Thinking about the villainess manhwa where the mc is just so upset with the original novels ending that she just wills herself in to the story to fix it

I follow some people who talk about baldurs gate 3, and the way the fandom almost largely goes out of its way to babygirl everything astarion does while refusing to give the same leniency to the far less evil characters is baffling.

I feel like Gale, Wyll, and Lae'zel are the ones who often make this the most clear. Under the cut.

Whether it's because of the glitch pre console release or just a general refusal to engage with his story, people like to paint this picture of Gale being some Narcissistic abuser who is only ever power hungry. I've seen people try and justify mystra's actions. Now even if Gale was a young adult when Mystra came to him, Mystra is his goddess. She's in charge of the weave. She had so much more power over him, student/teacher and boss/underling relationships are so looked down upon because of that inherent power imbalance. And I think there's also an implication that this is relatively normal for all versions of mystra to do to younger men.

Elminster isn't free of criticism because he actively brought a young Gale to be groomed into becoming a pawn for Mystra. Gale gets discarded by mystra for his seeming ambition and wants to move on, but is also still desperate to please her in anyway he can, and she tells him to kill himself. I don't understand how people go through his plotline and see him believing the only way he's useful is dead and then just assume he's just power hungry. Is he a bit full if himself? Yes. He's a wizard. They're like that. But he's not the worst person in the world, and he's definitely not the one people should claim as the abuser in his relationship with Mystra.

People call Wyll boring, some paint this idea of him being holier than thou/looking down on everyone around him. Since he was 17 Wyll has given his whole life to protecting people and trying to be a hero. He's self sacrificial, thrown out by his father for making a pact he only made to save the city he adores. Wyll talks so much about baldurs gate. He wants to return.

Wyll has his body altered unwillingly for doing the right thing and yet he never once regrets it. He's made into a devil, the creatures so many of the npcs and companions loathe, for his kindness. He's constantly tricked and mocked by Mizora who we know from the game was sent by Zariel to corrupt a good hearted person. Even still, Wyll is a kind and honest man. He's charming and a bit cheesy but that's fine. Wyll can be incredibly self sacrificial and stubborn in his morals, but if you're running around doing mean things to impress Astarion, you can't blame Wyll for not liking your character and judging you. He's a hero of the people, of course he'd stand with them. We also need to remember he got so heavily redone that he has barely 6 hours of in-game content now. Which is abysmal compared to everyone else.

Lae'zel was raised by a cult, a cult that spans all her people where they're taught to bow and serve a lich queen who promises them glory if they're good enough. She can be harsh and unfriendly, but we need to remember she's the one most aware of what the tadpole can do and with that in mind we know she's very desperate to get things done and cure herself. Next to astarion she's the most evil aligned origins companion, and even still so much of that is due to being brainwashed into a certain belief.

Lae'zel in canon is the youngest companion, very early 20s and it often shows. She's a skilled warrior who doesn't see the need for statements that are already obvious. She's been beaten into shape and filled with ideas that unless she's perfect as the creche commands then she is worthless. She's scared and alone in act 1 with people who most likely don't care about it the same way she does. Lae'zel is imperfect like all the other companions, but if you're willing to accept that astarion is soft under all his bluster, why can't you do the same for Lae'zel?

I don't hate Astarion, I liked him a lot my first playthrough, he was my main romance. But the way the fandom ignores that he's definitely evil in act 1 and 2 because "I just don't see him that way", how people act like he's the only character in the cast who was abused when abuse and the cycles of it are the main theme of the game, how people willfully misunderstand his ascension ending and paint it as his good one when the writers state repeatedly it's not, the way the fandom will insult and demean other characters for jabbing at astarion's trauma but applaud him when he does the same exact thing, when they ignored his racism towards gnomes and gur (which is anti Romani racism repackaged). There's also a chance that in his time, Astarion was a corrupt politician, something making his death more complicated but also adding interest to it that a lot of his fans want to ignore to make him pure.

Astarion isn't perfect, none of the companions are. And they're not supposed to be. But his special treatment by fans is becoming so incredibly tiresome to see.

Happy Storyteller Saturday!!

I know you have a lot of WIPs so this might be fun lol. For each of your 11 active WIPs, try to badly explain their plot in 2-3 sentences in the most amusing way possible!

Oh, I love this!! ❤️

@theimperiumchronicles - The former Princes of Hell think it's a wonderful idea to take on the Four Horsemen, because of course! Waging war against the literal Horseman of War pretty much goes as expected; and now he's really pissed.

@behindthesemasks - Archaeologist gets involved in covert operations and gets brainwashed. Do not fuck with Voodoo. Really do not fuck with the Queen, the ancestors tend to get pissy!!

@bendingthelaws - Crime boss threatens the law enforcement team looking to take him down. That is always a brilliant idea and goes as expected.

@the-andromeda-effect - Fake marrying a supposedly dead woman can be complex. Even more so when someone wants to make her actually dead.

@devil-in-the-details-ay - Falling in love with Death reveals the truth of the past. That truth leads to death, but not for Death.

@magical-mistakes-vm - Magical eugenics is bad y'all. Sibling rivalry while trying to combat it is just a pain in the ass.

@princess-of-thieves-id - Choking a woman makes her hate you, no matter how much you like her later. Being pirates can be fun, though, when the victims are your family.

@tapperhet-em - Trying to hide from the military while also trying not to kill each other from cabin fever is sometimes hard. A lot harder than you'd expect!

@sehnsuchtrising - Chaos ensues as a kingdom falls. The fate of it lies in the hands in a group of the absolute worst people you could choose.

Back to the 20's - Immortal Anna wants to help Rose Solomons protect women and children. Her companion, Jasper, is entertaining Rose's husband, Alfie, who he has to keep reminding himself not to eat.

Bayou Witches - The LaVeau family welcomes in a new Fench Witch. Who knew Voodoo lessons and albino alligators could be fun?!?

I hope you enjoy

SnK 130 Thoughts

My opening joke is going to be a brief description of Historia’s circumstances, because it requires no creative energy on my part to make it a joke.

To review!

107 introduces the concept of Historia being a breeding factory. This is suggested as part of Zeke’s 50-year plan to establish Paradis without it being genocided to death. At the end of 107, present-day Historia is shown to be pregnant.

At the very beginning of 108, the Military Police openly discuss how this is kind of weird. And while the mood is largely in favor of Historia having children so the Founding Titan stays in Paradis control, she’s having a child at a very inconvenient time for everyone, because she’s supposed to eat Zeke before he can cause trouble.

In 114, it is revealed that Zeke’s actual plan is to sterilize all Eldians so they die off and stop being a problem. By virtue of five seconds of pondering, this falls apart when you consider that Zeke’s plan is the beginning of Historia being prepped to breed children. Having any royal children would actively interfere with Zeke’s ability to guarantee that his choices for the Founding Titan would be the last.

In 130, Historia is shown to still be going along with the 50-year concept, and no one is stopping her except Eren, who is against Zeke’s sterilization plan (which a child would stop), and who says that Historia making this kind of choice is what’s driving him to genocide.

To which Historia suggests a baby.

-draws a line back to 107-

-underlines Eren’s angry feelings about all of this-

This would make sense if it were live action and the actress were pregnant.

Not within the story or anything.

But an explanation would at least exist.

I should take up drinking. Or cocaine. Or something.

There’s virtually zero content this chapter. Half of it is just Eren going on rampage. This is how you know it’s the end of a volume for a story that’s ending. The subtle ways the story beats come firing at a machine gun’s pace before slowing to a deliberately controlled crawl.

Surprise, Liberio’s no longer a factor!

-surprised Pikachu faces-

-everyone officially burnt out on violence-

-except Eren-

-this is a problem because Eren is indeed causing the most violence, and violence would probably be a great help in stopping him, so having someone on that boat thinking they should just fucking stab him would be just a little encouraging that’s all I’m saying-

Then we dash straight into a slightly more visible flashback to Eren’s memories of the future being unlocked, and get to the development of his genocide plan.

It isn’t much of a plan.

It mostly still involves genocide.

But worse.

He’s basically going to do what Karl did, only when he tells people on Paradis that all the humans beyond their borders are dead, he won’t be lying. He is keeping the genocide and the mind-wiping, though. In this spirit of how well that worked out previously.

This is a choice.

A bad one.

Even by Eren’s current standards.

This is especially impressive given that he has none.

Alrighty then. Uh.

Here we have Eren’s mission statement. That’s nice?

“The only way to put a final end to the cycle of revenge born from hate... is to remove that history of hate from this world and bury it in the ground, civilization and all.”

Legitimately, Eren’s entire plan amounts to, “The First King was right about everything except not actually making us the last humans alive on the planet.”

See, Zeke’s plan of killing all Eldians off is evil and bad, and Eren is disgusted at the very idea of going along with it.

Eren’s plan of killing everyone else off, regardless of who they are, is a good one.

As is manipulating all of his friends into following it, telling them he hates them, fairly directly letting one of them know this is basically all her fault, and.

.

Look, I’m sorry, but what the fuck?

I mean.

Fuck, do I have to go full Madoka on main?

Here is a brief summary of the third Madoka Magica movie, for those who do not understand the reference: Person who has spent her entire life torturing herself to save one girl feels like she didn’t save the one girl hard enough, and compensates for this mental breakdown by turning into the literal Devil.

These are decisions that can be explained by trauma. The character in question has been through a lot, and arguing that she’s too emotionally stable to undo the universe is harder to do than it feels like it should be.

She still takes the established order of the series and 90% of the movie and drops it in the shredder, leaving the characters who are around and aware of this move to stare, aghast, as the new world order is established.

To catch up the uninitiated, when the new world order is established in the series, it’s a happy ending that ties up all the struggles everyone has been through. Not necessarily neatly, but they’re honored, and the cast continues on.

The new world order of the movie is one character screaming “NO” in various cries for help as she pounds her heart into the pavement and the pavement is everyone else’s quality of life.

..

Anyway, the current reason everyone on the planet hates Paradis enough to attack it is because Eren publicly murdered civilians at a festival with international significance, including the one Eldian in the world with good publicity.

Things weren’t pretty for anyone, but Eren snatches the ball out of the court and throws it into the backyard with vicious guard dogs. He decides to bring everyone into a war, and he decides the initial terms. He makes a violent declaration, and ever since, the story has been devoted to people catching up to him to ask what the fuck his problem is.

As opposed to the usual routine of catching up to him to steal him back from whoever’s kidnapping him that week.

Eren’s the direct cause of this mess.

Fucking Marley doesn’t help, what with their hundred years of brainwashing and titanizing to actively keep the hate of Paradis alive -- but Eren’s the one who turns it into an issue of national immediacy when everyone around him is trying to find more time.

All the while going, “look what you made me do”

Right.

Where it breaks down for me isn’t that it makes no sense for Eren to have fallen this far. This entire series has been destroying him one piece at a time, and I do feel like you could have a very powerful conclusion with Humanity’s Hope turning to Humanity’s Despair, and the people he once inspired having to bear the torch themselves instead of forcing one person to carry their entire future.

Hell, that could still happen. I would still love an ending where Mikasa wraps the scarf around Eren, and he’s finally saved from himself.

What’s aggravating is that as many ominous hints as we’ve gotten about Eren’s monstrous nature throughout the series, there’s just as much material of him loving his friends, and wanting them to be free and happy, and understanding that walls aren’t the only prison.

Angry Eren the Rage Boy is there. He’s even easy to understand, sometimes. OG Ymir’s history inspires a desire for death and destruction. It would be and is wrong, but the impulse isn’t difficult to parse.

He’s more than that. He stays up all night listening to Hange’s theories. Armin’s dreams of the sea catches his mind like wildfire. Fighting Annie even after she’s revealed to be someone who’s ruthlessly murdered his comrades is painful. He wants to believe Reiner and Bertolt are innocent even when they’re making the worst show of hiding it. He smiles every time he sees his friends genuinely happy.

Eren’s rage has always been a direct response to his views of the world. The slavers are monsters. He has no problem killing them. Titans are monsters. He wants them dead. He runs off in Trost and gets his leg chomped off because he’s so upset that a bit character we barely spend time with is being eaten.

“When we’re born... all of us... are free. People who reject that, no matter how strong they are... don’t matter.”

Since leaving his friends in Marley, Eren has rejected the freedom of every single one of them. He doesn’t tell them what he’s up to, but expects them to have his back. He pushes events into motion that nearly lead to all their deaths. He actively lies to Mikasa about how her brain functions. He tells Historia to get on board or have her memory wiped.

The rage and agony and helplessness Eren feels isn’t particularly strange, in my mind. He hasn’t coped with any of the manga’s arcs well, and the few victories he’s been part of have landed him in worse and worse places, emotionally.

The conclusions he’s reaching don’t work.

It isn’t that strange for people to not realize that they’re contradicting themselves, especially when they’re in this frame of mind, but Eren loves his damn friends.

Meanwhile, he’d find it easier to take if Mikasa were attached to him because her bloodline made her do it, but that’s.

Actually, no, that’s relevant.

Eren suggests plot magic chemistry before he considers that Mikasa actually loves him.

He’s a dying man.

He’s condemned himself already. It doesn’t matter what he does, as long as his friends are alive. Anything else -- everything else is secondary. They’ll be alive, and he’ll be dead, and it’s as simple as that.

But it isn’t like he doesn’t know right from wrong. This might be a wrong he can accept on his deathbed, but it’s undeniably wrong.

How horrific is it that people might be so attached to him that he can do all this, and they’ll still fight for him instead of putting him down like the monster he is?

Eren struggles with greys. If he’s willing to be the bad guy, it makes sense for him to commit. He’s rejecting freedom, so by his own rules, he doesn’t matter.

It would be so much easier for him if everyone else agreed on that point.

He seems to be doing what he can to make that happen.

...But that’s just whimsical speculation born of profound pity more than anything. I still have trouble figuring out what his deal is. He’s eviscerating his friends in the name of them surviving, but he still terms his want as them having “long, happy lives.” While actively interfering with both those aims.

This chapter doesn’t seem to leave much room for a secret other plan that Eren is secretly putting into action. That’s been my hope from the beginning, and pretty much every bit of my confusion here is why. The majority of the conflict here comes from Eren deliberately fucking things up. It’s like he accidentally poisoned a bunch of people by using the wrong chemicals to clean up the dead body of the person he killed who totally deserved it, and figured the best following response was to repeat the process.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that the Eren we’re starting to see looks broken beyond all repair, and we’re missing the breaking point. We can puzzle out possibilities and trauma, but at the end of the day he has chosen such a destructive route that it needs more justification within the story.

Personally, I think that this Eren is buying into his own bad press so completely that he’s stopped giving himself freedom. That is my most established take.

The fact that that read play in nicely with Mikasa wrapping the scarf around him and taking him home has very little to do with that except that’s where my brain spends most of its time now, I guess.

.

.

AND NOW WE’RE BACK TO HISTORIA BECAUSE WHY THE FUCK SHOULD I EVER GET TO HAVE A SINGLE MOMENT OF PEACE.

Hell.

I am tired of going over all the ways in which this does not make sense. I am, perhaps, equally tired of how every single time the pregnancy subplot comes up, it manages to get worse.

‘what oh noooo she’s being used to breed an army of royal babies who will eat their mother’ ‘wait nooo she manipulated a guilty childhood bully into fucking her so zeke could live for some strange reason’ ‘oh nooooooooes it turns out she actually goes and fucks npc farmer guy because zeke needs to live for eren to commit genocide and if she doesn’t let eren commit genocide that’s bad for some reason even if she was just saying it’s actually bad for him to commit genocide’

I.

????

Additionally, I realize this chapter has probably reinvigorated people’s theories that Eren is the father, which. um. continues the trend of being worse, because then you have Historia feeling like she’s backed into a corner where fucking the guy who’s about to commit genocide is her only option because if she can’t come up with some good excuse to not eat Zeke he’s going to wipe her memories.

(ETA: Hours later, I sit here remembering he can’t actually wipe her memories until after Zeke shows up. Oops. ...That somehow manages to make all of this make less sense.)

I deeply do not want to discuss that element.

I’m just bringing it up to establish that every way you spin Historia’s situation is fifty shades of rape, and it’s skeevy as fuck along with making no sense.

Glad to know that in two years, literally nothing has come along to make this better or more logical.

That’s vaguely true because it lends more credence to the idea that it’s all a lie, but at this point, the writing is breaking its own back bending over to try and make this work.

“If there is a most reliable way to make sure that this island lives on... I’ll go along with it. There was no other way... But... you defended me back then... everyone acted for my sake... That’s enough for me.”

I’m going to try to explain my problem with this without screaming.

I’m probably going to fail.

The thing is, Historia’s entire arc is about fighting fate.

Her entire arc is about undoing the cycle of abuse her family has perpetuated, breaking free of it to reclaim her identity as a person and forge a better future for the world.

She almost kills Eren for her father’s approval.

When she doesn’t, her commentary isn’t that it’s wrong, or ineffective (though she’s aware of both these elements).

She makes her case very succinctly.

“God?! What a load of bull!! You’re just saying whatever you can think of to manipulate me and save yourself!! That’s it, I’ve had enough! I won’t let you kill me!!”

Replace “save yourself” with something related to Eren, and we have the exact same plot beat we already had, for a character who’s already gone through it.

Historia’s lack of agency would be bad enough on its own.

The entire focus of the pregnancy subplot has been that it causes Eren angst.

We have not gotten Historia’s thought bubbles.

We have received her verbal compliance.

We have had her misery over her situation on display.

This is something for Eren to feel guilty and angry over, not something for Historia to interact with.

On its own, that’s bad.

When you have it attached to a character whose entire arc is about breaking damaging cycles and living a life designed by her own choices instead of following orders and roles, you have a problem.

Historia never tries to resist this fate. Not that we’re shown. She’s clearly terrified, even in the scene where she staidly offers acceptance, but Eren is the one to speak up. She’s miserable whenever we see her pregnant, but every scene with her involves her sadly going along with this thing she clearly does not want. Even when she asks Eren what he thinks about her having a child, she’s unhappy.

This is the first time she’s gotten dialogue of her own in two years.

The first little bit is her shrugging at her inevitable suffering.

The second bit is being appalled at Eren’s everything.

Then somehow we land at her proposing her inevitable suffering.

Which...

How does that help??? Anything???

My answer to that is that I’m Team Fake Pregnancy, and Historia is proposing a hypothetical thing where she ponders how her having a child would play out, but I’m sorry, what?

Eren’s upset about you losing your bodily autonomy.

Among other things, yes, but having a child you’re not enthusiastic about is the entire fucking ignition point of this fucking fuckening idiocy how is it that NEITHER OF YOU ARE IN POSSESSION OF YOUR SOLITARY BRAIN CELL WHAT IN THE  F U C K.

Even if you read it as Historia not having a child with the intent of future cannibalism, but simply having a child to get out of eating Zeke --

Holy fuck is that not better.

It’s still her feeling forced to have a kid because the alternative is lots of people dying.

She’s nineteen.

At the very fucking least this could have the decency to be her story, not a story built around making the main male lead angst enough to commit genocide. At the time of this writing, we are denied that, and while I don’t think this is totally beyond saving, the story the narrative is selling is inexcusable and insulting. The only room for improvement is if we’re actively being misled.

Which is a valid theory, but that doesn’t change my disgust at what we’re being told to believe.

Having Historia simply accept her fate is a sledgehammer to Historia’s entire character development, and Historia’s character development is a microcosm of the guiding themes of the main story. You can’t dethrone her without the manga’s entire thematic significance ringing false.

Also, while I’m here, Eren’s being a fucking prick.

In case that was somehow missed.

'hi historia friendly reminder that i’m only here to commit genocide because you saved my life because like you said you’re the worst’ ‘lol remember that time you said the titans should just kill everyone and i teased you and you said you were caught up in the heat of the moment well guess what i listened to you and everyone’s gonna die thx for the protips’

Anyway.

This is either really good or really bad.

Because Historia does some very stupid things. That is not a writing flaw, it’s a character flaw and feature. She’s impulsive and dumb and realizes things conflict with her principles nine steps into committing criminally negligent homicide, and if that’s how this is all justified...

Hell, I guess I’ll just be tired. Which I already am, so that’s. fine.

It’s funny. This is one of the times I could have gotten away with writing barely anything, since half the chapter is just trailer shots for Eren’s monster movie. Yet here we are, many words in.

I’ve thought a lot today on if I should keep reading or not. One of the things that got under my skin is that I’ve spent a long time coming up with ways for this all to turn out okay. I complain a lot, and certainly lose my temper, but I like to think I stick around because however bad this gets, I have faith that the story’s thesis is that beauty wins against cruelty.

If that’s the case, I want to be here to see it through. I want that high of things being okay when all signs point to nothing ever being okay again.

But it’s been a long day, and I’ve spent two years split between anger and hope that I’m not sure if I feel because I trust the story or if it’s become a habit I’m afraid to break.

Or if it’s because if I did give up, I’d feel insanely guilty for any of the times I’ve tried cheering people up over the bleak things going on in the manga.

I want this to be a happier story than anyone I know thinks it will turn out. I’m an optimist to a degree that people tolerate, but don’t find particularly realistic when gauged against the content.

The main character is on a genocidal march in the name of friends he has broken and betrayed. Friends who can still barely vocalize the option of putting him down.

I don’t know if I want to be here for this.

I don’t think I need to watch more cruelty unfold, no matter how much beauty survives it.

Boruto: Sacrifices [Remade] | Chap.13 - What Matters Most

Written by: Eleanor-Devil & @mirage-05​​

Prologue | Chap.1 | Chap.2 | Chap.3 | Chap.4 | Chap.5 | Chap.6 | Chap.7 | Chap.8 | Chap.9 | Chap. 10 | Chap.11 | Chap.12 | Chap.13 - You’re here

The chill of the earliest hours of the day were gaining upon them as the large group made its way through the woods, as discreetly as possible. But no chill could've rivaled the one that was growing in Sasame's heart at that moment. She couldn't help the way in which her thoughts kept drifting to her husband. It had been twenty years since she had known Hideyoshi, they had met briefly before she left for her mission to find her cousin. He had always been honest, caring... Especially for those younger than him. And he had always been a man of honor... That was the trademark of the Oberatsu after all, their penchant for honor... Why would he attack a child? Was it possible... that she didn't get to know him at all...? "Mama?" The voice of her eldest, Kazuhiro, was enough to snap her out of it. The young boy was looking at her through worried dark brown irises. Sasame's sad eyes took a softer look. "Kazuhiro..." (1) "Are we... going to see my dad again...?" That was the question she had feared. The orange haired kunoichi closed her eyes for a moment as memories flooded her mind...

[Flashback] "I am begging you, you mustn't go!" The woman's eyes showed nothing but desperation as she watched her husband packing his weapons. The arrows, his small bow... And the truth that she could do nothing to stop him made her heart ache, so much so that it was almost unbearable... "This is a great honor. You should understand..." "What is a great honor?" Sasame almost cried out. "To build a village from the ashes of another? Where is the honor in that?" "Our village was destroyed, shunned, cursed... All because of that one cursed ninja who was pardoned for his crimes while we stayed aloof, fending for ourselves - barely..." "And blaming everyone else but ourselves for it!" the woman yelled. "We couldn't form a unity because each one of the clans are too egoistic to put personal matters aside and name a leader for the prosperity of Otogakure! Why should we go wage war on an innocent nation because of this?! Why can't we make allies out of them instead of enemies?!" "No, we suffer because of Orochimaru!" Hideyoshi spat, spinning around to look at her. "And if disrupting his peace meant attacking his former village, so be it! What did that so-called peace treaty bring upon us?! Otogakure was cast aside as if a useless doll - no one gave us a second thought!" "No one has to. We could solve all of our problems ourselves if we had enough backbone and a clever and selfless enough leader!" "That's enough." The man's voice was cold and hard. "You ordered Fuma out of this mission but the others all agreed to it." "And your leader hand-picked you and brainwashed you enough to repeat his own words to me. You can fool anyone but me - your heart is not entirely in this mission, either." Hideyoshi only avoided her gaze for a second, but when he looked back at her, his gaze was determined. "I know where my loyalties lie. Oto will be reformed, brought to glory. If it was to be on the blood of your friend, the Hokage..." His words were like a knife through her heart. "...so be it." Regaining her composure, Sasame straightened her back, her gaze and voice just as cold. "If you get out now... You can't come back as Fuma Sasame's husband." Hideyoshi stopped dead in his tracks as he reached to get out of the tent, and turned to look at her with sad, almost heart-broken eyes... And for a moment, Sasame couldn't even breathe as guilt and sadness washed upon her... [End of Flashback] Sasame opened her eyes with a tear, and saw Kazuhiro was still gazing at her carefully. "Mama..." "Kazuhiro, you have an important mission from now on." she mused softly, looking at the boy with a broken smile. "You are gonna have to take care of your brother and sister..." "He is not coming back..." the young boy stated, not as a question, just as a means of voicing the simple truth. "I'm afraid not, my dear child..." Sasame tried to control the trembling in her voice. "So you will be the one to fill his void... The best as you can..." As he nodded grimly, the woman was wondering how she was ever going to fill the void in her heart... ... The young woman knelt before the other two, who were finishing their preparations. "God dammit! They are here! There are twelve Konoha ninjas out there!" Hearing that, Suzume's heart skipped a beat, her eyes widening. That was what she had feared - although now to think of it, most likely what the Yoshida and the other clans planned when they left her with this punishment. She was a disgrace... If she could manage to go back unscathed, she would be allowed to have a clean slate. If not... It didn't really matter if she died here. She had just counted on the possibility that the Konoha ninjas wouldn't reach Oto this quickly. "Okay, we have to come up with a plan. This means four ninjas for each..." "Wait. Who told you we would be fighting?" The woman's head turned to her comrade. "What?" "They are here for you, not us." the second woman said matter-of-factly. "We are not gonna stand here and risk our skins." "Together we have a better chance against them!" Suzume spat, a fire burning in her eyes. "What makes you think they won't come after you if I don't make it out?!" "Then you better make sure to stop them. After all... that's the least you can do after how you failed so miserably." And with that, the two women sprinted towards the trees, leaving a horrified Suzume behind... ... The forest was quiet. Only sounds of nature waking up surrounded him as Konohamaru walked further into the clearing, his keen eyes searching everywhere, detecting every simple movement. Letting his breath out in one curt sigh, Konohamaru took another step forward... And came to a stop as he felt the sharp and cold tip of a kunai against his throat. "I assume you are looking for me." came the cold, unconcerned voice of a woman behind him. The young jounin didn't even think about it as instinct took over. In one quick motion, he dodged the blade, bent down on his knees and spun around to kick the woman's legs out from under her. Then he jumped back a little to put some distance between them and as the woman got up, he got his first glance of her. And he did take in all aspects of her appearance... Recording all of the details of this hated woman into his memory... from her black hair tucked back into the bandana of her protector with only two bangs falling before her eyes to the black eyes, black as coals... "Yoshida Suzume." he practically spat out her name, his voice filled with so much disgust. "I am here to exact justice on you for the crimes you committed against Konoha." His eyes narrowed. "And for harming my student." The woman chuckled. "Oooh, how touching... But for that..." There was a flash of light, and the next second the brunette looked, Suzume was no longer standing a few feet away from him. "...you have to catch me first." came her voice from above, from the canopy of trees. ... "Lord Sixth," Kakashi heard Kiba's voice in the ear piece. "We are closing in on them. What is our next..." Before he could finish, there was an explosion of a loud, high-pitched and ringing sound and Kakashi had to pull out the earpiece in the nick of time to protect his hearing. As the powerful blast died down slowly, the former Hokage brought the piece to his ear once again. "What is going on? Is everyone alright?" No sound came, only a weird buzzing. Cursing under his breath, he did a quick hand seal, and was suddenly surrounded by lightning... ... "You moron!" The woman ran to her friend. "I told you not to do it! You're still not an expert on sound blasts!" The woman on the ground tried to get up, but it was apparent that she wasn't doing a good job - her balance was too set off. "We needed to stop them - they were about to catch us!" Hearing a buzzing sound, the other looked up and around, gritting her teeth. Nothing could be seen, but she was sensing a powerful chakra... an insanely powerful chakra. "Good luck with that, you idiot! I'm out of here!" "What?!" the woman yelped, positively alarmed. "Wait!" But the former had already started to disappear through the trees. Clenching her jaw, the woman got to her feet, slowly, shakily... Her hands then moved to the crossed swords on her back, extracting two thin and long swords.

If it had to come down to a fight, they might as well have a taste of the Fujaku Hisho Shoken. (2)

... So that was how she wanted to play it, huh? He had made his plan as soon as she got lost between the trees. Without wasting any time, Konohamaru used a fire jutsu to create a huge fire wall in front of him, then punched the ground, which caused a whirlwind to be born. Using the air currents to his advantage, the jounin then sent the whirlwind, powered by the flames, directly to the cluster of trees. She wouldn't just stand around to get roasted. She would have to come down. Sure enough, he saw a flash of blue that probably meant she was using a water technique to meet the inferno. Light smoke began covering the area - which gave him a chance to prepare his second attack. Inhaling, the brunette let out a huge cloud of ashes from his mouth and then, jerking his head back to activate the trigger, he watched as flames instantly covered the area... A huge explosion went off, illuminating the dark sky. Konohamaru then took out eight shurikens, one in between each finger, and waited... "Geez, you're indeed going all out, aren't you?" Turning around quickly, he saw the woman for a moment before he threw half of the shurikens at her, but the next he looked, she wasn't there at all. "That kid must have really meant something to you." Turning to the second direction, Konohamaru threw the second group of the shurikens. Suzume tut tutted, her voice almost sounding like she was enjoying herself. "Now now, these rash actions won't do, will they?" "You bit-" "Hey, watch out that tongue. This is not how you talk to a lady." "News flash, I will never consider you a lady." "Hah. Guess I will have to show you, do I? Torpedo Nails!" When he heard that, the brunette jumped into the air and away from where he was just standing, just as small pieces of whatever weapon she was using embedded themselves into the ground. Not wanting to take any chances, Konohamaru put his hands together to create shadow clones. Precariously, three of the clones walked forward. As soon as they tried to take another step, though... They couldn't. Then hundreds of nails shot from the ground, and Konohamaru jumped behind a tree as the clones disappeared with a poof sound. Suzume had also hid herself behind a tree, hiding with the camouflage technique. Damn, this wouldn't do... She needed some extra help. ... Just before she used the swords to launch herself into the air, she saw someone, someone shrouded in a bright armor of lightning as it seemed, running into the clearing she had just been. Okay... lightning shouldn't be hard. Landing on a branch, the woman quickly did a set of hand signs, and then held her hands in a triangle, positioning them so that she could see the person in between them. "Curse Mandala!" she shouted, and her opponent came to a dead stop as a glowing green pyramid shape materialized around him, trapping him inside. Smirking, the woman began pulling her fingers closer. As the pyramid got tighter and tighter, though... Suddenly there was a poof sound, and the man was no longer there. "Excuse me," then came a drawl from behind her, and she immediately turned back, only to gaze into the face of a white haired man. "But I think you got the wrong one." Thinking quickly, the woman used the swords to slash at him, but next she saw, he was not there. Losing her already unsettled balance, she fell from the tree, but thanks to her wind cutter technique, she landed safely. "Passing Fang!" Without catching her breath properly, she saw something... a ferociously spinning something, which looked like a drill, heading to her way and raised her swords to counter it, but hard... it was so hard to maintain her ground like this... The power forced her to take a few steps, driving her back. Gritting her teeth, she tried her best to resist it... But it was futile. Not long after that, she felt the force of the technique throwing her back, like a rag doll, right into a rock. As she tried to get up, bringing a hand to her head, she heard the two men talking among themselves. "Are all of you okay, Kiba? What happened back there?" "It was nothing we couldn't handle, Lord Sixth, we were just caught unprepared for a second." Lord Sixth?! The woman's eyes widened. Did... a village leader... come seeking them out?! Well, shit. "That's right. I'm the Sixth Hokage, Hatake Kakashi, and it’s not possible you could escape judgement after attacking the Leaf." she heard the drawl once again as she straightened herself up. "It would be in your better interest if you surrender now without resistance..." "Well... I'm sorry, Rokudaime-sama," the woman said from between gritted teeth, emphasizing the last word sarcastically. "But I'm Kamiko from the Yoshida clan, and the Yoshida knows no such thing as surrender." She then brought her hands together to create balls of flame and threw them randomly towards the space between them, causing explosions and creating an opening for her to go into hiding. On Kakashi's signal, Kiba jumped towards the trees to take another place. "If you think you can run from us forever, think again." the former Hokage said, bringing his hands together to create lightning. Out of the charge came two hounds, who growled at him in recognition before running away. ... Suzume bit her thumb and let a bit of blood trail from the wound before slamming her hand on the ground, creating a black shape. "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" A huge, poisonous green and yellow snake erupted from the ground, coiling around itself before meeting her eyes. "Kessha, bury him to the ground!" Hissing once, the snake rose high into the air before slamming on the earth with a huge bang that shook almost the entire forest, and slid underground. Konohamaru had heard her move. Acting quickly, he also slammed his palm on the ground and yelled, "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" A huge monkey wearing a Konoha headband appeared in front of him, and as soon as he did, he yelled, "Jump!" Without hesitation the brunet did as he was told, and just when he jumped, a snake burst through the ground, baring his fangs at him. With a primeval shriek, the monkey transformed itself into a long, black and yellow staff and cloned itself right before Konohamaru landed, creating some sort of a prison wall in front of him. The snake's bared fangs collided with the many staffs that had made the wall, but the prison itself wasn't even shaken. At that time, the snake caught the eyes that were protruding from the staff, and its eyes widened. Without going for another attack, it slid back into the hole and disappeared from the view. The staff returned to its original size, releasing Konohamaru from where he was trapped, and the jounin held the staff in one hand in an attack pose while reaching for a kunai with the other. "Enma..." (3) "No words needed, boy. Better not let your guard down." the monkey king spoke from the staff. "We have faced this enemy before." ... The woman's eyes widened when she saw Kessha returning to her. "What do you think you are doing?! Keep attacking, he is not dead yet!" "Are you serious?!" the snake asked in a feminine voice, obviously furious and panicked. "You want me to fight with the fucking monkey king Enma?! Are you out of your mind?!" "So what?!" Suzume yelled, equally pissed off. "Stop being a hebiko (4), and finish them off!" ... "Wait, what do you mean we faced them before?" Konohamaru asked with a frown, thoroughly confused. "You remember back when you summoned me in the orphanage attack?" Enma's arm stretched out from the staff and he touched the adamantine with it, as if tapping his nose. "My nose never failed me. That snake the woman just used was one of those who were present in that attack." For a moment, the brunet didn't even know what to say. "W-what...?" "As you just heard it," the monkey said, glancing at him. "This woman was definitely involved in the attack against Konoha." Konohamaru's mind was reeling, so many questions and thoughts... What did this even mean? That the Sound was once again playing as Orochimaru's pioneers? Was there an even greater scheme behind all of these? Or... he didn't want to think of this, but he was a jounin and he was supposed to look at it from all angles, no matter how disturbing they might be... Was there a possibility... that the sannin wasn't involved in it... at all? He was lost in thought for a moment, he didn't notice the impending threat until Enma called out. "Watch out!" Looking up just in time, the brunette used the staff to ward off the lights, but one of them came too close to his arm, and he hissed in pain as something seared it. Then he heard the woman's high, cold laughter. "Uh oh, guess we just got busted, aren't we?" she said in a sing-song voice, which irritated the man even more. "You couldn't deny the mastermind behind the plan, though, admit it! You numb skulls didn't even suspect a thing!" "What the hell are you talking about?!" "Did you know it took us a lot of time to finally copy that damned curse seal so we can frame that bastard? It was no easy feat, and even harder to create three snakes all at once - just a couple of months ago I could only call forth two." "You..." words were failing him, he was so outraged. There was a whoosh sound right behind him then, and using the kunai he drew out earlier, he slashed, only to meet the air. “Oooh wait… did I see that blade somewhere before?” These words drew the young man’s gaze back to the kunai, and he did a double-take. He hadn’t even realized he pulled out the kunai he had gifted Mitsuki the one he found, still buzzing with lightning, on their way out of the village. His grip only tightened more on the blade as he heard the woman laughing once again, only her voice sounded from far away. "Wait, just answer me this... was that child in some way related to that snake bastard? I thought as much when he looked up at me... Was that the reason you guys kicked him out of the village? Wow, now even we couldn't have planned that!" "What does it matter if he is related to him or not?" Konohamaru yelled in rage, creating another set of clones. "He is still a child!" He then used the clones to throw shurikens towards the woman's voice from all directions. "Did you know that he begged for his life?" the woman then said, from right behind him. This time, his body acted before his mind. Lightning fast, he reached out to grab the woman's shoulder and flipped himself over her in one quick motion. As soon as he landed, still holding on to her, he threw her over himself, basically slamming her into the ground. Without giving her a chance to recover, grabbing the adamantine staff tightly, he brought the end of it, hard, to Suzume's head, seeing her eyes widening in shock. "Cranium crusher!" Just before the staff touched her, though, the woman had disappeared in a flash. The jounin stood there for a moment, enraged. How the fuck did that just happen?! A few feet away, crouched behind a rock, the Oto kunoichi brought a hand to her chest. That... had been close. ... Hearing the growls of the lightning beasts as they drew closer, Kamiko gritted her teeth, she had to do something about them - fast. Turning around, she once again used the swords to create powerful air blasts - slice after another slice - and sent them after the hounds. Easily dodging them, one of them came running at her, its fangs bared, at which the woman dug one of the swords to the ground, swinging around it and kicking the air currents at the creature's face. Although it stopped the hound, its lightning did catch her left foot and the woman cursed as she knelt on the ground, holding it. Damn, this was going to make things hard for her. Hearing a sound right then, Kamiko took a dozen shurikens and threw four of them randomly, towards the cardinal directions. She saw a ninja rushing towards her from one direction, and she pulled the strings attached to the shuriken to make it fly towards the enemy, but the weapon passed through him and the body disappeared. A clone... The real ninja then jumped her from a completely different direction, forcing her to get up, which caused pain to shout up through her left leg. She didn't have time to concentrate on it, though, as she saw the opponent's fist soaring towards her face. So he was going to rely on taijutsu, huh? Well, that was just fine with her. Gathering chakra to the tips of her fingers, she prepared to launch her attack. This was meant to cause the sound waves emitted by the body, the heartbeat for example, to respond to her chakra and make a pressure powerful enough to cause some serious damage. Bonus points if she managed to hit the enemy in the chest area. So they fought, but her opponent was good. It was apparent that he was very skilled, as he managed to dodge her every move. Her hand did come close to his body once or twice, but caused nothing more than a flinch. Just when she made another move, the ninja suddenly brought up his left arm and right leg and before she knew it, her arm was caught in between them. A crack was heard. Crying out loud from the pain, Kamiko fell on the ground, holding the broken arm. Seeing that the man was still advancing, she tried to reach one of the swords using her left arm... Out of nowhere, tiny wires wrapped around the sword and before she could touch it, the weapon broke into tiny pieces. Eyes widened in shock, she turned around herself to reach for the other, but before she could do that, a powerful blast of power sent her flying. Just when she was about to get up again, she felt something... a powerful, burning electric surge directed to her back, not piercing it, but its presence so threatening that she found it impossible to even take another step... "Chidori. A thousand birds." came the voice of the sixth behind her. "One hit and you will die the worst death... Suffering as your insides burned on with hundreds of volts." Feeling the kunoichi shiver before him, Kakashi continued in the same cold tone. "Surrender now. It's over." There was really nothing else she could do. Slowly, cursing under her breath for it... She raised her hands up. ... Suddenly hearing a buzz from his ear piece, Konohamaru concentrated on it, while his keen eyes searched everywhere for Suzume. "We are done here, Konohamaru. It's all up to you now." Hearing that, a big grin etched its way on his face. That was it... "Did you hear that?" he yelled towards the woman, although he knew that she probably didn't. "Your little friend is finished. You are all alone now!" "Oh. Just like how you left that kid alone?" came the woman's voice. "I know what you did. I know how you trapped him so we couldn't hear him!" "Bet you didn't know how he was crying when we were finished with him, though?" came her whisper from right behind him then, and for a moment... everything came to a stop as the jounin froze... literally froze. He didn't believe her other words from before... He knew Mitsuki would never beg for his life and he knew for sure that no matter what that woman believed, he wasn't sent away from Konoha, Lord Seventh would never allow that... But... he... was crying...? How deeply must he have been hurt - not just physically but emotionally too - after what he had gone through in the village...? And they could do nothing to stop it... He himself had failed as his sensei... "Boy look out!" he heard Enma's voice, but then it was too late. He hadn't noticed Suzume sneaking up behind him. There was an explosion and Konohamaru felt himself thrown into the air, with a burning pain in his back. He landed a few feet away, and brought a hand to his wounds as he tried to get up. Enma was beside him in a second, with a disapproving look on his face. "Didn't I tell you not to get distracted? Zoning out is the last thing you would want to do with someone like her around! Get a grip already!" "I-I know," the brunet mumbled. "I'm fine..." Then he once again heard the voice of the Lord Sixth coming from the earpiece, although his tone was harsher than before. "Konohamaru. If you are going to be careless, I will have to step in." Then his voice softened a little. "You have come this far this good. You wanted to fight her alone. Don't let me take this chance away from you now." Those... were just the words he needed. Closing his eyes, Konohamaru straightened himself and got up, forgetting about the pain for a moment to concentrate on ending this. Focusing on his chakra, he called upon a rasengan... A big one... and watched it as it got bigger... [Flashback] ...this... this was not happening... It felt like time had stopped, trapping Konohamaru inside his own personal hell as he watched, too shocked to even breathe, his student... passing away... right before his very eyes… What he wouldn't give to be dying in Mitsuki's place right now... He was too young... Just barely thirteen... He did not deserve this - he deserved to live!... "...Sh... Shall I announce the time...?" When he heard the nurse... all of a sudden, he snapped back to life. Without seeing eyes, he strode to the door and burst it open, rushing inside... Two of the nurses managed to barely stop him before he reached the bed, and Konohamaru tried to control his breathing as he looked at an unmoving Mitsuki. "Konohamaru-san, please..." one of the nurses mumbled, tearing up. "Mitsuki!" the jounin yelled, barely recognizing his own voice, filled with so many emotions. "You can do this, kiddo, don't give up! You are so much stronger than this! Come back to us!" "Konohamaru-san, please you have to step back...!" said one of the nurses, she barely had the strength to push back a man like Konohamaru and he was clearly not accepting his student's death but... there was nothing more they could do...! The kid... was gone... his heart didn't respond... "Tsunade-sama...?" murmured the second nurse, looking at the former Hokage. "Wait... wait just a second..." Sakura mumbled in Tsunade's place, her eyes still on the machine. "Sakura-san... It might be too much already..." One of the nurses warned her. "No... no, please... please don't give up on him... He's strong, he'll pull through... I'm begging you, please don't give up..." Konohamaru said, almost as if in a trance. "Let's just leave the child in peace..." another nurse said, her voice shaky. Tsunade snapped back to herself and hastily hushed the nurse, staring at Sakura. "Sakura-san..." But as the nurse was about to mumble the same words as before... a tiny but sudden sound erupted from the machine, causing everyone's eyes to immediately set at it. As the heart rate slowly, very slowly fell back to a steady rhythm, Sakura broke into a smile, and laughed softly, while tears fell down from her eyes. "You really do like your surprises, don't you?" she mused fondly, leaning over to kiss Mitsuki on the top of his head. A tear fell on the closed eye of the child. Tsunade smiled too, but it was a broken smile. "Really, kid... I'm not a young woman anymore, don't scare us like that..." Konohamaru was hit by such a huge wave of relief that he almost couldn't stand his ground. He brought his hand over his mouth as he began to softly cry himself. He didn't object this time as the nurse told him he should really wait outside, and silently retreated out of the room, his eyes on Mitsuki all the time. [End of Flashback] He heard a sliding sound, trees crushing as the giant snake once again made her way to him. His eyes, however, were locked on the woman, who stood behind the beast, a disgusting smirk all over her face... And Konohamaru stroke forward. He swung the adamantine staff towards the snake, enlarging the staff. Enma burst out at the end of it, wrapping his arms around the snake before he pierced her throat with his fangs. And before she could do anything... Konohamaru had grabbed the woman by her collar, slamming her into a tree... Suzume's eyes widened for one last time before the rasengan hit her chest with full force. It was over... ... Enma turned to his normal form as the other Konoha ninjas gathered around, all just silently looking at the brunet. The monkey king had a small smile on his face, his look both exasperated and proud. 'You have quite the grandson, Sarutobi...' he thought to himself. ... Dropping the woman's body to the ground, the jounin looked at her expressionlessly, feeling only... relieved... a whole... [Flashback] Konohamaru felt so proud of his students... The second round of the Chuunin exams was over, and they had managed excellent teamwork. Much better than what he expected, really, what with Boruto being Boruto... Speaking of which, he noticed two genins in his team were approached by their family, receiving cheers and congratulations, big smiles on their faces... and of course, Boruto had been in a gloating mode... The next thing he noticed was his third student... standing all by himself, a couple of feet away from them, just looking at his two teammates and their families with a small smile. And something about that bothered the young jounin. About how Mitsuki had no one to cheer for him, at least for that moment... Making his decision, he started walking towards him. The blue haired boy was surprised when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around to gaze into the smiling face of his sensei. "Well done, kiddo, great job," Konohamaru said encouragingly. "I knew you guys would do it." And slowly, the boy's face broke into a full-on smile as well... [End of Flashback] 'Thank you... sensei...' Hearing the faint voice brought by the wind itself, the brunet's eyes widened for a moment. Before he knew it, he had fallen on his knees beside Suzume's body, his head bowed low as he started weeping softly, and the sun's first rays began seeping through the trees...        

--

A.N:

(1) Remember or note down these names. They are gonna be very important in the following projects. (2) You can search this and almost all of the technique names listed on this chapter on Narutopedia. (3) This Enma is the Enma who was Hiruzen's personal summon. We do not use Konohamaru's canon summons, the toad or the monkey, in our storyline. (4) This literally means snake child, but I used it here to mean "baby snake", as in Suzume telling Kessha to stop acting like a scared baby.

Devil May Cry OC Week: Mercenaries (4/4) Trickster and Gunslinger

The week’s not over until I say so

Agent ???? [Trickster]

If you guys have thoughts on any names I’d love to hear them. I’ve got nada. 

Created a contract with the disgraced demon of the Malebranche: Draghignazzo 

He was responsible for punishing religious figures in the 8th Circle of Hell until he became greedy 

Draghignazzo feels cheated, now wants to become stronger to rise above his original rank 

Trickster agreed to form a contract so she would never have to fear vulnerability for the rest of her life, promising to help her familiar get stronger through the consumption of red orbs

His current form really is that tiny compared to Trickster (at least until he shapeshifts but that ability is temporary since he is weak)

He chose to appear as an umbrella to blend in and fit Trickster’s aesthetic 

Unlike the other three, Trickster has not had traumatic experiences with demonic attacks, is instead plagued by the manipulation of the church

Think of the brainwashing mentality those intense bible-thumping churches/religions have.  

She is incredibly paranoid of deities/religious beings watching her every move, reading her mind

Hides her anxiety by behaving apathetically (plus Draghignazzo grows to become rather soft on her and cracks jokes to try and make her feel better)

She is bitter with her childhood classmate now teammate/begrudging friend (Gunslinger) as he continues to participate in the church’s worship

She is not aware that he is also a victim of said church, just handles it differently 

Is an orphan. Doesn’t remember her parents. Her maternal aunt and uncle took her in

Forced her to participate in the church since she was young

Being rebellious since she could walk, Trickster often acted out, and her aunt placed her in a private school under the same church where she met Gunslinger

Trickster is human(?)

Has to have some magical ability since she was able to summon a demon as chaotic and shifty as Draghignazzo

Or so he thinks

Trickster says it’s because he was desperate for attention

She is able to summon other demons without forming any contracts, but cannot form a bond with them if she doesn’t, so her only current familiar is Draghignazzo. 

She is short. Like 5′2″.

If you joke about it prepare to get swatted on the butt

She is quiet but always watching. Always judging. Past classmates believed she was mute.

Trickster is an adult. 19 at the youngest. 

Insists on calling Draghignazzo by his full name

Agent ???? [Gunslinger]

Exactly 5′11″ 

Says he doesn’t care but every now and then he wears shoes with a heel to feel 6ft+ (Never reaches Royalguard’s height though)

100% Human

“What’s a Sparda? Like...from the movie?”

Once he starts hanging out with Royalguard, the smell of strong demon gets stuck on him for a bit. Demons with the ability to speak sometimes confuse him as another descendant of Sparda especially because of the white hair and blue eyes. 

Will become targeted when this happens. He hates it and doesn’t know why it happens. 

Is one of four children from a very wealthy and very conservative southern family.

His dad would take him hunting, introducing Gunslinger to all types of firearms. 

Responsible for starting his collection.

His family also has plenty of military veterans including his two older brothers who are active. Gunslinger’s grandparents expect him to join too, but he has other plans.

Looks up to demon hunters like Lady the way children do to Wonder Woman or Superman 

Grew up in the same church as Trickster but has only positive memories, though the more he thinks about his past there the scarier it seems...

Is currently stuck in that awkward phase of not completely believing the church anymore but saving face for the sake of his family who are die-hard worshippers. 

His family was not cruel, but not affectionate either. It’s why he’s drawn to extroverts and friendly people.

Is VERY. VERY. TOUCH-STARVED. 

Thought Trickster was weird growing up but after participating in several group projects (they were in the same classes) he was fascinated with her points of view. 

Saw the demon hunting mercenary work as a win-win. His parents are more or less content with him working alongside the military, he gets to use his firearms, and lives out the very naïve of being a hero. 

Grows his hair out since he couldn’t when he lived with his parents. Loves messing with it and braiding it. It is naturally white. 

He’s also figuring out his own style, hence the polo shirt and Hot-Topic pants and wallet chain.

Was a little insecure about his freckles but once Trickster made the off-handed comment that they’re cute, he started to like them. 

She does not remember this (it did happen)

Sees Draghignazzo as a satanic chihuahua. 

Because of his wealthy background, he doesn’t blink when he has to pay a lot to have things custom made. Nico likes to exploit this. 

Was exceptional in his archery club back in high-school. Is a fantastic marksman even now. 

Is interested in cosplay.

King Falls AM Episode Twenty-One: Swimmin’ With Kingsie

King Falls AM Transcript

Episode 21: Swimmin’ With Kingsie

Run time: 23:38

First Aired: Mar 1, 2016

Summary: Reverend Xavier Hawthorne unveils his newest plan for King Falls and the boys get a worrisome call from Lake Hatchenaw.

(For a list of characters and references from this episode see the end of this post)

[King Falls AM theme plays, transitioning into mildly creepy piano music]

Commercial: Sometimes in life things don’t go as we have all planned. Sometimes in life it’s easy to get discouraged when plans change. Do you get discouraged when plans change? We don’t. I’m Leland Hill of the Science Institute. Perhaps you’ve heard of us because of the help we do for families and people in need. Locally, globally, internationally. Or maybe you’ve only heard of us because of the suppressive media attacking myself, Science Institute founder Roland Northwoods, and other Science Institute alumni. Or maybe you’re just lost and looking for help in the dark and scary world. Possibly your inner consciousness is reaching out into the unknown, looking for answers. Why are we here? What’s the meaning of life? Why is a medium drink the size of a small bucket at fast food restaurants? Whatever you seek, just know, the Science Institute can help you. We want to help you. We will help you. We are here, King Falls. 

[King Falls theme plays]

Sammy: The Science Institute? Really?

Ben: Keeps the lights on, Sammy.

Sammy: You’d think they could get one of their Hollywood brainwashed pals to at least read their propaganda instead of the ghoulish Leland Hill.

Ben: He does give me the willies but he is also paying the bills!

Sammy: Absolutely! And I’m sure the advertisement budget he’s paying Merv is a drop in the bucket compared to that old compound they’re finishing on Old Bombing Range Road.

Ben: I can see that you are trying your hardest to stay on their good side, Sammy, but let’s stay on track here.

Sammy: (laughs) You got it, we absolutely can, and should, keep it on the rails, I’m sorry. 

Ben: Ooh, that’s the hot-line right on time. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the good Reverend Xavier Hawthorne calling in to tell us about his new venture as well as hopefully taking calls from you lovely listeners!

Sammy: New venture? Did God start paying less?

Ben: (Clearing his throat) Good evening, Reverend Hawthorne! Thank you so much for working us into your busy schedule.

[Reverend Hawthorne dramatic organ intro music]

Deacon Reggie: Ladies and gentlemen of King Falls, please put your hands together, get those hands a clapping, like the girls asses be clappin’ up in the club, put' em together for the one, the only, Reverend… Xavier… get right with Goooood, Hawthorne! Deacon Reggie, out! (Sound of a high five) Go get ‘em, brother.

Hawthorne: (very quietly) Oh Deacon Reggie, thank you so much for that lovely introduction! Appreciate you, fam!

Sammy: Hi, Reverend Hawthorne… and Deacon Reggie.

Hawthorne: Reggie can’t hear ya, he’s going back to his bunk on the bus. He’s got the gift of God though, don’t he?

Ben: That he does! How are you doing this evening, Reverend?

Reverend: Blessed to be here, Benjamin, Samuel. Gentlemen, how are you doing tonight? I said, how are you doing?

Ben: We’re… we’re well.

Sammy: (Laughing) Not too shabby. H-how are you?

Reverend: Very well, very well indeed. I’m sorry it took so long to get this calling to happen. I’ve been a busy, busy man of God these days.

Ben: Indeed you have, Reverend. Is the tent revival business still going well?

Reverend: Where there are sinners there is always a need for salvation. And where there is salvation, there is Reverend Xavier get right with God Hawthorne’s stomping out the devil revival. You got to stomp out that nasty devil! Just stomp him out!

Sammy: You know, you should have that on t-shirts.

Reverend: Already do! Nineteen ninety-nine each or two for forty dollars. You have a keen eye for marketing, Samuel, a keen eye.

Sammy: Reverend Hawthorne, there was mention of you in the King Falls Gazette a week or two back about you possibly settling down in King Falls. Is there any merit to that claim?

Reverend: Now Samuel, I hate to speak out of turn, but let me just say that good things come to those who wait. And good old Xavier has been a waiting a long time to find a parish to call his own. And glory be I think we might have struck a deal at the King Falls First Old Baptist Church!

Ben: Oh wow, so that would-

Reverend: Can I get an amen, brothers?

Ben: A...men?

Reverend: Our prayers have been answered! Just as soon as the check clears the bank…

Sammy: So you signed a deal that would keep the road show-

Reverend: Ah! Stomping out the devil revival!

Sammy: Stomping out the devil revival with a permanent home in King Falls?

Reverend: Well, we’d still tour. That sneaky devil is always popping his head up where he shouldn’t. The ultimate game of wack-a-mole. And you’d better believe we’ll be there to whack him down every time! Every time, devil! Whack-whack-whack!

Sammy: But…

Reverend: But yes, we will have the church as our home base. Praise be!

Ben: Isn’t the First Old Baptist Church a little… what’s a good way to say this… 

Reverend: Oh it’s a sinkhole waiting to happen! But that’s where we come in, Benjamin. We’re going to raise some money from the good folks of King Falls, and we’re going to build that cheeple steeple into the megachurch that the Holy Trinity, that the town of King Falls, and Xavier Hawthorne deserves! 

Sammy: Huh.

Ben: A megachurch? Those are like stadium size churches, right? How will that ever fit on the corner lot First Baptist is on now?

Reverend: Where there is a God’s will, well don’t you know, there's an entrepreneurial way. Eclesiastes 1, 5 through 7.

Sammy: Now Reverend, for those residents who don’t go to church, but would still like to know that they’re helping an institution that will help out their fellow man-

Reverend: I hear the doubt in you, Samuel! And it is strong. And it is scary. I don’t want to go Yoda on you, but you don’t want none of the dark side funk on your everlasting soul, son!

Sammy: Right. Back to the question, I’m assuming that the church will be actively putting money and good will back into the town. Is that correct?

Reverend: You’d better believe it, Sammy. But there’s no other reason to do it than to help out all of God’s children.

Sammy: Some more than others? 

Reverend: We’ll be doing outreach programs, food for the needy, clothes for the poor. We’re working on a deal to rent out the old dilapidated putt-putt place right next to the church as well.

Ben: Oh man! Sir Putts-a-Lot? That was the place to go back when I was in middle school!

Reverend: Sadly, I don’t think it’s seen many good years since then. But we’re going to try to refurbish and reopen as a money making venture for the folks, like you’re speaking of, Sammy, that don’t do church. Now, we’ll be Christian themed, but it’ll still be fun for the non-believers.

Ben: Oh man, I can’t wait. Sammy, the eight hole at Sir Putts-a-Lot was-

Reverend: (Loudly) Glory Holes!

Ben and Sammy: What?!

Reverend: Glory Holes- mini golf for a mighty God. We opened one in Tuscaloosa back in 2013. It’s a proverbial gold mine for God.

Ben: Okay, well that’s… that’s an interesting choice of words.

Sammy: (laughing) I can’t wait to go to Glory Holes! Do you have an approximate grand opening date? You know, that’s something that should be marked on every calendar in town. I’d like to mark it on every calendar in town, actually.

Reverend: As I’ve said, checks have to clear, hands need to be shaken, and prayers need to be answered. We’ll see, but it should be sooner than later, boys.

Sammy: I had questions, but you know what… I can’t follow that. 

Ben: Reverend, would you mind sticking around and taking some calls with us?

Reverend: Absolutely! Anything to spread the good word and the gospel.

Sammy: You heard Xavier’s story, kids, now let’s hear yours. Give us a call at the studio, (424)279-358.

Ben: Uh, before we go to the phone lines! Does God ever, like, intervene in matters of the… heart?

Sammy: Ben.

Ben: You know what I mean. Rev, like, if a boy likes a girl, but the boy made a real righteous ass- excuse my language- out of himself to save the girl from another boy’s affections… creepy, creepy affections?

Sammy: This sounds familiar, Ben. Is this anybody we know?

Ben: I’m asking for a friend.

Sammy: Right.

Ben: So, Reverend, I- I don’t really know how this works, like, if my friend, uh, prays really hard will he-

Sammy: Tilt the odds in his favor.

Ben: Exactly!

Reverend: You know, Benjamin, I think it starts with having a personal relationship with your lord and savior, Jesus Christ, and then feeling it out from there.

Sammy: I think it works for wars and football teams all the time. Give it a shot, Ben.

Ben: Can’t hurt, right?

Sammy: The phone lines are lit up, Buddy.

Ben: Right, uh, right. Heh, we can talk about that later, Rev.

Sammy: Lucky line one, you’re on King Falls AM with the Reverend Xavier get right with God Hawthorne.

Caller: Hey, Sammy. Hey, Ben. Hey, Rev.

Sammy: Ron Begley! How are you doing, sir? Long time no talk!

Ron: Doing just fine, Sammy! Just fine!

Ben: Do you have a question for Reverend Hawthorne?

Ron: Sure thing. Now, Reverend Hawthorne, what would the going rate be to rent old Glory Holes for a private putting party? I got an ex-life partner Bruce looking for a place to get hitched to his fiance, Larry, who happens to be a golf pro.

Reverend: Whoa, now!

Ron: Hello?

Reverend: I’m sorry, Bruce and Larry?

Ron: Yeah! Do you know ‘em? They’re all kinds of religious.

Reverend: You know, I have to get with our finance manager. There’s a lot of moving pieces and- what was it- do y’all hear that? It’s God. He’s a calling me. I got him on the spiritual speed dial. I think I’m losing you, fellas. Let’s chat about-

[The sound of a phone hanging up cuts off the rest of what the Reverend is saying.]

Ron: Hahaha, works every time.

Sammy: I’m guessing there is no Bruce or Larry. 

Ron: Hell yeah there is! And I really wanna rent out a putt-putt place named Glory Holes for the reception, but I didn’t figure that stuffed pudgery would talk about it.

Sammy: I think you’re correct.

Ben: How’ve you been, Ron?

Ron: Uh I can’t complain. But I do anyway. All’s well at the bait shop.

Sammy: And how is, uh… you know.

Ben: Just say it, Sammy!

Ron: You can do it, Sammy! How is who?

Sammy: Oh fine! How is Kingsey the lake monster doing?

Ron: All right! That’s what I’m talking about.

Ben: You did it, buddy. I’m proud of you!

Sammy: Oh, whatever. Saying is not believing, guys.

Ron: One important step closer. She’s doing just fine, by the way. But I gotta tell you, I’ve seen Kingsie more now than I ever have before. Seems like anytime I’m on the lake Kingsie comes right on up. No fear in her at all. It’s the damnedest thing.

Ben: That’s strange, Ron. Wasn’t it just a few months back that you had people out on the lake hunting her almost?

Ron: Yeah I don’t get it. You’d think she’d be more scared of the boat and the people but I’ve seen her visiting boats with my own eyes! I don’t like it.

Sammy: So no more trouble with trespassers, then?

Ron: Not a lick of trouble! I fixed those lousy poaching' sons of whores good!

Sammy: Do we even want to know?

Ron: Let’s just say I might have put some buckshot to some behinds!

Sammy: I’m not touching that one.

Ron: (laughs) That’s what he said.

Sammy: I don’t know if…

Ron: It works, Sammy! Trust me.

Sammy: I’ll just make a mental note not to be out on the lake looking for trouble.

Ben: So uh if you didn’t have a question for the Reverend, what’s going on then, Ron?

Ron: What, a guy can’t call his radio buddies to chat? Isn’t this talk radio?

Ben: Of course! I’m just-

Ron: I’m just messing with you, Ben! I actually do have a topic of discussion for both of you. A bone to pick, if you will.

Sammy: Oh wow, let’s hear it!

Ron: Well it seems that damn near every time I turn on 660 AM you two ruffians are fighting with somebody or getting tossed out of public places. I’d be proud you boys are about to level up your man cards! But I’m a little offended you didn’t come to me for help.

Sammy: With the fighting and getting kicked out of places.

Ron: I’m only partially busting balls here, but it’s partially serious too. You fellas with your fighting, as hot as it may be, ain’t the best for you or us who like listening.

Ben: Let it be known, I was not fighting! I am not a fighter.

Sammy: No, you were sabatoshing and throwing hush puppies!

Ben: Whatever, it still wasn’t a fight!

Ron: Hell, I wouldn’t classify what Sammy the mirror was doing as fighting either, you have to land some strikes and grapples to be a fight! You gotta actually make your hand into a fist to be a fight! Looked like a springtime, fully clothed, roll in the hay! I’ve had dates rougher than that quote unquote fight.

Sammy: Well, uh, obviously, you know I let my emotions get the better of me and it went arye.

Ron: Oh, whatever, Sammy! Not everyone’s meant to be a warrior. What I’m trying to tell you both is you fellas just need to do your fighting over the radio airwaves. You keep the physicalities to the professionals! You’re a bright spot in a lot of people’s nights around here and we can’t have you getting thrown of the air for rabble rousing and half-assed MMAing the jackass mayor.

Sammy: I think I get what you’re saying and we appreciate it, Ron. Believe me we will keep fighting the good fight the only way we know how.

Ron: With your sweet little mouths.

Sammy: I was going to say minds, but sure.

Ron: Alright, fellas. I can hear my radio going off like a son of a b-(beep) in the shop. Better go see what kind of damn fool would be trying to get me in the middle of the night. Take it easy fellas.

[The phone hangs up]

Ben: He’s a trip.

Sammy: He’s something. Line nine you’re on with Sammy and Ben.

[Magical twinkling music starts]

Ben: Oh no, hang it up, Sammy!

Sammy: Wait, what is this?

Ben: Seriously dude, this is bad news. Just push the button and-

Sammy: Hello?

Caller: Oh hello!

Sammy: Hello? We’re here, you’re live with Sammy and Ben.

Ben: Come on!

Caller: Oh splendid! I do love listening to you two!

Ben: Oooh, hi, Gwendolyn.

Sammy: (Amused) You know this lady?

Ben: Unfortunately.

Gwendolyn: It’s Gwendolyn! You’re such a smart cookie, Ben Arnold. So unlike your trailer trash friend Troy!

Sammy: Whoa, ma’am! If you could please not address anybody like that, we’d appreciate it. Sorry, Troy.

Ben: Remember when I asked you to hang up?

Gwendolyn: (Sarcastically) Oh I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to offend your liberal sensibility! I’ll do my best to shackle my first amendment right to freedom of speech. We wouldn’t want to offend, now would we?

Sammy: Gwendolyn, was it?

Gwendolyn: Oh, it is, darling.

Ben: There’s more to her name, Sammy.

Gwendolyn: My, my, Ben I didn’t realize we were bringing proper titles into this conversation! How fancy. 

Sammy: Oh, like a duchess of York or a princess situation?

Gwendolyn: Well, you could say that.

Ben: (Clearing his throat) Gwendolyn the Racist Witch.

Gwendolyn: It’s like a choir of purebred school children singing when you say it like that, Ben. Now I do prefer Gwendolyn the Hateful, but…

Ben: But one shoe fits better than the other.

Sammy: Gwendolyn, if I may be so bold-

Gwendolyn: You may.

Sammy: Obviously I’m grasping most, if not all of your title, but I’m finding myself a little… hmm.

Ben: Sammy doesn’t believe in witches.

Sammy: That is correct.

Gwendolyn: How very sad! Were you an underprivileged child, Sammy? You sound at the very least like white middle class. Do you not know what a witch is?

Ben: Uh, no, he knows what witches are, he just doesn’t believe in them.

Gwendolyn: Well I don’t believe in Muslim presidents, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have one!

Ben: Ooh, told you to hang up, Sammy!

Sammy: Ma’am, I’m sorry, but if you don’t have a topic that isn’t-

Ben: Racist.

Sammy: Right. Then we’re going to have to let you go.

Gwendolyn: Oh, but I do have a topic, Sammy. I would never call in just to waste your resources like welfare on those-

Sammy: Gwendolyn! I’m not going to let you use this as a forum to spew venom and hatred! There are plenty of other AM radio stations that will let you do that, but we certainly will not.

Gwendolyn: Oooh, strong! Forceful! I like it! You have some aryan in you-

[The phone hangs up with another twinkling sound.]

Sammy: Nope! I tried, I just can’t do it.

Ben: Try living with that your entire childhood! She lived a block over from my mom. You should’ve heard the stuff she’d yell out at little league games!

Sammy: Is that where you learned most of your large vocabulary?

Ben: (Coughing) Hardly! No, uh, line two you’re on with Sammy and Ben.

[The sound of outside night noises (crickets and wind and frogs) begin]

Caller: Oh hiya, Ben. It’s Mr. Sheffield. 

Ben: Hey, Mr. Sheffield, how are you doing this evening?

Cecil: Oh I’m just swell. It’s just so good to hear a friendly voice. Let me ask you something, have you heard from Esther lately? I’ve been putting in those booty-calls but I haven't heard a thing back!

Ben: He isn’t talking about Esther Rollins, is he?

Sammy: Hi, Cecil, are you talking about Esther Rollins from Esther’s Sewing Corner?

Cecil: Ah, you betcha, bud!

Ben: We… I mean, he’s gotta know, right? She passed six months ago or so.

Another person in the background on the line: Damn it, can you hear me?

Sammy: I hate to be the one to tell you this-

Ben: Is that Herschel in the background?

Herschel: Hello!

Cecil: Oh, I know she passed, fellas! But she was still answering her secret number and moseying on over for the longest time!

Sammy: I- I’m sorry… what’s that, Cecil?

Herschel: Did you get those butternut f-(beep) on the phone yet, Cecil? Stop talking about banging a ghost! Is that the dumbass duo? Give me that!

Ben: Are you guys out together… looking for Esther?

Cecil: Oh no, I was just wondering about her and thought you boys were in the know and could help. Me and my best friend are out on the lake tonight and we’re fishing-

Herschel: Don’t tell ‘em, you no good penis wrinkle! This is Herschel F. Bomgardener’s find! Tryna take all my glory. Son of a (beep).

Cecil: I’m sorry. Hersch really wants to tell you guys something. Can you call me back though? About sweet old Esther...

Herschel: Oh Jesus, not one damn person in this town who wants to hear about Cecil Sheffield laying the old ghost post. I’m tired of hearing about it my damn self! You listening King Falls AM?

Sammy: Hi, Herschel.

Herschel: Well don’t sound so excited, Stevens. I’m just dropping the biggest old breaking news money shot all over your face. 

Ben: That’s an image! Uh, what can we do for you?

Herschel: Well for starters, how’s about kissing my ass? And don’t you take a tone!

Ben: There wasn’t a tone! I swear!

Herschel: I’ll never understand your generation. If I talked like that to my elders I’d never have made it past nine years of age! The damn factory foreman would have skinned my hide. 

Sammy: It sounded like Cecil was about to tell us something, and you mentioned breaking news? Is that correct?

Herschel: I’m getting to it! Damn it to hell, boys! Like I used to tell Edna; slow and steady wins the race. Better hurry up, though I’m about to fall asleep. 

Cecil: Hey, Herschel, I don’t think this is Kingsie...

Ben: Kingsie? Is something wrong with her?

Herschel: Do I look like doctor f-(beep) lake monster to you, Ben?

Sammy: What’s going on out there? I assume you two are out on Lake Hatchenaw? 

Herschel: That we are. Me and Cecil are out tonight trying out some new lewers. Real fancy stuff. 

Cecil: Hey, I’m sure this thing ain’t Kingsie, Hersch. 

Herschel: I f-(beep) heard you the first time, Cecil! Jesus Christ! Can’t you see I’m talking on the radio!

Cecil: Sorry, buddy.

Herschel: Ah if I had my gun I’d put that brain-dead dumbass out to pasture. Anywho… goddamn it, what the f-(beep) are we talking about? 

Ben: (Annoyed) You’re on the lake, testing lures.

Herschel: Right, uh, so we hit secret spots, and then, erm try to feel the Cecils out. And wouldn’t you know it, we found that old serpenty b-(beep) Kingsie, belly up.

Ben: What?! 

Herschel: Deader than Rock Hutchson’s affections for the ladies.

Ben: Oh man, I cannot believe that. This- This hurt. I gotta call Ron back.

Herschel: Ain’t no use calling that son of a b-(beep)! I was radioing on his bait shop the last twenty minutes to no avail! Figured he’d want to go out and say his goodbyes before Ray Chin comes out here and suzies her up real good.

Sammy: Ben, give Ron a call so he doesn’t hear about Kingsie like this.

Herschel: Ah she was a damn fine lake monster.

Cecil: (In the background) Herschel this ain’t Kingsie!

Herschel: Didn’t really mess with me and hecklewood, stayed out of my spots. I won’t miss her, but damn if I don’t salute her for knowing some boundaries. 

Cecil: Turn on your damn hearing aid! It’s not Kingsie!

Herschel: Oh, what now? I ain’t too old to dump you wrinkled ass right off the side of this boat.

Cecil: No! Give me the phone!

Sammy: Hey Ben, hold on a second.

Cecil: Hello? Is this Ben Arnold and his buddy? 

Herschel: (From the background) I let you have it you fardknocking old cuss. 

Sammy: You’re live, Cecil. Is what you found on the lake not Kingsie?

Herschel: Let me get a good look at this thing. Hey, shine the light over here, Cecil. Get a little closer.

Cecil: That light fell overboard in Kettleton Cove.

Herschel: G-(beep)-damn it! Watch your dirty cheating crumb catcher! You don’t know what kind of eavesdropping satellites are listening in to scout bots or the bass tourney. Mother f-(beep)!

Cecil: The light is gone, Herschel! Sorry.

Sammy: Fellas?

Herschel: Hey, this may not be Kingsie. Quit whistling f-(beep)-ing dixie and get us closer!

Sammy: It’s not Kingsie, Ben.

Ben: Ohhh thank goodness! What is it?

Herschel: Jesus, I think this is a dead body!

Sammy: It’s a dead body.

Ben: That’s much better than Kingsie… so young… WHAT?! Wait, what?! Again?!

Herschel: It’s all wrapped up in something. But it smells human to me. Pull over closer, Cecil. Jesus Christ, do I have to give you a haunted hanty to get closer to the g-(beep)-damn body?

Cecil: We’re going to go closer.

Sammy: Why don’t we let you guys go so you can call the sheriff’s office. 

Herschel: Eh, it’s so damn dark! Where’s my million candle lamp, you dumbass.

Ben: I’ll call the sheriff’s office. Where are you guys at on the lake?

Cecil: You know I can’t rightly tell you, Ben. Shhh, it’s a secret!

Ben: This is a little more important than the bass tournament, Mr. Sheffield!

Herschel: Don’t you tell ‘em! Tell those pansies to send the coppers to Begley’s. We’ll meet them there. Your big mouth has already broadcasted too much!

Ben: To Ron’s, got it. I’ll make the call, guys.

Cecil: Hey, what’s that noise? Do you hear that, Herschel?

Herschel: Sounds like they’re right over the treeline. We could shine the light if you hadn’t tossed it in the lake!

Cecil: Oh hush!

Herschel: Fifty nine ninety-nine at Sears and Roebuck. Don’t think you won’t replace it-

[There is a loud crashing sound like thunder]

Cecil: What the heck is that?!

Herschel: Well Charlie f-(beep)-ing foxtrot!

Sammy: What’s wrong, guys?

Cecil: Look at those lights… Oh, pretty colors… beautiful…

Sammy: Lights? Is it the UFOs?

Herschel: Gosh, those damn rainbow lights again. We’re not going to catch nary a f-(beep)-ing fish tonight. Son of a buttered up, biscuit eating b-(beep)!

[King Falls outro music and credits begin]

References:

Yoda: a fictional character from Star Wars known for his wisdom and fighting against the ‘dark side’

Glory holes: I’m sorry I’m not going to explain this one… If you’re over 18 feel free to look it up, if you are not please don’t.

MMA: Mixed martial arts

Rock Hutchson: A gay actor

Sears and Roebuck: department stores

Charlie foxtrot: military slang for a chaotic situation

Characters:

Sammy Stevens, Ben Arnold, Leland Hill, Deacon Reggie, Reverend Xavier Hawthorne, Ron Begley, Gwendolyn the Racist Witch, Cecil Sheffield, Herschel F. Bomgardener.

Destined ‘X’ Forever

“Ye wouldn’t b’ doin’ anything that’d take a special kind ov’ stupid now would ya’ ma’ Lord?” A cheeky rattle hit in a echo of the barren Ruins. For all intended reasoning's this wasn’t a planned encounter. Last he saw his Noble other halve was after attempting to salve some helpful advice to put him in a discovery. Though what the amber optic witnessed was anything but the type of discovery he meant. The pirate meant from the self. This was someone who couldn’t move on. Didn’t know how. This is hurt. He had been there, embraced it, and the result damaged him past the point of repair a self-searing that he still hadn’t entirely resolved. And forever because he couldn’t contain or control his heartbreak he discredited and discarded it. Letting it coal until he lost himself and a savage feasted on his homed temple. A severance between souls. A path to nefarious and damaging for anything that crossed was a clear future for Elune. If he paid the price and fed that side of demonizing that festered in all thing’s in varied degrees of morality. He would become consumed with dangerous and devastating levels that may scar him in irrecoverably.

                   “I..hate..you.” Muttered off breath before turning to face and direct to ensure this was more personal his regality was cracking he was so shortly an ilm away from being granted his wishful desire by utilizing a forbidden relic that protruded a hint of Mhachi. However, by activating this, It’d cost his last remaining dignity, his humanity he akin to most chose to run from it thinking and disassociating it as ‘weakness’ for the appearance and value it often represented no-good. He was possessed and consumed with the empty. That hollow part of losing a piece that stabled and made you feel wholly, he had forgotten what living was like without it after a sip. Without something to protect to be any meaning, he found himself misplaced. Knights didn’t exist without their duties or their morals to wage crusades in belief or service; they were dull like any Samurai in the obligated swords sworn after they slew their intended advisory it was weightless and immeasurable. None of that crossed his mind that once was recognized and pristine for being intelligent, all other forms living or to be sacrificed were insignificant, they could all be shriveled and pay the price even if it brought utter devastation and internal turmoil to that which he so starved to have returned to him. This resentment stood beyond even their current vessel’s their souls were entwined to contest. Negatives and positives. “I hate you. I hate everything about you, your stupid hat, your trashy ingrate demeanor. All of it! Hate is my sum for you.. You--- you’re, why I am here in this position. You cost me, my world! If you weren’t such an irritating blight, I would’ve never lost control… I’d still have them!” Flailing his arms out in the arm like a tampered child throwing his blame. The crystallized air around him howled in chimed ice sang like a banshee as his instability continued. Captain swallowed soft listening before presenting a stepped chortle and follow, “You need a tissue? Or a tampon for yer leakage?” The Seeker fired back as during that entire rant he just nodded his head. “Mate, I’ll b’ straight blunt yer being a bitch. O’ boohoo, ye lost something in your sheltered life, you in your fancy Ishgardian Walls always catered and given and throwing a hissy fit when ye didn’t get something fer Starlight. Your rant is the same shite I’d get from a dozen of stuttering cucks at the Quicksands for me so effortlessly tossing their lass over my shoulder and tending to them from their plagued bore. -Ye hate me? What a crock… Matey you don’t hate me, you just hate yourself. You got caught, ye won a battle but I got in your most prized place -- your head. Fail to understand your performance in our last skirmish saw you ACTING more like a pirate than a noble. Ye can’t get those thoughts ov’ me outta your mind… How naughty.” Tsking with a finger waggle further adding antagonizing fuel with even more expression by holding his chest to shield his exposure in that unnerving smug. “Standing over there and wanting t’ talk about hatred and losses. Ye murdered my near entire crew, ye tried dismantling another. Ye kidnapped my Star Healer and stole her away to fuck who knows where and then n’ your whole, ‘I gotta be th’ Elite White Shining Knight’, ye let her suffer alone and vanish to silence! Ye point and like t’ remind others of their failures, their faults, but conjure a solid mirror with that fancy-dancy magick. Leviathan… I gave ye an ale and I didn’t even charge ye on your last visit t’ my Cabin. I told you…! I warned you…! I did more than enough in my part, so-wait, is this what I’m missing out on sticking around for parenthood? Just sheer disappointment? This was supposed t’ be your discovery, but let me guess, the only thing you figured out in this entire time is that, ‘O I’ve got a dick, so well, I must be one and I’ll damn the rest in my way even the ones I love? Not even factoring their own thoughts? YOU aren’t wanted back. There’s isn’t any riveting other reasoning why they discarded themselves from you.” He unleashed every form of his smash-mouth and laid out the crass even if overkill. Thick skulls often were swelled in ego and ego was born often of entitled never spoken against, here enters the brazen. All the while Shiro’s fist rattled and quenched his inner demonic price for all his sin’s and wrongs began transforming and corrupting his veins, his roots that stemmed inside became a grotesque green. “Enough! What does the pirate know of actual loss and pain? You are thieves, takers, you’re scum. Compassion and your kind don’t mix, nor does it exist. Use everything and leave, you can’t even remain devoted to a single solitary thing. Always roaming without purpose to the next big thing for your greed. Making every little detail’s about yourself. Do not forget, I met your crew… None of them are innocent. It didn’t matter which you led. They were all heathens. Neither of them could listen to their betters. They didn’t respect anyone outside you, and when you were missing and disappeared on your so-called ‘shipwreck’ those who salvaged and carried your flag paid your price. You brought them into a War against a literal Sea Empire. None of them were equipped or readied. And without me, they would’ve all been slaughtered maggots. They even wanted to kill each other and decapitate the latter to get some heroic favors or get into the panties of your ‘woman’ you led only a cult of unwashed stains. Threatening like the barbarians you raised to even lash out at my sister because her own heart was on the opposing side. Who even was brainwashed and used as another pawn on the board though despite that fact their inbreed tribal and unorthodox wild crew of yours was but the essence of chaos. You mere peasants outside the Pillars and the arrogance you bestow, are far grander than anything we harbor.” Now it was the Keeper’s turn to verbally unleash a hailstorm. They bickered like an old couple cover many generations of grudges. Building their resentments and hatred until… that moment where there wasn’t going any back and one swung. The words actually began rattling against the Captain’s inner instincts and primal urges. For his own bonded knot was mentioned and brought up. The tone of Shiro’s higher ‘superiority’ shout echoed against the blank and outdoor ruins in a condense clap. Was steering and disturbing a slumber that snarled, his complexion became more heated. Irregular and unnatural... The scoundrel’s blood began surging. Weapons in War only ever are mentioned what was used to quell or the materialistic solution. Never in mentioning how any War or Battle began. Often originated from disputes. The contesting of disagreement is what drew first-blood before any sharp dared part flesh from. “What th’ seventh hell did ye say?” The ruffian stepped in closer even against biting and foreboding chills. A vein vessel popping out of his forehead. Shiro’s visage turned to a dastardly and deviled one impractical aetherial horn’s started to lowly form on his temple. “Many things and all I assure you, I mean them all. Your crew was worthless they lapped up and swam under your dirty seawater. You a Captain? A joke, your, -kind- don’t have admirable emotions or hearts, you are written as heartless and crude as you’ll always be known utter tasteless, savaged buffoons. THAT is your booked cover and shall always be to me and anyone else with somewhat wit.” The Seeker’s steps continuing forward his framework began bulking up hit by a nerve earlier. Every part of Shiro’s weighted words came from a merciless and mean intent. Making every remark sound as categorized and labeled as possible. The first step of all Jailers and those that hide behind anything against the grain or that make them feel even the slightest uncomfortable about the insecurities often came from classification putting a firm distinction between someone else innocently in the cross-hairs to try so desperately to distance themselves and stay on their elevated ladders, artificial thrones above someone. Despite that answer wasn’t what left a sour look on the mug of the rugged slicker those didn’t seem to be what triggered him.    “No, the other.”  He corrected calmly his stance seemed like a preparing lunge.

Shiro knew all too well what he said and brought a gleeful sinister grin to further elaborate the struck cord. “Ah right, the pathetic and high-excuse of a complex woma--” Right before he could finish that deplorable remark. The Blackguard used a rash Ghost Step (Shukuchi) to close in and lob for a full-force spinning roundhouse.   (Previous)  — /References/ —   ♫ ‘Invincible ♫ — (Next Page)

We Grow Together (26)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Tessa Sullivan (OFC)

Chapter Summary: Shit’s about to get real... 

Summary: Relationships can be tough, especially when one person is a recovering-from-being-brainwashed-and-tortured former assassin and the other is an overworked mutant scientist. But hey, every couple has their struggles. Right?

“His name is Lobe? What the hell kind of name is Lobe?” Clint asks with a laugh.

Tessa shrugs in response. “No clue. But if Scofield says I should meet him, then I think I should meet him.”

Steve throws up a silencing hand. “Now, just hold on.” He moves over to stand behind Natasha as she sorts through mounds of data on the computer in front of her. “Nobody’s meeting anybody until we know a little more about this guy.” He nudges Nat’s shoulder. “Got anything?”

“Nothing,” she mumbles, obviously perturbed. “There are no references to anyone named Lobe in any of SHIELD’s files. Or in any other data we’ve collected over the last few years.”

“It’s probably a codename,” he tells her.

She twists her head around to look a him. “Ya think?” she asks, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Maybe’s he clean,” Tessa suggests, immediately earning her incredulous stares from everyone in the room. “What? Devil’s advocate. I’m just trying to think of reasons why he’d never pop up on anyone’s radar.”

“I hate to say this, guys,” Clint sighs as he sidles up next to Tessa and drapes an arm over her shoulders. “But I think Doc’s right. If we can’t find anything on this guy, we should send her in to meet with him. Might be the only way we’ll get to know who he is.”

Tessa narrows her eyes. “For the record, you’re not saying that you hate to say that I’m right, right?”

“Right,” he responds with a confused frown.

She nods. “You just hate to say it because it’s not an ideal situation to be put in. Got it.”

“Not an ideal situation?” Bucky repeats with raised brows. “It’s a little more than that.”

“He’s in New York already. Scofield said that he’s actively looking for scientists, preferably ones with experience in genetic mapping and cellular splicing. This is perfect timing.”

“To be fair,” Natasha chimes in, leaning back in her chair, “while I really don’t think someone going by the name Lobe is a non-threat, it is possible.”

“It’s like Scofield said, X-gene research is highly regulated,” Tessa supplies. “And highly frowned upon. That could be reason enough to come up with a fake identity.”

“And the fake identity might only be for people he doesn’t know. Once she gets in, maybe we can get a real name.”

“Once she gets in?” Bucky asks incredulously.

Tessa turns to him with a frown. “Are you just going to repeat everything everyone else says?” He glowers at her and she relents. “Okay, fine. I get it. Like I said, it’s less than ideal. But,” she continues, turning to face the rest of the group, “this guy, whoever he is, is doing something that he shouldn’t be doing… something with mutant genes. That something might be good – maybe looking ways for ways to enhance DNA to prevent or even cure certain genetic diseases – or it could be something really, really bad. Either way, I want to know.”

To say that it took some convincing would be the understatement of the century. But in the end Tessa, Clint, and Natasha were able to talk Steve and Bucky into letting the meeting happen. There were certain parameters put in place, of course. For example, it had to be in a public place where they could be at least reasonably sure that they wouldn’t lose her. Scofield said that Lobe wanted to meet at a place called Magellan’s in upper Manhattan. Not ideal, but it would do. Tessa would get there early and sit in a pre-scouted location near the windows so that Bucky could see her from his position on one of the buildings across the street. Clint was able to move sites easier, so had a few spots he could go between in case they lost visual. Both Steve and Nat would be inside the restaurant, at the ready.

“Seems a bit like overkill,” Tessa mumbles as she sits down at the predetermined table. The team had Tony call into the restaurant to reserve two of the surrounding tables, ensuring that no other diners would get in their way, so Tessa found herself sitting neatly tucked away in a small sea of empty tables while the rest of the place bustled around her. “Not too obvious,” she snipes into the coms.

“Are you gonna argue with all of my orders?” Steve asks from his position at a corner table.

“I’m not arguing. I’m ridiculing.”

“I think I’m over wanting you on the team,” he mutters. “I’m ready for you to go back to your lab.”

“I got Scofield in my sights,” Bucky interrupts. “He’s entering the restaurant with two other men.”

Tessa stands when she sees the older man make his way over to the hostess, two other men trailing closely behind him. The hostess points to her and she waves as the men turn to make their way over. She takes one look at their faces and… “Oh shit.”

“What?” Steve asks.

Clint is heard next. “Is that – ”

Tessa nods stiffly as the men arrive at her table.

“Who?”

Clint barks out a laugh. “Oh, man. No way!”

“Dr. Sullivan,” Scofield greets, extending his hand to her. “This is my associate, Lobe.”

She looks to the thin bald man and offers a rigid smile. “Very nice to meet you,” she says, shaking his hand. He says nothing to her, and offers no smile nor hint of warmth.

“And I believe you already know Mr. Calvin,” Dr. Scofield says with a coy grin.

The other man – a tall, muscular, dark-haired specimen – quirks his lips as he too extends a hand. “Dr. Sullivan,” he says, deep, rich voice sounding all too brazen.

“Who the fuck is Mr. Calvin?” Bucky bites out.

She glares at him, refusing to touch his outstretched hand, opting instead to awkwardly, angrily stand and stare. “Uh, Doc,” she hears through her earpiece. “I know this is probably a bit of a shock. But you kind of need to get your shit together.”

“Who is this guy?” Steve asks again, more insistently.

Tessa cocks her head at the handsome man in front of her. “I thought you were dead.”

He shows off a dazzling smile. “Oh, come on. You didn’t really believe that.”

“Well,” she says, her jaw clenched, “a girl can dream.”

“Barton?” Steve nearly shouts through the coms, letting loose with a loud cough from his corner to cover the sound.

“Remember when I told you guys I met her ex in Minsk?” he says, an all-too-playful lilt to his voice. “That would be him.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Bucky mumbles, barely audibly.

“Ah,” Natasha croons. She can barely be seen leaning forward on her bar stool, craning her neck to get a better look. “I see what you mean about her type. Tall, dark, and… very fuckable.”

“Romanov,” Steve chides. “Try to be a professional.”

Clint chuckles as he meanders across the street, moving to a second, closer location. “Nat, did you just imply that Barnes is very fuckable?”

“This conversation is making me very uncomfortable,” Bucky mutters as he follows the small group of people at the table through his rifle’s sight.

Steve sighs loudly enough to be heard through the coms “Can everyone please stop saying fuckable?”

“Captain Rogers,” Natasha intones “you’ve got a dirty mouth.”

Bucky takes his eye off the table and leans back for moment to blink heavily. “Can we focus please?” he asks, clearly not amused.

They all watch as Scofield drops into a seat, the others slowly following suit. Between Lobe’s very obvious general awkwardness, and the rather extreme tension between the Tessa and Mr. Calvin, the older doctor is the only one who seems even remotely at ease. “I must say,” he begins, leaning back into his chair and popping open the menu in front of him, “I was rather surprised to hear that you hadn’t spoken to Mr. Calvin in years.” He glances up at Tessa and says with a chuckle, “Though I suppose if you thought he was dead, that would explain it.” He turns to Lobe, who looks utterly disinterested. “Mr. Calvin does have a knack for faking his own death.”

“Well,” Calvin says, charm just oozing from his pores, “It’s an unfortunate necessity in my line of work.”

“And what line is that, exactly?” Tessa asks before nervously taking a quick swallow of water. “Nowadays, I mean.”

Lobe answers for him in a deep, measured tone. “He’s in… acquisitions.”

“Personnel acquisitions?”

He stretches his lips into a long, slender, utterly terrifying smile, and says with a slight nod, “Of course.”

“That guy’s not too creepy,” Natasha mutters over the coms as she slowly stirs the martini in front of her.

At the table, Calvin leans in, closing much of the distance between him and Tessa, as he says, in a manner obviously meant just for her, “I was a little disappointed you didn’t mourn my passing like I thought you would.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “How would you know whether or not I mourned? Were you keeping tabs on me?”

“Maybe a little,” he says with a shrug.

“Well I’m feeling a lot better about this guy being involved,” Bucky snipes sarcastically.

Rolling her eyes, Tessa mutters, “It wasn’t the first time you died, Cal. Besides, if you wanted it to be believable, you would have had a coked-out hooker stab you in a by-the-hour motel.”

“Oh, sounds like a keeper,” Clint says. “Wonder why it didn’t work out.”

Steve clears his throat into the coms, a wordless order for everyone to shut the hell up.

At the same time, they hear Calvin laugh, soft and supple. “Car explosion was cheaper.” Then, leveling Tessa with a thoughtful stare, “Still, I’d hoped you’d be a little more upset.”

“I stopped getting upset about the things you do a long time ago. I’m over it.”

“But you never quite got over me, did you, sugar?” he asks with a wink.

She leans in, green eyes steely. “Do not call me that.”

“They have a history,” Scofield tells Lobe conspiratorially as he watches the scene unfold in front of him.

For his part, Lobe simply rolls his eyes. “I’ve heard good things about you, Dr. Sullivan.”

She drops her angry glare and looks over to the man across from her. “Have you?” she asks. “From Dr. Scofield?”

He spends a long moment looking her up and down, seemingly assessing her very being, before responding with, “Yes.”

She feels a shiver pulse through her, unsure if the anxiety she’s feeling is a result of simply being nervous about this whole situation, or if it’s due to the fact that this guy’s energy is almost unreadable for her. She tries to cover the unease with a small smile. “Well, I do have a rather full resume,” she says.

Scofield chuckles a bit. “A rather impressive resume, you mean.” He turns to Lobe. “Before coming to Genetech, she studied with Dr. Moira MacTaggert.”

Lobe’s expression shifts to what seems like genuine interest. “At Muir Island?”

She shifts uncomfortably in her seat. “Yes. For a time.” Another put-on smile. “I was very young then. Still in med school.”

He gives her another appraising look, this one ending in a wide-eyed grin. “I would very much like to know about your time there.”

“Well…” she starts, not quite sure where to go.

“You know,” Calvin interrupts suddenly, “I wouldn’t mind having a moment alone with Dr. Sullivan. Just to catch up a bit.” He shoots her a meaningful look before glancing back at Lobe. “A quick drink at the bar, maybe? Won’t be but a few minutes.”

“I’m not here to meet with you, Cal. I’m here to meet with Lobe,” she says, uncertainty lacing her words.

“C’mon,” he croons, reaching out and gently wrapping his fingers around her wrist. “One drink,” he says with a small tug.

Instinctively, she jerks away as though she’s been burned.

“It’s fine, really,” Scofield says absently, waving them off. “Go have a drink. Lobe and I have some things to discuss anyhow.”

“If you stay near the end of the bar, I’ll still have visual,” Clint’s voice sounds through the coms.

“And from here I can get audio on whatever the other two talk about,” Steve says. “Let’s play this out.”

“Fine,” she says with a scowl, harshly pushing back her chair. Calvin jumps up as well, hurrying to catch up with her as she makes a beeline for the bar. He’s next to her in just a few long strides, dropping his hand to the small of her back in a guiding gesture. “Stop it,” she turns to growl at him.

“You used to like it when I touched you,” he whispers in her ear as they both lean onto the bar. “Said it made easier to suck up all my… intensity.”

“He’s a real charmer,” Natasha mutters from her spot at the opposite corner of the bar.

“What do you want?” Tessa asks him.

His eyes positively twinkle with mischief when he replies, “You really want me to answer that?”

“Oh, if only he knew that her current tall, dark, and fuckable boyfriend had a high-powered rifle trained on him right now,” Clint hums.

She shakes her head impatiently, both at the man in front of her and the one in her ear. “Can you be serious for five seconds?”

“Sugar, after five years together, I’d think you’d know the answer to that,” he says with an airy laugh.

“Five years!”

“Barton,” Steve barks out with obvious irritation.

Tessa sighs, long and drawn out. “What are you doing, Cal?” she asks with a shake of the head.

“I could ask you the same thing.”

She looks up at him, her expression softening for the first time since he waltzed into the restaurant. “I’m serious. Do you even know who this guy is?”

The smug smile falls from his face, his lips tightening into a firm line. “I know enough about him to know that you shouldn’t be meeting with him.”

She quirks her head at him. “Why is that?”

He leans in close, his lips grazing her hair as he whispers into her ear, “If he finds out what you are, he’ll tear you apart and sell every piece to the highest bidder.”

“What was that?” Natasha asks, watching as Tessa’s expression turns grave. “What did he say?”

Calvin leans back and looks down at her. “You should go,” he says with a small nod.

She takes a moment to gather her thoughts before looking him right in the eye and issuing out, “Fuck. You.”

A surprised laugh escapes him. “You’re being pretty hostile right now,” he tells her, quirking his brow. “Keep this up and I’ll be left to assume you want to hate fuck in the ladies room like old times.”

Someone snorts out a laugh into the coms. “That’s not funny,” she grumbles.

He reaches out and runs his fingertips along the curve of her hip. “It has been a long time, sugar.”

“I told you to stop calling me that,” she says, taking hold of his forearm. He twists in her grip, grabs onto her hand and brings it to his lips for a lingering kiss.

“I have a clean shot,” Bucky breathes out through the coms.

“Ugh,” Tessa growls. “Stop it.” Then she grasps his arm again and gives a strong tug, pulling him around into a corridor.

“What the hell,” Bucky roars as soon as he loses visual. “Romanov?”

“I’m on it,” she responds, getting up and heading for the hallway that Tessa and Calvin disappeared into. She tries to remain casually hidden, not quite rounding the corner. But from her position… “I can’t get a clear visual.”

She may have disappeared from their sight, but the team can still hear everything that Tessa says. “Who is he, Cal?” she asks hurriedly. “And what the fuck are you doing for him?”

“He’s an entrepreneur. And I’m acquiring things for him.”

“Things?”

“C’mon, T. You know what I do. I go where the money is.”

She takes a sharp inhale. “Tell me you didn’t sell him the samples?”

“Samples? What samples?”

Her voice rises when she says, “The ones you stole from me in Belarus!”

He scoffs. “Those samples were sold a long time ago, sugar. And this guy… he’s way past wanting some tricked-out, radioactive genes.”

“The genes weren’t radioactive,” she corrects, impatiently. “They were activated by radiation.”

“Whatever,” he says with a dismissive sweep of the hand. “You know I don’t give a shit about the science.”

“Right. You only care about the money.”

“Look,” he says, his voice dropping an octave. “I’m trying to look out for you here. Whatever you’re doing – whatever you’re up to – I’m telling you, you need to stop. Now.”

“That’s cute, Cal. Really. You thinking you can tell me what to do. Cute.” She brushes past him and strides back over to their table, almost clipping Natasha on her way around the corner. “Mister,” she starts, standing in front of the two men, “sorry… Lobe.” She drops back into her seat with a saccharine smile. “Lobe, what an interesting name.”

“Not really,” he says to her. He looks up as Calvin returns and takes his seat as well, a furrowed, concerned look on his face. “Everything alright, Mr. Calvin?”

“Yes, everything’s fine.”

“All done with your lovers’ quarrel, I hope.” He turns back to Tessa. “Can we finally talk business then?”

Tessa tosses a quick glance to Cal and takes in his warning glare. Then she gives Lobe a curt, but certain nod. “Yes, I think we should.”

What I speak, You won’t hear anywhere?

Hi, Max Headroom here, I think?

Where am, where am, am I I is there an echo in here? The last time I was here? It was all about apple pie. Now it’s all about scummy guv scummy guv, guv screaming donkeys cash…. it’s all about trash yeah. I feel hmm I feel like I’ve been sucked into a Mad Mad affect Mad a Mandela… an Alternate Universe? A Dark Dark Universe all is not well things are not going go go fried clams .… things are not going well for the People of, the Federation. All the good guys are bad guys!

I wonder if I can find a time time time…. alternate universe machine, yeah.

We have, in actuality, a very serious situation that involves all of us. What I speak, you won’t hear from the Smartest Institute to the Darkest Places. Debating such a thing is seen as a threat it’s not allowed, Thoughts if any are extinguished before they can take hold in the ground. God’s a manipulation created by the Devil, Christ, and the rest of the betrayers when the Devil compromised them. The Devil is consumed with hate. He plans to use this deception in a manipulation to kill Our Father. Whom we were on a mission to terraform the solar system for. This calls for serious thought mature thinking. Really no place for joking! Before we can get to square two, we have to get to square one. You say to yourself this looks really bad, but it’s going to all work out things will get better. But you gotta understand this isn’t going to happen.

You’re in an immense deception and the deck has been stacked. Oh, you’ll get what looks like victories. But you will win nothing they have to give a sense of hope. This is a strategic maneuver. Another one they use is to put a few good guys in with a bunch of bad. Almost all People in groups of power are chosen for their mental deficiencies. God Is a fabrication for manipulation reasons! All enthralled groups are them actively involved in their extremely evil plan. Ask yourself what is it with all this madness with all these groups? How is it we have all these different religious organizations that say everybody else is wrong? Why is it that every government is wrong why is every government oppressive to its people? Why is God on the money when he can’t even show up at a hospital? Why is there praise for God when there are children laying dead on the ground?

Could a mind of great be so inhumane? The answer is an emphatic no. How is it that this could be a natural flow? Wouldn’t an infinite mind of compassion think it wrong? With the majority dying before they hit 72 do you think this is a natural flow? Smashing molecules looking for dimensions casing signals of possible extraterrestrial? Instead of trying to get to oh I don’t know 1072, there’s a reason we don’t live so long? And I believe the answer lies with them.

You asked, what is this man trying to claim that he is the ultimate.

No with my faults, I have more than you.

I am, after all, the man of sin!

I have sinned.

I am, a sinner!

They have destroyed people with this word, but the Religions have destroyed families with it, Sin. Hiding behind Immense literature of manipulation deceptive words. Turning you into narrow-minded vessels lashing out with your hateful ways in your self-righteousness. That served only their purpose.

Sin seems to be the catchphrase for all that’s wrong! But it only stands for one thing, and it’s unpardonable!

You think you understand the meaning? You don’t understand how their minds work. They’ve brainwashed you to it well but, I’ll clarify the meaning. What I’m trying to explain to you is a very horrible thing. I’ll tell you the hidden truth of that now.

†★ stopping imbecilic nonsense… Sin ★†

Let no man deceive you by any means: for unless there come a revolt first, and the man stopping imbecilic nonsense be revealed, the son of perdition

The unpardonable stopping of imbecilic nonsense is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

For the wages of stopping imbecilic nonsense is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

If we say we have not stopped imbecilic nonsense we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our stopping imbecilic nonsense he is faithful and just to forgive us our stopping imbecilic nonsense and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not stopped imbecilic nonsense, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

Now the works of stopping imbecilic nonsense and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

That’s how you sound to them when you say it. As I’ve said, they’re laughing.

I am, the man of sin!…I am, the man stopping imbecilic nonsense!

I have sinned… I have stopped imbecilic nonsense.

I am, a sinner!… I am, stopping imbecilic nonsense!

You’re wrong about a lot of things! But you are right about one you’re not a sinner.

When you have a dirty job send the janitor.

I’m still pretty mucked up, though they’re out to get me. I swim around vicious fish that watch me from the dark of the deep. They’ve zapped me a few times, toyed with me inflicted some bite marks, and left me to survived or not. I swim away, but they follow me! I think they’re waiting for a special moment they eye me anticipatingly. we’ll see? Who can withstand such malicious spookery? You can and have to if three be any hope forewarned is weaponized you. The fool dooms us people have been dummy down for a reason? I claim to hold the truth. I don’t claim to make predictions. But right now, your future says you’re screwed. When you can buy your intelligence out of colleges. How many people are in important positions that are dumber than the hour? You see the Beast now, it no longer hides. It has no fear now it’s out, to consume all in its way. But you’ve lived in denial too long, telling yourself you were free. It doesn’t really matter you, never had a chance anyhow. You fight for something, You see slipping away, but it’s something that never was.

They’ll be destroying cities soon to distract you. And for a few other reasons mostly to distract you. But also to get rid of some people who did some things that are no longer of any use. And for equipment testing and calculation purposes in reference to shock resistance Levels. If you can understand that you will realize what one of the main purposes of our time is. You’ll catch a glimpse of their nature when you see how many people they kill just to get them. That’s not a prediction, it’s a theory of purpose postulation of modus operandi. They don’t care, and they leave nothing to chance. They’re not playing games and we best stop playing them too. Now, this is the thing they’re not playing games. But to them, this is a game and they are laughing, joking having fun. While they wiped out billions waiting for this moment to come. That’s what we’re up against. People won’t be able to, comprehend this though. They will see it as natural. Do you really think that billionaires are moving because of the taxes some will believe they are?

Visions you see and the communications you are involved in, I know how real this is. I know you find my words hard to believe. You think I’ve been deceived, but this evil group has ensnared you in their cunning. There is no shame in this! They’re cunning, highly intelligent, well-experienced, a coldness that is hard to Comprehend? You have to try to withstand their lies. They’ve taught you, magic words but this is science. What the World Needs is a Mad Scientist. Stretch are you up yet? “It’s clobberin’ time!” The thing to keep in mind is there on a time frame. They’ve got the time, but time is ticking. Hey, you don’t want to hear it you want to hear lies! Maybe about extraterrestrials, it’s more comfortable if somebody else is going to take care of everything. As they say, let’s go, let God. (lovingly take you right to the grave). Now we wait for the fools to speak. Actually, I’m a little preoccupied. Time to play the game it’s all about the game and how you play it.

Max Max Max Headroom. I’m making a comeback! 

*  𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐠𝐨𝐬  here  and  do  i  have  the  tea  for  you  .  𝐉𝐔𝐋𝐄𝐒 is  back  in  bridgehampton  for  the  summer  ,  living  off  the 𝐃𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐎 family  𝟐.𝟑 𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧  net  worth  .  must  be  nice  to  come  back  home  to  the  hamptons  ,  i  wonder  what  her  fellow  class  of  2017  grads  think  of  her  return  .  you  know  ,  she  was  known  around  town  as  the  𝐂𝐎𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄 and  for  bhs  senior  superlatives  pronouns  was  crowned  as  𝐌𝐎𝐒𝐓 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄𝐋𝐘 𝐓𝐎 𝐄𝐋𝐎𝐏𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐕𝐄𝐆𝐀𝐒 & 𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐃 .  i  wonder  if  that  still  holds  true  today  ,  a  lot  can  change  when  you  go  off  to  𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐔𝐍𝐈𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐈𝐓𝐘 and  study  𝐁𝐈𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐘  .  either  way  ,  i  bet  she  is  still  very  𝐀𝐅𝐅𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐄 , 𝐃𝐄𝐕𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐃 , 𝐃𝐄𝐂𝐄𝐈𝐓𝐅𝐔𝐋 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐒𝐔𝐁𝐉𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄  . hopefully  this  time  next  year  the  plans  to  𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐃 𝐌𝐄𝐃 𝐒𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐋 come  true  .  in  the  meantime  ,  i  look  forward  to  seeing  her  blast  𝐢 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐫 (𝐁𝐔𝐓 𝐈 𝐍𝐄𝐄𝐃 𝐏𝐄𝐀𝐂𝐄) 𝖇𝖞 𝐤𝐚𝐥𝐢 𝐮𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐬  at  every  hamptons  function  .  it’s  going  to  be  a  wild  summer  home  ,  welcome  back  .

i  don’t  think  i’ve  EVER  been  this  excited  to  plot  and interact with a group of people ,  u  all  seem  like  such  beaut  ppl  &  i’m  in  love  already  but   i’m  a  little  . . .  intimidated  ADFJH .  anyways  ,  i’m  not  going  to  ramble  bc  i’m  ready  to  get  down  to  business  ,  i’m  sammie  &  i  go  by  she  /  her  pronouns  !  under  the  cut  is  a  long  bio  on  jules !  i  will  GLADLY  give  you  a  synopsis  on  this  chaotic  mess  pls  just  ask  ,  HERE  is  her  pinterest  board  please  ignore  the  sudden  amount  of  pins  of  just  her  , also  i’m  down  to  plot  here  or  on  discord  ,  my  discord  is  @ᵘ ᵍᵒᵗ ᵃ ᵈᵒˡˡᵃʳ ?#3246  

* / BASICS

full name: juliana kaia dicaprio

nicknames: jules , julie / juli 

age & dob: twenty-one , august 14th , 1998

place of birth: long island , new york .

sexuality: heterosexual ( that she knows off )

bender: cisfemale

* /  MORE BASIC INFO

languages: english, french, some spanish.

religion: catholic

education: high school , majoring in biology at stanford

occupation: unemployed

drinks, smokes, & drugs: all of the above

* / PERSONALITY

zodiac sign: leo

likes: dark chocolate , tea in the morning , white roses , instigating bad situations , wine , black coffee , the smell of freshly brewed coffee , talking with strangers , long travels , adventures , being called “ angel ” , popcorn , quick tex responders , products made with silk , athletes , crime shows / films , crowded rooms , glitter .

dislikes: fake designer bags , people who don’t know how to lie , f , people who wear pearls regularly , long text messages , voicemails , men who are cheap , people who chew with their mouth open , humming ,  thrift shops , water-poof mascara , the smell of grass , extensive planning , and arrogance & stupidity combined .

bad habits: breaking promises to herself & others , not thinking before doing , fixating with her hair when nervous .

secret talent: juggling

fears: aging terribly , being widowed , drowning , being buried alive .

positive traits: alluring , convincing , affectionate , ambitious / devoted , systematic .

negative traits: manipulative , conniving , deceitful , dishonest , subjective .

* / APPEARANCE

tattoos: dagger on right index finger , “ devil ” on left index finger .

piercings: three in each ear , cartilage .

* / FAMILY INFO.

parent names: claire boucher & david dicaprio .

parent relationship: divorced .

sibling names: annalise , ashton , keller , & wade .

sibling relationship: step siblings & half .

children: none .

pets: 2 family dogs on her moms side.

* / BIOGRAPHY

i’m sorry it got long

             𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐘𝐋𝐄𝐑’s entire childhood was spent in the spotlight -- her father was a huge rockstar in the 70's & 80's, and her mother a model . Claire spent her childhood between Florida , California , and New York , attending red carpets , premieres , etc. Claire attended Stanford to obtain a bachelor in science but was in and out of modeling in her teens and early twenties .

            𝐃𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐃 𝐃𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐎  lived an affluent life more under the radar . His grandfather is CEO of JD banking , one of the four largest banks in the world . He attended Princeton as the rest of his family did . He got involved in the company business at a very young age as did his brothers , but went on to become the new CEO after his fathers unfortunate passing in 2002 .

            𝐉𝐔𝐋𝐄𝐒 was and will forever be her parents pride & joy . her parents were high school sweethearts & got married young -- at a twenty-two / twenty-three . they had been trying for two years to start their own family but jules’ mother struggled . thanksgiving in the hamptons , a dicaprio family tradition the day is engraved in her mothers memory , in 1997 , they announced to their family that after years of trying , they were pregnant .

            𝐉𝐔𝐋𝐄𝐒 grew up completely pampered ; bi-weekly trips to the nail salon with her mother and annual father-daughter trips . her mother was her best friend until she began morphing jules into what she thought was perfect . making sure she spoke at least one other language , was active in school , extracurriculars , how she presented herself . her mother cared about image due to her own childhood of growing up in the spotlight . besides the near brainwash to fit her mother’s image of perfect , everything was ideal &  ‘ normal ’ up until the summer before her freshman year of high school . her mother discovered the affair her father had been having for months with a woman he did business with . he claimed it was due to the fact that jules’ mother had returned to some normalcy and wanted to work again , modeling and doing some traveling , therefore he ‘ just missed her around ’ . jules was aware of everything going on  , heard the countless nights they spent arguing in the opposite wing of the house , she picked up on her father being late to family dinner because “ he had work to do ” . her parents tried their best to keep her in the dark for the sake of her sanity , innocence , and view on her father . jules went along with it all , the daddy’s girl in her was in denial for all of the months leading up to their divorce . at the end , her mother got full custody of her .

             𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐈𝐕𝐎𝐑𝐂𝐄 came two “ yes ” parents . everything became a competition between the two , trying to one up the other ; who took jules on the better summer vacation , had the most over the top christmas morning , etc . it  was insanely manipulative & jules there wasn’t a time period where jules felt more alone ; not having a sibling to relate to , she was embarassed to tell her peers the real reason why her parents split , it was so cliché . both parents didn’t take too long to remarry , her father found another stay-at-home wife and her mother lucked out with a lawyer ten years older than she . her step-father had two daughtes & son with whom jules hated in the beginning – it  was a lot to take in and she was used to being the only child . her father went on to have a child with his new wife two years after their marriage . it was all an immense amount of change within seven years .

              𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄 for jules had been constantly changing since the news of her father’s affair , she’d spend her summers & holiday’s going back & forth between each parents in the hamptons until her father moved to calabasas to be closer to his wife’s family as soon as the baby was born . jules had always been a wild , reckless child at heart and the divorce between her parents only allowed her to push her limits even more . the two-three years her parents spent processing their divorce were her golden years -- she could not get in trouble with her parents and they never got upset with her . she took advantage of it all and abused drinking , hanging out with boys , you name it . she loved the attention she received from any male figure -- it made up for the lack of attention she was getting from her father once he got the boot .

              𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐆𝐄 was where jules found her safe space ; she could be her wild self , far away from home and only a five hour drive from her father that she still rarely sees . she joined a sorority , joined the exec board , was forced to join french club by her mother , all while maintaining a 4.08 gpa .

           *  ` 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘 𝐖𝐈𝐒𝐄 jules has always been a wild child . she’s always had a desire for attention , all eyes & attention on her , though the B I R T H of her uncontrollable desire for attention from males stemmed after her parents divorce . the lack of attention from her father allowed her to realize her dad wasn’t the only one who could spoil her & every man was basically the same . she’s not super close with either of her dads at the moment and sees her father about three times a year , two of which are holidays & every now and then the spontaneous visit from him in cali .  

          𝐉𝐔𝐋𝐄𝐒 is a h u g e  cry baby in the sense that she hates not getting what she wants . its not on purpose most of the time , it’s the way she was raised and the nature of her parents . she’s never had to ask for anything twice & hates doing so . though she’s a huge cry baby , she will try her best to mask her actual tears . she does a good job of seeming innocent , she’s that one friend that is super sus & lies a lot & keeps secrets but somehow is so good at convincing people other wise ? she’s a huge flirt , even when she’s not doing it on purpose , it’s sort of a weird practice or habit she’s grown into ? she feels empowered in the weirdest way of owning men and being able to form their opinion of her for them , this stems from her newly founded daddy issues  it’s more so due to the fact that her relationship with her father began to diminish once he moved out . she is & has been on her “ fuck love ” rampage .

       𝐒𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋 do whatever she wants and will hide her bad intentions . she lives for chaos , loves enjoys pushing limits & boundaries . she loves a game of cat & mouse / teasing just knowing she has someone in her grip is what helps her sleep at night . she is a bit crazy . . .  the type to watch someone’s snap score go up . def that type to block and unblock someone 238473 timES . she has an underlying need of approval from others and she almost needs to be liked by everyone she meets .

     𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 she wants to model & be a playboy bunny BUT her dad would literally disown her if she didn’t follow her family legacy and attend stanford or yale to use her brains for good . she’s in school to be a pediatrician because at the end of the day she loves children and always wanted to seek a job in the healthcare field . she has plans to attend yale’s medical school after her senior year is complete at stanford .

i really based her off of american beauty & angela in the movie ( if you’ve seen it omg ily ) g

THIS IS SO SCARY!!!

I doubt I predict my own fortune could be obviously so stupid from others trying to take advantage of my own life. Better Back the FUCK UP!!!

I thought I was bad of myself treating others horrible. Because I am not making them feel negative. I wanted to work alone, but I'm in a team. I have lack of communication with others. I hope others will understand me then I will understand them. Everytime I see my teammates, I can tell they wouldn't understand much more possibilities and consequences if they tried to communicate from other groups. I taught them how things works for all the areas I know of. We were having fun yet to be sharp and hardworking in front of our high superiors. My teammates got it down, but those days were my Volunteer Extra Time Work. Anyway, I made a lot of dough!

Goat got Me!!!! Thank the Lord. It's only a Reversed. I broke off my relationship with my 2 idiot brothers from my father's side. Including my Father.

It was 4 months ago, I was chilling watching anime at my little fat idiot brother's house with my mom. I was suppose to ask father for helpping my car. He went to someone's kid's highschool graduation party. I waited for him until that Demander Poser 2nd Oldest Brother dropped off father at my little fatass brother' s house because father was too drunk. The moment he saw me I knew it was going to be ugly at the end. At first, the Demanding Poser Brother talked to me a nice greeting like "Sup, it's been a while. How you been?" At the middle, He began pressuring me that "if I hate those people who's living in my house I should buy house" and I said "I have no plans because I am comfortable with my life and not bothering them as they don't bother me. I can cope with that situation. It's my life." At last, We end up having a big arguement where he demands my life to be so perfect and be the only one to take care of my mother. He forced me to grow a family because our family name and country are dying. I felt hurt. Me to have a family with stranger I never felt in love and tell lies future kids about my family's past. BULLSHIT! I HAD ENOUGH OF HIS BULLSHITS! My mom came in and asked me if we can go home, but He fucking held me back by my shoulders. I plan to attack him with pepper spray and kick him in the face, but I thought about his girlfriend's family. So, that's why I held myself back. I thought about those so many consequences. I do not want pay my price. I knew him too well. He's always corrupted since he wants more freedom and much more lies inside of him and above to whatever hell he making much more trouble like suicide and stealing food from Winco and telling his friend's mom that our mom died so, he can live with them. I hated him ever since our parents' divorce. Anyway , I had to wait for him to finish. I had to Act like A Brainwashed mind control freak for him.

My father was there with him with our long converstation. Can't believe him, he told me "You stay quiet until he's finish talking." I gave them "I don't give a fuck look". I actually don't give a 2 fucks whateva the hell these assholes were talking about. I am a grown ass adult woman. None of my father's side doesn't understand me. I understood them, but they treat me like shit, a nobody. I'm always a quiet and good-manner in the family from both sides. They didn't see me that way. They finally threw me off from their life.

I first threw them off after my parents' divorce. I was insanely calm psychopath kid. Thank god, I became well mannered human being by my aunt.

After the next day, my mom told me my father called me a useless horrible daughter. I am like wtf??!!! I actually thought back hard from all those years. How am I useless and...horrible???? Then she showed me that Asshole brother of mine posted girls pushed the guy, but fell ass on the floor and get karma video on FaceBook. That was ridiculous. I told her not to show me and never mention about those idiots.

I stopped visiting them after 4 months until my car needs a brake service. The only person I can trust is my little brother. I asked him over text message if he can help me change my brakes without dad and that idiot. He told me he no expert, but only knows basic stuffs. I was wtf does he mean he only knows Basic Stuffs?!?!!

Do you guys know basic stuffs on cars?!?!?!

I DON'T FUCKING KNOW WTH IS "BASIC STUFF" IS!!!

Then he told me only father knows how to fix my car.

I'm just disbelief. I said WITHOUT FATHER!

I told him I can fix my car alone at his place because my place is crowded with cars and people. I need a space.

That fatass just told me to calm down and only dad knows how to fix my car.

Hello??? Did you not read my text??? I know how to change my car part from my car!!! I called him a Bitch. Cause he sounds like one. I treated him respect when I visited him, but now I knew he would be against me.

I want a straight answer. Not a prolong shit in your own shit out of your ass.

I want a Yes and a No. Not a talking bitch explaining the shit that I already knew.

Then he said, "No, you can't. I didn't do anything. You're making hard on everybody."

I'm just wtf you just said to me. You didn't do anything? You fucking said something so stupid out of your mind. Me??? Making hard for everybody??? I asked him How and When??? Then he told me he's done with me. Wow, this bitch turned his tail away from me. I'm glad he threw me out. He did a very horrid in my mom's side of the family. He attacked my little cousin in the bathroom. I didn't know about that till we move another house. I had this future and past psychic sights that my brother attacked her from the past and he gotten kicked out from the house. I thought it was a false vision sight. Until I felt his aura very sinful that makes me remove him with a knife in my hand behind his back. I told I know what you did. He panicked and called mom that I will kill him in the kitchen. I told mom he was in the way of me making a sandwhich which I was eating my sandwhich. My mom believed me than him. That very day, My little cousin kept her mouth shut ever till she called him a Devil. My aunt slapped her so hard because she treated us like her own kids. She cried and couldn't believe what that bastard did to her daughter. My aunt didn't want to call cops on him so, we had to kick him out of the house.

If I were to ask him what he said to me.

He'll end himself.

At the end, he asked me if I died those were your last words?

Bitch, please. If you were dead, those were my last word. I'm his oldest sister. What an idiot he is.

If I would be bumping him some other day.

Calling him out. Oops, still not dead. Live without me, strange boy.

And my father who's a player to all those random ladies he wants to sleep with. He didn't remove his car policy from his old company. I'm still paying for it. He need his ass to remove his shit. He's the primary of that policy. Fuck, why my car in the first place?!!! And I thought I'm worthless.

Ah, the future.~

I can barely see myself having so much wealth and being active in my job where I have my fun. As for my family, good riddance from that bastard threw off from their side. I'm glad I'm at my mom's side of the family. Some are bad as my father, yet worser for me to see a same repeat. And also repeating their kid's life as my life. Oh god, I pray for them for themselves buy another affordable house. I will still keep on coping and having my goal negativity into postivity! YAY!~

Lover Part 2/18

- Cruel Summer -

Bucky x Reader/ The Winter Soldier x Reader

Summary: “So there's you, you remember everything from the moment you met Winter until now. And then there is this Bucky person, and he remembers everything in his life except for the parts involving you. Like someone had gone inside his brain like hacking a computer and digitally removed you from every frame of his mind. It’s a lot to accept and it’s a lot to try to understand.”

A/N: This chapter is a long one, I had to set up some of the Winter/Spring stuff to get the story going via flashback lucid dream. Let me know if anything is confusing! I really like this chapter :))

Word Count: 5.5k      Part 1        Series Masterlist        Part 3

Warning: Just a bit of violence.

You lay awake in that same hospital bed in the otherwise empty medical ward at the Avengers compound, chained down because they don't trust you, because the man you love doesn't trust you or even know you.

If you open your eyes you are forced to look at blank white walls, cold metal technology, bleeping monitors. But if you close your eyes all you can see behind your eyelids is him, the way he looked at you like he’s never even seen you before, like everything that you two had shared, everything you both had gone through was gone. It was all your burden to bear.

You wouldn't be able to wipe the memories either, you had tried that before but they always came back, you assumed it was because they were so important, they made you so much of who you were. If he hadn’t remembered you yet maybe it’s because in his mind you weren't important, all he cared about, all he needed he already had. Maybe he had no time for love. 

It was clear that you showing up out of nowhere had startled him to say the least. He thought he was finally a complete man, that he owned all of his memories again, that the only person inside his head was himself, that he had gained control over himself again. And for someone to show up, begging him to remember them, telling him that they knew him would be a total mind fuck. 

Here is where you and Winter differ, Winter when you first met him had no memory of his past, he was entirely The Winter Soldier. When he was freshly brainwashed, when he saw you straight after the chair he always remembered you, remembered Hydra, remembered his missions and his place in everything. Sometimes after a visit to the chair, he acted colder towards you, took a day or two to get back to normal, or whatever your normal was. But he was still the Winter you knew and loved, the Winter that loved you. You were the same way, you had no memory of a past life, your memories started and ended with Winter, with Hydra. 

But this new Winter was a whole different person, he looked and sounded like the Winter you knew, especially the one that only you knew, the softer side of the cold soldier. But he had this whole past life he remembered, he mentioned this Steve person, he mentioned the war before Hydra had captured him, he remembered his whole life but somehow not you.

And it makes sense sort of, brainwashing science isn't perfect, some bits get lost forever, some memories buried more deeply than others, the Avengers probably had something to do with him retrieving all these old memories Hydra had tried so hard to bury deep. Maybe they could help you too. Though you aren’t sure if they’d want to.

So there's you, you remember everything from the moment you met Winter until now. And then there is this Bucky person, and he remembers everything in his life except for the parts involving you. Like someone had gone inside his brain like hacking a computer and digitally removed you from every frame of his mind. It’s a lot to accept and it’s a lot to try to understand.

Perhaps this was better, better than him remembering you and then choosing not to love you, remembering all the trouble and pain and still deciding that it all was worthless in the end. That the love that bloomed in such a cold dark violent place could never blossom in the sunshine of his today, and maybe you would have to accept that too.

But he looks at you like you are a stranger he is seeing for the first time, just passing through his life. You remember the first time you ever saw him, you remember it like it was yesterday, instead of many years and lives and deaths and lost loves away.

As if your body was actively trying to block out the medications you finally let yourself relax, let them take over, let them numb your brain, perhaps whatever fever dream that your mind creates from being high on the medications they were pumping into your system will be better than your overactive thoughts.  You feel these chills run through you, the familiar feeling of pain being numbed by high-strength medications. Your skin goes clammy as you close your eyes, sweat drips down your forehead, your breath gets slower, you fall asleep as the pain fades...

-

The last time you had felt that, felt such severe pain like your body was breaking and rebuilding itself, was when you had been given the serum, back when they strapped you down, stuck needles into your arms, taped your mouth shut. 

You can picture the room in your sleepy lucid state, it was dark and dingey and wet like a damp basement, there was no sunlight or warmth. You remember the pain, and then it fading, and then before falling asleep you heard someone speak.

“If she survives the night she will do.” He said coldly and then left the room, left you with the doctors.

It felt like it was slowly killing you and then putting you back together all at once.

And it's cruel, he's cruel.

You didn't have a face or name to the voice at the time, but you came to know him after, you tried not to hold the cold words you first heard him say at you, against him. According to the doctors, nobody had ever survived the procedure before aside from him. Maybe it was easier for him to not think of you as a real person, just a test and some numbers, the beeping of your heartbeat just another machine.

When you survive the night he is given the task of making you better, sure your body accepted the serum, part of the process that everyone else had died in before but he had to make you into a weapon, you needed skills to survive this job, this life, if you could even call it that.

It’d be easier if they hadn't picked the most handsome person in this stupid underground base.

His beautiful face, the shape of his body, the feeling you got, like an electric shock when his skin brushed yours, whether he's grabbing your hand and helping you up or punching you pushing you down, it's all cruel.

He looks so pretty like a devil too. Gun in his hands and blood on his face, all he’s missing is his horns. It's hard though, extremely difficult to view him in the way you view everyone else you meet through Hydra, with blind hatred, and concrete opinions. Winter was different. He could be cold and strict, he always followed orders, he did his job and put it over everything. But he had weaknesses, you saw him fall and fail and hurt and sweat just like you did. You often thought about what you would want to be seen as, the next person who came here, if there ever was a new asset you had to train, you wouldn’t want them to hate you...

Because in your mind you were innocent, at first at least, you didn't ask for any of this, you didn't ask to have your life stolen and be tortured and tested on. Because everything before Hydra was blank, but maybe you were wrong to assume you were a good person before all of this happened.

Maybe innocent was a bad word to define it, you were under pressure sure, brainwashed yes, and so was he, fighting to stay alive, following orders, but at the end of the day, what made your life more valuable than the people you killed? You tried not to think about it. Tried not to put the blame on yourself.

-

After you had survived the Serum, they ran tests on you for days, they fed you so little, not certain yet if they should waste resources on you. These people had stolen you, tortured you and then had to audacity to not even like you, not be proud that you had survived, not admire the way you handled pain, no comforting words of goodnight as they would turn off the light in the lab and leave you strapped into that god awful chair until morning.

Eventually, they give you your own room, it’s three concrete walls and then a thick glass door and a thick glass window on the fourth, not looking out to anything nice, not there for your enjoyment, but so people can watch you, like a caged animal. You’re sat on your bed, knees pulled to your chest as you try to comfort yourself. You look up to see a man standing at the door, you don't know how long he has silently been there, he has a blank expression, messy long dark hair, and a shiny metal arm. He keys in a code to your room and then enters without asking.

“We need to train, let’s go.”

“Train? You expect me to be able to do anything? I'm covered in bandaid residue and needle marks, I haven’t eaten a proper meal in maybe three days? I don’t know I’ve lost count because they had me strapped into a chair night and day. I haven’t showered in who knows how long, I don't even know my name, I don't even know how I know anything. My mind is like a black hole.”

And he should be stern, he shouldn’t feel sorry for you. He doesn't have compassion, he’s told not too, he’s shot girls in the face prettier than you, smaller than you, weaker than you. But somehow there’s a pang in his chest, a voice in his head screams that you look just like he did. He knows exactly how you feel too.

“I know, but we have to train,” he insists, he has orders to follow here.

You’re scared of him, as pretty of a face as he has he is still a big man with wide shoulders and his eyes are dark and mysterious. And you feel so weak that you just give in, you offer him a weak nod and try to stand but your knees turn to jelly and you fall, palms hitting the cold cement hard.

He flinches and catches himself before he goes to help you. It’s so unlike him to feel the need to help.

“I’ll go get you some lunch from the cafeteria, there’s a bathroom behind that door, shower and there should be clothes in that dresser, be quick,” he offers and it’s the smallest amount of kindness and compassion you have seen in a week so you smile and nod quickly picking yourself up with as much strength as you can muster, you don’t even remember what a shower feels like but you crave it nonetheless.

The door closes and he’s gone like a whisper in the wind. The bathroom is nice, like a clean public bathroom, smooth stainless steel metal, a sink, a mirror, a bathtub with a shower, clean towels hanging on the rack and a laundry bag with a note taped on the wall about the laundry schedule. You peel your clothes from your body and go to lock the bathroom door but it doesn't lock, typical.

The hot water is nice, you use your nails to scrub the sticky residue from that clear medical tape they used all over you, you gently clean the needle marks with your thumb and watch as they basically disappear. You wash your hair, comb through it with your fingers, clean your ears, scrub your face. You feel clean, it’s nice.

When you dry off you look through your room for clothes in the dresser in the corner, they are all very plain, black white grey, a bit of red here and there. You grab leggings, cotton underwear, a sports bra and a red t-shirt. The socks you grab are thin and slippery on the floor, you grab a sweater and then go to the bathroom to get some sort of privacy while you change.

You hear the door unlock and click open so you move quickly, combing your hair and then braiding it out of the way.

He places a grey metal tray on your bed, a sandwich a drink and a mix of fruit and vegetables atop it. Such simple food has never looked so good.

You sit down and start eating, the man stands there, awkwardly as he waits for you, following orders.

You speak as you munch on some cold carrots. “ So what’s your name?” You ask and he looks at you.

“We don't really get names, I used to be called the asset, but now there are two of us, so I’m asset number one, and you are asset number two,” he says and he sounds like a machine spitting out scripted answers.

“Asset,” you say, feeling the word on your tongue.

“Some people call me The Winter Soldier too. Its more of a code name though, for missions.”

“The Winter Soldier,” you mimic his words for the second time and he almost thinks it’s cute for a moment. Socializing is so weird, he hasn’t just talked to someone in so long, someone not superior or below him, someone who is supposed to be his equal. “Do I get a codename?” You ask and he nods.

“Yeah, I’m not sure if they decided on Summer or Spring yet, but for simplicity, it will be another season, like mine.”

“The Summer Soldier? The Spring Soldier?” You repeat as you swallow the rest of your drink.

You look up at him for a minute, he looks as if he’s about to say something so you don't dare interrupt him, curious to hear his next words.

“It feels strange doesn't it,” he asks, finally having someone to talk to about this.

“What does?” You ask, unsure because everything feels strange right now.

“Your brain, you know things, a lot of things, but at the same time, you feel like you know nothing. You know what a name is, you know you should have one but you can’t remember your name, your nicknames, other people’s names. It’s strange.”

“That’s exactly it. Like when I showered I was excited like I could remember that a shower is nice and feels good on your skin but I can’t remember ever having a shower before today. Like a black hole.”

He just nods, satisfied with your answer, happy but not showing it on his face that you understand him. “Okay, we better go now.”

On the first day of training he went easy on you, just basic workouts, building your strength which came all too easy now that the serum was flowing through you. He brought you to a part of the underground compound that had a computer type room with tons of technology, a room filled with books and tables, a gym-type room with a small room attached with training versions of any weapon you could ever need. 

He said he would show you the rest tomorrow, he gave you a couple of books to keep in your room, language books, basic coding books, self-defence books and a few care guides to some basic guns. He assured you not to try to read them all tonight.

He showed you where the cafeteria was, it was small, it had two tables and a small service counter where they gave you whatever it was that they were making that day. He said you could go there anytime you were hungry, super-soldiers need a little more food to fule.

Night crept closer and he encouraged you to get some sleep, he leaned against the door frame and entered your code letting you in. When it opened you hesitated before walking in.

“Thanks, see you in the morning,” you said quietly, still unsure fo what sort of dynamic there should be between the two of you. He nodded, and awkwardly gestured to the room next to yours. 

“I'm right next door if you need anything just knock on the wall or something. I'm sure they will give you your lock code soon enough.”

“Thanks,” you repeated again and then entered the room, you watched as he entered the code in again and locked you inside. You wondered how many people knew that code or if it was just him and whoever was in charge.

Things continued on like that for a while. Winter would come to your room in the morning, you would already be ready, waiting for him like he said you should be. You were quick to fall into line, to listen to the rules and paid good attention to everything he told you. This one on one time was nice, Winter was a strict teacher, he taught at a fast pace but he was also very hands-on. If he gave you a book to read he would always make sure you understood it, when it came to safety he was very thorough, relentlessly going over gun safety and making sure you knew your gun better than you knew yourself. Which wasn’t really that hard.

You were like a sponge, absorbing every word out of his mouth, following him around the base like a puppy dog. He never got upset with you, never got mad when you failed, or annoyed at your pestering. Everyone else seemed to hate you though and you weren’t sure why. There were very few females in the base, and they were never inherently mean to you, except the cafeteria cooks who weren’t pleased about having to cook for another super-soldier. 

All the lab rats, all the officers, technicians, the people who you didn’t even know what their job title was, they resented you, they scowled at you in the hallway they pushed past you, ignored your existence.

They didn’t seem to like Winter that much either but they never stepped out of line with him, maybe fear was his secret. But these men would never fear you, why should they? Because you can load a shotgun faster than they could tie their shoe? Maybe one day you will show them. Earn their respect. 

-

“Winter can we go over Ap4’s again today before we do combat?” You ask quietly.

‘Winter?” he asks and he tries to hide a bit of a bemused smile. It’s the first time you ever use that nickname with him and he likes it. There is no soldier attached to it, nothing objectifying him. 

“Yeah, you like your new nickname?” You tease as he silently walks down a different hallway to the gunroom, abiding by your request.

“It has a nice ring to it,” he says back, almost a teasing tone to his voice as well and then he pauses as he opens the door, gesturing you to enter the room, “after you, Spring.”

And they are just nicknames, simply shortened names, but hearing him call you something so sweet makes your knees buckle as you walk past him.

-

The computer room is warm, the amount of running technology in here makes it that way. You told Winter that this is your favourite room to read in and ever since he hasn’t asked you to read or study anywhere else. The table in the middle of the room is wide and you sit on opposite sides as you both read things together.

Winter has a mission coming up, something secretive but he told you he needs to know some more advanced coding stuff to complete it, he’s been reading these books for weeks. 

You’re across from him, studying your french books, taking notes, rewriting words, mouthing the words silently to practise. You pause and stare at him a little, mind wandering to other things. He can feel your eyes on him so he stops reading.

“Can I help you?” He asks as he perks an eyebrow, lip curling to a one-sided smile. It makes your heart beat a little faster. He warms up to you more and more each day.

“Oh I, nothing,” you try to explain why you were staring at him but nothing comes to mind.

He puts his book down flat and turns it for you to read the page he’s on, he takes his time and explains it to you, and that’s not why you were starring, now you’re faking interest just to hear his voice talk softly at you.

He says explaining things to you sometimes helps him learn himself, you like it when he does this. It makes him more appear more human, less perfect.

He grabs your pencil from your hand and your fingers touch momentarily, there a slight shock on your skin from the interaction. He continues explaining and writing things down for ten minutes, but all you can focus on is the tingling in your hand where he touched you.

-

Something went wrong on his mission, something he didn’t cause. He apparently managed to salvage the mission, complete it as per usual but he must have done things he wasn't meant to. Killed people who weren’t supposed to be involved.

His eyes are vacant the next day, he’s cold towards you, not in the mood for conversation, mind too numb to retain any information.

You know they put him in the chair. You heard it happen from the next room and you felt helpless. But now as he sits across from you at breakfast, silent, eyebrows knitted, you wish you could help him again, but you don't know how to.

He doesn't eat a bite of his breakfast. Once he sees you’re finished he stands up and grabs your hand, pulling you down the hallway, he’s extra gentle as his metal fingers wrap around yours, walking fast through the empty hallways.

He brings you to a room you’ve never seen before, the door is locked and he punches in the code and then quickly pulls you in, locking the door behind you. Your jaw drops when you take the room in, its got a slanted glass ceiling. Snow is falling from the sky and falling on the glass, then sliding down. You can see the details of the snowflakes, the way they melt and trickle down in patterned streams.

He realizes he is still holding your hand and he drops it, he lies down on the cement ground, places his hands under his head and stares up at the ceiling. You follow him, lie a good distance apart and stare up in silence too. He wishes you were close enough to hold his hand again and he wishes he didn’t crave your touch, even if he is so sensitive, so unloved and beaten that such a soft gentle touch, just consciously holding hands with you, would probably send his body into shock.

But it is still comforting having you here. You don’t understand what it’s like to kill yet, but soon you will and he will be there for you too, to lie with you a few meters apart on the cold concrete ground as snow melts on the glass ceiling above, a silent understanding, a touchless comfort. And if your partnership never grows beyond this, he won’t mind; for it is leagues better than his life before you. Better than his winter, before spring.

-

Your first mission with Winter went ...well it was a trainwreck. You got separated, they gave you a faulty com device, you panicked without Winter there to guide you, help you. You found yourself alone in a room with the target, you tried to question him but he had a gun, you shot his arm and tried to disarm him but as he fell to the ground he grabbed his gun again, you pushed his hand away from you and he shot himself in the head.

When Winter came in after following the sound of the gunshots he saw you, straddling this man with his brains splattered against the walls. Winter searched him, helped you up and basically dragged your shaking body away.

This man wasn't technically your first kill, but you did push his hand, you put him in that position and his blood and brains were on your tac suit, on your hands.

Winter was nice about it too, he drove you both out of there, he talked you down, reassured you. Not that it wasn't your fault but that you would get better, it would become easier. And that he shouldn’t have lost track of you.

When you got back to the base they didn't have the same opinion, they didn't believe you or trust you, they thought you were holding back information, even though Winter adamantly assured them that you weren’t, you had no reason to lie to them.

But they were smart, though evil people they had brains and they could tell that there was something deep inside, something in your eyes that you were holding back; a secret, no matter how big or small or unrelated, they were going to get you to spill it. No matter how much blood had to spill first.

They drag you to that chair and you put up a fight, you didn't want to be wiped, only bad things, painful things happened in that chair.

They strap you in and say teasing words, “you’ll grow to like the chair,” “be a good girl and sit down nicely, stop putting up a fuss.” They whisper and Winter stands idly in the background, not helping but also not stopping them.

They start pumping drugs into your arm after hitting you a few times to get you locked in, it stings under your skin and your mouth goes fuzzy, your vision blurs a little and you feel tired tired... tired and the room spins.

“I feel dizzy,” you whisper slumped in your chair as Winter walks up to you. The lab rats and soldiers leave the room, giving time for the drug to kick in. It's not a truth serum per se, but it does make anyone more...compliable.

“Look Spring, I believe you, I don't think your lying, but if there is anything you are holding back I need you to tell me, tell me what your hiding from them.”

He pleads and you see a bit of fear in his eyes, as if he is scared for you, perhaps growing attached to you. But all you can do is giggle in his face loudly, your nose brushes his cheek. “You really wanna know?” You ask and you have this childishly wide smile across your face and it'd be cute and wholesome if there wasn't blood between your teeth and smeared across your face.

“Please tell me,” he almost begs and you fold for him, abiding by his every request as per usual, as you were taught.

“I love you,” you gulp and then giggle, “ain't that the worst thing you ever heard?” You admit to him finally and then pass out from the beating and the high amount of drugs.

And as the drugs kick in in your dream, the ones in your current system do the same, the dream world behind your eyelids fades into black nothingness. The room is filled with a steady calm heartbeat as you lay sleeping in the bed. The nurse finally walks in, scared to visit you while awake and makes notes on your vitals and recovery, changing your stitching and pulling your blanket up to your chin.

You look like a little girl when you sleep, too young to be such a feared weapon. Only if she ignores the bloody gauze in the garbage beside your bed or the stories she’s heard about you.

Tony walks down the almost empty hallway, everyone in the tower should be asleep, there are no current missions in progress. A rare moment of downtime for the busy superheroes.

He leans against the door as the nurse stands above you, tucking your messy hair behind your ear, she feels bad, she’s caring, it’ in her nature as a nurse.

“Think she deserves a better room?” Tony asks and startles the nurse who quickly pulls her hands away. She looks at Tony for a moment before he continues explaining himself.

“We don't have any missions coming up soon, one of the nicer rooms we have here reserved for us will do her fine I think. Nicer bed, tv, it’s like a small apartment.”

“With a two-way mirror across the wall and video surveillance.” She adds.

“Exactly, we both win, she gets a nicer comfier stay and we get to keep a nice close eye on her.”

“You really think she is up to something bad?” The nurse asks, taking another look at your peaceful expression.

“I don't know what to think,” Tony admits as he leaves the room, texting Bruce to come to the medical ward as well.

“I’ll get the room ready Mr. Stark. The sweet nurse says and then scurries to the opposite end of the hallway.

Tony and Bruce whisper in the hallway as they watch you through the two-way mirror, now that the nurse has moved you. They don’t need to whisper though, they have drugged you up well enough that they could set off a nuke in the hallway and you wouldn't hear a thing.

They discuss how to handle your treatment, whether they should continue to keep you in chains, whether they should try to help you as they did Bucky. 

Down the hall and around the corner Bucky is making his way back to your room, he finds it empty and his heart drops, he holds his breath and he goes into defensive mode, ready to attack because he is scared of you, he doesn't trust you.

He turns in a slow panicked circle, looking over the room and then he quickly rushes out the door, knocking the small nurse to the ground in haste.

He apologizes over and over again as he helps her to her feet.

“Were you looking for the girl?” She asks, a little bite to her voice clearly annoyed at the tumble.

“What no, I was just walking, down the hall, to the uh,” he freezes, he never usually walks down here.

“You were taking a 1 Am stroll through the medical ward?” She questions again.

“Yeah, I do that...sometimes.”

“The medical ward is usually empty and locked at this time.” She disproves his lie and the panic is still painted on his face. She gives him a knowing look as she points down the hall.

“She’s moved to one of the nicer rooms, the one on the very end. Don't disturb her though, I won’t be here if she wakes up, and tell Mr. Stark I’ll be late tomorrow.” She is clearly unhappy with the entire situation, her medical ward filled with nosey people and Tony and Bruce making changes when she should have gone home hours ago.

Bucky waits for her to leave and then makes his way down the hall meeting Tony and Bruce.

“Hey Winter,” Tony teases, switching out his usual nickname for the one you had mentioned earlier, “here to see your little girlfriend?” He teases and Bruce looks worried that Tony is pushing Bucky too far.

“She is not my girlfriend. What are you doing here?” Bucky asks.

“I should ask you the same thing?” Tony continues and Bucky learned from his last failed attempt at a lie and chooses silence instead.

“We just decided we are going to help your friend here,” Bruce says to change the subject off of Bucky.

“She isn’t my friend either, I don't know her.”

“Well, that’s exactly what we are going to find out!” Tony says, excitement in his eyes.

“She isn’t your experiment either,” Bucky says as he pushes past them and walks down the hall, tired of this interaction.

Tony yells at him down the hall, knowing you are too drugged up to be woken by the noise.

“Isn’t she though?” Bruce bites on his finger nervously, tired of being caught up in Tony’s schemes but being torn by wanting to help you.

Bucky wishes none of this was happening, he wishes he could go back in time, to a few days ago when he was at a bar with Sam and Steve, playing Pool with Nat and getting his ass kicked, he can taste the cheap beer on his tongue for a moment. If only.

Part 3

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Can you tell me anything about James Jesse changing his evil ways and ceasing to be a villain? I know it retconned a lot turns to the better for rogues, but someone said Trickster was particularly hard hit and had a good redemption arc. I already hated Identity Crisis, but need to know if I should hate it even more. And whether Trickster (and others) should be permanently reformed in my headcanon/re-imagining.

strap in, bc that is going to be a long one as he is my favorite fictonal character.

James had always been a Rogue who was never in it for the money (there have been cases where he gave back is loot because he wasn’t interested) but for messing with the Flash. He also doesn’t injure people.

If you can get your hands on them, you should check out his appearances in Blue Devil Volume 1 where he becomes a friend/annoyance to Dan Cassidy. This includes two issues where he is on the run from a criminal organization who tried to trick him and use the anti-grav technology in his walkers to secede California from mainland USA (no, really), he also tries to rob a helicopter in flight with Looney Toon actions; that’s also where he dressed up as Trixie, his friend Len didn’t realize it was him and then was duped. That was a fantastic run!

His big turning point was Underworld Unleashed 1-3. That was during the probably lowest part of his life (doubted himself and his abilities, felt worthless, and then found out that after losing Roscoe and Sam, almost all his other friends died, too). Then he stole Roy’s invitation and went to Hell. I love those issues because they show that James is a true Trickster as in he has the choice between A and B and he always picks C. He is offered to sell his soul for a wish or return to his old, powerless, meaningless life. So he chooses neither and sticks around to see what happens. He doesn’t say no, but he doesn’t say yes either. He witnesses what the supervillains who took Neron up on his offer did on earth, what the big baddies (Luthor, Joker, etc.) did in Hell and what the heroes have to face. Then he finds out how to break Neron’s spell and tells the only person who can do it. Altruism saves the day and the Trickster was the catalyst to make that happen. He basically saved the world and in the end, realizes that his life has meaning, that he doesn’t care if he’s not important - he knows his own value. He beat the Devil.

Then he reforms more. He had already started during his Blue Devil days, but after that point he actively tried to go against bad guys still using his old methods.

Three fantastic issues are Catwoman Volume 3 69-71 where he is hired by the mob to spy on Selina Kyle and teams up with Catwoman to do it. His connection to Neron is mentioned and he admits that he tries to stock up on good karma since he knows that Neron wants revenge and James doesn’t dare to end up in hell after death.

For him, messing with bad guys counts as a good actions.

He continues that streak in the Impulse run where he screws over bad guys and Impulse but has actually good reasons for doing so.

Then there’s the New Year’s Special where he is contacted by his ex-girlfriend Mindy to rescue her son who turns out to be their son and also the messiah for a god and kicks Neron’s ass. He also brought his friends to help.

For me, that was him at his peak, because he suspected Neron. He knew the Rogues would be reluctant to fight him (having been killed by him, then sent back to earth as brainwashed zombies who went after lots of peple including James - he was hit by a mirror ray, turned into glass and was in immediate danger of shattering and dying painfully....that reminds me, I still need to write a fic about that), but he used his tricks to gain his advantage, help his friends heal, help his ex-girlfriend, gained a son and actively goaded the devil. He wasn’t afraid. He was boasting. He challenged the Devil and won!

That’s the best Trickster.

And supposedly all that just happened because Roscoe had planted a hypnotic suggestion in his mind. All those years of development, of hardship and triumph...supposedly caused by an outside influence. That’s a travesty. I maintain that he changed out of his own free will.

Before that is uncovered he turned into an FBI agent (which on the one hand, continues his streak of messing with bad guys, now with back up; on the other suggests that he willingly placed himself inside of boundaries and rules and chose to serve superiors. The only way I can somewhat justify this is that he needed to rack up even more ositive karma, but this is an idiotic way of doing it)

So, the Trickster had an epic redemption story we were robbed of in the end. It’s maybe not as drastic since he wasn’t an evil guy to begin with, but he did come a long way. In my mind he again chose option C. He isn’t a good guy, he’s not a villain, he is the Trickster and walks between. He does commit crimes, but they harm bad people and help good people

This might be the wrong place to ask this since I know you don't like Eren that much but you're one of the more logical SnK bloggers I follow so here it goes. Why is everyone giving Eren so much hate for preemptively striking Marley when technically they've been at war for years. Everyone's quick to justify how the Marleyan's are brainwashed and in a very tight spot but Eren has been under fire ever since the Colossal Titan kicked down the gate.

Are you talking about the fandom or the characters in the story? Hange and the others are furious because Eren used himself as bait, forced them into a risky mission, and because he didn’t trust them. 

It’s stretching things to say they are angry for the mission itself or for the loss of innocent lives in Marley. Their plan may have involved similar elements. We just don’t know yet.

As far as the fandom anger, this arc has been no friend to Eren. He used Falco, triggered PTSD in his grandfather, blew up an apartment of innocents, was emotionless over dead kids, and every character we respect is angry with him. Hange doesn’t trust him, Levi has arrested him, Mikasa wont defend him, Armin can barely make eye contact, Jean blames him for Sasha's death. The only people on Eren’s side are two characters who are generally hated. Having Floch and Zeke's support isn’t exactly helping.

I agree with you that the hate is unreasonable. There are too many unknowns to paint him a devil. Plus I feel like Isayama is playing us. This is all going to turn around again.

Here’s how I see the state of the fandom now in the portion that loves Eren

some are accepting this and still rooting for their favorite guy. 

some are feeling hurt and betrayed and it’s coming out as anger. 

some are over-aggressively defending him. 

and in the portion of the fandom who didn’t love him

some still actively dislike him but are staying in their lane

some are finding him far more interesting now

some are using this to gloat and make drama.

It’s those third groups in each category that are making the most noise. If I was doing the poll this month, I’d love to gauge the fandoms feelings for Eren. Maybe a question of sympathy for Eren would be good. Or a question like “Hange has lost faith in Eren, have you?” The angry voices are always the loudest, but I think you’d find that Eren still has a lot of support.

For Pretty Lies and Their Brutal Truths Chapter 8

It’s impressive that even after all of the crap she’s been put through, Celica hasn’t lost her will to live. The first thing she does when jolted awake by the water is to fight for her life.

Celica, understandably panicked, instinctually lashes out. All she can process at first is physical sensations, the feel of a hand, a shout, a burning scent. She’s unable to pin down what causes these impressions or how they fit in together.

As with any cornered animal, she’s indiscriminately dangerous to anyone who approaches.

It takes her a minute to calm down enough to realize she hasn’t been blinded and the water isn’t that deep.

The dread builds up inside Celica as her eyes adjust and she sees the injury she’s inflicted on that poor maid (an extensive and graphic injury). What must make it worse is this isn’t a battlefield, the girl wasn’t a soldier, but because of her lapse in control she hurt a civilian.

Celica’s mind is still sluggish.

Emotionally, Celica’s so numb (hollowed out after the all-encompassing terror of her awakening) that the horror of the situation doesn’t fully faze her (although from the way she fixates on that one servant’s glare seems to imply guilt or shame on her part). Which may be a blessing in this case.

Celica’s not even concerned about passing out and possibility drowning or being left vulnerable. She’s too exhausted from the spell.

Celica’s surprised they let her live, after what she unintentionally did.

What’s interesting is that she’s not nearly as freaked waking up restrained and blindfolded than she had been in the bath. It’s what she’s grown accustomed to, so its absence upset her.

Jedal continues to gaslight her. Claiming she chose to “repent” when she hadn’t said a word to that effect.

Judging from her wet hair Celica deduces that she hadn’t been unconscious long (unless, of course, they really wanted to be dicks and deliberately soaked her hair) and clings to that fact.

Jedah makes a transparent attempt to guilt-trip her, telling her the girl will be scarred for life.

I’m glad that Celica’s knee-jerk reaction is irritation at Jedah for lambasting her over one mistake when he’s done all he can to destroy her psychologically.

Jedah isn’t really angry on the girls’ behalf. If he was, he wouldn’t be using the girl’s disfigurement as a lesson to Celica to cooperate with them, claiming they only want to “help” her.

Looks as if Jedah switching tactics. No doubt thinking his brainwashing would be much more effective if he offered her a “reward” for “good” behavior.

Much to her disgust, Celica’s very tempted (who wouldn’t be?). She recognizes his trick but she’s been worn down too much to reject it (it feels like she’s making a deal with the devil).

Jedah makes Celica feel as if she’s already lost, by saying she’s already fulfilled her end of the bargain.

I got chills when I read, “Jedah’s tone had grown soft and low…” God, what a creep. A creep with a lot of unchecked power.  

Celica has an uncontrollable fit of laughter. A bitter laughter that sounds it skirts the edge of a breakdown.

Celica was accepts Jedah’s “terms” because, as she points out, she has nothing to lose. I thoroughly hope Celica makes him regret giving her this opportunity.

  Celica’s circumstances change so quickly it gives her mental whiplash.

She’s given the best of everything, from clothes to food to board but it doesn’t change the fact that she’s their prisoner. Everything she does is closely monitored, her access to the castle is severely restricted and the soldiers ostensibly there for her protection are prepared to strike her down at the slightest provocation (on the whole, it seems her position has mostly reverted back to what it was just before that fateful expedition to Milla’s temple).

The idea of giving in is enticing. To not have to concern herself with anything beyond her own comfort (as her father did) but it’s not in Celica’s nature to take the easy way out nor could she be content to live her whole life as a captive.

It’s sad to read Celica beat herself up for thinking she could save Zofia. It’s not her realizing she couldn’t do it on her own (no one could), it’s that she lost faith in her actions having any effect at all in the grand scheme of things.

Ah, I love how you sneak in a reference to the title!

She may no longer be physically in the dungeon but her time there definitely left its mark. Just listening to Jedah give his spiel about Duma and repentance reminds her body of the humiliation and pain she suffered at his hands.

I didn’t expect her current situation to be analogous to the previous one at Sage Hamlet, considering that this time she’s surrounded by her enemies rather than her allies. But the confusion the accompanies a transition from a hostile situation to a relatively more comfortable one remains the same.

Unable to settle on the “appropriate” emotional response, Celica elects to protect herself with numbness instead.

  Celica withdraws into herself. She notices that something big is happening (it’s impossible not to) but she deliberately tunes it out. That is, until it becomes simply unavoidable.

General Ezekiel appears almost hilariously inept. What kind of military personnel launches into a debrief (no doubt revealing sensitive information) without first making sure where they are and who they’re talking to? Emperor Rudolf puts his trust in the strangest people.

Even if she has a good inkling of what’s going on now, it’s not like she can do anything about it. The forced helplessness must be grating.

The situation has gotten so dire that they want Celica’s assistance in dealing with it.

I don’t think a reunion with her tumultuous husband and his family (consisting of a father-in-law who greenlit the invasion and sanctioned her interrogation and a sadistic cousin-in-law who gleefully stabbed her) is gonna work as an incentive, Jedah.

Saying her cooperation would bring “peace” to Valentia isn’t going to cut it either since she knows everything that comes out of his mouth is just manipulative bullshit.

Celica gives him no response so Jedah continues talking (he just loves the sound of his own voice, doesn’t he?).

Jedah doesn’t want to let Celica out from under his thumb. In her own mind, Celica retorts that he would so hate having to do the dirty work of “reeducating” her all over again. (Celica tends to hold her tongue in front of Jedah and I wonder if it’s a conscious defense mechanism or if it’s something ingrained in her, like her body’s trembling during his lectures).

Celica agrees to cooperate, hyper-conscious of Jedah’s mood and just hoping to avoid another screaming fit (god their dynamic gives me the creeps).

Celica thinks the rebels made her wellbeing a stipulation for the negotiation because of her position as Zofia’s princess, not out of any personal fondness or loyalty to her (perhaps that’s true but maybe it’s not).

The task is far more involved and treacherous than she initially assumed. They’re essentially asking her to put her enemy’s needs over her homeland’s.

Celica doesn’t put up any objections (planning to take advantage of the opportunity to collude with the rebels).

Rigel authorities do seem to be putting an inordinate amount of trust in Celica. It’s suspicious.

Celica briefly entertains the hope that this will lead to greater freedom in future but she quickly quashes the thought. Things will continue as they are after they get what they need out of her.

Jedah isn’t worried for Celica’s safety as he’s concerned with keeping her isolated and malleable.

Celica accepts the assignment. It tears her up inside, even if it’s in service of striking a blow against Rigel, but she’s resolute.

Jedah smiles at Celica, probably congratulating himself for a job well done in breaking the strong-willed Zofia princess.

  Preparations for the negotiations means there’s less time and attention devoted to monitoring Celica, which is fine with her. It gives her more time to mull over what her “last words” to Zofia should be (which signifies she either expects to be killed afterwards or forbidden to see Zofia and interact with her kingsmen or both).

Rigel seems to be sending a not-so-subtle message about where Celica’s allegiance (supposedly) lie by dressing her up in the Rigelian fashion.

I’m surprised there are maids willing to get close enough to do her hair, clothes and make-up.

This aspect of her new life, to play the role expected of her by the powers-that-be and used for her value as a tool or an ornament, is not so different from her old life as a princess of Zofia (admittedly, getting caught not toeing the line has far steeper consequences). It’s stifling but it’s an useful survival mechanism (or so she constantly reminds herself in order to get through it).

She’s shaken when she realizes who her so-called bodyguard is. It’s the same man who brutalized and stabbed her. Whose bright idea was this?

Celica freezes up with fear. She notes derisively that she’s been doing that a lot lately (not that she doesn’t have good reason to be frightened, when she’s frequently put in the custody of the men who hurt her the most).

Berkut’s attitude pisses me off (which is the point, so kudos). It doesn’t even occur to him that, after their last encounter, Celica would (rightly) be terrified to see him and worst, he has zero sympathy or patience with her.

Celica seems to be on the verge of a panic attack. Her mind cycles rapidly between flight or fight (which I think is the reason why all the associations she has with fire (both as a wielder and nearly one of its victims) rush through her head).

Berkut invades her personal space as an intimidation tactic and it activates Celica’s “fight” response. As with her attack on the maid, she blackouts from fear and doesn’t even realize what she’s done at first (only this time she just pushed back instead of casting a spell).

I was so scared for Celica then, of what Berkut would do to her in retaliation.

Berkut wastes no time in physically and metaphorically “putting Celica in her place.”  Telling her she will always be beneath them (I hate him. So much).

Berkut’s words ignite Celica’s rage. Despite everything that’s happened, she recognizes she deserves better than this. She deserves respect.

Although it’s not as surprising in retrospect, Celica doesn’t think her father’s “whores” have the same inherent worth as her. So it’s alright for them to get smacked around the same way she’s being smacked around.

Celica bluffs and insinuates that she’s pregnant. She doesn’t have to worry about keeping up the lie for long since Berkut immediately sees through it.

Berkut is correct, but for the wrong reasons. In his mind, if they already had sex then Alm wouldn’t be so hung up on her (as if the only reason in be interested in someone is for their body).

Berkut somehow manages to slut-shame someone he believes to be a virgin (it’s almost impressive, in a horrid kind of way).

It’s gross how he pushes all of the blame for Alm’s sullen, obsessive behavior on Celica when it should be placed solely on Alm instead.

Celica’s anger at Berkut hasn’t abated one bit but all the same she’s struck by the way he hadn’t hesitated to ruin her hair or make-up. It either means her role in the negotiations isn’t vital enough to protect her or he hates her so much he’d think nothing of jeopardizing them. It signals that she shouldn’t push her luck. So she bottles up her rage, something she’s gotten far too used to doing by now, and she busies herself with tidying up her appearance (just enough so it’s not quite so obvious she was just whaled on).

With no introductions or announcements, the Zofia faction arrive. To Celica’s total surprise, Mathilda is the one representing the Deliverance.

Mathilda is excited and relieved to see Celica alive and relatively unharmed (I guess she didn’t put much stock in Rigel’s word). Contrary to Celica’s belief, perhaps there was some genuine friendship between them.

Celica’s too numb from the shock to properly respond. It’s plain to see she’d prefer it if someone else had come in Mathilda’s place.

It turns out that Mathilda blames herself for them getting separated (which she apologizes profusely for, despite it not being her fault) and has been worried sick about Celica ever since.

Celica is taken aback by this uncharacteristic display of affection (I can almost hear her brain going, “does not compute, does not compute”). She doesn’t feel that their relationship is deep enough to justify it. She convinces herself that it isn’t her, the “real” Celica (who she thinks is weak and pathetic), that Mathilda or the Deliverance want but the strong, steadfast Zofia leader that she pretended to be. She admonishes herself for deceiving them.

Mathilda notices how disheveled Celica looks and is ready to make Rigel pay for their abuse.

Celica denies that she’s been mistreated, claiming she’s been treated like Rigel royalty and coming up with a lame excuse to explain away the bruise. Mathilda doesn’t buy it.

Celica bursts out that she’s staying (considering that she was looking straight at Berkut right before she said it, it was likely motivated out of concern for Mathilda’s safety since he probably has very specific instructions about preventing her from leaving).

Doing it feels like a betrayal but she lies and says her allegiances is with Rigel now, that she belongs here.

This is so sad and so frustrating to read because this might have been her only chance to escape but she couldn’t let herself take it.

Mathilda objects since, through her, Rigel would “legitimately” control Zofia’s throne.

Celica seamlessly integrates the coded message into the conversation (seriously, it sounds so natural). It’s really fortuitous that Mathilda, one of the few people fluent in this code, came to this meeting.

Celica is able to covertly pass the information on and it will hopefully lead to Halcyon, Sage’s Hamlet and the Deliverance teaming up.

She’s afraid her brother didn’t make it out of the ambush. But she won’t let herself dwell too long on the possibility. Once again, she shoves her feeling aside for her mission, for survival.

Celica has completely given up on herself. The best she can hope for is her efforts to contribute in some way to Milla and Zofia’s liberation (;-;).

  My heart breaks for Celica all over again. She had to keep close to Berkut’s side and watch as he fought the Deliverance representatives (holding nothing back) which triggered the traumatic memories of their own battle.

Just when she’s gotten away from Berkut, she has to deal with Alm and all of the unpleasant and confusing feelings he stirs up.

Alm warns her not to scream, or else the guards will take him away, not realizing that that might give her more reason to shout.

The same impulse to drown in Mathilda’s affection, that which made her resolution waver earlier, returns full force and prevents her from turning Alm away, much to her frustration (after all, she knows firsthand how dangerous he can be).

Celica’s wrung out. Alm’s presence is a (sometimes explicit) threat but she doesn’t have it in her to sustain that level of heightened fear forever. Eventually, it becomes the new norm.

Celica sets up a test for Alm. It’s risky because if Alm’s as horny as Berkut alleges, then it’s very likely he’d go further than ogling her as she undresses. Thankfully, nothing untoward happens. Much to Celica’s surprise, Alm seemed to have had his eyes averted the whole time (as entitled and oblivious as he can be, at least Alm can refrain from acting like a pig).

Celica believes this just proves he’s good at concealing his intentions.

Celica sits with her back to him, facing the mirror, so she can discreetly study his body language without his knowing while hiding her own reactions from him.

Alm tries to apologize for what Jedah’s done, saying it shouldn’t have been allowed. But Celica’s not letting him off the hook. If anything, his apology makes him look worst because he admits it was wrong yet he still let it happen.

Alm’s response is to deflect responsibility, saying he had no say in the matter which, while true, steers the conversation towards his frustrations and away from Celica’s feelings (the one whose feelings should be given priority).

Celica asks him point-blank what he means by “take care of.” Alm doesn’t answer, just acts all confused that she’d even need clarification. This frustrates Celica to no end (I’m with her), especially when it feels like he isn’t even trying to understand her point-of-view and her well-founded misgivings about him.

Once again, Celica has to suppress her anger and hold her tongue since it could lead to her spilling secrets that the Rigelians rather her not know at all.

Celica offers herself up to Alm (in a thoroughly mocking way). It feels like another test but one she’s certain Alm won’t pass.

Celica expects Alm to take advantage of her. The prospect is repulsive but at least then it would happen on her own terms and she won’t have to live in dread of the possibility any longer.

She’s astonished when Alm chooses instead to gently stroke her cheek, specifically over the bruise from Berkut’s punch (does he know his cousin did that?).

Alm gives Celica a sorrowful look. Alm repeats his sentiment earlier that none of this should ever have happened to her and expresses horror over the fact his own countrymen condone this barbaric treatment of “their own woman” (I guess he must consider Celica at least partly Rigelian).

Celica almost retorts that Berkut had so such reservations. Obliterate his naive beliefs. But she can’t. She’s too starved for affection to turn away from it now.

If her mind couldn’t accept that a long-time ally of her’s would be worried sick about her, it must be inconceivable that Alm, enemy of all she holds dear, would shed tears over her treatment.

Okay, I believe Alm’s sorry but the big question is, what’s he gonna do to improve Celica’s situation? Apologies don’t mean much if not followed up by action.

Alm asks Celica to show him the rest of her bruises and Celica acquiesces. She’s self-aware enough to realize her thirst for affection is impairing her judgement but she can’t stop herself either.

It’s so heartbreaking that she would prefer to be exploited and abused than to have her guard pulled down like this and be left so achingly vulnerable.

Alm’s touches remain sweet and gentle. He doesn’t escalate things but it feels like the most intimate night the two of them had shared thus far. And probably something Celica will come to deeply regret in the morning.

  Everything about the chapter was spectacular but I was especially blown away by the characterizations! Even Berkut’s vileness feels frighteningly realistic. And throughout it all, I just wanted to reach in, wrap Celica up in a warm blanket and tell her that there are people who care about her beyond her role as a princess or political tool or shadow of her former self. Not to mention, the chemistry between Alm and Celica is so well-done that even though Alm still hasn’t taken many steps towards reevaluating his worldview and being more conscious and considerate of Celica’s precarious position, a part of me still roots for them as a couple. Great work!!!

I’ve said this before, but this was honestly my first time really slowing down so I wanted to make sure to kinda tackle the roller coaster of events everyone has gone through and dig deep, so I’m glad it worked!

A big idea of this chapter was Celica’s growing apathy, which is something very foreign to her that is starting to become familiar, she is a pro at imagining conflicts on a conceptual level (it’s something she did at the start with how she viewed her marriage to Alm) and so when viewing it from there it is very easy to write herself out of the picture, so she can care about wanting Zofia free without even dreaming she could be a part of that

Berkut in general is tricky thing to write bc tbh this is his chilled out version, he was really unstable in-canon, but while I wanted to show the difference with him not having a superiority-inferiority complex, I still wanted to keep the position he occupies in game of representing a lot of Rigel’s worst flaws, so I went with this sort of irreverence.  He snarks a lot more, treats everything like game, bc he’s had little skin in most situations, with Celica he doesn’t mistreat her because he hates her, but because he doesn’t care about her, to him she is this little mouthy honeytrap that ensnared Alm, so someone at least needs to keep her in check

As with Mathilda, most of her shock came from the idea that “holy shit someone cares about me” in-game the Deliverance was formed from the royal knights so while she wasn’t sure who would come, she thought her code might work with others

Alm and Celica’s talk also ended on a more positive feeling than I thought it would, while their relationship is far from repaired for the reasons you listed, to a certain degree Alm offers her more power than anyone else, specially through sex, but at the same time that power can be taken away from her so easily so it is just as confusing as everything else, like the last line of her trembling for two different reasons is because that fear and arousal exist in tandem, and on one hand he could do whatever he wants with her, but on the other hand it feels like almost a slight to not be ogled if that is all she is worth, and on the third there is this idea of trying to take control by allowing herself to be treated like a sex toy, but then affection and feelings is a whole ‘nother game, one she knows she is much weaker to, but oh how nice is it

With Alm, he’s kinda in the process of deciding what person he is, part of the reason for treating her like glass is not just because this isn’t the time to fuck, but because he is still not sure he can trust himself to be the person he wants to be after scaring her so, something that will become bigger in the next chapter but Rigel has a very in-group, out-group line of thinking, everyone views Celica differently, but Alm has seen her in-group since their engagement, so Celica’s treatment feels like one of the worst failings he could make, of course as you pointed out, he comes to this conclusion in the most self-centered way, Celica’s own feelings being a footnote, the next step for him is to decide what to do now that he is starting to question things, while certainly sensual, the bruise scene was driven out of a need to apologize rather than desire, but can kisses really heal injuries, just as our parents used to pretend?

but yeah this is a really precarious situation for a relationship to be, so I’m surprised that any chemistry has managed to stick through, I guess it helps that among all the major toxic relationships, they don’t actively want to hurt each other and still care to a certain extent, and softness is so fragile in both their worlds

there are big choices up ahead for both our protagonists, big choice that will challenge that softness they share