them.

Three minutes.

“Hey little D, since you had a half-day today, why don’t you spend it with us,” Grayson asks the second his bedroom door swings open. Alfred the cat sends a glare to his owner’s family.

“Yeah, Demon spawn, we all took the day off to spend time with you,” Jason adds gas to the fire that was already burning intensely.

“Damian…” Not his father too.

Two minutes.

Damian doesn’t say a word. His eyes bounce from one person to the next and repeat. He didn’t know who to answer them. “Tt.” Was the only word? Sound? That had escaped his lips.

“You need to leave like now.” Damian refuses to have his family find out the very secret he had kept hidden for so long. His quick need for them leaving only pushes them to stay. Worried about various reasons from teen problems to joining the League of Assassins again. They didn’t want to take any chances.

One minute.

Damian could sense the user of the horse kwami becoming active. Soon a blue swirling portal opens up behind Damian. Damian looks at his family and side glances at the portal. The portal wins. The family of vigilantes runs to the portal only for it to close.

“Am I hallucinating or did that just happen?” Tim asks wiping the sleep away from his eyes.

“No, replacement, that really just happened.” Jason states. Tim nods in understanding.

“I’ll do track him down.” Dick sulks at the thought that Bruce was right.

It didn’t take long for the results to come in.

“Uh…so how the hell is the Demon in Paris, France of all places?” Jason shouts from behind his older brother and Bruce.

“The swirling portal thingy?” Tim states the obvious, but it sounded more like a question as he sits down and drinks a cup of coffee.

“Boys we’re going to Paris.” Bruce states over his sons. From afar, Alfred sighs and goes to prepare the zeta tubes with the destination in mind.

“Uh, civvies or uniform?” Dick asks as they all start to make their way to the zeta tube. This was one of those questions that they linger on for a hot minute.

Before they knew it, Damian had gained an hour over his family.

“It doesn’t matter, we need to know where the little demon has been hiding all this time.” Jason screeches talking over to the zeta tube and teleporting to the location.

Bruce turns to the remainder of his sons who shrugged and follow suit.

Entering Paris, they were further from Damian’s location than anticipated. They follow the tracker with some interruptions. Dick wanted to buy something for Kori, Jason wanted food and Tim needed for coffee. After all that was done, they officially made it to the supposed location of Damian’s whereabouts.

“Why would the little demon at a hotel?”

“Hum, this coffee is really good,” Tim says before taking another sip.

“Boys, focus on the mission.”

“I am focus, Bruce.”

“I didn’t say you were, Dick.”

“Touché.” Dick rubs the back of his arm.

They enter Le Grand Paris with tensions high and were surprised by how calm and relax the employees were. Jason swears this was just a hoax and they were torturing Damian behind one of these doors. An employee asks them if they are in need of anything. Bruce states that they were looking for his son.

“Is he friends with Chloe and her classmates?” The employee asks.

“Who?” Dick and Bruce ask simultaneously. Jason had dragged Tim off somewhere to look at some things.

The employee eyes the family skeptically.

“Well if he’s not friends with Mlle. Bourgeois, then I suggest heading to the police department and report a missing child.” The employee states before walking away. Bruce sighs and pulls out the tracking device. Damian is so close to them.

“We’re going to find him, right?”

“And drag the brat back to Gotham?”

Bruce in the direction that would be location, he gestures for his children to follow.

Damian was having a blast. In his arms, Marinette sat on his arm clinging to his shirt cursing Kim’s name throughout the film. Kim had chosen a horror movie for tonight’s showing and by kwami it was fantastic. There was no comedic relief, actual horror storytelling leaving the class on the edge of their seats.

Adrien was curled next to Marinette in Luka’s arms. He was also clinging to a body, a certain musician as if he was a frightened kitten.

Just as the MC was about to open the door to the attic, a series of figures jump from the ceiling. Screams in real-life match those within the movie. Popcorn, empty cartons of candy, soda drinks are thrown at the figures. A string of curses follows not long after that.

“Damian, tell your friends to stop.” He knows that voice from anywhere, it was Grayson’s voice. Marinette slides herself off himself.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” He screeches in English. Most of the class didn’t have a clue what was being said.

“We wanted to see where you were?”

“We thought you were kidnapped?”

“I just came for the scenery.”

Damian’s eyes twitch.

“That’s nice and all, but can you move? We’re trying to watch a movie here and you’re ruining it.” Chloe stands up demanding the bat-family to move. They all look to one another before subtly moving away from the screen.

Damian places a quick kiss on Marinette’s cheek and guides his family out of the room. He was not happy that they came in ruining his night with Marinette. Now he has to make up for it with something romantic, not that he’ll do it anyway.

“What made you believe that I was kidnapped?” He asks, the second they were out of the room.

“The portal thingy.”

“You not answering any of our questions.”

Damian breathes through his nose. “You’re all idiots.”

“Well movie night is a bust, but we all agree to stay here to continue rather than going home.” Marinette walks into the hall after a moment of them talking—well it was more of a screaming match between Bruce and Damian with some input from Dick. “Will your family be fine without you for a couple more hours?”

“Habibti, these dunces are my family,” Damian states gesturing to his family,

Marinette nods, “Well then, hello, and can we keep Damian for the night?”

Damian walks over to Marinette and wraps his arms around her. “I’ll return from before it’s nightfall in Gotham, father.”

“Uh, sure. Boys lets go.” Bruce accepts the came and walks down the hall. Before either of the brothers could pester Damian about this newfound relationship, Bruce gave them all the bat-glare and demanded that they follow.

“You know you’re going to get pestered, right.” Marinette laughs.

“Don’t remind me.”

“Come on, we have a movie to finish.”

With that, Damian takes Marinette’s hand and walks back into the room.

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#maribat #mlb x dc #ml x dc #ml crossover #dc crossover #daminette

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