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eriexplosion · 1 year

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Still thinking about the finale of course and how little sense it makes for the sacrifice to be final because like... all the things people compare it to were people sacrificing for a good reason.

Kanan died on a mission to get Hera out, they succeeded and they rescued her and he died to protect them. He died to protect the woman he loved, the child she hadn't told him about but he might have sensed, and the squad that had become his family. Narratively his death pushes Ezra to the place he needs to be to accept the loss of his parents and resist Palpatine's attempt to make him give it all up to get his parents back. It sets the stage for Ezra to sacrifice himself less fatally in the endgame of the season.

The Rogue One crew died to get the plans to the Death Star out - their sacrifice is the reason A New Hope can even happen and we have the context to see why it's worth it.

Vader sacrifices himself and kills the Emperor and the reason people hate Somehow Palpatine Has Returned is partially because it negates that. We know the impact of the sacrifice.

But look at Tech's decision to drop. If he dies here then he dies to save his family... on a mission he insisted they go on in the first place, where they did not accomplish their goal to track Hemlock and they did not figure out where Crosshair was being held. And immediately after they literally crash anyway and Omega almost dies. This instantly puts them to Ord Mantell where they get betrayed and Omega is captured.

But what about character arcs? Surely it had some kind of payoff for the character decisions? Well, Hunter wants to go back to Pabu. Understandable. He also wanted to do that anyway because he thought this was too risky a way to try to get Crosshair back (turns out he was right) so Tech's sacrifice didn't change his direction. Wrecker and Echo are still pretty much on the same trajectory. Omega is sad but her actions to get her brothers back are exactly the same as what she would have done prior.

And unlike the other examples, that's the end of the season, if they have a narrative planned to redeem this we aren't going to see it for a while and the fact is still that if he dies here then he dies as a result of his own decision to push to take this risk and find Crosshair, creating a situation where if he hadn't been so eager to save someone he would still be alive, Omega wouldn't be captured, and they would still have the opportunity to save Crosshair another way.

His death moves nothing forward, changes nothing except to make life harder for the heroes, and doesn't motivate any of them in a direction they weren't already heading in. It's also given no narrative time to breathe before we're thrown into the Omega captured and has a sister subplot. It would be pure shock value in a way that these writers are better then. But a fakeout that moves him into place for a third season narrative payoff? Then we're getting somewhere and the lack of time devoted to the Aftermath makes sense.

Like I've written a lot of things about why I think Tech is alive but when it comes down to it, I think it's the better narrative decision and I don't actually think the writers are bad enough at their jobs not to be able to convincingly make a main characters death feel important.

#the bad batch #the bad batch spoilers #even if he's Alive it does retain some shock value motivation #in that in the age of social media advertising leaving it off on an ambiguous cliffhanger like that WILL get lots of word of mouth going #TBB broke into the top ten of all tv shows social media engagement because Tech's ambiguous death shot it up 77 places #but when it's left that ambiguous there is nothing less satisfying than a reveal that it was exactly what it looked like all along #meanwhile if he's not dead his comeback will make the kids this show is actually for lose their little minds in a good way #and like my own feelings aside that's a much more important motivation than whether or not reddit dudebros are impressed by the stakes #sorry to people who expect me to get over this anytime soon this will happen again #dare i make a similar post on reddit explaining why the 'narrative stakes' obsession is stupid and Tech's death makes no sense to keep?#time will tell

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lemonyko0 · 2 years

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your disinterested boyfriend reluctantly agrees to letting you put pretty butterfly clips his hair, but under one condition.

» genre: smut, fluff, established relationship <3

» word count: 2.4k

favor for a favor - jjk

i feel excitement rush through my body as i grab a small package from outside the door, rushing to the kitchen to open it.

i ogle at the sparkly, bright colored butterfly hair clips i'd ordered days ago, along with a cute outfit that would match perfectly with them, but was unfortunately not here yet.

i walk back into the bedroom feeling slightly disheartened but excited i could at least play with them.

"what's that?" his voice almost startles me, he must be taking a small break in between rounds as his headphones are off one side and he takes a drink from the water bottle that was once sat by his feet.

i sit next to him on the bed and hand him the pretty clips, watching as he examines them with a smile, "they're adorable, do they go in your hair?"

i nod, "yeah, can i show you?"

he chuckles and nods his head and i eagerly turn my body towards him as i reach up to put one in his hair but he swiftly catches my wrists, "what do you think you're doing."

i look at him with pleading eyes, "y-you said i could show you right? let me put them in your hair please~~"

"no."

"but why? you'll look so pretty babe."

"no y/n."

"pwease~" i puff out my bottom lip and look up at him, knowing i'm using his soft spot to my advantage but i would literally die to see them in his dark and wavy long hair.

he sighs, indicating he's given up, "fine, but you'll have to do something for me."

i smile and bounce on the bed, too excited to take a second thought to what he said other than his consent, "yes! thank you thank you!"

the pink in his cheeks and the way he smiles at me doesn't give unnoticed as i slide into his lap and place two clips on either side of his head.

i wrap my hands around his neck and lean back to review my work. his hands resting lazily on my hips as he draws small circles on them with his thumbs, raising a brow he asks, "do i look as pretty as you thought i would?"

i kiss his cheek and nod, "even cuter. if you would let me, i would be begging to take a picture of you right now."

his face contorts into one of disgust, he's always hated being the one in the photos and much prefers being my personal photographer, which i've never understood, seeing as women practically fall to their knees at the sight of him.

"i'll let you take a picture, but this means your favor to me is going to be a lot bigger y/n, think you can take it?"

i scoff, "i'd do anything if it meant this could be my future lockscreen."

he shakes his head with a grin and i grab my phone off the bed to snap his picture.

i take three actually, one of him looking awfully unhappy about the situation, the second one i decided to squish his cheeks to make him at least smile, for the third i succeeded in capturing a rare smile from my seemingly emo boyfie <3

he interrupts my giggling with his voice, "okay okay your fun is done, now it's my turn."

i remain unbothered, feeling fully satisfied and happy already as i wrap my arms around his neck to cuddle into him, "what would you like handsome?"

i watch as the smirk grows on his face, "i want you to give me head as i play this next round." he says shamelessly, sporting a cocky grin.

i whine and cuddle into his chest, this isn't the first time he's asked for this and i always say no. "jungkook you know i don't like that."

"aw baby." he coos sweetly, before slapping my ass causing me to jolt in his lap, "you got to do what you wanted with me, this is only fair."

i look at him challengingly, "head is not equivalent to butterfly clips."

"and a picture." he adds.

"and a picture." i roll my eyes.

"fine, but now i forbade you to use those photos for anything, that means no sending them to ur friends, posting them anywhere, or putting it as your lockscreen."

i look at him with a heartbroken expression, "you wouldn't dare take that from me."

he leans his forehead against mine, his light rimmed glasses falling to the brink of his nose as he speaks, "yes, i would."

i scoff, "you sound awfully desperate to get your dick sucked while playing video games with your friends. isn't that weird? what if they hear us?"

he grins darkly, and that's when i put all the pieces together, "i don't care if they do. i'll actually reward you if you can get me to moan loud enough for them to hear it."

i stare at him speechlessly, knowing he's got me wrapped around his finger now, "or if they can hear you choking on my dick like the cockslut you are, i would reward that as well."

i huff and push his chest, "fuck you."

he shrugs with a smirk, "please do."

that's the last of his words as he slips his headphones back on, setting his water bottle down on the ground and rejoining his game.

i continue to sit on his lap, unsure of what to do as he talks with his friends like any other night.

he suddenly looks at me, eyebrows raised, "i'm gonna need to see the screen to play, mind getting on your knees instead?" he poses it as a question, although i know it's not.

i don't comply right away, instead i move my head out of his way by attaching my lips to his neck. peppering kisses up to his jaw then back down, paying careful attention to the way he's breathing, being sure to give extra attention to the places that make his breath hitch.

my hands run up and down his chest, touching him exactly the way i know he likes. i rut my hips against his crotch, feeling him growing underneath me as i rock harder and faster against his boner.

he lifts his hips against me and i pull away, grabbing his attention as he watches me slip out of his lap and onto the ground in front of him.

he grins before looking back up to the tv, speaking strategies with his friends. i decide to make this hell for him, instead of getting to work like he wanted— jungkook absolutely hates being teased— i decide to do exactly that.

i put a hand on his crotch, palming him above his shorts and feeling how hard he is in my hand already. he thinks he can get through this silently?

i run a finger lightly across his tip repeatedly, smirking as i watch him squirm in his seat. sure, he can't make any noises. but he also can't scold me. i can tell he's figured out my plan as he glances down at me with dark eyes, trying his best to convince me it's a warning but his cocky attitude makes me want to wipe the smirk right off his face.

i tug at the waistband of his boxers and he lifts his hips up to help me slip them off. his dick stands tall against his stomach, beautiful as always, truthfully. just the sight of his dick would have me wet but it wasn't about me right now.

i get to work slowly peppering kisses from his base to his tip, being sure to swirl my tongue around the top before going back down.

sex with jungkook is always great, but his patience wears extremely thin, especially if it's not on his terms. i can tell my pace is causing him excruciating pain, and he'd like nothing more than to force my head down and fuck my throat till he's painting my face in his cum, but he has no control in this situation.

i take his balls into my hand and squeeze them gently, taking note of how tight they are. i look up at his red face with his bottom lip caught between his teeth as he's already struggling to keep his attention on the game.

i take this as a sign he's had enough, and surprise him by taking his entire length into my mouth at once.

his thighs twitch underneath my hands as i hold onto them for support. i stare up at him as i move my head back and fourth, taking him as deep as i can without choking around him.

his breathing grows heavy and fast, showing me that if i kept this up he'd cum embarrassingly fast.

and that's exactly what i want.

i pull his length out of my mouth, stroking him with my hand as i bat my eyes up at him, "am i doing good jungkookie? seems to me like you're already close." i fake pout as he seethes.

i smirk before getting back to work, sucking his dick expertly and just the way he likes it. i take him in all the way again and feel him hit the back of my throat each time causing my throat to close around his cock.

that's when he lets out his first moan. i'm too focused to tease him about it, yearning to hear nothing but his moaning in the room.

he grows squirmy in his seat, cussing lowly as he lets out strangled groans, "fuck y/n s-slow down." he whispers, but his request falls on deaf ears as i moan on his dick and his hips rut into my face, he was milliseconds away from cumming down my throat but i pull away.

looking him in the eyes as i wipe the spit and precum from the side of my mouth before licking it off my fingers.

the game far away in his mind as he stares at me, stripping in front of him and sitting myself in his lap again, grinding my core onto his length so he could feel how wet i was for him.

i bite his ear and whisper away from the mic, "you might wanna turn that off, unless you want to give your friends a free show."

he tries to put up his bad boy act again, "it's your loud mouth they'd be hearing."

i chuckle darkly, immediately sinking down onto his length and bouncing on top of him just to catch him off-guard.

my plan is a success as he grunts out, followed by heavy breaths as he tries to push his orgasm away.

"fine then, let them hear your pathetic groans as your girlfriend fucks you."

he whimpers hopelessly in response, throwing his head back and i can hear his friends questioning it.

"fuck it." he says before throwing the headset off and dropping his controller. "is this what you wanted? you've got my undivided attention you whore."

i stop my bouncing and grind against him instead as i grab his face, "you can call me all the names you want baby, we both know you're so close to cumming, you're fucking putty in my hands."

he growls at my words, hating that he wasn't in charge right now and hating that there was nothing he could do to change that.

"shit baby just please, let me cum." i giggle and attach my lips to his for a quick kiss.

"i like hearing you beg, you look so cute."

he just whines, having no more energy to argue with me. i let up my act, feeling awfully close to my orgasm as well as i pick up my pace, working even harder to make him cum.

his eyes screw shut and his mouth hangs open, i've never seen him this fucked-out, and i fight the urge to ask why he never let me do this before if he enjoys it so much.

he grabs at my ass and i feel his cock twitch inside of me as he moans, "i-i'm so close, harder baby, fuck please go harder."

i tug at his hair as i ride him as hard as i possibly can, "you're in no position to be asking for favors when i'm already doing more than you asked me to, right?"

he hums in response and i can tell he's so close he's in pain, "come on jungkook, i want you to cum inside of me, fuck i want it dripping out of me, can you do that for me baby?"

he nods his head and responds with a grunt, "y-yes, i'm coming y/n shit." he thrusts his hips up into mine and spills into me.

the feeling of him releasing inside of me along a few more thrusts, i come too. making him hiss in overstimulation.

i chuckle and get off of him, "sorry babe."

he falls against the bed, still trying to catch his breath. i watch him closely, slightly afraid he'd reprimand me.

he peeks an eye open, "why are you just staring at me?"

i nervously play with my fingers, "i-i'm sorry? i know you like being in charge and i guess i for a little carried away, i just wanted you to feel good."

he stares at me blankly, almost so long i think he's just zoned out, until he breaks into a fit of laughter.

once he finally stops he grabs for me, wrapping a blanket around my naked form as he pushes me into his chest, placing gentle kisses on my head, "i haven't came that hard since i was in high school y/n."

i look up at him speechlessly, "so it was good? you're not upset?"

he chuckles, "absolutely not, you did amazing baby."

i blush and nuzzle into his neck, whispering hundreds of i love you's into his ear just to hear him giggle.

i lean back into his embrace, drinking in the sight of him so happy and bubbly, when something else catches my attention.

he notices it and stares back at me, "what? what's that face for."

i bite my bottom lip to prevent me from laughing even harder as i reach for his hair to pull out the butterfly hair clips that were there the whole time.

"y/n~~" he whines, but he can't contain his laughter either.

* ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊˚* ੈ✩‧₊˚

thank you for reading! this is my first time posting here so any feedback or support of any kind would be appreciated! <3

masterlist | taglist

#bts #bts jimin #bts jungkook #bts namjoon #bts yoongi #bts v #bts fic #bts smut #kpop smut #jjk smut #jungkook #writing #jungkook fluff #imagine #oneshot

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luvring · 2 years

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Hi, I NEED you to know that I absolutely adore your work sm. I hope you're doing well and taking care of yourself:)

A while ago I read barista!MC and author!Felix (who also owns a bookstore) and I can't get that dynamic out of my head

Would you be willing to do some (or more if you've already done them) HC's or lil scenarios (whatever you prefer) ofc if you're okay with it. Thank you so much for your time and patience and take care of yourself ^_^ xx

— modern author!felix and barista!mc hcs

note: AAAAA??? crying .thank u...i am on the floor this is so fun and lovely i hope ur also taking care of urself omg don't forget to drink water today :]

felix writes at the coffee shop mc works at sometimes. he comes over during his break too

^ mc either writes down his name immediately or he says to write something cheesy like "the love of your life?"

they already have his order memorized so by the time he gets to the counter they're already asking how he'll be paying today

amuse me and say they live together. felix asks them to make tea for him because it always tastes better when they make it

this means they're controlling his tea levels btw. mc gets him to stop working late by cutting him off beforehand

felix, if given the chance, throws in one of their terrible customer stories into his own work

sometimes when they're especially horrible he half jokingly offers to let them work at his bookstore instead

he dedicates his books to them. "to my favourite barista, thank you for loving me each day" "for mc, my barista who brings me tea for free" as if i won't Throw up Right Now..,,,..,

when mc doesn't have work they often visit felix and just kinda,, lounge around for a while to keep him company

they put up displays with him. heather's picks? WRONG. mc's picks. anybody who disagrees doesn't get a refund he just says that's so sad /hj

felix teaches them how to organize the books while waiting for customers

in return mc tries to quiz him on the different Very specific orders they've gotten

to be fair mc's drink expertise helps a little with his world building

there's a lot of times where he calls them in just to ask about a specific word that he's forgotten . a saving grace, a miracle,

fans end up knowing mc as well as felix because they always seem to be around during book signings and on his social media

mc's coworkers know felix just as well, if not better considering he visits them so often

^ they asked for his autograph once and he was Very flustered while trying to say his order

the both of them keep trying to promote each other at their respective jobs. "did you know my boyfriend is actually writing a new novel?" "have you visited the coffee shop nearby?" yes. Yes.

thinking about mc getting him a typewriter or like, ink and quill as a semi-joke but he ends up adoring them. he practices a lot with the quill so he can write a love note/poem for them orz

Thinking about felix asking mc to hang out around him while he works so he can just look over at them when he needs inspiration orz

Thinking About Felix who'll write a scene about love and fans would ask how he captured it so well and he goes :) just thought about my partner :) i will Kill You Felix

he hates when mc gets opening and closing shifts. he takes it personally maybe more than mc does because 1) he wants to stay in with them and 2) he wants to spend the evening with them

one time they were trying to figure out character names together. one was on babynames.com and the other on fantasynamegenerators.com and they succeeded in the laughter department that day for sure. mc says "Tim Pebbleblade" and felix starts sobbing

#last legacy #felix escellun #fictif felix #last legacy felix #nix hydra

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fuckyeahzevranarainai · 3 years

Conversation

Zevran: Mmm... what? I... oh.

Zevran: I rather thought I would wake up dead. Or not wake up at all, as the case may be. But I see you haven't killed me yet.

Warden: That could be easily rectified.

Zevran: Of that I have no doubt. You are most skilled. If you haven't killed me, however, you must have kept me alive for some purpose, yes?

Warden: You seem awfully glib for a prisoner.

Zevran: (Chuckles) It is my way, or so I am told.

Zevran: Let's see, then. I assume you kept me alive to ask me some questions, yes? If so, let me save you time and get right to the point.

Zevran: My name is Zevran. Zev to my friends. I am a member of the Antivan Crows, brought here for the sole purpose of slaying any surviving Grey Wardens. Which I have failed at, sadly.

Warden: I'm rather happy you failed.

Zevran: So would I be, in your shoes. For me, however, it sets a rather poor precedent, doesn't it? Getting captured by a target seems a tad detrimental to one's budding assassin career.

Warden: Too bad for you, then.

Zevran: Yes, it's true. Too bad for me.

Warden: What are the Antivan Crows?

Zevran: An order of assassins, of course. Out of Antiva. I suppose you wouldn't hear much of them out here, but where I come from we're rather infamous.

Warden: Not for being good assassins, I see.

Zevran: Oh, fine. Is that what you Fereldans do? Mock your prisoners? Such cruelty.

Warden: So you came all the way from Antiva?

Zevran: Not precisely. I was in the neighborhood when the offer came. The Crows get around, you see.

Warden: Who hired you to kill us?

Zevran: A rather taciturn fellow in the capital. Loghain, I think his name was? Yes, that's it.

Warden: Does that mean you're loyal to Loghain?

Zevran: I have no idea what his issues are with you. The usual, I imagine. You threaten his power, yes?

Zevran: Beyond that, no, I'm not loyal to him. I was contracted to perform a service.

Warden: And now that you've failed that service?

Zevran: Well, that's between Loghain and the Crows. And between the Crows and myself.

Warden: And between you and me?

Zevran: Isn't that what we're establishing now?

Warden: When were you to see him next?

Zevran: I wasn't. If I had succeeded, I would have returned home and the Crows would have informed your Loghain of the results... if he didn't already know.

Zevran: If I had failed, I would be dead. Or I should be, at least as far as the Crows are concerned. No need to see Loghain then.

Warden: If you had failed?

Zevran: What can I say? I am an eternal optimist.

Zevran: Although the chances of succeeding at this point seen a bit slim, don't they? Ha, ha. No, I don't suppose you'd find that funny, would you?

Warden: How much were you paid?

Zevran: I wasn't paid anything. The Crows, however, were paid quite handsomely. Or so I understand.

Zevran: Which does make me about as poor as a chantry mouse, come to think of it. Being an Antivan Crow isn't for the ambitious, to be perfectly honest.

Warden: Then why are you one?

Zevran: Well, aside form a distinct lack of ambition I suppose it's because I wasn't given much of a choice. The Crows bought me young. I was a bargain, too, or so I'm led to believe.

Zevran: But don't let my sad story influence you. The Crows aren't so bad. They keep one well supplied: Wine, women, men. Whatever you happen to fancy.

Zevran: Though the whole severance package is garbage, let me tell you. If you were considering joining, I'd really think twice about it.

Warden: Thanks. I'll take that under advisement.

Zevran: You seem like a bright fellow. I'm sure you've other options.

Warden: Why are you telling me all this?

Zevran: Why not? I wasn't paid for silence. Not that I offered it for sale, precisely.

Warden: Aren't you at least loyal to your employers?

Zevran: Loyalty is an interesting concept. If you wish, and you're done interrogating me, we can discuss it further.

Warden: I'm listening. Make it quick.

Zevran: Well, here's the thing. I failed to kill you, so my life is forfeit. That's how it works. If you don't kill me, the Crows will.

Zevran: Thing is, I like living. And you obviously are the sort to give the Crows pause. So let me serve you, instead.

Warden: Can I expect the same amount of loyalty from you?

Zevran: I happen to be a very loyal person. Up until the point where someone expects me to die for failing.

Zevran: That's not a fault, really, is it? I mean, unless you're the sort who would do the same thing. In which case I... don't come very well recommended, I suppose.

Warden: And what's to stop you from finishing the job later?

Zevran: To be completely honest, I was never given much of a choice regarding joining the Crows. They bought me on the slave market when I was a child.

Zevran: I think I've paid my worth back to them, plus tenfold. The only way out, however, is to sign up with someone they can't touch.

Zevran: Even if I did kill you now, they might kill me just on principle for failing the first time. Honestly, I'd rather take my chances with you.

Warden: Won't they come after you?

Zevran: Possibly. I happen to know their wily ways, however. I can protect myself, as well as you. Not that you seem to need much help.

Zevran: And if not.... well, it's not as if I had many alternatives to start with, is it?

Warden: What do you want in return?

Zevran: Well... let's see. Being allowed to live would be nice, and would make me marginally more useful to you.

Zevran: And somewhere down the line if you should decide that you no longer have need of me, then I go on my way. Until then, I am yours. Is that fair?

Warden: Why would I want your service?

Zevran: Why? Because I am skilled at many things, from fighting to stealth and picking locks.

Zevran: I could also warn you should the Antivan Crows attempt something more... sophisticated... now that my attempts have failed.

Zevran: I also know a great many jokes. Twelve massage techniques, six different card games? I do wonderful at parties, no?

Zevran: I could also stand around and look pretty, if you prefer. Warm your bed? Fend off unwanted suitors? No?

Warden: You must think I'm royally stupid.

Zevran: I think you're royally tough to kill. And utterly gorgeous.

Zevran: Not that I think you'll respond to simple flattery. I'm only hoping that you're the sort of fellow that takes a chance every now and again. Ha, ha. Yes?

Warden: Very well. I accept your offer.

Alistair: What?! You're taking the assassin with us now? Does that really seem like a good idea?

Warden: Don't worry about it. We could use him.

Alistair: Hmmm. All right, all right. I see your point.

Alistair: Still. If there was a sign that we were desperate, I think it just knocked on the door and said hello.

Morrigan: A fine plan. But I would examine your food and drink far more closely from now on, were I you.

Zevran: That's excellent advice for anyone.

Zevran: I hereby pledge my oath of loyalty to you, until such a time as you choose to release me from it. I am your man, without reservation... this I swear.

#long post #zevran #zevran arainai #zevrans stories #this has been sitting in my drafts forever

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guigz1-coldwar · 3 years

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'An lot of things ' : New chapter for "Redemption in a Spirit in a Cold War" is out !

"An lot of things"

Chapter Summary : After talks in her head with 'Bell' & Lazar while the others were saving her, Yirina could finally awake, free from 2 weeks of been an Perseus prisoner.....and she has an lot of things to say....

Link of the Picrew used !

To read it on AO3, click here !

Words : +3000

Taglist : @snowgoldwaylon , @clxudtea , @efingart

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

Again....I have to wait again....again. I don't know in fact if they managed to save me....or they failed but I'm still thinking so they must have succeeded. When the safehouse disappeared along with Lazar...with everything, it could have probably means that they were getting at the end of the operation to save me. I don't know how but during that long wait, I could have swear that in the back of my head, their voices...I could hear them perfectly at sometimes, trying to keep me alive, to ensure that me, Yirina Grigoriev, will open her eyes again after I passed out and continue to live....

And that what I could feel in my body when, after an very long time of patience, my eyes could finally open slowly, still blurry before discovering where I was now. It was an medical room, the one of the safehouse of Verdansk, me in an sort of hospital bed, still dressed in the same clothes I had for 2 weeks now with the slight difference that bandages were felt below an new shirt that replaced the bloody one, right on the gunshot wound at an few centimeters from my heart, that pain still present.

However, there were no one present in the room except me....&....& Park, laid down on another bed, still sleeping and seeing her like that, it was making me mostly sad, fearing for her state since the moment that she passed out in the jeep but it was looking like she was better on her face. I couldn't stay on that medical bed, despite my state. I was maybe feeling an pain in the shoudler but I was able to get out of the bed, going next to Park's one...to be close of her....they took us apart for 2 weeks, only able to see her once in that period.

"Park." I whispered as I was arriving near her bed, posing my hands delicately on it to look at her before I decided to put my right hand on her face, wanting to feel that touch on my fingers. "We did it...we escaped." I repeated my words of hope to her and....she brought an little smile on her face as she was unconscious, maybe having heard me or dreaming of me.....an smile that I missed.

Honestly, I wanted to take her in my arms, tell her how much I love her and stay with her but....I didn't want to worsen her state, preferring to let her wake up properly before actually doing this with her. As I was so much thinking of her, I was remember Lazar's suggestion in my head....'ask her hand'....it was an good idea and I could refind my mother's ring, still inside the same pocket I put it along with Adler's sunglasses. I took it but for the moment, I decided to keep it with me, putting it at my own hand.

"I'm coming back, Park." I said as I decided to let Park alone for the moment, trying to go find the others before putting an little kiss on her forehead and then, starting to walk slowly out of the room.

I thought that I would find someone that were probably going to get here but instead, I was met with nobody in the small hallway that was separating the dorm to the main room and seeming like it was the beginning of the day, it was more likely to find everyone back in where they were all working and when I slowly open the door, I could find an group of them around what I remember to be Woods's office.

"Bullshit !" The first person that I heard inside that room was Woods himself, sounding an bit enthusiatic....but it wasn't because I was here because he didn't see me, no one saw me....must be playing with cards....

"One queen." I then heard Song spoke up, the person that Woods was looking at. "And....two queens !" She then exclaimed when she put her card on the middle of the desk....is that this game Zasha talked about weeks ago ?...

"How in the fucking world ?" Woods complained, almost ready to throw out his own cards away and no one in the room was seeing me as I was arriving near them...slowly. "It's impossible to have two queens in here !" He then start to pick up the cards in the middle.

"You're just an loser or something, Woods ?" Sims scoffed, an smile on his face before I decided to intervene.

"By looking at it, yes !" I replied at Woods place, laughing about it before retracting because of the pain.

"Go fuck yourself, Yirina !" He yelled, sounding very normal before everyone stopped themselves in their moves, all eyes going wide as they were all now looking at me...finally...."My god !" Woods breathed, been the first to go up from his chair, soon followed by Sims, Wolf & Song.

"Good to see you all." I told them as Woods make the first move, going to take me in his arms, wrapping them around me.....an bit firmly. "Woods, my shoulder." I whispered to him as his arms weren't doing very good to me now.

"Oh shit, I'm sorry." He apologized, withdrawing from me with an smile on his face.

"And we all thought to have lose you." Sims proclaimed, moving to shake hands with me, thinking that he wouldn't do like Woods. "You gave to everyone an damn scare." He added after we shook hands.

"But as we see, you're back." Song was the next one, repeating the same process with her before doing the same thing with Wolf.

"Might need some bourbon, would you ?" Wolf proposed gently but I politely refused for that, gesturing that it wasn't an good idea for me.

"I....how is everyone ?" I asked to all like that.

"Oh, we're well !" Sims responded, removing his cap to scratch his forehead as I moved to get sit on an chair near by....from an desk that wasn't even mine...I couldn't remember where it was. "And you ?"

"I can't really say that I'm well to be honest." I claimed even after getting that promised freedom, it was going to take time....an long time before we can...if we can forget about these events. "I'm sure that you want to know what happened."

"If you don't want to tell, it's okay." Woods expressed his worries about what happened during 2 weeks to me & Park but they all needed to know.

"No, it's important." I told him before I looked around the room, only seeing the four of them inside. "Where's Hudson ?" I demanded.

"He took an flight back to the US...he said that he needed to check up Adler's recovery." Wolf answered as the group were also going to sit on their chairs, moving them to get next to me.

"So, Adler is now safe & already away..." I whispered, thinking about him and seeing him, getting treated perfectly by the CIA. "By the way before starting, take those, Sims." I added, wanting to give Adler's sunglasses to him.

"No, you should give them back to him by yourself, it's better." Sims refused to take them, causing me to keep them with me, wondering why Sims wouldn't want them now.

"What happened, Grigoriev ?" Song questioned me, already in the subject.

"Well, it turned out that our mission in the Yamantau was an trap : Hudson set us up." I started and like I predicted, eyes went wide at all sides.

"That's why that fucker flied away, he didn't want to face you after you accused him to set you up." He rolled his eyes around, looking at Hudson's desk in shame.

"We were captured and it seems that we were hold in an Kastovian base at the north of Verdansk." I continued to tell them the story, slowly because I wanted to tell them...everything. "In fact, they didn't try to torture us." I admitted but I know that this was false...they tortured us mentally. "Just at the beginning."

"Only at the beginning ?" Wolf repeated.

"Wolf, let her speak." Sims objected, putting his hand on Wolf's shoulder before making an sign with his head to continue.

"They tried to make me pass some tests...to bring me back." I said, realizing that I couldn't lie anymore. "Okay, I stop to lie now, I need to tell the truth about who I am !"

"Yirina, you don't..."

"I have to do this, Woods." I cut him straight in his words. "I never actually defected from Perseus...well, I wanted to but someone in the CIA saw something else." I took an deep breath and closing my eyes. "Adler actually brainwashed me." I revealed despite that Sims, Woods & Song were already aware of it but not Wolf.

"Brainwashed ?" I could see him move his lips that were basically saying these words.

"I was given an name...Bell." I whispered, mixed about thinking of that name....was it good or bad ? "The CIA were trying to break me into revealing Perseus location and I did tell them but what I gained was an bullet in the head." I exclaimed, pointing at my scar. "I only woke up 4 months ago in an hospital in Moscow."

"Shit but what happened next ?" Wolf asked, curious & shocked.

"I couldn't go back to Perseus, only going back to the CIA....no, I came back to the MI6, to Park." I asserted my choice, knowing that it was the best to do. "During these 4 months, I managed to get an part of my memories back, discovering things about me that I couldn't believe right." I was sounding an little bit happy by saying that, thinking positively. "When they captured me the 2th of June, I had to act as 'Bell' until I cracked after they almost tried to kill Park." I revealed.

"Damnit but what did they try to do ? Who was there ?" Song demanded.

"Adler was there but they must have transferred him away before you can all recover him the 10th of June." I remembered that moment when Stitch, Freya & Knight looked at that video tape. "I know that because....Stitch viewed an tape of your rescue attempts you did." I told them as they were surprised that I was able to know that.

"We should have maybe cleaned up the place more better." Woods muttered, scratching his cheeks but that wasn't his fault.

"I cracked but they were still hoping to have me back so....they tried to brainwash me again." I breathed by saying those words. "They got their hands on the CIA files about me, they tried to use it against me but somehow, it didn't work."

"Wait, you're actually saying that Perseus tried to brainwash you again ?" I nodded at Sims question, surprised to hear that.

"Perseus thought that they have won and they kept their guard low...Wraith was the one who were accompanying me the day before I escaped with Park." I assured them before my thought was on Freya. "Wraith...is in fact my old girlfriend if you all want to know." I preferred to reveal that detail that I hide to everyone and like I thought, eyes went wide again. "Yeah, I know, that's stupid from me to hide that."

"No, not at all." Song reassured me, reajusting herself on her chair.

"To tell the truth, we did escape with the help of someone on their side : Sonya Kuzmin." I told them, mentioning their name but at the second I told it, I felt like a regret, thinking that I should have keep silence about it. "They...uhm...I was wearing an backpack when I arrived here, where is it ?" I literally changed the subject, hoping that no one was going to ask me back about them.

"Got it, don't move." Woods replied, going up from his chair quickly to get the backpack that was on another desk before coming back with it in his hands. "Here you go." He handed me the bag, taking it in my hands.

"I was able to come back with some of my things but...." I stopped myself when I could feel my hands touching Lazar's diary. "Woods, Sims....it belonged to Lazar." I showed them the book, seeing the sad feeling on their eyes.

"Shit." They both mumbled in unison.

"I don't know how they got it but....it's really strange." I gave my opinion on the subject as I wanted to give them the book but both refused to take it, prompting me to put it back in the bag, thinking that I was the one to keep it. "And then....we were able to escape and...everyone knows what happened next." I exclaimed, keeping the bag on my lap, my hands over it.

"That's quite an big story to say." Sims quoted, passing his hands throught his face.

"And about all of you, what happened in 2 weeks ?" I asked them, now wanting to know their side of the story.

"Nothing too big except Adler's rescue 6 days ago." Woods answered, raising his shoulders to me. "On these 2 weeks, we were mostly trying to find out about where you could have been." He added.

"And where's Rivas ?" I questioned them as I thought that she was also here.

"She got wounded 2 days after we saved Adler and Hudson moved her out of the operation for the time being until she recovered and can come back." Wolf was the one to respond to me crossing his arms and looking towards an direction away. "As you & Park got saved, the CIA is going to think to pull us out of Verdansk but with Perseus moves, it's better to say cautious."

"And it's sure that you're going to need help." I proclaimed but Woods shook his head.

"Yeah but you & Park, you're going back to England." He said but it was sure that our state wasn't going to allow us to stay here.

"Yeah, that's logic." I stated.

"To say, we got calls almost everyday from an certain Zasha Smirnov of the MI6." Wolf scoffed, getting my full attention on him at hearing this name.

"Zasha called you ?" I whispered and everyone nodded.

"They were worried as hell and each day, they wanted to get updated about the situation." Sims completed, passing his hand behind his head. "At least now, they know that you were saved."

"They will be people to replace you & Park for the moment but as we think, you will be out for an long time until you can both come back." Woods explained and I nodded, knowing that we got no choices. "I think that it will be an cryptographer from the CIA called Liliya Petrov, is that right, Sims ?" He demanded and Sims nodded.

"You will be leaving tomorrow, we already make calls to the MI6 and for the moment, you & Park take an rest." Sims told me, getting up from his chair. "Like we said, it's making us very happy that you're still alive." He added with an smile before moving his chair back near Woods desk.

"You're right, I should go back with Park." I breathed, also going up from my chair as the others were putting their chairs back to where they took them. "Thank you all again for having saved me." I thanked them.

"We did what we had to do, Yirina." Woods smiled at me before going back to his desk.

"And now, don't be an loser !" I scoffed, seeing him taking back the cards to play their game and I was greeted by an middle finger from him, making me laugh before I start to move away from the room to get back at the medical room.

It was necessary to tell them everything and now, I was able to go back with Park, hoping that she was maybe awake but when I stepped inside the room, she was still sleeping on her bed, making me feel an bit sad to still see her like that. I returned back near her, now holding her left hand in my right one, keeping it with me gently until....I could witness her eyes slowly opening, sending more delight.

"Yiri...." That was her first word that she pronounced and I was already happy to have her back.

"My god, Park." I whispered, my voice filled with emotions and my eyes starting to cry for real, getting taken over by the emotions. "You're here." I added, an smile on my face and looking at our both hands.

"Yes, I'm here." She slowly grinned to me, her eyes rather focused on the ring that was on my right hand. "Is that your mother's ring ?" She asked and I nodded. "It's looking beautiful."

"Thanks." I snorted, quickly passing my hand through my face to clean up any tears on it. "Park, you don't know how much I'm freaking happy to see you back."

"Me too." She affirmed, sharing the same pain. "Not able to see you for days, it was painful." She continued, taking an breath to focus back. "Seeing you but on that stretcher, it brought me back bad memories."

"I know." I muttered, remembering the events 3 years ago. "I don't know how I managed to hold on and to survive the trigger memories." I said. "Both of us....I maybe going to sound like Adler but...we've really been through hell together, we've really fought together, we've...we've really bled together." I admitted, really sounding like Adler but all true in my words.

"But at the end, we succeeded to survive, now awaiting for the next part." She told me silently before she moved aside a little on her bed. "Please, come." She suggested, wanting to have me on her bed and I had to comply, installing myself on the space she did for me on that bed. "I have thought to have lost you for good when I saw you with that bullet wound." She started, moving her arms around me as I did the same with my left arm, posing it above her shoulders.

"I was already accepting my fate but I was convinced." I proclaimed, sounding sadly as I was feeling back that skin with my fingers...it was making me sad & happy at the same time. "I knew that I have to continue fighting for you and for me."

"And you know that we're here, that I'm here for that." She admitted, getting me closer of her as we both exchanged glares, seeing the sadness in our eyes. "Yirina, I love you, I will never abandon you."

"I love you too, you're the only thing that is keeping me alive with my friends." I affirmed proudly as I closed my eyes, finally feeling the freedom to be back with her again after these horrible days....

"They wanted to break us apart but we showed that we are unbreakable....forever !"

#cod bocw #cod cold war #cod black ops cold war #cod cw #call of duty cold war #cod #call of duty #cod bell #black ops cold war #yirina grigoriev #helen park #fem!bell

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littlemisssquiggles · 4 years

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Hello! Long time no see! I read your Cinder the Red Queen theory, and it's really cool! Cinder is one of my favorite characters (even if I don't watch RWBY anymore) and it would be really awesome to see Cinder play a really big role, besides "revenge on Ruby". Although, I am personally more of a Cinder Redemption Arc fan. So, hypothetically, if Cinder were to get one such redemption arc, how do you think it would play out?

Hiya Yellow! Yeah it has been a while. Sorry I took so long to get back to you. Slowly working through my backlog of posts inside my inbox. Anyways, how have you been fam? And in the literal immortal words of one Oscar Pine, wait…WHAT! When did you stop watching RWBY? ! D8

What happened? If you don’t mind me asking, how come you’re not watching anymore? Is it because you just fell out of love with the series as a whole after being disappointed with its current direction or did all the discourse surrounding the show (and by extension RT as well) drive you to stop?

Sad to hear you’re no longer in the FNDM man. But on a different note, allow me to say thank you! Knowing that you’re a Cinder fan, I’m happy to hear that you liked my Red Queen headcanon for her. Much appreciated.

And yes, I do remember you being an advocate for Cinder’s redemption as well. In response to writing a Cinder redemption arc, I’m gonna be frank.

Given the way the canon has portrayed Cinder’s character, both in previous seasons and currently, redemption is still the last thing I can envision for your favourite Fall Maiden m’dude. I’ve never seen Cinder getting redeemed as a possibility since to me, the show hasn’t shown enough evidence of her being empathetic to anyone else other than herself to make me believe there’s a chance for her to change for the greater good.

The only way I can picture Cinder going is either she is given the Adam Taurus treatment---unceremoniously killed off despite the series keeping her relevant to the story for so long or…Cinder survives long enough to rise up and see herself becoming the all-powerful entity she desires to be---ultimately walking out of Salem’s shadow to overthrow her and replace her as the Red Queen and succeeding within a short time what Salem has failed to do for centuries---thrusting Remnant into utter anarchy in the form of a second Great War sparked by one of the kingdoms (possibly Mistral) declaring war against the remaining three kingdoms hoping to conquer them all after learning that the great Atlas Kingdom has fallen along with the former Mantle.

One kingdom to rule them all and this was all done through Cinder puppeteering her pawns in the Mistral Council through her newly awakened abilities after finally succumbing to the Geist Grimm and becoming something more than human--- a Grimm with a soul and a conscience. A Grimm-human hybrid or Grimmoire as I’d like to say.

Instead of being redeemed, I more favour the idea Cinder becoming a bigger threat to Remnant than Salem who I peg would be defeated, purified of her darkness (courtesy of Ruby’s silver eyes) and stripped of any magic that she had, courtesy of Cinder betraying her.

Cinder’s whole “…Without you, I am nothing” statement from the trailer is just giving me huge red flags for her to eventually realize that she can probably do better than Salem without her holding her back. The student does eventually become the master, right? So why not expect Cinder to replace Salem as the main big antagonist of RWBY with her reign being the true threat of Remnant in a time of war?

I really, really like the idea of the main conflict of RWBY not being the war with Salem but the rise of Cinder Fall and the second Great War of Remnant. I think such a plotline would be cool especially looking back on the fact that Oz had told General Ironwood that he prayed that his students---the children whose futures and development were entrusted to him---would never have to face the pains and strife of war like his predecessor: King Phadrig of Vale, once did long ago.

It would actually be very compelling to watch our heroes attempting to survive a dire time when the world was divided with two of its founding kingdoms in shambles while one tried to conquer them all (Mistral) and another daring to defend them all (Vacuo). The first Great War lasted ten years. Imagine if…it were the same for the second with time fast-forwarding to another period ten years later when all of our young heroes were now grown adults. No longer naïve children enamoured by the huntsmen lifestyle but seasoned warriors doing what they could to help the people in a dark world where war raged, humanity pleaded for their salivation and the Grimm feasted.

That could’ve been nice. But…I’m getting ahead of myself here. I’m not sure if anything like that will actually happen in the show. Still it’s good to share the idea around.

Going back to Cinder, like I said---right now I can’t see a redemption arc for Cinder.

As I said, the core reason why I’ve never been for Cinder being a redeemable character is due to the fact that up until this point, the series has done very little to establish her having any positive qualities. Cinder has sadly been selfish through and through making it very clear multiple occasions that she’s only out for herself. For me to have pictured Cinder to be a redeemable character, the series would’ve need to introduce a sort of “buffer character”---for lack of a better term. Basically when I say a buffer character, I mean in terms of a character who could’ve acted as a sort of foil to Cinder---seeing through her power-hungry nature and faults and thus revealing to the audience a much more relatable, sympathetic and emotionally vulnerable side to her through her relationship with said buffer.

The best example of this type of dynamic for me in an animated media is the relationship between Prince Zuko and his Uncle Iroh from Avatar the Last Airbender. In that series, Iroh was Zuko’s buffer character---the one person who saw through Zuko’s acts of aggression and appealed to the side of him that was just a insecure young man lacking any real support in his life and wanting nothing more than to do his best to appease an abusive father just so that he can feel a sense of belonging in the world.

It was through his bond with his uncle that I, as a viewer, was able to believe in Zuko’s redemption arc since it was only with Iroh did we see a more open side to Zuko---the side that reminded us that outside of his status as Prince of the Fire Nation leading the charge to capture the Avatar---outside of that, Zuko was only a boy in need of guidance. Guidance that Iroh attempted to provide him on multiple occasions.

Going back to Cinder, this is what I would have needed to make her redeemable. Give her a character who is the only one to see her more vulnerable side. Using what we know about the series, I’d say Emerald Sustrai could’ve easily been Cinder’s buffer. In the show, RWBY already established Cinder as a sort of motherly/sister figure based on Emerald’s perception of her.

Through Emerald, the show could’ve used her close ties with Cinder to show a side to her that we often don’t see. A side that actually cares for Emerald or at least better fools Emerald (and by extension us as the audience) into thinking that she cares. Ironically enough, the show could’ve had Cinder mirror Salem in this regard.

The reason why I’m more of an advocate for Salem’s redemption over Cinder is because UNLIKE Cinder, the show has given me moments of Salem being genuinely kind and caring to others. We saw this with the way she loved Ozma and would’ve done anything to get him back before her self-interest and hatred toward the Brother Gods consumed her.

We saw this in the Lost Fable and to some degree, even though she is another pawn to her, I’d like to think that the way Salem treats Cinder is akin to a mother. My issue with Salem isn’t that she is incapable of caring about others, it’s that no matter what, she will never put them before herself. It will always be her first and others second. At least that’s what I interpreted and it for this reason while her curse will remain.

However at least the show has shown examples of Salem showing compassion towards other. This is something I have yet to see from Cinder Fall. To me, Cinder is lacking that side of her.

Salem is selfish but as strange as this for me to say, I don’t think she’s entirely heartless. It’s kind of complicated when it comes to Salem but this just adds onto why I find her character fascinating. This is what makes the difference for me between her and Cinder and separates the two.

Salem is selfish but is capable of empathy and a surprising amount of mercy in unexpected moments (like in the way she treats Cinder for example. Salem could’ve easily offed Cinder for her failures like how she ended Lionheart but instead she left her be. And judging from the V8 trailer, even as Cinder came grovelling back to her, Salem still seemed to mostly react to Cinder’s return with an air of a strict parent who isn’t angry at their child but more disappointed. And oddly enough she did the same thing with Tyrian back in V4)

Cinder, on the other hand, shares in Salem’s self-centred nature but lacks any kind of compassion. Cinder is heartless.

Sorry Yellow, picturing a redemption arc for Cinder Fall is tough for me, even hypothetically speaking. I mean, if the show had done something with Cinder akin to Zuko---having her gain the power and status she’s always wanted only to have it result in her losing the only good relationship she had in Emerald thus leading to her falling from grace again after realizing her mistakes---then I could see it.

Or…perhaps the show could’ve pulled an Azula type of redemption for Cinder. Have her gain the power she desired at the cost of her own humanity and she loses herself in the process, becoming a monster and realizing her mistakes too late. And in the end, despite everything she’s been through and in spite of all that she put her through, the only person to appear before Cinder in her time of death after falling from her mistakes is Emerald.

I like the irony of Emerald cradling a dying Cinder Fall, choosing even then not to hate her and remain with her until her last dying breathe as her way of finally paying her back for saving her from her former life of poverty; giving her a new sense purpose in life outside of being a street rat.

That could’ve worked, at least me. But again, this is only if the show had further developed Emerald and Cinder’s bond. I genuinely wished the show had explored more of Cinder’s ties to Emerald. This is why I wanted Emerald to be Cinder’s accomplice for Atlas instead of Neopolitan. We could’ve watched Emerald’s character grow further through her separating herself from Salem’s legion and devoting herself entirely to Cinder. We could’ve watched Cinder even entice Emerald with the prospect of her ruling beside Cinder in the new world she would’ve aided her to build for Salem.

At the end of the day, as Emerald implied back in V5, she doesn’t care that much for Salem. The only person of interest to Emerald Sustrai is Cinder so this makes me curious to see what their reunion would be like for V8. I highly doubt Salem just ups and left Emerald, Mercury and Hazel back in the Dark Domain. Unless they were sent off to Vacuo to retrieve the Sword of Destruction, they’re bound to be there with Salem inside of Grimm Monstro so I’m looking forward to seeing the look on Emerald’s face when she realizes to her dismay that in her absence, she had been replaced with Neo.

It would be interesting watching how Emerald deals with this development in addition to seeing where her story goes from here now that her beloved Cinder Fall is back with her but not really with HER, y’know what I’m saying? Perhaps this could lead to Emerald going out of her way to get back onto Cinder’s good side mirroring Cinder attempting to return to Salem’s.

“…Without you, I am NOTHING!” “…I don’t care about Salem but I owe Cinder for EVERYTHING!”

It’ll be a game of watching apprentices regain the faith of their masters as Emerald is Cinder’s apprentice while Cinder is Salem’s. This should be a fun development to observe for next season

…Sorry if I haven’t exactly answered your question Yellow. Truth be told, I don’t have much ideas for how Cinder could be redeemed. However I do stand by my points about Emerald being used to show a different side to Cinder. It’s a shame this wasn’t done much in the canon. But who knows? Maybe something might be done to change that for V8.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2020)

#squiggles anwers: rwby #cinder fall #emerald sustrai #rwby salem #rwby theories #rwby volume 8 theories #yellow-eyed-green-crocodile #squiggles answers

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ty-talks-comics · 5 years

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Best of DC: Week of September 18th, 2019

Best of this Week: Year of the Villain: Lex Luthor #1 - Jason Latour, Bryan Hitch, Andrew Currie, Tomeu Morey and Tom Napolitano

Doom is Here.

Lex Luthor has gone through an amazing transformation over the last few years. He was just a rich douchebag when the New 52 started and this eventually led to him becoming a hero in his own right, even taking up the mantle of Superman after Clark died during DCYou’s Superman: Truth arc. When the status quo needed resetting after the League destroys the Source Wall and Luthor was called to join a large group of heroes and villains to stop a new threat to the universe. He saw the error of his heroic ways and embraced Doom after seeing just how powerful entropy could be.

Everything he’s been planning has been leading up to Year of the Villain and things are in full swing with the bad guys finally having the edge, but there’s just something that Luthor can’t satisfy yet: His own urge to be the ONE Luthor. His ultimate belief that he himself is the pinnacle of the multiversal Luthors and this book sets out to prove him right in a variety of ways.

Starting out on Earth-38, a universe reminiscent of the 1960s Superboy comics, Lex recruits the aid of Alexander Luthor, a younger version of himself that still rocks the ginger bowl cut and genius of his future self. Lex likely sees the malleability of this Young Luthor and sees just how similar their upbringings were ad hopes that this child can see the pending darkness and failures that other Luthors have succumbed to. Lionel Luthor is drunk and hears it all, insisting that Lex take him instead, but the Apex Predator incinerates him as Alexander looks on with nonchalance.

Bryan Hitch might be in his finest form in years right now. Somehow, he manages to make a middle school science fair eerie and uncomfortable and make a bowl cut mildly threatening. Tomeu Morey’s coloring of these first pages paints a picture of the perfect suburban setting with darkness just sitting underneath and curiosity from the Young Luthor, the same glint in his eyes.

The next two Earths play in parallel to each other as opposite futures. Earth-45 is a desiccated world where brands brought the world to its knees along with a Doomsday Luthor that squandered the world and destroyed it. Earth-32 seems to be a world of peace where a Martian Kal-El and Lex Luthor coexist as best friends in the Superman and Batman roles.

Luthor has a special hate for this Lex as he’s chosen to live in the shadow of the alien and sicks the Doomthor on Kal-El, thinking that Bat Lex will abandon his fight with Apex Lex to save him, but a Luthor is still a Luthor and he calls Apex Lex’s bluff, but he’s seen all that he has to. He knows that Bat Lex is absolutely Doomed because of his heroic nature and chooses to let him suffer on an Earth that will absolutely be killed by Doomthor.

Luthors hate for both of these other versions is palpable though. Lex has made body modifications for power before, but never once has he allowed himself to become a mindless brute because of it. He doesn't want to see society utterly destroyed like Earth-45 Luthor did. Even his transformation into the peak form of what a Human-Martian hybrid should be is more enlightening than dangerous.

He very likely also sees Earth-32 Luthor as one of the bigger multiversal insults. Lex Luthor stands in no one's shadow and seeing him become a creature of the night, the Batman to a Martian Superman, is low. It also echoes back to the years when all he got was guff from the Superhero community and the American populace at large by portraying himself as a hero. It's the opposite of his current goal of absolute Doom in that this peddling the false hope of Justice.

Doomthor is revealed in his full form during the Earth-32 scenes and he looks amazing. Bryan Hitch draws him like a bald Doomsday, but has the LexCorp logo adorning his chest. He's an absolute unit of grey and white, muscles pulsating, arm cocked back ready to take Kal-El's head off and face so full of rage. Of all of the alternate Doomsdays we've seen, I think this might be my favorite.

Lex travels to Earth-1 to a future that I certainly hope we see published one day because I absolutely love the Earth-1 stories. This segment begins with who I believe to be Perry White telling an unknown individual of the day when Lex absolutely broke the Superman of that world using the Black Mercy parasite. While the Lex of Earth-1 died after being caught in a fight between Superman and Zod, I suppose as with most other things, DC is choosing to retcon and ignore a past story in favor of this excellent story instead. Lex finds Earth-1 Lex in a hospital bed, likely in a coma and angril screams at him for being made so small, asking how his obsession with Superman is worthy of the name Luthor… but then Apex Lex takes a moment and thinks.

He sees the ultimate Doom that this will lead to. This world, without its great symbol of Hope and Justice, will crumble as it is already a darker reflection of the Prime universe. Bryan Hitch draws Apex Lex’s face with a heated rage contrasted by Morey’s use of muted colors in the room, the sterilized feeling of it all. He grasps the Comatose Lex’s head, preparing snap his neck, but then he relents with stunned silence. Hitch captures this moment with solemn beauty and revelation for what Lex will really have to do to achieve Doom. The Comatose Lex just lies there, smiling. He’s absolutely pleased with himself and finds himself living up to the Luthor name.

After Luthor travels to Earth-50 and likely kills the Luthor of that world, in front of a statue of him replacing the Lincoln Memorial, he has a conversation with Alexander. Alexander asks “why don't we just kill all of the Luthors when they're babies” to which Apex Lex answers, “There is no ‘we’ only Luthor.” To me this sounds like Lex could do exactly that, but at the same time, he has to teach Alexander how exactly to be Luthor by seeing all of the mistakes that others have made in the name. By showing him alternate realities, pasts and futures, Alexander can see every possible path there is for him to take and sidestep their particular hurdles to realize his destiny.

The two Luthors meet three more over the course of their adventures, one who became a cobbler and another from the age of Merlin who became a Wizard, two drastically different paths, but neither good enough of the name of Luthor. The final is the one that intrigues me the most, however.

The final Lex appears to be the absolute opposite to Apex Lex. The Luthor who gave up his ambition, his visions of grandeur and embraced the down to Earth nature of his humanity (and a good ginger beard). Through drinking tea mixed with pieces of the Blak Mercy himself, he has lived multiple lives and experienced multiple realities and has seen the many paths just as Apex Lex and Alexander are doing now. The difference is that Bearded Lex sees through Apex Lex, he knows that his hubris and need to be the one and only Lex Luthor is why he’s willing to give up his humanity despite knowing that he will never be. He is but one of many.

This is illustrated excellently through Hitch and Morey portraying Lex in many of the positions of other heroes like Shazam, The Flash, Orion and even as Brainiac himself among others. Morey makes these colors slightly more sepia toned to illustrate that they are potential pasts and futures to give a lived in feel. There’s also no way for Lex to ever be the one true Lex at all and every attempt is just another way to fool himself.

Hearing enough, Alexander killed Bearded Lex, gaining the respect of Apex Lex and finally becoming Luthor...only afterwards, it is revealed that at some point, Alexander was given the Black Mercy plant and acts as back up human DNA for Lex, likely for when his own status quo needs to be reset if his path towards Doom is also the wrong path. Despite the lessons that he was trying to teach, Lex still has an ace up his sleeve, he still has some of his humanity and he knows that no matter what happens, he will remain the one true Lex Luthor.

Of all of the Year of the Villain spotlights, this one is my absolute Favorite. It might just be things that put Luthor in the forefront in general, but there’s just something so great about his new form of evil. He wants to see the utter ruination of good and he’s actually making headway and earning from his past and future mistakes before he can even make these decisions. It peels back the layers of all the men that Lex Luthor could have been and shows us just why Apex Lex is the best version of all of them, because his plans have succeeded without him being subservient, comatose or a mindless beast.

Lex Luthor is here for Doom and I am on board for it.

#comics #dc comics #year of the villain #lex luthor #apex lex #legion of doom #doom #jason latour #bryan hitch #tomeu morey #superman

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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As you spend Thanksgiving with your family and loved ones, please think about the thousands of refugees who were forced to flee their homeland due to war, climate change, economic reasons, etc. and how we can help them.

“Honestly, the word refugee is a difficult label to wear. I love my country, my home, my life in Syria, my memories of it, but why did we become refugees? People should ask what is behind that word 'refugee' and why we escaped. I’m a refugee because I fled oppression and danger. I didn't want to leave. I would have preferred to stay in Ghouta, despite everything. We were besieged and bombarded and we persisted for six years, we didn't want to leave. It was a very, very difficult moment. … I wish that people who just look at us as refugees ask what we escaped from and why we left. It's a painful word but I didn't have a choice. I don't believe I had a choice.”

This Syrian doctor saved thousands in an underground hospital

During Syria’s deadly civil war, Amani Ballour treated victims of airstrikes and chemical attacks—memories that still haunt her today.

BY RANIA ABOUZEID | Published November 22, 2019 | National Geographic | Posted Nov. 22, 2019

THE CRACK OF thunder; a plane streaming overhead; a knock on the door. Amani Ballour is afraid of loud noises. The sounds remind her of the fighter jets and ferocious shelling that forced her to reluctantly flee her native Syria in 2018.

The 32-year-old pediatrician does not find relief in the quiet of her sparsely furnished two-room apartment in Gaziantep, Turkey. In the stillness, she remembers the young patients she calls “my children,” those who survived and the many more who didn’t.

For two years, from 2016 to 2018, Ballour ran an underground field hospital known as the Cave in her hometown of Eastern Ghouta, near the Syrian capital Damascus. There, she witnessed war crimes including the use of chemical weapons and chlorine bombs, and airstrikes on hospitals, attacks that targeted a place of refuge and those already wounded.

“There was no safe space,” Ballour says. “Imagine being the victim of an airstrike, you're treated in hospital, and then bombed there too. The hospital was hit many times. I've been asked to verify how many strikes. Believe me, I couldn't count them all.”

As the administrator of the Cave, Ballour was responsible for a staff of some 100 people in a town besieged by troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. For years, essential items such as food and medical supplies were restricted or forbidden from entering the rebel town of Eastern Ghouta, part of Assad’s “starve or submit” stranglehold, forcing Ballour and others to smuggle goods in.

Assad’s warplanes and, beginning in September 2015, Russia’s fighter jets drove the hospital deeper underground into a maze of tunnels and bunkers.

Ballour’s journey is featured in a National Geographic documentary, The Cave, directed by Feras Fayyad, who in 2018 was nominated for an academy award for Last Men in Aleppo. The Cave tells the harrowing story of Ballour’s struggle to provide healing and comfort in the midst of war in a subterranean hospital. (Find it in select theaters near you.)

The youngest daughter in a family of three girls and two boys, Ballour says that from childhood she aspired “to do something different” rather than become a homemaker like her older sisters, who married in their teens and early 20s. Her heart set on mechanical engineering, she enrolled in Damascus University. But the pressure of societal gossip, and her father’s opposition to her plans, prompted her to switch to medicine, a discipline she says was considered “a more appropriate career for a woman, but as a pediatrician or a gynecologist.”

Ballour chose healing children and ignored the many naysayers who mockingly told her that “‘once you get married, hang your degree in the kitchen.’ I heard this phrase so many times.”

In 2011, when the wave of peaceful Arab protests reached Syria, Ballour was a fifth-year medical student, a year away from graduating. The protests quickly engulfed Eastern Ghouta. Ballour marched in a demonstration but didn’t tell her family, certain that her parents “would have been a million percent against it [because] they were very afraid something would happen to me.” At another protest, she captured brief snippets of video but was too scared to disseminate them. “I was terrified of being detained,” she says. Still, the experience was exhilarating. It felt “like I was breathing freedom, it was incredible. It was so empowering simply to say ‘no’ to what was happening in this country that had been ruled for decades by one regime.”

By that time, the Assads—Bashar and, before him, his father Hafez—had ruled Syria with an iron fist for more than four decades. Ballour remembers how as a child she knew that “it was forbidden to speak of certain things, to mention the name of the president, Hafez al-Assad, in any way except to praise him [because] the walls had ears.” She’d heard only whispers of the 1982 Hama massacre, when Hafez al-Assad’s forces killed thousands of people, insurgents and civilians, in a short-lived Islamist insurrection. “My parents didn't tell us about the Hama massacre, and they should have,” she says.

When Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father in 2000, Ballour wondered why Syrians couldn’t elect a leader with a different surname. “When I asked about it I was told to be quiet, that somebody might hear us,” she says. “It was very frightening.”

As the Syrian state violently cracked down on the protest movement, beating demonstrators with whip-like rods and firing tear gas and live bullets into crowds, Ballour was drawn into the worsening situation, but not as a protester. In the early years of the Syrian revolution, security forces routinely hunted wounded protesters in hospitals. Those seeking medical treatment risked being detained—disappearing into the regime’s network of dungeons—or worse, killed on the spot. Secretive field clinics quietly sprung up in homes and mosques and other places.

Ballour remembers being summoned from home by neighbors to treat her first patient, who was wounded in a protest. It was in late 2012 and she had just graduated. “He was a child who was shot in the head. What could I do for him? He was dead,” she says. “He was about eleven years old.”

Her first job, as a volunteer without pay, was treating the wounded in a field hospital set up in a partially constructed building that the regime had slated to become a hospital. She was one of two full-time physicians working there. The other was the clinic’s founder, Salim Namour. A general surgeon 26 years Ballour’s senior, Namour remembers meeting the young woman soon after she graduated. “She introduced herself and offered to help,” Namour recalls. “Many experienced doctors were fleeing to safety but here was this young graduate who stayed to help.”

At the time, the facility consisted of an operating room and an emergency room in the basement. It would soon expand into a web of underground shelters and become known to locals as the Cave. Wards including pediatrics and internal medicine were added. More doctors, nurses, and volunteers joined the effort. The hospital relied on machinery and equipment taken from damaged hospitals near the frontlines, and smuggled medical supplies paid for by international and Syrian NGOs in the diaspora.

Ballour was not a trauma surgeon, but when the casualties came in, even veterinarians and optometrists treated the wounded. She had to learn quickly, not just emergency medicine, but dealing with the horrors of a savage war. The first mass casualties she saw were charred bodies. Even years later, she can vividly recall “the smell of people burnt beyond recognition and some of them were still alive. It was the most shocking thing I’d seen at the time, I still didn’t have experience, I was a new graduate. I was so shocked I couldn’t do my job. But then I saw many massacres, so many casualties, and I got to work.”

On August 21, 2013, Ballour and her dedicated colleagues faced a new horror: chemical weapons. The Sarin attack on Eastern Ghouta killed hundreds. Ballour recalls rushing to the hospital in the dead of night, picking her way past people, dead and alive, sprawled on the floor to reach the supply room to begin treating patients. “We didn’t know exactly what it was, just that people were suffocating. Everybody was an emergency case. A patient who is suffocating cannot wait, and they were all suffocating. We saved who we saved and the ones we didn’t get to in time died. We couldn’t manage.”

The following year, Namour formed a local medical council from the 12 remaining physicians serving a population of some 400,000 people trapped in Eastern Ghouta. The council included two dentists and an optometrist. Not all of those on the council worked in the Cave but together they decided to elect an administrator of the Cave to a six-month term, later expanded to a year. Toward the end of 2015, Ballour decided to stand for the position. “I didn’t see why I couldn’t be an administrator especially if it was just because of my gender. I am a doctor and they (the two previous male administrators) are doctors. I was in the hospital from the first day, I knew what it needed, I had ideas to expand it, I had a plan.”

Her father and brother advised against it, given that Ballour was already spending all of her days and many nights in the Cave. “My father feared for me but I couldn’t come home,” Ballour says. “There weren’t enough doctors. He told me that people wouldn’t accept me, that I’d face a lot of problems. The next day I nominated myself and was elected hospital administrator.”

Ballour assumed her position in early 2016, a few months after the airstrikes ratcheted up with the arrival of the Russian Air Force in the skies above Eastern Ghouta. The backlash from some patients and their relatives was swift and predictable. “What I heard from a lot of the men was, ‘What? Have we run out of men in the country to appoint a woman?’ A woman. They wouldn’t say a female doctor, but a woman.”

A petite, gentle woman with a face reminiscent of a Renaissance portrait, Ballour contended with conservatively patriarchal men—mainly patients and their relatives—who challenged her authority to run a wartime medical facility.

“I used to strongly answer back,” she says, referring to the men who would tell her that her place was at home. “I wouldn’t stay silent because when you are right, you are right.… Some of the men would say it’s dangerous, the area is besieged, it’s a difficult job so a man should do it. Why? A woman can also do it, and I did.”

She was fully supported in her efforts by the hospital staff, including Namour. “I couldn’t accept this [patriarchal] talk,” he says. “I’d tell the men: She’s here with us, working day and night whenever we need her while some of the male doctors we all know fled to regime-controlled areas to work in safety. Which do you prefer? It’s not about gender, it’s about actions and ability, and Dr. Amani made many positive changes to the hospital.”

Ballour expanded the Cave, deepening its bunkers and digging tunnels to two small medical clinics in town—and to the cemetery. “We needed to bury the dead but it was too dangerous to be above ground,” she says. “We couldn’t move above ground.”

As the siege tightened and warplanes screamed overhead, there were opportunities to leave through the tunnels, but Ballour didn’t take them. “How could I leave?” she says. “Why did I study medicine and focus on children if not to help people? To be there when they needed me, not to leave when I wanted to.”

The daily casualty toll climbed into the triple digits. The hospital was repeatedly targeted in air strikes that penetrated deep into the Cave, destroying a ward, killing three personnel and wounding others. On one occasion, Ballour had just stepped out of a ward into the corridor when the rockets crashed behind her. “I couldn't hear anything or see anything. The corridor was full of thick dust that was suspended in the air.” When it cleared, she found her dead colleagues: “Their bodies were in pieces.”

Ambulances were struck and rescuers killed as they retrieved the wounded. Assad’s final push into Eastern Ghouta in February 2018 included a chlorine attack. “The smell of chlorine was overwhelming,” Ballour remembers. “I don't have the words to describe what it was like, what we lived, but I want to so that people understand why we left. People were tired and hungry. Many surrendered, including fighters who'd drop their weapons and go toward the regime soldiers. … The army was closing in on us. They weren’t far, we had to flee. We feared they'd kill us if they reached us.”

A UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria would later report that Syrian and allied forces committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the siege and recapture of Eastern Ghouta. Assad’s methods of warfare in Ghouta were “barbaric and medieval,” the UN report said, including “the longest-running siege in modern history, lasting more than five years.”

On March 18, 2018, Amani Ballour and her team evacuated the wounded and abandoned the Cave, but not before the doctor walked through every room and bade it farewell. “I thought about all the people who had passed through this hospital. I was a child when the building that would become the hospital was built, and I later worked in it for six years. We were besieged there, attacked there, we saved and lost lives there. I had so many memories in that place, most of them painful but we had good times too. It was very, very painful for me to leave the hospital.”

She walked away with nothing but the clothes on her back, leaving behind the cherished white coat that she’d worn since she was a medical student. “It was so bloody that I couldn't take it with me,” she says. “It was very special to me.”

Ballour and several of her family members and colleagues including Namour initially fled to nearby Zamalka, a suburb of Damascus, but there was shelling there too. Ten days later, Ballour was again on the move, this time to Idlib province in northwestern Syria bordering Turkey, the last rebel stronghold in the country. She’d never been to Idlib before. She moved from town to town in the province, but there was no escaping the warplanes.

She volunteered to help a pediatrician in a village field hospital but couldn’t stay more than a few hours in the facility. “When I looked at the children in Idlib I remembered my children and what happened to them. I couldn't see that again. I was very psychologically drained and tired.”

She was also tired of hearing some in Idlib, mainly Islamist fighters, blame her and others in Eastern Ghouta for what they termed “surrendering” to the regime. After three months in Idlib she fled to Gaziantep, Turkey in June 2018. She married an activist from Daraa whom she’d communicated with while she was in Ghouta but never previously met.

Now, she is safe, but she is not happy. The winter sun streams through her apartment windows. She is no longer underground, but she lives with the bitterness of being a refugee in a foreign land, struggling with the burden of what she survived, and the memories of those who didn’t, especially the children.

“They are in front of my eyes,” she says. “There are children I cannot forget, it’s impossible to forget them. There were children I’d treat in the pediatric ward (for asthma and other ailments) and then I’d see them when they’d been wounded. It was like working on family. I couldn’t look into their eyes when I worked on them. Sometimes I’d crash, I’d break down.”

She still has nightmares and every loud sound reminds her of a warplane. During thunderstorms, she says, if her husband isn’t home he calls her to reassure her that the noise isn’t an airstrike. She replays conversations with some of her young patients, like five-year-old Mahmoud who lost a hand to shrapnel, and through tears asked Ballour why she’d cut it off. “What could I tell him when he asked me that? I cried a lot that day.” And then there was the young boy who lost his arm at the shoulder. “I can still hear him crying out to me, asking me to help him.”

In Syria, Ballour says, she felt useful, like she was making a difference. “Here, I sometimes I feel like I am nothing.” She spends her days volunteering with a Syrian women’s group and studying English in the hopes of immigrating to Canada, but several applications have been rejected.

Ballour intends to continue practicing medicine, but not as a pediatrician. Instead, she plans to shift to radiology, because she says, “I can't psychologically see patients any more, especially children.” It’s a sentiment that Namour understands. “I’m a surgeon who has spent his life in operating theaters, but after the bitter experience that we survived, after the inhumanity and suffering that we saw in Ghouta, I can’t stand the sight of blood or being in an operating theater,” he says, “Even though to me surgery is a technique, like a painter working on a portrait. We survived very difficult days.”

Ballour is finding other ways to help her people. She is involved in a fund, named Al Amal (Hope), to support female leaders and medical workers in conflict zones. She is a strong advocate for helping the millions of displaced Syrians living in tent cities within Syria and the millions more who have become refugees beyond its borders.

The Syrian war has slipped from the news pages but Ballour is determined to inform people about the atrocities she witnessed in a nearly nine-year-long war that is nowhere near over. “I don't want to tell stories to make people cry and get upset, I want them to help,” she says. “There are still so many people who need help.”

And then, there is the issue of justice. The child whose parents were too afraid to tell her about the Hama massacre is now a female doctor determined to widely disseminate her testimony of the chemical attacks on Eastern Ghouta. “I must get this testimony to organizations that can one day hopefully hold the regime to account for this crime,” she says. “I saw it. It happened.”

“The one thing that helps me is knowing that we were in the right, on the right side of history because we opposed injustice,” she says. “My conscience is clear. I had a duty toward people and I fulfilled it as best I could with the means at my disposal. But sometimes I regret leaving and blame myself, but then I say I had no choice. This is the truth of the conflicting feelings inside me. I tried to help, and that helps me, that I was a humanitarian.”

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