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erbezdiez · 3 years

Note

On your Seiya and Usagi post, you had a tag about an AU and YES I WANT TO HEAR please(:

YESSS *RUBS MY GAY LITTLE HANDS*

Click the read more because this post turned out longer than I expected but SEIUSA AU HERE WE GO

Okay, so this is basically just “The Sailor Starlights come to earth at the beginning of the series instead of in S4″ AU. In that specific scene/whatever, Fighter hears Sailor Moon screaming during her first fight and goes there to save her on pure instinct, not because she’s looking for the Silver Crystal or anything.

Honesty in my head I wouldn’t necessarily get rid of Mamoru or anything and the whole thing would kind of follow the same basic beats as the canon Sailor Moon story.

After the first fight, Fighter would get curious about Sailor Moon, and with time she’d end up aiding her too from time to time in her battles. Maybe she can even meet Tuxedo like that, when they both go to save SM at the first time or something safsadgs. Usagi would develop her crush on Tuxedo Mask while at the same time being curious about Fighter as well. Also during all this time Fighter is flirting with Sailor Moon because she’s a big lesbian and I love her, which would leave her feeling ~~confused~~.

Meanwhile, the Three Lights could serve as the standard “popular idol” like Minako does in PSSM, though I do like the idea of their popularity growing through the series exponentially.

Sometime after the senshi go meet Queen Serenity, Fighter would be aiding Sailor Moon and the others in a fight, but then get hurt herself. Then Maker and Healer can make their appearances, introducing the full group. They wouldn’t appear much more, but they would make it very clear that they’re not after the Silver Crystal so the senshi can have the whole “they’re not our allies, but they’re not our enemies either?” thing.

After the finale of S1, I like the idea of the Starlights noticing the senshi have forgotten about their identities and Figher being sad, but deciding that it’s better this way.

They could have a bigger part during the Makai Tree arc because that arc is great and I don’t care if it’s filler, where maybe they can sense something similar to Kakyuu’s light in the Makai Tree or something. Seiya and Usagi could meet while Mamoru is away as their civilian selves, and of course, Seiya falls for Usagi right away without knowing she’s Sailor Moon. Usagi however rejects him, because she’s still hoping Mamoru will return to her. When he does get his memories back and all that, Seiya stays friends with Usagi without telling her about his feelings.

And then during the Black Moon arc. Seiya could become a sort of emotional support for Usagi; she’s not sure why she likes talking to him so much, but it’s like he gets him in a way no one else does, not even her best friends. They grow especially close then Mamoru and Chibiusa go through the whole Black Lady thing. By this point, the Starlights are still focused on searching Kakyuu and only get involved in the other’s fight when they happen to be there or it’s something very serious, but they’ve become a sort of “sometime-allies we can rely on when something goes wrong”.

But then, of course, the Death Buster arc happens, and Uranus and Neptune are immediately wary of the Starlights since they’re from outside the solar system. They could go from suspecting them of working with the Death Busters, to attacking them on-sight. At the same time, Haruka meets Seiya while he’s hanging out with Usagi, and distrusts him right away. Partly because she feels “he’s just dangerous” and partly because let’s be honest she’s a bit mad that Seiya gets better reactions from Usagi than she does. Through this whole arc, Mamoru and Usagi begin to drift apart as she starts relying more on Seiya than on him, but she always denies the possibility of having romantic feelings for him, especially because she knows that Chibiusa existing at all depends on her staying with Mamoru. This however does nothing but strain their relationship even further.

Before the end of the arc, the Starlights would explain to all the senshi that they’re looking for Kakyuu, so Uranus and Neptune can stop trying to kill them for one second.

The Dead Moon arc is all about ChibiUsa and Usagi, and by this point, it’s undeniable that Usagi likes him too. Chibiusa could actually talk to Helios about this in her dreams, and how she’s actually scared Usagi will choose Seiya over Mamoru and either create a paradox or straight up kill her.

I would use Nehelenia’s motivation in this point as a way of separating the current Usagi (and by extension, Mamoru and everyone else) to their Silver Millenium selves. In Death Busters Uranus and Neptune are affected by their destiny in a positive way (they’re soulmates who can finally reunite, much like Serenity and Endymion) but in a negative way, when they think there’s no way to stop Saturn from destroying the planet. Now, when Usagi senses how much Nehelenia hated Serenity and her mother, she would feel sorry for her. Usagi had nothing to do with Nehelenia’s punishment and feels like Queen Serenity did a bad thing she can’t excuse. By creating this crack in the perfect image of the Silver Millenium, Usagi would begin to question if just because Serenity loved Endymion that means she should love Mamoru unconditionally.

And then of course, the Stars arc!! By this point, Usagi and Seiya are very close and both have feelings for the other, the Sol senshi trust the Starlights in varying degrees, and Usagi isn’t sure if she truly loves Mamoru and wants to fulfil her destiny. By the time Mamoru goes to America, he tells her they should “take a break” while they’re away so they can sort their feelings out.

I would also have Mamoru actually get to America instead of being kidnapped by Galaxia. Enjoy your education, boy!

Usagi tells Seiya rather quickly about this development, and they get even closer than before. Chibiusa hasn’t returned to the future yet, either because she senses it’s unstable or because she’s too worried about Mamoru and Usagi to leave them. She can tell Usagi that she knows how she feels about Seiya and that she’s broken up with Mamoru, and that she’s afraid of what that means for herself. For a while, Usagi starts avoiding Seiya because every time she thinks of him, she imagines Chibiusa disappearing and she can’t bear to choose between the two of them.

Then one day, Seiya gets targeted by one of Sailor Galaxia’s lackeys, and Usagi has no choice but to transform in front of him, revealing her secret identity. Seiya is surprised, but before he can say anything, Usagi runs away.

Seiya isn’t sure what to do, and she can’t even tell Taiki and Yaten about it because it would betray Usagi’s trust. One day, Seiya finds Usagi crying under the rain (or maybe the moonlight?) as she feels the weight of the whole world is in her shoulders. Seiya reaches out to Usagi, but she pushes him away when she thinks about hurting ChibiUsa. Seiya takes her hand anyways and holds it to his chest, telling her to look after her own happiness instead of the happiness of others for the first time. Usagi cries, and Seiya wipes her tears off. She then says “you were crying that time too at the jewel shop”, and Usagi isn’t sure what he means. Seiya transforms in front of her, showing her her true self.

This only makes Usagi confused for a second before she realizes that of course, it makes so much sense now. In a moment where she allows herself to think of her own happiness, she kisses Seiya.

She then rushes back home, suddenly afraid that she’s made Chibiusa disappear, but to her surprise she’s still there, alive and well. Chibiusa is suspicious of Usagi’s actions, but she leaves her be.

Shortly after this, before Seiya and Usagi have the chance to properly explore their relationship, the rest of the inner senshi have to transform in front of the Starlights (and vice-versa). By this point their relationship is much less tense than in the canon (both groups think of the other as allies, and now they’re united under the same enemy), and while Haruka still doesn’t like Seiya too much, she accepts her when Usagi defends her.

Eventually, the final battle comes, and in this version, I’d actually like Galaxia to be the villain not because Chaos corrupted her and she doesn’t have a Starseed, but because she became bitter and angry by the mere act of having to fight Chaos over and over again.

Turns out Sailor Galaxia isn’t just the most powerful Sailor Senshi of the universe; she’s the most powerful Sailor Senshi of all universes. Each time Chaos is born, she travels to that universe to destroy it. She’s been doing it since the dawn of time and is now so tired of her destiny that she just joins Chaos willingly.

So during the final battle (which honestly I’d leave almost the same because that battle is amazing), Usagi makes Galaxia see that she doesn’t need to keep on fighting just because someone decided it was her destiny. The existence of the Silver Crystal, the Golden Cyrstal and Kakyuu prove that Chaos can be fought against by other people, and that she’s already done more than enough. By realizing this, Galaxia lets go of Chaos, and by joining forces with Sailor Moon (and maybe with all senshi there present, even if it’s in spirit form), they manage to destroy Chaos.

I didn’t mention her anywhere else but ChibiChibi is here! And in this version, she actually is Sailor Cosmos, who’s awakened after Chaos disappears. She tells Usagi and Galaxia that Cosmos and Chaos will always be in battle, but that as long as people don’t let it consume her, peace will reign through all universes.

So the peace is restored, and the Starlights have to go back to Kakyuu. All senshi share a farewell in the school building, where Seiya struggles to let of Usagi and she has to try her best not to beg her to stay. Mamoru (who was captured during the final battle but is OK now) notices how Usagi hasn’t looked at him the way she looks at Seiya in years, and catches up very quickly. Seiya says that going back to restore her planet with Kakyuu is her duty, to which Usagi can’t say anything, because she feels she too has a duty to fulfil on earth.

But as they’re flying off into space, Yaten Taiki and Kakyuu tell Seiya that she’s already done more than enough. Seiya looks at them for a moment, when Usagi breaks down and cries, begging her to stay. Seiya leaves the space teleportation whatever the Starlights were using and jumps towards Usagi, who only barely manages to catch her. Everyone laughs and they kiss.

Later, they discuss whether or not this changes their destiny, since Chibiusa has never seen Seiya in the future. Setsuna could then explain that they may as well have created a new universe where nothing is set in stone, and that their future is now in their hands.

----

...And that’s that!! SORRY THAT WAS SO LONG asfshkgjhdfgksd. I know this fandom is very small so if anyone wants to idk expand on this idea or change anything or use it for something please go ahead!!! More seiusa content is always welcome. I hope you enjoyed this really long read!

#seiusa #sailor moon #text post #long post #sammbamm72 #asks

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demonprosecutor · 4 years

Text

TURNABOUT HEROES AU! A COMPREHENSIVE POST

BASIC PREMISE:

Miles Edgeworth is a big-shot prosecutor who, much like his mentor, specialized in the prosecution of super-powered individuals, more specifically, heroes and villains. He doesn’t have any powers; however, it does not dissuade from the fact that he has considerable influence to ensure that retribution is often a rarity in his line of work

(far too often he’s heard stories about his colleagues being offed by a vengeful loved one or a villain who managed to smuggle in a weapon)

However, his luck was bound to run out anyways. After sending too many of their colleagues’ into high-security prison, Miles finds himself the unfortunate target to many villains and unfortunately takes up a new role of ‘Damsel-in-Distress’ if he wanted to play with cliches.

But even with his string of bad luck, the mysterious Firebird is someone who always seems to know when and if he’s in trouble. At the same time, Phoenix Wright had somehow reappeared in his life and now? He’s being SAVED on both ends, what does a man have to do in order to get a semblance of peace around these parts.

Or, as I like to call it, the “oh no, i fell in love with a superhero AND their secret identity unknowingly and i am in a crisis 24/7 about it” au

WORLDBUILDING:

The world is composed of individuals who have powers and who don’t. Generally, there is peaceful co-existence between these two groups - however, there are spots of tension between the two that culminates in trouble. Sometimes, powered individuals use their abilities for evil and others use their powers for good. Non-powered individuals are usually stuck in the middle LMAO

ROUGH TIMELINE:

Gregory Edgeworth is a non-powered defense attorney that specializes in crimes that are committed by powered individuals because they have the tendency to be indicted more harshly than non-powered individuals. He, while not too famous like his enemy, has steadily been growing in fame in terms of his willingness to help anyone no matter what, something that Miles, as a child, cherished.

As a kid, Miles, who is non-powered as well, is someone who grew up in a very loving environment. In spite of the fact that his father was a single father and sometimes came home late, he was always surrounded with a wealth of love and care from his father and his uncle. During this time, Phoenix and Larry, both powered individuals (and whose powers I will explain further downwards), were his tentative friends at the beginning - that is until the dreaded class trial. Phoenix was accused of stealing Miles’ money and the teacher + class was unfairly going against him, citing his powers as being evidence towards motivation for crime. But Miles stood up for him, his dad as inspiration, and told everyone off because you can’t accuse people without proof. From that moment on, these three were inseparable.

They would always go to each other’s houses, always pair together for group projects, and always hang out - they were thick as thieves.

But tragedy struck around Christmas. Miles does not know exactly what happens, but all he knows is that when he woke up from fading consciousness, a moment of time seared in his mind for eternity is throwing the gun, the ear-splitting gunshot and a blink later, his father slumped dead on against the elevator wall.

From that moment on, it just goes downhill for Miles. He gets taken under Manfred’s wing and has the ideals of always getting a guilty verdict and people with powers are bad. For years and years, he grew up with this poisonous mindset with his adopted sister, Franziska, and together, they grew up to be the second-most feared prosecutors (the first being Manfred).

Meanwhile, Phoenix is desperately trying to find miles, trying to see if he could reconnect with him, but he never does. So in college, he ends up with Dahlia and gets subsequently accused of murder of Doug Swallow. He gets poisoned in the trial, a gift from Dahlia’s powers, but miraculously heals - figuring out another facet of his powers.

It is then when Phoenix meets up with Mia, determined after seeing that newspaper with Miles in it, she takes him under her wing and teaches him everything she knows about being both a defense attorney and a hero. Together, they make the dynamic duo of Firebird and Spirit! They fight crime on both sides of the law for years, while Phoenix thinks about his goal of reaching Miles.

Years later, Mia gets murdered by Redd White after obtaining information that could stop him and his company.

The trail for Mia’s murder is the first time Phoenix and Miles meet again. Instead of Winston taking the role of prosecution, it’s Miles!

Miles completely ignores Phoenix initially and focuses on the investigation and having the perfect trial. He does a lot more hands on investigations because sometimes, the police have a tendency to misplace evidence or not find things that he needs, so he’s at the crime scenes frequently. The night before the first trial, Miles goes to the crime scene where he first meets the hero Firebird. He is a bit of a jerk to Firebird before Miles writes him down as a potential suspect.

After his first loss, Miles is completely stunned. Before chalking it up to beginner’s luck. It doesn’t help that Manfred reprimands him very harshly for losing to a green attorney.

But for some reason, after that first trial, Miles ends up seeing more of Phoenix and Firebird around. Phoenix has the tendency to take cases that Miles is prosecuting for chances to talk to him and Firebird is always around the crime scene - he’s sure that they’re in cahoots with each other.

It’s difficult for Miles to talk to Phoenix because it brings up too many memories that he had repressed for his own mental health. But for some reason, Firebird is much easier to talk to.

It’s like Miles has a target at his back because he cannot go a few days without being kidnapped, being held at gunpoint, being used as hostage, and being rescued by Firebird, that insufferable flirt. However, Miles is reassured that he has someone out there who is willing to save him because not many would, especially since he would judiciously prosecute them without much guilt.

Firebird; however, is another story.

He talks to Firebird and Phoenix about each other and it’s clear over the years that he’s slowly being less cold and more warm -- and it’s hard to not fall in love! Firebird is the one who falls in love first because if Phoenix is being honest, he’s been in love with Miles since forever, but it’s easier to confess behind a mask. And this was during a time where Miles hated powered people, so it was always left with taunts. But Phoenix never let that deter him, he had always cared for Miles, no matter what.

Eventually, Miles ends up falling for both Firebird and Phoenix and he spends many sleepless nights thinking about the hero who saves his life literally and his rival/best friend who saves his life emotionally.

NOTABLE CHARACTERS:

Phoenix Wright AKA Firebird:

His powers are pyrokinesis, healing, flight, and regeneration

Body is the same fragility of humans, but if he dies, he crumples to ashes and comes back to life brand new and without injuries!

Miles Edgeworth, non-powered:

A prosecutor trained under Manfred von Karma, specializing in powered crime

Terribly unlucky to the point where people wondered if bad luck was his superpower

Franziska von Karma, powered, but repressing her abilities:

A prosecutor trained under Manfred von Karma, specializing in powered crime - eventually upgrades to international prosecutor

Her abilities, once found out, are ice powers!

Dating Maya

Maya Fey, non-powered:

A journalist charged with protecting the secret of the Kurain Village - which is a place for resting heroes or villains who wish to reform!

Dating Franziska

Pearl Fey, powered:

Her powers are super-strength, extreme durability, and extreme endurance

Literally the strongest AA character

Iris Fey, non-powered:

The twin of Dahlia and aided her charade with Phoenix back at college

Now she works at Kurain Village with Dahlia in the reformation of villains.

Dahlia Hawthorne AKA Sweet Tooth, powered:

Her powers are poison control!

She used to be a villain, but reformed

Works at Kurain Village with Iris in helping villains reform

Morgan Fey, powered:

Her powers are the same as Pearl’s; however, they are a LOT weaker than her daughter’s

Very scary

Larry Butz AKA Toy Soldier, powered:

Powers: brings inanimate objects to life

But he prefers to bring toys to life as puppets, not really an effective fighter, but he’s trying and that’s what counts!

The Phantom, powered:

Powers: can shapeshift perfectly down to their voices. They can also steal memories

They are the perfect assassin

Gumshoe, non-powered or is he? huehuehue

The detective partner of Edgeworth’s

Very loyal and energetic! He is such a sweetheart

Manfred von Karma, non-powered

One of the best prosecutors for powered crime

An asshole jerk

Trucy Wright, powered:

Powers: teleportation

She uses her teleportation for her magic tricks, but shhh, don’t tell anyone, it’s a secret!

Apollo Justice AKA Chords of Steel, powered:

Powers: sound manipulation

His chords of steel are sometimes A BIT MUCH!

But he could manipulate sound to make his footsteps quieter, his ability is really versatile

He can only SCREAM

Klavier Gavin AKA Piano Man, powered:

Powers: sound manipulation

BUT HE CAN ONLY SING IT!!!

Can charm/mind control people, but NEVER EVER does it because he knows how bad it can get!

Kristoph Gavin, powered:

Powers: charm

Can charm/mind control people hehehe

Ema Skye, powered:

Powers: perception

She can see the gross nasty fluids from a crime that can be seen with the human eye, she loves it

Lana Skye, non-powered:

Once the Chief Prosecutor, but now jailed

Currently, she is on parole and is going to be soon let out for good behaviour

Athena, powered:

Powers: She has the capability of knowing someone’s TRUE emotions and their deepest desires

It’s honestly a curse because she frequently gets overstimulated by crowds

Blackquill, non-powered:

A fearsome prosecutor that was jailed for crimes not of his own making

He seeks the phantom and wishes to either put them in jail or kill them, whichever comes first.

Mia Fey AKA Spirit, powered:

Powers: psychokinesis + phasing

LIKE A GHOST

Phoenix’s mentor as both a defense attorney and as a hero

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summerstardust · 4 years

Note

the master just can't get over the idea of the reader actually being in love with him and he's scared he's gonna hurt her x dh if possible but to be honest with ya, I'll take any master or any sacha character x THANK YOU XX

Thank you for the request! I’m sorry that it took longer than expected. I hope you enjoy this! 💜

Kidnapping Dates

Dhawan!Master x Reader

Summary: The reader is The Doctor’s companion, but The Master keeps kidnapping the reader in order to get close to them.

Warnings: nothing that I know of(feel free to correct me)

Word Count: 4797

The Master stalked the cold, rainy streets of New London on New Earth. He was there to gain more information about The Doctor for his next scheme, or, at least, that’s what he told himself. Because every time The Doctor was in view, instead of analyzing her every move for weakness, he was trying to secretly look past her and her other companions to get even the tiniest glimpse of you. You and The Doctor’s fam were walking in the middle of the town’s main street with The Doctor leading the herd. The Master was finding it difficult to continue to follow you and the conversation while hiding behind ventures and their carts, trying to lure in tourists. He was certain that he looked insane, tarnishing his ego, but he hadn’t seen you properly yet. He hadn’t seen you in so long and just had to see you. You were cocooned within the herd of companions, as if they knew that you were the favored prey. They had adapted into doing that, keeping you hidden, you were always that target of The Master’s kidnappings, so they always kept you protected and in eyesight. Except for The Doctor who seemed more inclined to show off than to express overt worry. You always blamed her social awkwardness. Nevertheless, The Doctor continued her tour speech of the area.

“Actually, believe it or not, this is the fifteenth Earth since the original. So we are actually walking on the New New New -” The Doctor continued to rattle off a string of ‘new’s until her point was reached. The Master scoffed at her ridiculousness, how she was always like this, trying to impress Humans with nonsense. He grew even more aggravated when he finally saw your face and how amazed you looked, with bright and shiny eyes filled with wonder. He couldn’t wait for the opportunity to finally get you alone, so he could kidnap you. He ventured to think that maybe one day he could make your eyes shine like that because of something he showed you, but he quickly abandoned that thought, ignoring its meanings and returned to focusing on the task at hand.

The form of the fam loosened slightly. You were still in the middle of their protective circle, but the form was stretched out between two vendor carts. You were still too well guarded for The Master could make a move. But as he planned, an eruption of screams was heard from down the street, coming closer and closer to The Doctor, her fam and you. The Master had enlisted the help of an emerging villain who was recently wronged by The Doctor to interrupt this adventure. He trained them in ferociousness in turn for the monster to not hurt you. He made that caveat very clear.

The monster, a disgusting beast with long sharp teeth, and even longer sharper nails, ripped through the crowd of people, wounding the ones not fast enough to get away. The Doctor now turned protective, keeping you and the fam behind her outstretched arms. She explained the monsters' race, and how they were usually peaceful, despite their deadly appearance, but you barely followed her ramble, too overcome with the shock of your ruined outing. She vocalized her confusion of this monster’s out of character behavior. This caused the monster to lunge forward, swiping at The Doctor. He screamed a jagged cry before speaking of how The Doctor, in an act of self heroism against the Daleks, caused the death of his family by giving a self aggrandizing speech pleasing for peace instead of actually acting to solve the disaster that was occurring before her. After explaining his story, the monster lunged again. The Doctor yelled for you and the fam to return to the TARDIS, and after some arguing, you eventually agreed.

It should have been simple, finding the TARDIS, but with the fearful crowd running each and every way, the task was suddenly harder than before. When you and the fam started out your return trip, you had your hands clasped tightly around Yaz’s and Ryan’s hands respectfully. They dragged you through the crowds and you were quite thankful. The crowds seemed to double in both number and fear, it reminded you of when The Doctor took you to the running of the bulls in Spain. One side of the crowd surged, curving into an alleyway, and dragging Yaz away from you. Your hands were roughly ripped apart. Graham, who was also dragged with that moving crowd, cried out for Ryan to keep you safe and to stay together while he went to search for Yaz. Neither you nor Ryan remembered where the TARDIS was located, the crowds and screaming and running made it even more impossible to recognize any possible indicators that the two of you were headed in the right direction. Another wave of scared people serged, dragging you away from Ryan, brutally ripping your hands apart. You both screamed to each other and screamed at the crowds to stop, but it didn't help. You continued to be pulled into the moving currents of the ever shifting crowds.

Eventually they died out, leaving you in a dark alleyway, too dark for the day time. You crept around anxiously, you had no idea if The Doctor had stopped the monster, it could have been anywhere. You still tried to look for the TARDIS, even though you didn’t believe that The Doctor would park her anywhere near a dark and dingy ally like this one. The sound of a glass bottle skirting over cobbled streets distracted you from your search, causing you to turn around and see where the noise came from. You thought it could be the monster. As soon as you did this, you regretted it. You felt a syringe plunge into your neck. The effects were practically instantaneous, making you so weak that your knees gave out and your vision became fuzzy. Someone caught you, even in your daze, you could tell that they were strong, as they picked you up bridal style and carried you with perfect ease. Your head hung limp over your capture’s arm and before your eyes finally closed due to heaviness, you saw the shadow of the individual carrying you. They were shorter and wearing a long coat and cuffed pants. If your hunch was correct, you knew exactly who was kidnapping you, giving you some semblance of relief that it wasn't some random person doing this.

It took you a while to actually come to, but in your anesthetized sleep you had wonderful dreams. You didn’t know if that was just a side effect of the anesthetic, but they were welcomed and calming, given the circumstances. You first felt how ridged your body was, it was clear that he tied you up, he tended to do that, so you weren't surprised, but that didn’t subtract from the fact that the combination of the sedative and rope ties made you incredibly sore. You groaned when you moved your neck from its hanging position, despite not wanting to encourage your kidnapper’s behavior. When you opened your eyes, you saw him crouched at eye level before you, with gleaming brown eyes and a wide smile. He seemed genuinely happy, he always did when he kidnapped you.

The Master kept doing this. You’ve asked on many occasions why he felt the need to kidnap you. If he kidnapped you as a part of his latest plan to “destroy The Doctor”, you could understand his motivations, but he kidnapped you, seemingly, for fun. The two of you shared banter and jokes, more than you did with The Doctor, if you were being honest. When he first kidnapped you, you were understandably angry and uncomfortable and scared. You were not present when the fam met O or when they went to Gallifrey and fought the Lone Cyberman, but from what the fam and The Doctor described, The Master was one to be feared. Which only caused confusion when he offered you tea and biscuits and even a spare room, if you promised not to get in trouble, as his torment, then, for his best enemy lasted longer than he imagined. That was many kidnappings ago, and you had taken him up on the offers of tea, biscuits, and a spare bedroom on many occasions. But with each new kidnapping, you were never able to get to the bottom of why he acted this way to you. You had your assumptions, sure, but you wanted to hear his reason.

“So why are you kidnapping me this time?” Disgruntled and tired from the sedative and the rope that wasn’t too tight around you, but still uncomfortable.

“Why else would I kidnap one of The Doctor’s little pets? To torment her senselessly! It’s quite fun!” He leaned forward excitedly, almost bumping your nose. He always spoke very close to people’s faces, you thought that he thought that this act would make him more intimidating. It might have worked at first, but you were too used to it by now.

“I’m not her pet!” You growled at him, invading his space, as much as you could given the ropes tying you to the chair. You were more upset that he used a rougher rope this time than his comment. You were comfortable enough with yourself to not give into The Master’s teasing.

“Oh, really now?” The Master moved back and eventually stood before you, making you look up to him. Sometimes you hated his childish dependence on power dynamics, you were frankly too tired, with the remains of the sedative still in your system, to care about dynamics. You wanted a comfortable bed and rest, not rough ropes digging into your wrists and sides and ankles and The Master’s fragile ego.

“Yes.”

“Prove it.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t. You see, I have these ropes restraining my movements, so I won’t be able to punch you in the face. As you know, she abhors violence. I don’t think that the others would want to disobey her, but I don’t really have that much of a problem with rebelling against The Doctor’s quote unquote wisdom”

“So you’ll kill. Was not expecting that! Maybe The Doctor only keeps you around to change you, like how she constantly tries to disrupt my life and change me.”

“I never said I would kill. I’m not like you, so don’t compare me to you. And I’m not like The Doctor, or the fam, or any of her other companions, either, so don’t compare me to them. I’m me and I just won’t hesitate to protect myself when threatened.” The Master pretended to have not liked what he heard you say, but, quite the contrary, what you had said was an example of the reason why he liked you. You weren’t like him. You weren’t like The Doctor. You weren’t like the other humans that hopelessly followed The Doctor like lost puppies. You were something new.

You had a fire of independence and a passion for justice that exceeded The Doctor’s. Where she had to try to be kind or nice, reminding herself with catchphrases and mantras, you never did. The Doctor often failed to register the fine line between justice and cruelty, you never did. Maybe that is why she, truely, kept you around, and why The Master really wanted you beside him. Keeping him from going to extremes like when he destroyed Gallifrey. The Master liked trouble, but he was growing a bit tired of constantly running away from all of the problems he caused with no sense of peace. Perhaps you could have been his peace, but he knew that the damage was done and he had inflicted too much pain to be deserving of any peace. If he kept kidnapping you, he could still keep you safe and in his life, even if it wasn’t to the extent he desired.

The Master turned, leaving your comment hanging in the air, and went to inspect something on his TARDIS monitor and leaving you with your thoughts. You weren’t exactly positive that you could hurt anyone, and you were afraid that he knew that. You wanted to protect people, protect peace and innocence. But you tried to think back to when you were left to fend for yourself in a dangerous situation, and you couldn’t locate a single memory. The Master had always been there, kidnapping you away from danger. You were thankful for that, you were quite privileged compared to The Doctor’s other companions who had to deal with fear and adrenaline and wounds and attacks and loss. You were always safe in The Master’s TARDIS with plenty of foods and blankets and warm drinks.

When you really thought about it, you understood how much he did for you. He clearly cared about you even though he would profusely deny it, and you couldn’t deny that he was attractive. If he was villainous, he wasn’t villainous to you. You saw how he possessed an aura of sadness like The Doctor’s, they were both so lonely, but The Doctor had companions. You wondered who The Master had, then you realized that he only had his TARDIS and you, if you counted the kidnappings, which you assumed that he did. When he thought you weren’t looking, you saw the sadness that pooled in his eyes and the soft touches he would give when controlling the console, almost apologetic for his outbursts. You saw how he was willing to be more vulnerable to you, at least by his standards of vulnerability.

After a long silence, briefly interrupted by TARDIS beeps and wheezing and The Master’s grumbles and mumbles about whatever was on his console monitor, you spoke up again.“Really, what goes on in that dumb head of yours?”

“I am not dumb.” He grumbled, trying to fix something on his console monitor, whatever was on was really troubling him. You would have asked him, but you preferred to taunt him.

“Yes, you are!” You spoke in a sing-songy voice, knowing that it would aggravate even more. It worked, he finally turned back toward you.

“How, pray tell, and I dumb?” He crossed his arms in front of himself, leaning against the console. You preferred having his attention on you.

“Because, if you wanted to go out on a date with me, this badly, you could have just asked.” His mouth fell open slightly. He knew that you were smart and observant, but he thought that he was being discrete. He quickly regained composure, smirking cheekily, trying to ignore his growing vulnerability and to take back the power of the situation. But you just stared right back, not giving into the power of his eyes. You swore that he was trying to hypnotise you into submission, to make you forget your allegation, but you fought back every time he poked your mind.

He continued to stare at you, slightly uncomfortable that you kept standing up against him instead of quivering and flustering before him, but he knew that if you did that, he wouldn’t like you as much as he did. His eyes bored into yours, trying to intimidate you, intensifying his gaze and his hypnotism, but you refused to back down and submit. You saw his eyes grow slightly warmer before he quickly turned back toward the TARDIS, his shoulders tensed. He gripped his console, eyeing the monitor. He spoke again, after a strained silence, still agitated.

“I’m growing tired of you. You will find that ridiculous blue box just around the street corner.” The Master flicked a few switches, causing the ropes that held you to drop and at the snap of his fingers, the TARDIS doors opened instantaneously. “Now run along to The Doctor before I decide to keep you locked in here forever.” You slowly got up and walked to the doors, still stiff. Before you exited The Master’s ship, you turned to get one last glimpse of the strange Timelord.

“You know, if you were to, hypothetically, ask me out on a date… I wouldn’t say no.” You leaned against the TARDIS, and she gave a reassuring hum above you. You weren’t quite sure if it was because of your comment or the sudden physical act.

“Why?” He was questioning and hopeful, with an aura of playfulness in his tone.

You shrugged in a way to indicate subtleness, but only to disguise your intense feelings for the man before you, “I don’t know. You don’t seem as bad as the others say you are. At least, not to me.”

“As you pointed out, I kidnap you constantly.” He couldn’t help but smile at your innocence and naivety. He could not understand how you could still see him as someone decent, despite his evil acts.

“Yeah, but it’s always a part of a scheme to kill The Doctor and her fam, while I am safe and tucked away in your ship away from danger, or it’s right before The Doctor is about to get us into a dangerous situation, when I’m stolen away by you. I would put money on the fact the right after you took me, a monster attacked the fam, and you kept looking at the monitor to check and see whether or not the threat was gone.” The Master didn’t say anything, only smiled bittersweetly at you, after you smiled and waved him a goodbye. The Master snapped his fingers again, closing the doors when you fully exited his TARDIS, mumbling a soft “Until we meet again, Y/N.”

The Master watched you leave on the console monitor, when you returned to The Doctor, he flew off to drift amongst the stars in order to plan for his next kidnapping of you. But when coordinates randomly appeared on the data screen of the console, he grew distracted from his task. He thought that maybe he deserved a break from torturing himself by dangling something he could never have before him, maybe he deserved a little trouble at the moment. The Master, strangely, did not know the place, but the message was sent from an old partner in a small overthrow of a corrupt dictator. The partner had thanked The Master profusely, but he was only in it for the money and to see the dictator, who angered The Master at a banquet, finally and horrifically murdered.

The Master freshened up a bit and followed the coordinates to the meeting place. He strolled out of his TARDIS, confident and excited for a new evil scheme. However, The Master’s face fell in disappointment when he saw The Doctor leaning against her blue box. The Master grumbled and rolled his eyes, quickly turning back to his ship. He was not in the mood for another lecture from The Doctor, he had experienced too many of them in his life.

“Why do you keep kidnapping Y/N?” The Doctor’s voice caused The Master to halt. Even though he wanted to just fly away and leave The Doctor questioning his actions, he couldn’t resist talking about you, but he couldn't allow his best enemy to know. He marched up to The Doctor, trying to be threatening.

“Because seeing the look of fear in your eyes, Doctor, brings joy to my very dark life.” The Master turned to leave, again, even more annoyed with The Doctor’s interference.

“Are you sure that it's my pain bringing you joy? Because from where I’m standing, it looks like Y/N is the one sparking joy in your dark life.” The Master froze in shock. He thought that there was no way for The Doctor to know his true feelings for you. He assumed that The Doctor was too dim catch on to is, admittedly, uncharacteristic behavior. He knew that you would never tell her of the feeling you, correctly, presumed he had for you. He knew that you found the banter quite fun and that you enjoyed his company, as he did for you. If you didn’t, you would be kicking and screaming during every encounter, but the two of you were always polite.

“I have no idea what you are referring to, Doctor. I think your mind is growing emotional due to extended time around Humans. Have your pets been making you watch rom-coms?”

“Oh, just admit it, Master. You like Y/N. I know for a fact that they like you, too.” The Master turned around again, he did not want The Doctor to see his pleased face, but his happiness faded when he realized that the two of you could never be together. For so many reasons it was impossible. He thought that it was simpler to break your heart now then to wait for one of his enemies to kill you or you to die of old age while he remains young.

“Don’t you understand?! Oh! What am I saying?! Of course you don’t understand!” His rage took over him as he turned back to The Doctor.

“Understand what?” The Master just wished his best enemy would drop the subject.

“Y/N can never live with me on my TARDIS, can never be my companion, and can never love me! It’s a big enough risk for me to love them! All of the damage I caused, all of the people I’ve killed whose families want revenge, all of the people who want to see me dead, they will go after Y/N, they will hurt and kill them, just to get to me. I can never allow that. You take so many risks with your pets, Doctor, but I refuse to put Y/N in that much danger. So I will remain their strange protector, keeping them away from the danger you threaten to put them through” The Master gave up trying to explain his position to The Doctor, massaging his brow with his hand.

Throughout this discourse the two Timelords had, they had moved and circled each other. The Doctor had allowed you to listen in on the entire conversation via the TARDIS’s listening devices, and instructed you to exit her ship when she indicated. After The Master had made his declaration of love you wanted to exit then and run to him, but stopped at the doors, watching the scene briefly. You thought that The Master was going to attempt to explain himself further, but but stopped himself multiple times, he suddenly surged back towards his TARDIS. This time he was fully intent on leaving and never coming back. You rushed out of the doors, the TARDIS making no attempt to stop you, as you ran to The Master and wrapped your arms around his torso, you could feel him tense in your arms. You couldn’t see his face, but you assumed that he was regretting following the coordinates. He eventually relaxed, but softly placed his hands on your arms and pushed them away from his body.

“I can’t. I can’t do this to you.” He refused to face you, still walking determinedly to his TARDIS, “I would be allowing you to sign your own death certificate. I can’t let you kill yourself for me. I’m selfish, but I refuse to let the only light of my life perish because of my wants.” You grabbed his hand forcefully, stopping him from moving. You tried to turn him around to face you, but he stood as still as a statue. You elected to move to his side, resting your chin on his shoulder. Your hands were still clasped tightly around his one. You wanted to make this conversation as private as you possibly could, you could see The Master’s agitation and uncomfortableness at being so vulnerable.

“I want this. I want you, Master.” He finally looked at you, his eyes big and round and sad, tears were threatening to spill out.

“I can’t. I can’t. I would be killing you. I would corrupt you. My selfishness will bring your end before it was ever supposed to happen, all because I want someone to love me.” He continued to mutter self deprecating comments about how this was impossible. You hated seeing him like this. You understood that he had thousands of years of past trauma and he should have the opportunity to be open, but in this situation, when you knew that you could ease his pain and he refused to listen to you, all you wanted was to slap his self depreciation out of him.

You abruptly tore your hands from his and cupped his face, planting a soft kiss to his lips. You moved to pull away, as you had an important statement to make to The Master, but he placed a firm hand on the back of your neck, deepening the kiss. You ventured to think how awkward The Doctor must be feeling at this sight. The Master must have been able to see into your mind, because as soon as you thought of The Doctor, he increased his attack on your lips. The two of you parted when you needed to catch your breath. You rested your forehead against his as he cupped your face, occasionally running his hands through your hair affectionately.

“Master, I know that you believe that you are doing your best to protect me now, but from my perspective, I know that you would never have gotten involved with me if you had any doubt about whether or not we would make it out together. I know that you protect me, as you have before. I know that you will care for me. And I know that you will find a way to combate my human biology and lifespan. I believe in you. I believe that you love me. Now you just need to believe me and believe in my love for you.” You tried to look him in the eye, but he skirted your gaze, electing to close his eyes in an act to engrave your words into his memory. He pulled you into a bone crushing hug suddenly, one arm pulling your torso tight against his, the other wrapped around the back of your neck. Your nose rested between the collar of his purple coat and his neck, and you breathed in his scent of warm smoke and cold mint, a juxtaposition that was very him. You didn’t know if this was the last moment you would ever see him this intimately or ever again and you wanted to remember every nuance you were allowed the privilege of knowing.

The Master thought long and hard about his possible relationship to you. He wondered if it was worth it, given that you were Human and he was a Timelord, but you were keen to The Master’s ways. As soon as he saw you, he began drawing up possible plans of extending your life. He had been so wrapped up in his mind about all of the futures the two of you could live, and now he had the opportunity to live out some of those futures. I believed you. He believed your love. Despite how shocked he was about his feelings for you and yours for him, from this moment forward he refused to be without your love and support. He eventually pulled back, still holding you. You couldn’t read his face and grew even more fearful that you would never see him again.

“Please don’t leave me, Master.” You tried to hold in tighter, to plead for your futures, but The Master pulled your hands away from his body to hold them in his hands.

“As long as you don’t leave me, Y/N.” The Master broke into a genuinely happy smile when he saw the relief that spread across your face. You hugged him again, and he picked you up and spun you around a couple of times. The both of you giggled excitedly.

“I guess it's a good thing I made you pack before this then.” The Doctor spoke up when you and The Master separated. Both of you had forgotten that The Doctor was there watching your confessions of love.

The Doctor was fully supportive of your budding relationship with The Master. She helped the two of you move your suitcases and boxes of souvenirs into The Master’s TARDIS and gave you an emotional goodbye, along with a goodbye to the fam, and a promise to call and text frequently. Once settled and happy in your new home, all you could do was smile until it hurt and hug The Master, too excited about the future and your love for the Timelord to fully comprehend the risks of your new relationship. But at this moment of bliss, the risks were worth it.

#dhawan!master #dhawan!master x reader #doctor who #doctor who imagine #doctor who x reader #sacha dhawan #the master x reader #the master imagine #personal post #fanfiction #request #anon

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blackjack-15 · 3 years

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Are You Poe-ndering What I’m Poe-ndering? — Thoughts on: Warnings at Waverly Academy (WAC)

Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD, MHM, TRT, FIN, SSH, DOG, CAR, DDI, SHA, CUR, CLK, TRN, DAN, CRE, ICE, CRY, VEN, HAU, RAN

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it.

If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with links to previous metas (or not links, as tumblr is freaking out with links).

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: WAC, mention of Sabrina the Teenage Witch (the OG live-action show not the horrible CW monstrosity); discussion of the Poe short stories “The Imp of the Perverse” and “The Black Cat”.

The Intro:

It’s time to go to school, y’all — and not just any school; a rich, elite, all-girls school. Welcome to the jungle.

Warnings at Waverly Academy is one of two games that I don’t sort into a category (like “Expanded” “Jetsetting” or “Odd”), the other being the game that follows it (TOT). There are a few reasons for this — the next category really doesn’t apply, but neither does the previous category, WAC and TOT both feature a gradual shift in tone and approach to the games, etc. If I really had to pick a designation, I’d say that these are the “Growing Pains” games, where the world gets a little bit more open — but not all at once, the characters get a little more fleshed out — but not by much, and a few new things are tried with our character rolls — to varying degrees of success.

On the whole, WAC tackles its efforts far better than TOT does, but it does make for a slightly less interesting meta if one was just to focus on what WAC does wrong and what it does right. Instead, we’re going to take a look at how brilliant WAC is tonally and thematically, and how its source material — not kept secret in the game — builds it up and makes it better and better upon replays.

Before I begin, it’s fair to warn you all that my thesis was done on Poe and adaptation theory (and its relevance towards detective novels but I won’t touch much on that part of it), so I might get a bit nerdy. Hopefully it’s still exciting and relatable enough to the game that it’ll make for interesting, rather than academic, reading.

WAC uses Poe’s stories — specifically “The Black Cat” (obviously) and “The Imp of the Perverse” (in my slightly expert opinion) — as thematic (what the game means) and tonal (how the game feels) touchstones, not to mention their inclusion for some of the events in the plot. A brief summary of both is probably important when looking at how they relate to WAC.

“The Imp of the Perverse” is an essay-like short story by Poe that basically states that inside of every person is the desire to do something wrong or incorrect simply because it is wrong or incorrect (not morally, but in terms of self-interest).

In the story, a man commits a clever murder and gets away with it, receiving the inheritance that he wanted from the dead man. The man cannot be caught — there is no evidence of any wrongdoing, let alone any that points to him — unless he confesses. The idea of confessing — not out of guilt, but just because it would be the wrong thing to do — plays on his mind until, driven half-mad with his preoccupation, he confesses and is imprisoned and executed. The titular “imp” is basically a devil on the shoulder who wants what would be worst for our own self-interest, simply because it is the worst.

MENTIONS OF ANIMAL CRUELTY FOR THE STORY OF THE BLACK CAT. PLEASE SKIP IF THIS BOTHERS YOU.

“The Black Cat” on the other hand is pretty much a proto-“Tell-Tale Heart” — an alcoholic man becomes emotionally distant from his cat (a rare sentence, I know) because he things the cat is judging him for being a drunk; one night in a drunken rage, he cuts out its eye and kills it. A fire catches his home, leaving an imprint of the hanged cat upon the only standing wall.

END OF DIRECT MENTIONS OF ANIMAL CRUELTY.

The man and his wife move, and he, after a period of guilt, makes friends with another cat — a cat nigh-identical to the first one, even missing an eye. When he (drunk, as per usual) and his wife are walking down the cellar stairs, however, he nearly trips over the cat and becomes enraged, trying to kill the cat, only to be stopped by his wife. He instead kills his wife, burying her behind the wall of the cellar and bricking up the hole.

When the police come by they find nothing, and the cat has disappeared, so the man feels safe. The police come back to investigate the cellar, the man taps on the wall to boast of how well the house is made — only to have horrific screeching start up behind the wall. The police break the wall down and find not only his wife’s body, but the black cat sitting on it as well. The man breaks down, overwhelmed by his own guilt, and the story ends.

END OF BLACK CAT STORY SYNOPSIS.

It’s pretty clear what influence “The Black Cat” had on WAC — not only does the villain name herself after the titular cat, but WAC is also a story of guilt, hidden crimes, and personal weaknesses that manifest in rage towards other innocents.

It’s actually really interesting that Corine takes the mantle of “The Black Cat” up when she begins targeting other valedictorian candidates; the black cat in the story is sort of a symbol of the man’s sin — a reaction to his sins and misdeeds, and sort of a catalyst of justice. This ties into how Corine sees herself — someone rejected and mistreated by those who are “filthy” themselves, and who must then show others the things they hate about themselves.

It’s Corine’s self-identification as a victim that starts all this, and it causes her to victimize others in potentially fatal ways. The black cat stands for guilt, for the sins of others, and yet it leads Corine further and further away from any justness herself.

The story of “The Imp of the Perverse” has a little bit of a more subtle tie-in to the game; in a way, each suspect does exactly what they know they shouldn’t.

Rachel and Kim are obvious — they really shouldn’t switch back and forth so regularly, nor should they be so sloppy at informing the other as to what they did and who they met that day. Leela, who should be studying if she wants to keep her spot in the race, instead passes the time by playing sports. Mel knows that the cloak-and-dagger meetings are to be an absolute secret, yet wears hair bows that she constantly loses to one. Izzy has her future meticulously planned out, yet refuses to back up an incredibly important paper (and also relies on being popular, yet pursues other girls’ boyfriends).

Even Corine falls under this; by targeting Nancy, she’s ensuring that suspicion will fall on her, as 2/3rds of the victims would then be her roommates. She’s also cutting her chances of being valedictorian by not working hard for it and instead relying on other, riskier methods. Every move she makes leads to it being more and more obvious that she’s behind them — and yet, she continues anyway, just like the man in “The Imp of the Perverse” — leading from a few small incidents to attempted murder.

Ignoring WAC’s ties to Poe renders it as a good, solid mystery without anything remarkable about it (other than the pendulum, of course). Exploring its ties to Poe not only helps set up exactly who the villain is, but also sets the tone for the mystery. This isn’t a mystery of Nancy foiling a villain through her smarts; instead, it’s a story about how guilt and a perverse desire for self-destruction leads a once-promising valedictorian candidate to more and more severe crimes, culminating in the exact opposite of what she was working for.

The Title:

It’s pretty awesome, full stop.

Warnings at Waverly Academy is honestly a great title for a Nancy Drew mystery; it gives us location, a sense of the world we’re in (scholastic), and a vague yet not too vague sense of what’s going on. The alliteration is good, the abbreviation amuses me — it’s just solid all the way around.

There’s not much else to say; sure, you could strengthen it by finding a punchier “w” word to begin with, but that’s just quibbling. It’s great, I love it, let’s move on to the Happenings at Waverly Academy (which, by the way, would have been a terrible name for the game).

The Mystery:

Called in as a professional undercover detective, Nancy’s just young enough to hide in plain sight at Waverly Academy, an upper-crust private school for those girls fortunate enough to be both rich and smart (aside from a few scholarship students, who are simply smart). Nancy’s called in due to a few near-death experiences by students, punctuated always by notes simply signed “The Black Cat”. It’s only a few days until break ends, so Nancy must work quickly to stop the sabotage, find the Black Cat, and solve the mystery before anyone dies.

Nancy, as always, finds quickly that not everything is so cut-and-dried. Each valedictorian candidate has the motive, means, and opportunity to get the other girls out of their way, and all have something to lose. Add in a secret society, the threat of demerits from an overly zealous RA, and the sneaking feeling that there might be a greater mystery behind all of these incidents, and you get a case mostly unlike any that Nancy’s had to crack before.

Oh, and Ned is on the phone, serving the player up with the single punch of testosterone in the game (aside from the hunky Mr. Harris, of course).

As a mystery, WAC is honestly super solid. Lots of characters, lots of clues, lots of red herrings, lots of mini-mysteries going on inside of the larger mystery…it’s everything you want from a Nancy Drew game, and it doesn’t really drop any of the balls it juggles. Sure, the pendulum might be a bit much for you if you’re not up on your Poe, but I think it’s a lot of fun, and for sure a very different type of ending puzzle — not drowning or running out of air or any other ending that Nancy Drew games likes to do.

Let’s go to the movers and shakers behind this mystery, then, shall we?

The Suspects:

Mel Corbalis is the fan-favorite character, so let’s start with her in this huge, estrogen-laden cast. Distinctly of the goth persuasion, Mel is a fantastically talented cello player and a Waverly Legacy, despite the fact that no one at school wants to be caught dead near her. She’s not an outcast the way that Corine is, however, because of her simple insistence on being exactly who she is, and not trying to hide or apologize for it.

Go Mel.

As a suspect, Mel is slightly more suspicious than most other girls, on account of Megan being her roommate, but otherwise sits on fairly equal standing with them all. She’s by far the most outwardly aggressive, but also comes across as simply no-nonsense (a welcome thing in any girl’s academy, believe me). She also has the least of Poe about her, despite her taste in fashion, and is in general a breath of fresh wind.

Next up is Leela Yadav, athlete extraordinaire. She sure can bounce that ball, at least. Izzy’s roommate and just as much a social climber (though in less in-your-face ways), Leela wants it all — popular, athletic, and valedictorian. It’s a lot for any girl to handle, much less one who can’t seem to keep it all together.

As a suspect, Leela’s not bad — she’s as even as (most) anyone else throughout the first half of the game, but falls off a bit when Izzy isn’t specifically targeted by the Black Cat (as most of her gripes are against Izzy, particularly). Leela’s more there to increase the number of students and throw suspicion around, but she does a darn fine job of it, and is well-rounded enough to be genuinely enjoyable.

We’d be remiss not to mention the queen bee (and my personal favorite suspect) at Waverly Academy, Izzy Romero. Snobbish, arrogant, and with apparently the smarts and people skills to back it up, Izzy is the first Waverly girl that Nancy (as Becca) meets, and boy does she set the player up for what Waverly is really like. Izzy’s smart enough to know when she should put in the effort and clever enough to delegate it when she can, and that alone endears her to me, even leaving aside her hilarious dialogue and general vibes.

As a suspect, Izzy is the sole girl who really isn’t set up to be much other than what she is — a girl with more than enough smarts to get power, and enough power to pretty much do what she wants to do. Sure, Nancy can catch Izzy doing stuff she shouldn’t do, but she’s never really a heavy-hitter when it comes to the Black Cat stuff. I love her for that, too. She’s a lot like Libby from the original Sabrina the Teenage Witch show; a bit nasty, but hilarious and effectively harmless — and I’ve always liked Libby-style characters.

And her stint in the Blackwood Society is aces too. Man, this girl does not quit.

Rachel Hubbard, is, of course, actually Rachel and Kim Hubbard, and they are the plot point that WAC is most known for. They actually have marginally separate personalities too, with one being far snappier than the other, and having strengths in different subjects.

Part of the reason I love the Hubbard twins so much is that their presence is so...Poeian. Poe was all about duplicity and mirrors, and the Hubbard twins show off both themes. It’s just a wonderful little bit of a nod to the source material (thematically speaking) of the game, and I adore it.

As suspects, the Hubbards aren’t bad at all; they’re lying, sneaking around, and blatantly “forget” what they’ve said to people, all of which adds up to be very untrustworthy. Were it not for Nancy (and Corine) sneaking around, they might have gotten through their Waverly experience without anyone figuring it out — and that’s something to respect, even if it does make them prime targets for blackmail. And speaking of blackmail…

Corine Meyers is both Nancy’s roommate and 100% our villain this time around. Obsessed with becoming valedictorian and knowing she probably won’t get it, Corine basically puts out self-assigned hits on each of her fellow candidates, attempting to get the title by violence rather than by being worthy. She’s even cunning enough to blackmail the Hubbard twins into doing some of her dirty work, throwing people off her scent. Sure, Corine is a rather pathetic (in the non-sympathetic sense) person who I have little respect for, but she does make a good villain in a Poe-ish story.

As a suspect, the game actually makes a pretty good go at not assigning the blame too quickly to anyone, so Corine does manage to hide out in the shadows. Sure, one of the girls who went home was her roommate, but the other was Mel’s, so suspicion isn’t centered right on her. I also love that she’s actually punished for what she does — no amount of sad pictures at the end of the game changes that. Corine actually has the cleverness that CUR tries (but doesn’t succeed) to give Jane, and I think it’s wonderful.

I’m not going to give Megan Vargas or Danielle Hayes their individual chunks, but they are present here as well, standing in as victims so we know that this teenaged effery very nearly had a body count. They really help to give a sense of…well, purposeful disconnection to the game, where the setting and the snow and the fact that these are high school girls doesn’t stop the crimes from being deadly.

The Favorite:

The first thing that I have to say is that I love how the tone and crimes of this game contrast so well with a lot of the games (especially, sorry, CUR). This takes place at a school, your suspects are all teenaged girls…and yet the game doesn’t shy away from how horrific things really are to get Nancy called in. Two girls have nearly died in quick succession from one another, and the girls are going on chasing acclaim. It’s a messed up situation, and the game doesn’t shy away from pointing that out.

These crimes are treated with severity, and the culprit, despite things that might have softened her ending under lesser writers, is punished with total removal. WAC in some ways is a spiritual successor to SCK, in that it takes place at a school, lives are endangered, Nancy is (mostly) undercover, and the culprit is not above killing Nancy messily solely for personal gain. The difference, of course, is that SCK is not done well, and WAC, on the whole, is.

As mentioned above, I have a soft spot for Poeian detective stories, and so I enjoy WAC probably more than I would had they modeled it after, say, Holmesian detective stories instead. The ideas of duplicity, mirrors, guilt, the Imp of the Perverse — the self-destructive tendency to do what we should not simply because we should not do it — these are all present and accounted for in WAC from different girls and facets of the plot (Corine and the secret society both represent duplicity, the Hubbard girls are mirrors, Waverly’s own guilt towards the students it failed, etc.).

My favorite puzzle has to be WAC’s resident cooking minigame, where Nancy prepares hot lettuce sandwiches and definitely underdone cookies to the delight of the gossiping horde. It’s like TRN’s cheeseburger minigame writ large, and every second of it is wonderful — the gossip, the food-making, the unexpected panic of a teacher order — everything. It also helps Nancy keep her head above water, should she be caught sneaking around after hours, and I think that’s great as well.

My favorite moment of the game is when Nancy comes out of the wall in Mel’s room and Mel isn’t having even one iota of her excuses to cut and run. It’s not often that a non-villain will press Nancy so intently when Nancy does something Inherently Untrustworthy, and I think it’s great that a 17 year old girl behaves exactly as one would, demanding an explanation and not letting Nancy wiggle her way out of it. Sheer perfection and the moment, I would guess, that Mel became a lot of people’s favorite WAC character.

I also love everything to do with the Blackwood Society. Nancy goes so…metal there and we really don’t get enough of Metal Nancy. It features one of the few moments of absolutely, unequivocally brilliant voice acting that Lani stumbles upon (the conversation about the bow), and it’s a wonder to behold.

The Un-Favorite:

While WAC certainly has great things about it, it’s not by any means a perfect game. It wouldn’t sit in my top 10, and possibly not even in my top 15, though it would depend on the day. The reasons for this?

A big one is my least favorite puzzle: taking the pictures. It’s a good idea — a gofer quest to help Nancy get to meet each student, talk to them, etc. and make sure no one gets lost in the shuffle (like with what usually happens with Guadalupe in ICE, for example) — and is also great for acquainting Nancy with the Hubbard(s). However, in practice, the interface makes it incredibly obnoxious to do, what with having to retake pictures because the pan or zoom is slightly off, and having to jump around from place to place. It’s a good idea, but could have been implemented far, far more smoothly than it actually was.

My least favorite moment in the game is actually the whole deal with Izzy’s paper being deleted. It’s a dick move — and I have no problem with that, honestly, but the fact that she has no backup is just like…girl, what on earth are you doing where you don’t back up your work.

Adding to that is the fact that even in the far-off yesteryear of 2009, Word autosaves (as did many, if not all, word processors) and a copy definitely would have still been retrievable on her computer, and that the teacher would almost definitely have a previous rough draft or at least outline…it’s a pretty shaky thing to have happen (the not-having, not the deleting), and it does break the game down a bit. I know it’s not that big a deal to most people, but it seriously hampers my ability to stay within the world of WAC and to take the mystery seriously.

The Fix:

So how would I fix Warnings at Waverly Academy?

There’s honestly not too much to do; while not a perfect game, WAC is perfectly solid, accomplishing what it needs to do properly and well, without too many little flaws to mar its reputation.

In other words, it’s a bit like an unsuccessful valedictorian candidate; well-rounded, but not a standout when compared to others that burn a little brighter.

I would, however, re-work the picture task; I’m not sure how you could make it less clunky, mechanically speaking, but it definitely needs it, along with a way to know if it’s a good picture or not before you go through all the effort of going to the library and plugging in the camera. I love the idea — just make the idea work better.

I’d also change the “deleted paper” storyline and go a little more destructive — give the computer an awful virus instead. Sure, her paper is backed up (in 2009, probably on a USB drive, or saved to her email or something), and she has her stuff, but that locks away all personalized notes, study sheets, etc. It’s something that would be pretty damning for a Valedictorian candidate, while also still being firmly in the realm of believability.

And on a smaller note, remove the ability to call Bess in this game. It always goes to voicemail and serves no purpose. Why even include it?

Where WAC really shines is its individualistic approach to each girl and in its permeation of Poeian themes; that’s what makes it special as a game, rather than any of its individual parts. Sometimes, you need to take a break from haunted mansions and carousels and museum thefts and marriage troubles and friends who are always in need of help – and you just need to play a game with gossip galore, hot lettuce bagels, and an actual death-bringing pendulum to round it out.

#nancy drew #clue crew #warnings at waverly academy #nancy drew games #WAC #nancy drew meta #long post #my meta #video games

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found--family · 4 years

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‘Supernatural’ season 15, episode 15 screener secrets: We’re ‘Highway to Heaven’-ing this bitch

[everything is from this Hypable article]

This week on Supernatural, Amara returns and are angels solving people crimes now? Hypable previewed Supernatural season 15, episode 15 “Gimme Shelter,” so read on to find out more.

After a sweet and fun return to ease us back into the world of Supernatural last week, things are heating up pretty dramatically – I knew there wouldn’t be much more time for messing around.

“Gimme Shelter” sees Supernatural dip its feet into what the Winchesters currently believe is their big plan – eliminating Chuck by also taking down Amara, resulting in what they believe will be a cosmic-being-free balanced world. But first, they have to find her. Sam and Dean get a pretty good lead on her location, which results in a very interesting conversation between Amara and the boys – especially with her most favoritest Dean, of course.

Meanwhile, Castiel is persuaded into taking Jack to investigate a nearby case in Missouri – which all three adults suspect is probably the work of a human criminal – for the sake of humoring Jack and keeping him both busy and supervised. On the way home, they have a very interesting conversation of their own.

Spoiler Warning: This article contains generalized spoilers for Supernatural season 15 episode 15, “Gimme Shelter.” If you do not wish to be spoiled at all, do not read this article in advance of the airdate.

The official synopsis for Supernatural season 15, episode 15 reads:

MATT COHEN DIRECTS — Castiel (Misha Collins) and Jack (Alexander Calvert) work a case involving members of a local church. Meanwhile, Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) go off in search of Amara (guest star Emily Swallow). Matt Cohen directed the episode written by Davy Perez (#1515). Original airdate 10/15/2020.

If you want to know what to expect from this week’s Supernatural, here’s 10 teasers plus 15 single word clues from our advance viewing of Supernatural season 15, episode 15 “Gimme Shelter.”

‘Supernatural’ season 15, [10] episode 15 screener secrets

1️⃣ During the filming of this episode (27 January – 5 February) Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles both spent much of the week at home with their families in Austin, a detail which was made clear on their and their wives’ public social media accounts – possibly the result of scheduled time off as they’ve mentioned occasionally requesting? The result is that the episode is weighted much more towards Cas, Jack and the murder investigation they’re chasing than towards Sam and Dean, but on the flip side, the Sam and Dean arc is more crucial to the long game of the show, so what it lacks in minutes, it makes up for in impact.

2️⃣ However, the episode still begins and ends in a grounded family group way, at home in the Bunker – one of those “we know we should be doing this together but there are Reasons we have to split up” situations. This detail, in my opinion, really speaks to the motivation of the creative team towards honoring the four leads as parts of a whole – in earlier days, this kind of episode would have been two entirely non-touching threads. This one is, if not a tapestry, at very least a braid – tied up together at both ends, and intertwined in the middle.

3️⃣ You might have seen pictures or ominous trailer footage of Castiel and Jack digging a hole at the crossroads. We all know what that means! However, don’t worry. They simply want to talk – and the demon they summon has some really interesting – and dare I say positive? – news about the state of Hell under Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Rowena. Let’s just say the demon is actually pretty friendly… and extremely bored.

4️⃣ The two main guest stars on Cas and Jack’s side of the episode are both actors who have been briefly featured on the show before, in a couple of pretty famous episodes – one from season 2 and one from season 5. I don’t think there’s meant to be any meta or Easter Egg element to this, just the usual Vancouver casting industry cycle (see the ‘Weren’t You In Another Episode‘ reference page on the SuperWiki) but one of them is one of those cute “I appeared on Supernatural as a child and now I’m here as an adult” situations, and the other, well… the original character’s very name has become the stuff of Supernatural legend, and if I were in charge of this episode I would have put the actor in a particular piece of footwear and made sure we got a shot of it, just for kicks.

5️⃣ Castiel steps into a prayer circle when the church group members are meant to give a testimony – presumably of their journey so far and their relationship with faith. That’s what Cas chooses to share, at least – in a non-specific, humanized way – and fans of the character will be moved to hear the ways he verbalizes his own growth.

6️⃣ Speaking of growth, some of Dean’s is spelled out for him in the most miraculous way by Amara. After Sam and Dean meet up with her and have a conversation about Chuck that’s ultimately a bit of a non-starter, Dean returns to ask her another, more personal question. Her response gave me legitimate chills. It’s a very weighty mic drop and the combination of the level of impact and the level of clarity (it’s entirely airtight, no room for interpretation) feels like the culmination of all the self-actualization work the show has been doing on Dean in the last four years. (I wish I could tell you Sam got a big special moment like this in the episode, but he doesn’t. Amara’s return was always going to be Dean’s thing.) Amara’s speech to Dean… it doesn’t feel isolated, like the idea of it was invented just for this episode. It feels more like concrete evidence of what the show has been trying to prove for ages. And the funny thing is, Amara is the anti-Chuck, right, and all season, we’ve learned about the version of the story Chuck thinks is good, and we’ve been told to root against that. Chuck’s version of Supernatural isn’t how the writers really feel. But I think Amara’s might be. Dean has obviously struggled to see what she tells him, all in one piece, but here it is – this was the point, laid out on the table, from the entity behind the curtain – both onscreen and off. Amara knew what she was doing, and so did the writers. This was always, always the point.

7️⃣ Even before this massive scene, Amara’s return is just great. Emily Swallow does such an incredible job with this character – she really is the anti-Chuck even without the whole writer comparison. Swallow imbues this character with such an incredible peace and stillness in comparison to Chuck’s histrionics – this was true in the way she spoke and behaved even in season 11, but this Amara also feels kindness and patience and tolerance. She radiates power, even when she’s also slightly goofy. There’s no fight, there’s no antagonism, but the boys in her presence are like little fish in a vast ocean – they quickly realise they have no real control in this conversation. The way that we leave her indicates she’ll be back and has more to say or do, and what she shared during her reunion with Sam and Dean makes me really curious about the role she’s due to play in the show’s endgame.

8️⃣ I’m not very religious but I really like the version of a church group or ‘faith-based community,’ as they say, featured in “Gimme Shelter.” Supernatural has a shaky history in terms of how the show portrays people in-universe who believe. Sometimes they’re treated like a joke, or stupid, or dangerous, or hypocrites, but occasionally civilian acts of faith are shown as great and powerful things, even in a world where we know that what they believe in isn’t strictly accurate. That concept became an even bigger question mark for me when we got the reveal that Judeo-Christian God is not only absent, but our actual villain. However, this was a really nice look at why faith can still be a framework for a good way of life – loving thy neighbor – for some people, no matter the truth about Chuck. The episode also features a callback to writer Davy Perez’ very first Supernatural episode “American Nightmare” in terms of the way that some people have weaponized faith and religion to the detriment and harm of others or even themselves, but this factor does not negate the positive point mentioned above.

9️⃣ Supernatural alum and newly minted director Matt Cohen really got the full old-school Supernatural episode experience when it comes to leaning into the spooky horror element. The murderous case-of-the week featured in this episode is heavy and lingering on the gore and even contains a little bit of a jump scare, so view responsibly.

🔟 So, um, you know that line, in this week’s teaser trailer? The line that a lot of people are freaking out about because it seems to pertain to something important that we know about Cas’ fate that Dean and Sam aren’t aware of? Yeah, it is 100% absolutely not about that at all. It is about something super important, but it’s not that. It’s also the last line of the episode, but trust me – it’s not a cliffhanger and it’s not a red herring and it’s not a twist. The information is gleaned within the episode and you’ll know exactly what Cas is telling Dean about after seeing it – narratively, that’s the reason it isn’t in the episode, because the show clearly assumes you’ll get the picture and can skip a rehash of information. But what you were probably expecting – maybe even hoping for – it’s not that. You’re gonna have to hang on for that one.

Finally, have 15 random yet significant words from this week’s episode without any context whatsoever: Gaia, Ronald, mother, pierogies, cats, philosophy, target, blind, permission, lockdown, Kool-aid, buffet, gift, trial, choice.

‘Supernatural’ airs Thursday at 8/7c on The CW

#spn s15 #teasers #spn 15x15 #Hypable #preview #thoughts #s15 #15x15 #this gets long as well as spoilery hence the /under the cut/#destiel

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sammysdewysensitiveeyes · 4 years

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Ranking Brotherhood of Evil Mutant members (including all interations) from your, most to least favorite and please expound why. I do like asking for opinions.

Hmmm....there have been several iterations of the Brotherhood, and I’m not very familiar with some of the later versions, so I’m just gonna go with the earlier versions that I know. Bear in mind, this is entirely subjective, and I like most of these characters, so a character being lower down doesn’t mean I hate them. Going from favorite to least favorite:

Pyro:

Anyone following this blog has probably noticed I love this dude. I’m not exactly subtle about it. I think he’s interesting and fun, as villains go. He’s snarky and cocky, and actually rather friendly when he’s not trying to kill you - very Affable Evil. He’s not necessarily a very good person - he’s self-interested, and can be rather vicious, but he’s a character that I thought could potentially come over to the good side. He seemed, at times, to get into the whole “Freedom Force” thing, and clearly enjoyed saving people alongside Longshot. He seems to bond a great deal with his team-mates - Mystique, Avalanche, even Stonewall (although he was a dick to him and Commando when they first joined). He even pals around with Blob, even though he also snarks at him sometimes. In AOA, Pyro was the only one helping and being protective of Phantazia. And now in Marauders he refers to them as his “friends,” and is perfectly happy traveling around with people that used to kick his ass, even appearing impressed with them (especially Storm), and being a surprisingly good team player. I don’t think Pyro would necessarily become a good guy for altruistic purposes, but I think he enjoys having “adventures” and getting attention and hanging out with his team-mates. I think if Pyro was on an X-Team, and was made to feel welcome, he’d probably be content to fight alongside them and follow the rules (which is basically what he’s doing right now with the Marauders), and maybe some of his team-mates’ virtues would rub off on him a bit. (There was apparently a version of X-Factor pitched to Marvel years ago that included Pyro on the team, and I’m disappointed that never happened, although I loved the X-Factor that we got.) And of course, there was also Pyro’s somewhat redemptive death, where he came to regret his past actions with the Brotherhood and wound up sacrificing his life to save Senator Kelly (fat lot of good it did, since Kelly got assassinated shortly after, but hey, he tried!)

Along with all of that, I am also really intrigued by Pyro’s back story of being a romance author and journalist. There’s the whole dichotomy of a guy who callously burns people to death and also writes gothic romance novels in his spare time. And honestly, it sounds like he’s lived a really interesting life before the Brotherhood - traveling all around South East Asia, working as a journalist covering Indonesia and Vietnam (I’d assume he speaks at least a little bit of Indonesian and Vietnamese to be able to live there and cover news). His motives for joining the Brotherhood have never been established, and I’m dying to know more about how he met Mystique, and why he decided to leave what was apparently a successful career and probably fairly comfortable life to go be an international terrorist. Was it money? A promise of adventure? Did he really believe in Magneto’s cause? Was he already getting into criminal activity before he joined the Brotherhood? There’s a lot of potential for development there, but unfortunately most writers (except Claremont) tend to completely ignore all of Pyro’s backstory. I’m still hoping that Duggan at least makes some reference to it, even just a throwaway comment about how Pyro used to write novels.

TL,DR: I like Pyro because he’s fun and clever, he makes friends with his team-mates, and he’s a writer.

Toad:

Toad is a really intriguing character, but mostly I like him because he’s actually got a lot of potential, but he’s had a shit life and can never seem to catch a break. In the earliest issues, he was just Magneto’s abused lackey, and appeared quite sniveling and pathetic, but later on it was revealed that he’s actually quite intelligent (and good with machines), he just appeared “stupid” due to all the abuse he suffered during childhood. Toad also has a lot of interesting powers - writers seem to give him a new one every other appearance. His stamina, agility, and super-strong legs could actually make him a pretty good fighter if he got proper training. Plus he’s got the prehensile tongue, pheromone secretion, acidic saliva, secretion of a paralytic resin, mind control over frogs - his Marvel bio is a long, long list of secondary powers. Toad could be quite formidable if he actually got his shit together, and there are AU’s (like House of M and Age of Apocalypse) where we see a much more stable, competent, intelligent Toad who is living up to his potential. But 616 Toad remains a joke, He’s either a low-level bad guy (they tried to level him up in the 90′s by making him the leader of the Brotherhood, but it didn’t last) or a pathetic sad-sack used for humor, or both. His attempt to “join” the X-Men led to him being the janitor and basically getting treated like shit (he literally had no bed?) then getting kicked out when he follow Husk to the Hellfire Academy, even though he did that largely out of concern for Husk, and actually helped her and Quentin escape.

Basically, Toad has been subjected to horrible abuse pretty much his entire life, he has a mutation that makes him appear “ugly”, and everyone treats him with, at best, pity, and at worst, hatred and disgust. I’ll admit, he’s had a few chances to better his life that have fallen through because of his own bad choices (and he’s done some horrible things, especially when he was leading the Brotherhood in the 90′s), but most of the time he’s just getting continuously kicked while he’s down. To a certain extent, it’s really a matter of comic writers not being willing to take Toad seriously - he’s considered a joke villain, and therefore gets written that way, because he’s there as an accessory in someone else’s story. At least the Toad/Husk storyline seemed to focus some on Toad himself as a character, even if it ended badly for him. Sometimes, I kinda think Toad is written as evil or pathetic so that writers can justify other characters being shitty towards him. Like, Magneto’s early treatment of Toad was absolutely, inexcusably horrible. Magneto treated everyone in the Brotherhood badly, including his own children, but it seemed like Toad caught the worst of it. Pietro and Wanda were also disgusted by Toad, although they had good reason, since his affection towards Wanda was pretty creepy. Later on, Magneto was revamped into more of a noble, morally grey character, and his past abuse of Toad was mostly forgotten. I don’t think the writers are necessarily doing this on purpose, but it kind feels like Toad remaining a pathetic bad guy was partially a way to excuse Magneto’s poor treatment of him, since Magneto was being reinvented as a more likable character. And not just Magneto, but just about everyone who finds Toad disgusting or cracks jokes about how gross he is – it’s okay, Toad is awful so it’s totally fine to have the physically attractive good guys mock him and treat him like garbage. (Hell, the artists can’t even decide what Toad’s physical appearance should be. Is he skinny? Fat? Does he have green skin? Is his nose ridiculously long or closer to normal? Who knows what we’ll get in each issue. And God forbid he be drawn without his tongue lolling out of his mouth.)

Also, I think that a lot of Toad’s worst personality flaws are at least partially due to the abuse he suffered. To be clear, I’m not justifying the things that Toad has done. He set up death traps for people who wronged him, murdered Sauron’s girlfriend, and stalked and attacked Wanda multiple times. That’s pretty shitty of him! But I also think the abuse had a huge effect on Toad and how he interacts with people. Like, his tendency to obsessively latch onto people, and act like a sniveling lackey – the dude has had pretty much no love his entire life, and he’s always been treated like garbage. Of course he has no self-esteem, of course he’ll fawn over anyone that shows him affection. He’s been raised to believe that he is garbage. Even his tendency to gloat over others being punished, and his whole “I’ll tell Magneto, and you’ll get in trouble!” thing is an understandable survival mechanism – other people getting in trouble means that he’s not the target, for once. Obviously I can’t condone Toad trying to murder people that wronged him, but his anger and resentment is also understandable after the poor treatment he’s suffered. In fact, I think it’s actually healthier for him to be angry than to think that he deserves it. And a lot of the shitty things he did as Brotherhood leader also felt like him desperately wanting to be taken seriously, to be respected – also not a bad thing to want, even if his actions were terrible. Basically, Toad has a lot of personality flaws, and he’s also had a lot of experiences that created or exacerbated those personality flaws. The guy needs serious, long-term therapy, and I think he could become a better (or at least more competent) person if he got the help that he so obviously needs.

TL, DR: Basically, Toad deserves better.

Avalanche:

I have to admit, a lot of my love for Avalanche is all about his relationship with Pyro, be it friendship or something more. (It’s something more in my headcanons, I will forever ship them.) But he’s also a character that we don’t know much about, in part because he tends to talk a lot less than a certain chatty Australian. He seems, more than anything, to be a practical-minded punch-clock villain, who is mostly in it for the money. He doesn’t seem to enjoy putting on a show and reveling in his powers like Pyro, and he doesn’t seem to have the same mean streak that can be seen in Blob (and Pyro, to be fair). I’m sure there are probably instances of Avalanche being dickish and cruel, but in a lot of his appearances that I’ve read, he seems very practical. Do the job, get paid. He also seems fairly content to be a follower or a lackey – happy to take orders from Mystique, or even follow Pyro’s lead when Mystique isn’t around. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have his own ideas or opinions, but he doesn’t particularly feel the need to be a leader. Like Pyro, we also don’t know much about his past before the Brotherhood, except that he was married at some point. Where’s his wife now? Why didn’t it work out? Was it because of him being a mutant, or was it his activities with the Brotherhood that drove them apart? Does he still love her? Why did he join the Brotherhood in the first place?

Avalanche also seems to care somewhat about his team-mates, although he’s not as openly friendly as Pyro. During Freedom Force’s disastrous last mission, he made the difficult call to abandon Pyro and Blob to save Commando, something that he was clearly broken up about. And of course, he was willing to go on a mission in the Savage Land with Pyro to get a Legacy Virus cure (that unfortunately didn’t actual exist). Avalanche is selective about who he cares about, but he still shows that he cares through his actions. I don’t want to make this all about Pyro, but I really love their relationship. The stoic, quiet guy/chatty energetic guy dynamic is great. They just love being bros and committing crimes together, and they are quick to work together and back each other up, even in their earliest appearances. I would totally read a min-series focusing on the early days of Mystique’s brotherhood, especially if it gave us some good Avalanche, Pyro and Blob development, and didn’t just center around Rogue and Mystique (both fantastic characters, but they’ve both got a lot of attention directed at them already.)

Also, Avalanche likes to garden, which is nice. And at one point he just got fed-up with everything and tried to retire and become a bartender, which is very relatable. Unfortunately Red Skull murdered him after that. Sorry, Avalanche. I hope you are resurrected on Krakoa, living your best life.

Blob:

Another character who is often not taken seriously. Blob is mean-spirited, crass, and often self-interested, much like the rest of the Brotherhood members. He also was extremely close to Unus, and clearly devastated when Unus’s powers went out of control and killed him. Blob is one of those characters where I think his physical appearance has led to him being designated as a bad guy by the writers – he’s big and gross, so, just like Toad, he’ll be portrayed as a bad person in order to justify the good guys being terrible to him. (Yes, I know there are “ugly” good guys, but let’s face it, they are rare. Most of the good guys look like models.) Blob also, like Toad, gets a lot of crap for his physical appearance, something that is literally part of his mutation. I think some of Blob’s nastiness is definitely a defense mechanism, lashing out at others because he is used to being attacked. It also seems like Blob is really lacking in close friendships, like what Mystique and Destiny or Pyro and Avalanche have (“friendship”). He was really the odd man out in Mystique’s brotherhood. He’s willing to pal around with various Brotherhood members, including Avalanche and Pyro when they’re not picking fights with each other, but he doesn’t seem to have a best buddy after Unus’s death. I kind of admire Blob’s toughness. It would be easy for him to completely lose his self-esteem, like Toad, but he stands up for himself and never grovels to others. He is frequently insulted for his mutation, but he also seems comfortable in his own skin, which is good. He shouldn’t have to feel bad about his own body.

There was an AU story that showed a softer, more thoughtful Blob who wound up in a relationship with Psylocke, so we know he’s capable of showing a better side of himself. To some extent, I like Blob’s crass, take-no-shit personatliy, but I’d also like to see writers give him more depth. I’d especially like to see him reunite with Unus on Krakoa, and the two of them hanging out enjoying each other’s company. I’m also enjoying the cameos we get of bartender Blob on Krakoa, I hope he is also living his best life.

Phantazia:

Honestly, I mostly just want to know more about her. All we really know is that she has a PhD (in some kind of scientific field, I think….she is reading a book on astrophysics in one comic), and she was willing to join Toad’s Brotherhood (and she was also the only Brotherhood member that received an invitation from Exodus to Asteroid M). Why? What was her life before that? Who knows? Most of the time, she seems rather cold, and a bit distant from her team-mates (but I can’t entirely blame her, the Brotherhood is a rough crowd. It’s hard to be the new team-mate, and probably especially hard to be the only woman.) She did seem concerned about Pyro when he was suffering from the Legacy Virus, but she kind of dropped out of sight when the Brotherhood disbanded. She seems like she was mostly in it for personal gain, especially since Toad’s Brotherhood was more about petty crime than mutant rights. Apparently she was deeply affected by Wanda’s reality alterations, which took a toll on her mental health, and was last seen in a SHIELD holding cell. I hope she pops up again on Krakoa.

Rogue:

The only reason Rogue is so low on the list is that I sometimes forget she was ever a Brotherhood member, and because I like to focus more on lesser known characters. But I really like Rogue! She’s tough but sweet, and an incredible badass. Leaving the Brotherhood for the X-Men meant walking away from her team and foster-mother(s), but she still did it, and became one of the X-Men’s most dependable and valued members. I love Rogue’s past, her relationship with Mystique, her relationship with Gambit. I love how she doesn’t take shit, but she also doesn’t go around acting like a jerk, like some of the “tough” characters. (Wolverine, basically.) I like the complexity of her struggles with her powers, and her knowing that her strongest abilities, like strength and flight, were basically “stolen” from someone else. I feel like I should say more, but Rogue is very popular and has had loads written about her already. Rogue is cool, and she deserves the best!

Mystique:

A truly fascinating character. She’s also lower on the list because she is fairly well-known and popular, and also because she can absolutely be a manipulative piece of shit, willing to throw everyone except Destiny under the bus. Yet, at the same time, we see her appear to genuinely care about people, like Rogue, Nightcrawler (after the unfortunate “toss baby off a cliff” incident), Destiny, even Pyro occasionally (she has a nice moment with him on Muir Island, and also calls him “friend” in X-Factor). She’s a character who can never be entirely trusted, which is a large part of what makes her interesting. I think she truly does care about a few, select people. Hell, there’s an early issue in which Mystique fights a bunch of robots programmed to look and act like the X-Men (courtesy of Arcade), and she completely breaks down after having to “kill” the Rogue robot, then hesitates to attack the Nightcrawler bot. I think Mystique can also be extremely callous, cold and manipulative, but I don’t think she is completely evil, just very self-interested, like a lot of villains. Also, she’s probably seen and experienced a lot of shit over her long life that contributed to that callousness (I figure if I’m gonna cut Toad and Blob some slack, I should do the same for Mystique.) I do wish she would stop committing rape by deception in stories (meaning sleeping with someone while disguised as someone else). It’s something that gets glossed over, even though fandom generally despises rapist male villains (and rightfully so), but Mystique pretending to be Blink and sleeping with Mimic is barely a story blip.

Mystique is also interesting just because she’s such a badass. She’s cunning, a good leader, a good strategist, excellent spy, good at hand-to-hand combat (she only loses to Arcade’s X-Men robots because she hesitates). She is damn formidable! She’s also lived a varied and interesting life. There’s a reason she’s gotten so much exposure in comics. I can also understand her being short-tempered while leading the Brotherhood, as she has to deal with the three stooges of Pyro, Avalanche and Blob. Then things get even more complicated during the Freedom Force days. Mystique has a lot of shit to deal with keeping those idiots in line. Her relationship with Destiny is probably my favorite thing about Mystique, they are beautiful wives, and I hope she gets Destiny resurrected so the two of them can live happily together on Krakoa. (Unlikely.)

Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch:

I don’t have much to say about these two, even though I like them. I’m starting to run out of steam in terms of character analysis, and I tend to think of them more as Avengers than Brotherhood members. They both deserve better. Also, they are mutants and Magneto is their dad. Retcon? What retcon?

Destiny:

I don’t have much to say about Destiny because she is very mysterious – always working according to some plan that only she knows. So it’s hard to really know her as a character. She seems like a very intelligent and calm woman. She’s always chilling while the Brotherhood guys are freaking out or picking fights with each other. She also faced her own death bravely and willingly. She seems to have a good sense of humor. One of my favorite stories is Mystique disposing of Destiny’s ashes after her death. She is throwing them off a boat at a specific time and place, according to Destiny’s instructions – and the wind blows them back into her face. Obviously Destiny planned it as a last prank, and I have to like a character who sets that up. Also, one time she let a rock wall collapse on Avalanche and Spiral because she knew they wouldn’t be seriously hurt, and she hated Spiral and wanted to enjoy her humiliation. That’s some impressive pettiness. Destiny is cool, and I hope she comes back.

Sauron:

I don’t really care about him at all.

Mastermind:

Seems like a real creep, especially with his manipulation of Jean Grey/Phoenix in the Dark Phoenix saga. At least he apologized to her at his death. Also, he’s got three daughters, the dude gets around. Regan, Martinique, and Pixie (WTF?! I just read that in his bio.) I am really confused by there being two Mastermind daughters with the same powers, but apparently it was actually a mix-up between two writers. Oops!

That’s all. I know there have been later Brotherhood iterations with other members, including one or both Lady Masterminds, but that was during a time when I wasn’t reading much X-Men, so I’m not familiar with most of those characters. I might have more to say if I eventually read some of the later Brotherhood stories.

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joonapeach · 4 years

Text

a 2k word drabble about detective oc who’s after wanted criminal artist taehyung except the catch is that they used to be in love in uni until their differing ideologies and means of achieving justice put them against each other

ok enjoy maybe i’ll write more idk

“Thinking of running?” you smile obnoxiously at him. Staring him up and down, you let your gaze linger on the handcuffs on his hands at the table, all with the intention of rattling him.

Whether he notices or not, he’s unaffected. He smiles back just as obnoxiously, perhaps an ounce too much, making you uneasy.

“Why would I ever dream of running?” Taehyung grins, looking up at you with big doe-eyes. “I’m right where I want to be after all. It’s been too long since I last saw you.”

You ignore his statement, pulling up a chair from the side of the room. His eyes don’t take a second away from you, and it bothers you. It bothers you that Taehyung is still the same each time you cross paths.

From behind the one-way glass of the investigation room, all your superiors and colleagues were probably watching intently. They got to be the lucky audience to your reunion with the man you once almost gave your heart to.

Keeping your watchful colleagues in mind, you straighten your back and give a stoic glance towards Taehyung. He looks at you the same as always. But you weren’t the same as his memory. You had a career now, and your career depended on this right now - your career depended on stopping the crimes that had created chaos in the country.

Your career depended on a fool like Taehyung.

“We’ll keep it simple and start from the beginning,” you clear your throat, sitting down across from him. “Walk us through your crimes.”

“Through my crimes?” he cocks a brow, laughing in disbelief. “Come on, _____. Don’t be boring.”

“Mr. Kim-”

“Mr. Kim, now am I?” his eyes glint with the question, unabashedly winking.

You glare at him, your hands shaking ever so slightly before you quickly regain composure. Not here… not now.

“Talking about my crimes… that’s no fun. All I do is paint some walls. I’m more curious about you now. How’ve things been lately?”

Your jaw drops. “Paint some walls?” you repeat in a scoff. “You vandalize the most important buildings in the country, Mr. Kim. And that is only a small portion of your crime. You and your group are arsonists.”

“But my art is pretty though, isn’t it?” he smiles softly, focusing an intent stare on you as if searching for an answer. “You used to love seeing all the new things I’d make.”

You freeze, your head subconsciously snapping to see the glass through which all your colleagues were watching. Of course, you couldn’t see a thing from your end. But you could only hope things from their end didn’t look so compromising for you.

“Tell us how Mosaic chooses the targets. What’s your motive?”

“Ah… that reminds me. Remember in college, every time I’d come running to show you a new piece, that dick, Theo, would always be there. Do you still let him hang around you?” Taehyung tilts his head, curiously blinking at you. Your eyes widen at his evasion of your questions. “He should thank me, you know. The only reason you ended up giving someone like him a chance was because I dropped out. We all know if I’d stayed till graduation, it’d be us that-”

“Mr. Kim, what is your motive?” you jump to cut him off, loudly enunciating each syllable so to block Taehyung’s rambling words from reaching your audience’s ears. He gives a small smile at your frenzy before responding.

“I just wanna make the world a prettier place, _____. You know that’s all I’ve ever wanted,” he says sincerely, looking innocently at you.

“Why is Mosaic burning down so many institutional buildings these last few months?” you press on. “You all would never aim to go that far last year. Something’s changed.“

“You’re right. We’re in a hurry now, so we stopped wasting time on the baby steps,” he shrugged, smiling once again. “That and I started running out of designs. It’s hard work for me to churn out that drawing every month, y’know?”

You could scream in your frustration. He’s giving you nothing.

Your fists clench, your eyes shoot to the clock and you’re realizing Taehyung’s game. Three minutes had passed in this room and he hadn’t said anything of value yet. Any longer and you’d be removed from questioning him and still no closer to putting an end to a year long case.

But you know better. If someone like Taehyung and his group could be stopped with a few questions and threats of torture, you would have caught them all already.

Exhaling, you decide to take a different approach. “How do you decide what to paint?”

He beams, pleased with your different question. “Hmm... just this and that, you know. I give it some thought. We’re telling a story here so the message has to be clear in the art. Otherwise we’re just burning down buildings without a point,” he pouts. “You know, you should all spend some time on Reddit, _____. They’ve done a pretty good job analyzing my art. Better than you anyway… which sucks, considering you should know my-”

“Tell us what your plan is,” you interrupt as soon as you feel him begin to digress. “These attacks are becoming too frequent and large-scale now. There’s bystanders and deaths at each one. Do you realize what you’re doing?”

He pauses, blinking. “I’m making a change, _____. While you and Theo and Yunseo and all of you all were wasting hours in class trying to learn how to stop the bad guys, I actually went out and did it first-hand. We’re not the villains here.”

“You’re killing innocent people each time you mark a building with your art, Taehyung,” you plead softly, holding his stare. At the sound of his name, his eyes shut. “Please. Reconsider this. Work with us and I promise you, we can give the change you’re looking for.”

“We’ve done more in the last three months than your teams have in this year,” he shakes his head. “I’m sorry, _____. But I’ve already chosen my side.”

Your body stiffens and any sense of mercy you were willing to have washes away.

“Well, you’ve chosen the wrong one,” you say as a matter-of-fact. “You were caught painting the wall at the railway station. Now, Mosaic’s prime artist has been arrested, the station has been evacuated and lookout teams are there hunting your group,” you announce, carefully watching his face to note his defeat.

There’s nothing. He barely even blinks, before sadly looking up at you and saying, “You should really go see my art, _____.”

You halt, raising your brows at his words. “That’s all you want to say?”

“I always do the hidden details you like to look for,” he says with a grin he fights to keep off his face. “You should go see.”

You scoff. “What are you talking about, Taehyung?”

His eyes twinkle with a look that reminds you all too much of the boy from your past.

“You know. You said you liked seeing something for the first time and thinking you understood it all, but when you looked closer, you found something else entirely. Didn’t you say that’s why you chose to become a detective?”

Your blood runs cold and your expression drops. Perhaps to another detective, to any one of your colleagues watching this interaction, this would seem like a passing remark. Maybe a little strange, but everything that came from Taehyung was granted to be a little strange.

But to you, the words carry a different weight. You could blame it on the years spent by his side or you could blame it on the feelings that you carry around like a guilty burden. Nonetheless, there was something in what he said that pricked you.

“Finding something else?” your brows furrow as you jump up from your seat.

He nods, pausing to look at you for a moment too long. “Hm. Finding something else, somewhere else? You were always good at figuring things out.”

You stop for a second, blinking at him before running towards the door of the room. Your heartbeat rings in your ears and you burst the door open before screaming like a madwoman at all the people inside.

“CALL EVERYONE! WE GOT THE WRONG LOCATION! IT’S A TRAP!”

Your few words invoke manic across the room. It’s all in fast motion now, and your head spins from the way everyone in the room races to move. Your colleagues rush out the door to contact other teams, you hear your superiors call the officers on lookout to tell them to change location. There’s a few moments where it all moves so fast and you can barely recognize anything around you.

Then suddenly, it stops. Your captain yells in madness, sinking to the floor and it’s quiet across the room. He smashes the phone that was on his ear to the wall.

“What… what happened?” a detective from beside you asks hesitantly.

Another detective shakes as she stares at her phone. “This was a distraction,” she slowly says. “All of this… they… Mosaic is burning City Hall to the ground,” she cries.

For the second time in the last five minutes, you feel fear overcome your body, threatening to tremble you till you’d have no control over yourself. But you quickly steady yourself, just for one last thing.

You already know what awaits you as you run back into the questioning room, but for the sake of the small chance you’re wrong, you still check. All that remains inside is two empty chairs and a pair of handcuffs lying on the table.

Kim Taehyung was gone. And he left nothing to show for it.

* *

You’ve felt crazy many times because of him. You remember in university, you once spent hours everyday researching art history and painters just to have topics in common with him. You would change your route back to your dorm to pay visits to places he’d be or art galleries, learning more about him just so you could be close to him. Perhaps the time you felt the craziest of all was when you found out he had dropped out of university to join a group of misfits who’d claimed they would change the world, and considered whether you should follow him in his descent to madness.

But you steady yourself. You always do. You pride yourself on following your instinct and your logic, not your heart and whatever it calls.

That’s, after all, why you’re here today. Standing at the wall in the empty railway station he’d last painted before pulling off the biggest attack the Mosaics had done yet. It only seemed right to look for any traces of Taehyung in his art.

Once you approach it closer, you take it all in. He was right. You should’ve come to see his art all this time.

No longer was he the artist he was when he was the boy you loved. No, now he was… something much more magnificent now. His style had evolved and he tackled much more complex and large designs now. You were honestly impressed at the way he had managed to create a mural like this inconspicuously, before letting himself get caught.

The large strokes of the red paint create an imaginative face of a man, and inside the details, Taehyung’s included a variety of colors and details.

You stare at it for a few moments, looking at each edge of the picture. Minutes pass by before you try to tear yourself away and head home.

As you take a few steps back, you give the wall one last glance. You look at every corner and every edge, at the eyes of the man, his mouth, his hair. You think about Taehyung coming here in the dead of the night, taking the utmost care to paint every small stroke and detail to create this piece. You wonder if this was another world, would he come running after you just as he once did to show you what he’d created. The thought makes you laugh and you slowly walk away.

But then you stop in your tracks. The right shoulder of the man catches your eye. Something in the style of the shading, the strokes, the way the colors mix perfectly everywhere else but here… it all looks off to you.

Instead of stepping closer, you cautiously take a few steps back. The darkness of the station hinders you from focusing carefully on the spot and you turn on your phone flashlight, pointing it at the wall.

Tilting your head, you can see it now. What seemed like a small error of technique on an otherwise perfect piece, now read something out to you. Deliberately hidden in the details.

You exhale a chuckle before walking away. You two were a predictable cliche. Against all odds, you wound up standing against the boy you once thought would always be by your side. And against all odds, he was running from the girl he wanted to stay by.

And although they shouldn’t, the words on the painting make you happy. Because you know despite everything, you mean them too.

I’m sorry. I love you.

i had an alternate ending (you can read it here) but i decided against it bc i like the way i wrote this one more hehe anyways if u read this thanks

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thebibliomancer · 4 years

Text

Essential Avengers: Avengers #204: Claws Across the Water!

February, 1981

Welcome back, true believers! ... Eh, true believer?

I hope at least one person out there is still into this.

It has been nearly two years. I let this sort of series slip into forever hiatus. My at the time job was really eating all of my energy.

That plus the yellow peril villain two-parter that’s this and next made it hard to get motivation up to get back into it.

But in the time between then and now, I wrote a fixer-upper draft of a pretty okay novel for nanowrimo and started learning crochet. So the time not Avengersing wasn’t entirely wasted.

But now I don’t have a job!

Thus, the Avengers.

Our roster of Captain America, Iron Man, Scarlet Witch, Wasp, Vision, Beast and Wonder Man are going to fight an enormous Ming the Merciless and many fuchsia Laserbeaks from Transformers.

Its a weird but gutsy concept for a crossover.

(Three cooks in the kitchen, writing-wise. Not an auspicious start.)

The issue really starts with a woman named Shu Han sending a secret message for help because she is being held captive by THE YELLOW CLAW.

Yellow Claw has offered Shu Han “honor, unlimited power, a pivotal role in the new history of the world” in exchange for something. He gives her three days to make up her mind, leaving Shu Han unsure of how much longer she can continue to resist.

And a day later, in Avengers Mansion, the Avengers say goodbye to Hawkeye. He had been hanging out with them a couple issues through the Red Ronin thing, the shudder Avengers #200 thing, and yet another Ultron thing.

And then Jarvis comes in with the mail.

Despite the Avengers being the Avengers, all of their mail fits neatly on one tray. And one piece of mail dramatically marked LIFE AND DEATH gets Cap’s attention and he pauses their meeting to read it.

It seems that Shu Han’s secret distress message was picked up by a ham radio operator in Hong Kong.

Imagine. Two hundred and four issues in and ham radios are still a relevant plot point! And yet Rick Jones no longer is. Goes to show...

Anyway, the ham radio operator’s letter says that Shu Han says that she’s being held captive by the Yellow Claw. And since Jocasta doesn’t know who that is, it lets Cap exposit.

Captain America: “The Yellow Claw is a biochemical genius. Well over a hundred years old, he retains his youth through secret scientific methods of his own devising. Unfortunately, he’s also a tyrant intent on destroying every last vestige of western civilization -- at any price! The Claw and I have fought several times in the past. I’d hope we wouldn’t have to again.”

So as you might guess from this, Yellow Claw isn’t a new character. He first appeared in a self-titled book in 1956. And opposing the Yellow Claw in the Yellow Claw was FBI agent Jimmy Woo. Which is slightly better.

Anyway, Iron Man chimes in that he’s heard of Shu Han. She’s a gold medalist in track in the 1968 Olympics. And Beast has heard of her too! She won the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics!

Both of these things! Shu Han is quite the accomplished person.

And Cap isn’t sure why the Yellow Claw wants an Olympic gold medalist who is also a physicist but it can’t be for anything good!

Vision points out that the Yellow Claw’s island is in contested waters and that actions by the Avengers could cause an international incident. And also it might just be a trap.

I mean, ham radio operator? Really? In 1981?

Captain America: “That might be true, Vision, but the fact remains that someone in trouble has asked for our help. And as acting chairman, the only thing I can say in response to that is -- AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!”

Good attitude, Cap. That’s a good attitude to have.

And the Avengers Assemble, which in this case means run out the door like they’re racing for shotgun in the Quinjet.

Running right past Jarvis who was bringing coffee and ginger cake in. Leaving him to eat the cake himself because heck, no sense letting it go to waste.

I tell ya, Jarvis is underappreciated. Do you know, I don’t think they even invited him to move into Dead Alien Mountain in the current book? Instead they got a man trapped in a gorilla to be their butler. I mean, valid, but you do Jarvis a disservice.

LATER ELSEWHERE

The Yellow Claw stands villainously on a balcony talking with a Dr. Liu and asking him about the status of a project.

Dr. Liu says that there’s almost enough “formula” to begin distribution.

Yellow Claw: “Your words please me, Liu, for I have waited long to grasp this moment. Others may have their kingdoms, their countries, even their continents. But soon, doctor, I... shall have a world!”

But the Avengers’ Quinjet appearing on radar takes some wind out of his sails and he orders the base locked down and defenses activated.

As the Quinjet circles the island, Cap decides to send Wasp and Vision to try to find a way to snoop around undetected.

Vision can just intangible through walls and Wasp can find small entrances.

Of course, when Yellow Claw says lock the base down he means lock it down because even the air vents have been covered up with plexiglass. But Wasp decides to just blow it open and fly inside.

Somehow, even with that, its Vision who makes the more conspicuous entrance, as he manages to intangible in right where some guards happen to be staring at a wall.

Good work, Vision.

For whatever reason, solid snaking through a dark air vent makes Wasp wistful for some time that she and Hank went in a tunnel of love. And he was so shy that she had to teach him SOMETHING.

I’m almost sorry that she stops her internal monologue anecdote when she spots the Yellow Claw.

And here our two sneakiest Avengers both prove that they need to intern with Black Panther for a weekend or something because they both make a goofus.

Vision beat up the two guards that spotted him and just left their bodies where they fell, causing alarum when they were found. See, Black Panther would have told Vision that you need to hide bodies in a locker.

And Wasp falls off the wall while trying to eavesdrop and is spotted by the Yellow Claw.

He doesn’t recognize her as a tiny woman, tiiiiiny woman, but the fact that a bug is in the base at all means that the base isn’t airtight which means one of the air vents has been compromised.

Meanwhile, the Quinjet has continued to circle because there’s no good place to land on the whole island. So Cap decides to land off the whole island and makes a water landing.

Apparently Quinjets are like seaplanes in that regard.

And then as they are trudging through the surf to come ashore, -battle transition music- A SLIME ATTACKS!

Wait, this isn’t a dragon quest. This is an Avengers. They’ve got a man in power armor and a robot woman. We’re sci-fi. Okay so its a cyborg slime.

Or a jellyfish. Or, you know what? It has a beak. Maybe its a kraken. A cykraken.

And it drags the Avengers underwater, which is just what a jellyslimefishkraken cyborg would do, if you think about it.

Beast and Scarlet Witch are SOL. Scarlet Witch’s arms are tentacled to her sides and all of her spells require a somatic component. And she hasn’t taken the feat yet to let her ignore that requirement.

And Beast doesn’t have any leverage underwater to apply his strength and agility.

Cap isn’t doing much better because he’s trying to hit the thing with his shield underwater and the water drag isn’t helping.

Jocasta is doing alright. Her eye beams work perfectly fine underwater at cutting the tentacles. Although the narration calls her a “robotrix” which... what?

And Wonder Man does fine too. Even underwater his super strength is enough to just tie the tentacles in knots.

But Iron Man goes completely limp and the jellyslimefishkraken cyborg grabs him up and sticks him right in its mouth.

But it was a ruse. He baited the thing into eating him so he can repulsor blast it from inside and destroy it, freeing the other Avengers.

Good job, Iron Man. You killed a unique, horrible lifeform.

I think we can see that the real monster is Man. Comma Iron.

Meanwhile, inside the evil villain base, Vision runs into the evil villain. Who asks sincerely what the fuck Vision is doing here.

And Vision responds by immediately firing a laser at Yellow Claw.

Which. Good hustle, Vision.

Buuuut. The guy has an energy field that rebounds the energy back at Vision and knocks him out. Its a proven fact that the villain will always have something to stop Vision from soloing the plot.

Kryptonite, so to speak, is everywhere.

Yellow Claw has Vision taken to his lab to be dissected. FOR SCIENCE!

Outside, Beast goes ahead of the other Avengers to scout.

In his Beasty way, he’s goofing a little, singing the Loch Lomond song. And then he’s attacked by just so many flying blades. A lot many.

And so are the rest of the Avengers.

Wonder Man: “No kidding! One just clipped a lock of Jocasta’s hair -- and that stuff can take a bazooka blast!”

I really like imagining the Avengers testing that.

More than that, I’m amused imagining Jocasta’s deadpan expression as they shoot bazookas at her head.

‘The things I do to socialize.’

Anyway, the Avengers scatter to make harder targets because the blades are clearing the jungle to deny any cover to the heroes. Cap spots the blade launcher and throws his shield at it. Because that’s what he do. And it works. Because that’s what he do.

And since the jellyslimefishkraken cyborg and the “death crescents” hadn’t given the Avengers the hint, Yellow Claw appears before them towering several stories high and tells the Avengers to GTFO his island! GEEZ!

Jocasta notices that giant Yellow Claw casts no shadow and announces that it must be a hologram of some sort.

AND THEN THE METAL DEATH BIRDS

They get very angry when you point out special effect failures.

And then the Avengers do their various Avengers things.

Its an action scene. Avengers fighting robot death birds.

Iron Man jumps upside down in front of Beast to protect him from a missile. And Cap does the same right side up with his shield to protect Wanda.

I do appreciate the teamwork with immediate protecting the squishy members of the team.

Wonder Man hits one metal death bird with another. Because hitting an enemy with an enemy is great. I love grievous harm with a body.

Only thing better? If some Jedi force pushed General Grievous to smash some droids. Grievous harm.

Anyway, Jocasta does her eye blasts again, to great effect again.

Captain America throws his mighty shield and even a metal death bird must yiiiiield.

And Scarlet Witch gets to do something this time because everybody is doing a thing this time. Its a real team showcase.

She. And this is totally what probability alteration is. She changes the probability that a launched missile will just turn around and blow up the robot death bird that launched it. That’s just math.

Iron Man says that since his armor powers were originally based on magnetism, he can just remotely magnetize two of the metal death birds and cause them to smash into each other.

BUT THE BEST ONE OF ALL? And the reason I bothered to synopsize the individual actions instead of just saying “and then an action scene happened”? The best one of all.

A robot death bird launches a missile at Beast and he catches it. He catches it between his toes and throws it back, blowing up the robot.

Spectacular.

So spectacular that we can assume that it instantly ended the battle just because of its sheer majesty. I can draw no other conclusions from the juxtaposition of panels.

The Avengers finally reach the base after spending most of the issue traipsing up from the beach. And the base being locked down is swiftly solved by Wonder Man and Iron Man punching the door down.

My only regret is that neither of them make a joke about knocking. C’mon guys, I can’t be writing your snappy dialogue for you decades after the fact. Publishing doesn’t work that way! I’m not writing a redub!

A bunch of Yellow Claw’s goofy guards all prepare to be ineffectual mooks in a mob brawl but Yellow Claw stops them over the intercom.

See, he’s got Vision prisoner. And while he had intended to dissect him FOR SCIENCE, hostage is equally good. So if the Avengers don’t surrender, Vision will be sliced to bits by dissection laser scalpels.

Anyway, Dr. Liu shows up through a secret door to show the Avengers in to talk to Yellow Claw.

And Yellow Claw says politely ‘why the fuck you on my island??’

Or:

Yellow Claw: “Welcome, Avengers. I am pleased to have such illustrious visitors in my humble home. In fact, there is one thing that could possibly make my bliss more complete -- the reason why you’ve invaded my island, and my privacy!”

Which in less polite terms is ‘why the fuck you on my island??’

At this point, Wasp secretly flies up to Cap and tells him she’s okay.

It’s good to reassure him that she’s not a second hostage but. There was no reason in the plot for her to have entered the base. She accomplishes no things. She arguably makes things worst but its only arguably because she didn’t alert the Yellow Claw any more than Vision already did.

I would have liked if she had tried to free Vision or sabotaged Yellow Claw’s security system or something but that’s not the direction the plot was going.

Anyway.

Yellow Claw asked a question so Cap answers. He tells Yellow Claw that the Avengers are here because they received a distress call from a woman named Shu Han who says she’s being held captive.

Yellow Claw is actually surprised. Possibly dismayed.

He recovers himself quickly and has Shu Han brought in so the Avengers can see she’s not under restraint.

She wasn’t brought to this island to be a prisoner! She was brought to be his bride!

Easy mistake to make, honestly!

Wonder Man points out the should-be-obvious that hey kidnapping is kidnapping even if its for nuptials but Yellow Claw is like ha ha kidnapping no no, Shu Han fill this dumbo in.

And it is. A story.

Shu Han: “I... I wasn’t exactly... kidnapped. You see, when I was very young, a man came to my father’s farm, and, as was custom in my country, an arrangement was made. To be less delicate... I was bought!

“Over the years, I all but forgot the arrangement, as I turned my thoughts and energies towards excelling in athletics, and in science.

“But then, some weeks ago, I was approached by agents of Master Claw, and was brought here. I was frightened, but didn’t know what to do. And so I secretly sent a message, hoping for you help.”

Shu Han has that mix of super good at science and sports you see in superheroes but she’s a normal genius person living her life. It’s going to be weird if she just never shows up again. But also: good for her.

Yellow Claw is just so disappointed that she dragged some randos into their interpersonal drama. And we can see now that the proposal he was proposing at her was “marry me.”

Yellow Claw: “Shu Han, I wished you no harm. I am old -- even my potions cannot stay the hand of death much longer -- and I fervently desired an heir to carry my name when that hand fell.

“Thus I offered you wealth, power, the prestige of sitting at my side. And now you repay me with treachery, with cowardice... with dishonor.

“You wish your freedom that much? Very well, then -- you shall have it!

“Go! For I’ve no desire to take an unwilling bride!”

Yellow Claw: May be a supervillain but is big into consent. I mean, except for the part where he bought a child.

Yellow Claw: May be a supervillain but is big into consent when the alternative is superheroes hanging around.

Shu Han doesn’t look super burned by his speech so maybe that’s why he does what he does. He klaps to bring out a bunch of backup wives to prove that he’s not so hurt by rejection. And that he’s got ‘mad game.’

Yellow Claw: “As you can see, there are others more amenable to that lofty position! So, Avengers, you have what you came for. Please don’t let me delay your departure any longer.”

Or in less polite terms ‘GTFO!’

Cap points out that obviously they’re not going to just leave without Vision so Yellow Claw has some goons carry out Vision like a potato sack.

Iron Man and Wonder Man carry Vision with Iron Man warning that he’s not just going to forget Yellow Claw even though the guy claims he just wants to spend his final years in peace with his pile of wives.

And a good call to not take the guy strictly at his word.

As soon as the Avengers are gone Yellow Claw all about mwahahahahas and says that now his evil plan can commence.

Yellow Claw: “No, Dr. Liu, having one less wife should not effect the project appreciably. For the others, hand-picked like Shu Han for their superior genetic traits, will all give me sons, strong sons whom I will train in the arcane ways.

“Then, when they reach manhood, they shall fight each other, until only the most worthy, the strongest, survives! And it shall be he who shall inherit my destiny! The conquest and eradication of the western world!

“Yes, the plan is still sound, and there shall be no defense against it! For my children, doctor -- SHALL BE THE LAST CHILDREN ON EARTH!”

As far as evil plans go, having a bunch of babies so they can fight to the death is pretty evil even before the conquest thing. And the last children on Earth thing.

Follow @essential-avengers. Or don’t. Honestly, I can’t blame you if you don’t. Throw me a like if you read and liked so I can get a sense of how many people read and liked, if you like.

#Avengers #Yellow Claw #Vision #Wasp #Captain America #Wonder Man #Iron Man #Scarlet Witch #Jocasta #beast #essential avengers #essential marvel liveblogging #honestly one of the reasons i started this up again #is i've been reading slott's iron man and thinking 'wow jocasta is great'#'wasn't i right in the middle of the era she was on the avengers?'

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blankdblank · 5 years

Text

Loki Baby Pt 5

… Pt 1 - Pt 2 - Pt 3 - Pt 4 - ...

Wk 19 -- “…I left it in my room…”

… @sdavid09, @theincaprincess, ...

Through the line giggles filled the room Scott and his little girl were playing and joking around for a few moments before the father answered, “Scott here.”

Tony smirked answering, “Scott, Tony Stark here, got a job for you and that suit of yours.”

“Um,” he said glancing at his girl moving onto putting together some snacks, “Tony, I don’t know about that, last time in Germany-,”

“This is not about that, trust me, this will not have any federal repercussions. It is entirely domestic, child play really for a pro like you.”

Scott’s brows furrowed and he leaned against the doorframe asking, “If it is so simple then why me?”

“Because the target hates me and I need an alibi.”

His lips pursed for a moment then he asked, “This is not an approval, but, what am I supposed to be after?”

Tony, “I need you to break in and take this pen,”

Scott laughed out loud, “A pen?!”

Tony, “It looks like a pen, but it isn’t, and I need you to get it so I can test it and find out what it is exactly.”

With a tilt of his head Scott’s lip curled for a moment and he turned to grin and wave at his daughter and said, “Send me the details, I’ll scope it out.”

“Good, fifteen grand in it for you when you deliver the pen.” Scott had to hold back his giddy laugh and sharing of the deal until the following morning when he went in to work in handing off his little girl for the weekend trip to an amusement park out in Florida.

Off to his job he raced and through the door he stepped with arms out saying, “None of you are going to guess who just hired me for a job today.”

Kurt, “Bruce Springsteen.”

Dave turned to look at him with a momentarily scrunched face, “Man, no way is Bruce Springsteen even on our radar.” Looking to Scott he said, “Ugh,” he said snapping his fingers, “What is that guys name?” Again he snapped then pointed at Scott, “Guy Fierri!”

Kurt, “Who is Guy Fierri?”

Dave, “He’s that tv chef with blonde spiked hair and that dark goatee. My lady’s got me hooked on these cooking shows, and-,”

Kurt, “Oh, yes I saw that Kitchen Rescue show. Cannot get enough.”

Luis turned in his chair after having untangled his chair from the phone and internet cable looking over the trio as Scot waved his hands, “Guys! No!”

Dave sighed leaning back in his chair faking interest in the change of subject, “Fine Scott, who did hire you?”

“Tony Stark!” He replied quickly receiving a room full of blinks. “Guys, ok, I know what you’re thinking, after the Germany thing, though this time, this time entirely domestic and so simple!”

Kurt, “What, he wants to have us install security system in one of his offices?”

Dave, “Nah man, he’s got his own grid, why would he go about hiring us?”

Scott bounced on his feet in a momentary crouch, “He wants me to steal a pen!” Brows rose and he added, “For fifteen grand! Though it’s not really a pen he thinks it just looks like a pen and he wants me to get it so he can check it out.”

Kurt’s eyes narrowed, “Is it pen gun?”

Scott’s eyes turned to Dave as he said, “Ooh, one of those poison dart pens? Saw one of those in a spy film once.”

Kurt, “Can’t be a grapple hook pen, completely illogical.”

Dave, “From that Johnny English film, yes!” turning to Scott he asked, “Why you?”

Scott looked between them then said, “Apparently he’s hated by the person with the pen and needs an alibi.”

Luis climbed out of his chair to join the others as Kurt asked, “Who’s the target? Some mastermind villain?”

Scott glanced at his phone rereading the message with all the info in it, “Some lady named Jaqi Pear.”

Luis, “Woah, woah, woah! Back that bus up you are not telling me that you accepted a job to rob one of the sweetest ladies on this planet, not counting my Grandma and your little girl. Cuz man, if you did I gotta judge our friendship a bit closer for your motives on that spectrum siding with Stark against the sweetest lady on the planet!”

The whole speech fired out rapidly and nearly had Scott reeling before he replied, “How do you know her? I’ve never heard of her.”

Kurt, “Pear? Like the fruit Pear?”

Scott nodded and Dave waved his hand and clicked his tongue, “Man, you mean you accepted a job from the woman who backed our company loan?!”

Scott, “Wait, what?! No, I though Master Industries backed us.”

Kurt, “Master, founded by a Miss Pear, the leading security and technology company in this country with resources even Stark cannot touch.”

Scott haltingly replied, “I, did, not, know that…”

Luis crossed his arms, “So, what does this Stark assume the sweetest lady on the planet ever could possibly be up to with this pen?”

Scott shrugged, “I don’t know man, he just said he wanted the pen.” Looking his friend over he asked, “Wait, how does one of the biggest tech and security companies take the time and money to invest in our band of misfits?”

Luis clicked his tongue, “Man, that goes way back to my Mom, when she was fresh out of high school,” with a grin he pointed at himself, “She just had me, and she needed place to get a job, and she heard from these guys on the street corner while waiting for the bus that this ‘dragon lady’ had spent half an hour railing them on their credentials and kicked them to the curb. Well, moms was straight up impressed, cuz these guys were in like top of the line suits with those really shiney shoes, one of ‘em wearing their Harvard pin on their tie. So she goes, ‘Hey, any chicka crazy enough to send these money bags off to the curb has got my interest.’ So she goes three blocks over skipping an interview for a maids job over to this just glass wrapped building thinking ‘Worst comes to worst I can shine the hell out of these windows and floors have this chicka working in a bomb office!’”

The guys nodded and Luis wet his lips saying, “So she goes right past the doorman, who for his nice suit didn’t say a thing bout her bringing me with her, and she strolled right up to the desk saying, ‘I came to see Miss Pear.’ Again no comment form the man behind the counter, kind of shifty in her mind at first, cuz they should have said something cuz she wasn’t really at the top of her game that day, her curling iron died and had to head out in last night’s makeup after a colicky night with me. But she gets told ‘go to the elevator’ so she does and up we go. Right in the line of suit clad guys Mom just sat her self down and waited for the line to go through, each time seeing a guy, who’s like a twin to the guy downstairs, only he’s got a red shirt on, who looked like the guy at the door, so she’s figuring maybe they’re all related somehow?”

Scott nodded, “Makes sense.”

Luis nodded and continued, “Right so surprisingly half an hour later the guy comes out again after the last guy looks at the list and turns around saying, ‘We have an unnamed applicant.’ And my Moms hears this honey dipped angelic voice say, ‘Show them in.’ She gets up, little bit wobbly, cuz, again, not top of her game, but she draws it in and struts right in, just working the confidence and sits right down across from this just top notch woman. Sleek green dress leaned back in her leather chair just working her figure, with long curled ponytail laying over her chest and just this stunning smile though it wasn’t till she leaned forward and that’s when she saw it.”

Dave, “The pen?”

Luis, “What? No! Her eyes! Bright purple! Shook my Moms hand and asked her her name and how do you do’s and all that then she got to the big question, ‘What brings you in today?’ and Moms just busted out with her hearing about those guys and her just knowing that this would be the right place for her and said that she’d be grateful for even a cleaning job.”

Kurt, “So she got the job?”

Luis smiled wider, “Miss Pear gave her an assistant job,” parting their lips, “I know right! Ya, took a chance on my Moms, and she just nailed it right out of the park. Sure she’s a bit,” his teeth flashed in a tilt of his raised hands, “Low key immortal but all around-,”

Scott, “Wait, what?”

Dave, “Did you say immortal?”

Luis, “See, she’s older than I am, cuz clearly I was a baby at the interview, but Mom said it wasn’t that big of a deal cuz Gran met her once and said there was nothing shady there, ‘sometimes there’s just those that are sent down to bless’ and that’s what she did. Cuz for 25 years she employed my Moms and even helped to get me a better lawyer to take up my appeal case pro bono and then after I got out insisted she take time off and see a specialist for that lump she had on her neck. Turned out it was cancer, and even when the company insurance refused to pay Miss Pear paid for everything, even the driver service to get her to each appointment and when my Moms passed she got top of the line everything down the line.

And of course I felt a bit bad you know, my growing up in the office and then taking that wrong legal turn that maybe I shouldn’t go there, but we had such a great idea and I knew that she would understand my idea and that if there was a problem with the pitch she would help me fix it, so I called the number and she says just drop by. Right in my Moms old chair is my second cousin in law Trish, who just sent me right in saying she cleared her morning for me. We caught all up and she wanted to hear all about how I’ve been doing and cleaning up after getting out and then I showed her the plans and how the banks refused the loan applications and asked how I could fluff it up for the business world.

All she does is do what she always did to seal the deal, lean her way back in that chair, still one bomb chicka after all these years and she dials the phone and makes a call, says ‘Charles, I’m sending someone over, give it to him.’ Then looks over to me when she hangs up ‘Just head over to Brumson Bank head straight up to Charles’ desk and tell him I sent you.’ And,” Excitedly he mimed a bomb exploding, “Boom! We got our loan!” his grin dropped and he said to Scott, “Now tell me you didn’t take a job to rob the sweetest lady on the planet?”

Scott felt his stomach drop a foot lower in hearing how this woman had changed his best friend’s life and his own by backing their company and he rubbed the back of his neck, “Um, I mean, it’s just a pen.”

Dave pursed his lips for a moment then asked, “Maybe, you could just talk to her? Maybe explain the situation, she might let you take a picture of the pen or something.”

Kurt nodded, “Yes, any woman that kind may be understanding.”

Luis pulled out his phone saying, “I’m gonna give you her address and send her a message you’re dropping by her office, and you better clear this up!” Luis typed on his screen and then said, “She’s shopping right now but she’ll be in her office in an hour. She will see you then.”

Scott nodded and said, “Cool, cool…” his lips pursed a moment and he said, “Wonder why Stark said she hates him.”

Waffles filled the air of your apartment that Loki let himself into after an otter opened the door for him and closed it behind him. The usually alluring scent you gave off was nearly doubled making his fingers clench around the sleeves of his sweater as his slippers tapped silently across the carpet in your warm living room making his flannel pants seeming all the more cozy nearly driving him to curl up on one of your couches for some more sleep. A striking glimpse of you however halted him in his tracks, fully done up and dressed to the nines, but groggily pacing in a stunning aura of something he could only explain as ‘snuggle up with me’ you finished setting out the various clearly freshly made fruit jams and spreads for the waffles, cinnamon raisin bread and muffins you had made.

A brush of your curled bangs that fell into your face from behind your ear clearly from the mess of curls pulled up into a messy bun on top of your head. In passing the island to fetch the juice for you, and milk for the tea brewing he caught sight of the short shorts in yellow under your grey baggy t shirt, tall socks pulled up to your knee in moose slippers had him wetting his lips and moving closer. Turning your head you spotted him and even in your clearly drowsy expression he forced a grin onto his face reminding himself to breathe. You were stunning with makeup and now he had seen you untouched, sleep wrinkles and indents from pillows still pressed into your cheek. Though the thing overpowering him was the scent wafting off you.

“Morning.” He forced out and you grinned back turning to fetch the whistling kettle.

“I have tea, and so many things.” You said turning granting him a change to exhale and let his hand rest on the counter blinking through the surge of hormones racing through his body before burying that behind another grin. “Um, it’s all on the table, help yourself, be right there.”

He nodded and turned trying not to shake from the powerful waves crashing through his body urging him to close the distance between you. Into his seat he lowered and filled his plate with his eyes drifting back up to you, he was never one to be lost to the throws of lust and very rarely found himself even pretending he was sexually attracted to anyone. Yet his eyes locked on you and wouldn’t leave the longer he stared at you sending his blood pumping causing his left arm to drop to his waist to manage the visual issues of this sudden pull to you. Managing a cool tone he asked, “Did you sleep well?”

In a half turn holding the kettle your hand was raised smoothing around the back of your earring untangling a strand of hair from it as you answered, “Sort of, got woken up by this call-.” In a sudden lift of your gaze your fingers stroked along the skin under your ear not feeling the strip of pheromone blocker you normally added when you had company. The absence of which fully explaining the bright red eyes of Loki locked on you, the enhanced pheromones you inherited from your father mingled with your Time Lord genes only worsening your attraction abilities on others and even more so when you were ovulating, shaking your head you carried the kettle over and poured out into your mugs set out. His chest rising in his deep inhale as you drew closer to his side, “Just some work thing.” You set the kettle down on the cooling mat on the table and said, “I forgot something, …I left it in my room…right back,”

Turning to cross the floor to your stairs you felt his gaze following you as you mentally berated yourself. Blinking his eyes Loki felt the wave drop all at once in him after you crossed the first rug and the scents of the meal you had made leaving him absolutely puzzled for what had just happened. True he knew the most of Frost Giants and their home but nothing of their physical, or chemical makeup through their lives. They had no study on it. True his mother had done what she could to learn enough to help him through what he had assumed to be his only flash of puberty when he was younger, but this had never happened to him before.

Thor sure enough like other Asgardian males had gone through a flash of heat where he had to be managed to keep from populating a kingdom of his own like other males sent off to traditional secondary planets far from any females in their own wave of hormone fueled misery instantly evening out when separated from the other gender. Loki saw this, from a bystander’s view, feeling none of the agitation or rage at not being able to breed to their fullest potential, his came three years later and lasted twice as long spurring on a special job from his mother to hide this from others. But even that was nothing like this, instant on and off again instantly making him hope that this was not true and he would not be putting you in any danger by being around you through this. He would never hurt you or force you in any way but with your size difference and his clear silver tongue mastery of persuasion no doubt it could be left to you having no choice in the matter of sleeping with him surely ruining things if he could not control this.

Down again you came and thankfully his below the waist situation had calmed enough he could sit up straight and flash you a grin slightly uncertain of the much more diluted excitement in seeing you again somehow troubling him more than the initial surge of attraction. As if now he ached in missing the unhelped attraction he could not dream of fighting, though he could never dream of wishing to have that for anyone but you for an even more puzzling truth settling in his mind worrying him as to why. Flashing a grin of your own you felt the circular patch fading into your skin beneath your ear radiating your pheromones into an aura of green apples around you, a simple solution to a problem your parents had showed you how to make on your own when you were younger for this very reason.

Into your seat you lowered and Loki looked you over with eyes narrowing for a moment at the scent of apples washing over him in your tending to your morning tea you raised for a sip to test how much honey to add to it. “Forgive me, but, did you put on perfume?”

Lowering your mug you wet your lips, watching his eyes trailing after your tongue, actions like that only worsening your pheromone problem as your attraction to the one affected by it only made your body give off more pheromones to drown the poor creature in them. He was clearly still feeling some effects of that initial hormonal draw to you, “No, it um,” your brows furrowed and you decided to tell a tiny white lie. “I’ve been working on my power cells lately, a new mechanism for it exactly, and recently I’ve noticed my pheromones just bursting out. I made some patches for it to block that, I forgot to put it on. Sorry about that, didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable.”

Exhaling sharply he couldn’t lie and say he wasn’t relieved in your explanation, yet meanwhile disappointed it wasn’t something genuine for and from you sank in and he had to force his grin to remain in place until his mind flashed back to your flinching from staring at him in changing his shirt followed clearly by your stating that you did find him attractive. Bite by bite he felt his reminders that this was merely financial slipping away, with his hormones and attachment building in his urge to people please this was a losing battle he would hold no regrets over losing.

He had sworn to himself not to lose control and get attached but that damn calming innocence you exuded just lulled him right into the trap and that wave of hormones had him trying to steal glances to find that patch you had mentioned to see how simple it might be to brush against you and remove it to see what would happen. Before he knew it the meal was through and he was back in his closet staring at his clothes trying to choose which clothes to wear simple enough for your trip to the market for his pantry and basic supplies. Keeping it simple he chose a pale orange shirt he tucked into his black pants he pulled on with his boots tied on after. At his mirror he inhaled fixing his sleeves looking himself over only to shake his head at the thought on what to do to make you more attracted to him. Or rather which features you were attracted to helping you to choose him over someone like Thor.

Turning away he wet his lips heading back to the stairs to meet you in the hall, down he trotted hurrying to meet you hoping he hadn’t taken too long. With the door between you he paused smoothing his hand over his chest ensuring his shirt was smooth over his chest and stomach before opening the door to find the hall empty. Lowly he mumbled, “I cannot have taken too long..”

Your doorknob turned however and he stepped out using his key on the ring he had been palming to lock the door behind him then turned to grin at you looking over the jeans and blouse you were wearing with a flash of mint green from your heeled boots helping to get you to his shoulder. A click behind you and a grin eased across your pink painted lips. Back to your dolled up appearance his chest ached, already missing the intimacy of seeing the face and curls you kept to yourself. True makeup made little change as you used little of it to accent your eyes and lips but still nothing could touch the stunning shift of you in your most comfortable setting calling to his own urge to remain lounging in a book filled nook all day. That was his new daydream, hiding the day away with you reading or being read to as one of you lounged against the other, a perfect day filled with cuddling and stolen naps between sharing words of wonder and longing.

A compliment was given and sheepish chuckles were traded in the turn for the stairs down to the waiting car, it was a short drive but still you needed the trunk to transfer everything inside. Four steps in a stretch of his index finger looped around your pinky finger and the connection held for the trot down to the first floor. It seemed so simple, just a finger hold but a welcome invitation for a hand to hold was too much to pass up on. Another part of his dissolving line between the fantasy of this all and whatever it truly was. Settling into the car however the hold broke only to have his hand mold around the top of yours when it rested between your thighs, his thumb tenderly tracing pathways across the backs of your knuckles.

Turning his head he asked, “How long do we have?”

With a smirk you replied easing out his grin, “As long as you like, whole day’s clear.”

Locked in place his hand remained on yours even in the slide out of the car, which he used to help steady you to your feet and shifted to retain in the stroll to the front entrance. His spare hand used to guide the cart he tugged free from the corral and even a his eyes scanned the store he asked, “Where should we start?”

“Um, we could start with soaps and such if you like? Usually I leave frozen and refrigerated items to last.”

“Good plan, soaps and such it is.”

Each and every aisle he went down collecting a supply of possible necessities keeping up the conversation you had started and always claimed your hand again after each step away to inspect or fetch something new. The food half was next and from basics to comfort food and snacks came next, though lost between two chip flavors his head turned slightly seeing you draw your phone out of your purse after it’s buzz and chime. In a full glance your way as you read the message he asked, “Work calling?”

‘Miss Pear, I was wondering if you might be able to meet up with my best friend sometime. Seems he’s got himself in a bit of a jam and needs someone to talk to.’

To yourself you let out a hmm in confusion and raised your gaze to Loki, “Friend of a former assistant of mine wants to talk to me about something.”

Hastily you typed back, ‘Tell them we can meet in an hour at my office.’

“You need to go now?”

Shaking your head you replied with a grin, “No, said I’d meet them in an hour.” His lips parted then closed and he nodded making you move closer and loop your arm in his making him grin, “Don’t look like that I’m not abandoning you. Plenty of time for you to pick a bag of crisps and finish the aisles. The otters will make easy work of the bags.” Looking at the bags he was stuck between you asked, “Ridges or barbecue?”

“I know I would care for one in one occasion but the other in different occasions.” Turning his head his gaze lowered to yours at the resting of your cheek against his arm while the thumb on your free hand traced a muscle in his bicep, “I suppose I could choose both, however the question is how long the bags would last.”

“If you mean freshness usually they last a few days before growing stale, though usually they are a bit addictive, even I can get through a majority of a bag before I’ve realized it.”

Loki nodded, “I shall pick both then, I rarely have gotten to try them, the team usually rushed in snatching them away.” He said claiming two flavors he added to the cart before eyeing the other flavors, “I suppose I could try a new pair a week. There are so many to choose from.”

“Sounds like a plan.” You said as he guided you along hoping you would stay draped against and around his arm for as long as possible. Through the line you did up to the car where you helped him fill the trunk and grinned to yourself when his hand melted around yours again. Inside the car again he looked to you in a subtle scoot closer to you and wet his lips before asking, “Any plans after your meeting?”

Turning your head you caught a flinch of his eyes over your face as you drew in a breath to keep your pulse slow noticing he’d moved closer again making your eyes flinch to his lips for a moment, “Just heading back. I doubt it would take long,”

Taking the words out of your mouth he asked, “Up for a film after?”

“Sure, give you a chance to break into those chips of yours.” Back home again into the garage you went and in a sea of floating otters with their arms full of bags you rode the lift up to his apartment he unlocked and chuckled in following the adorable floating otters to his kitchen to put everything away. Stealing a glance at you he flashed you a grin as you said, “I should pop off. I will see you after, and be careful they tend to alphabetize everything, while the one with spots tends to sort things by color.”

Loki couldn’t help but chuckle, “I will monitor the situation, thank you.” His eyes followed you in your path out of the apartment down to your car again.

Down the steps you trotted asking, “What could this possibly be?”

Pt 6

#Tale Teller’s 52 Week Writing Challenge #Loki x Reader OC

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racetothedslides · 5 years

Text

Aftershocks - Part 2

Preface: Though this fic takes place in the RTTE universe, it takes place in a different story arc. I found the idea of working with villains we already know the demise (or redemption) of and familiar plot points kind of boring, so the main antagonist is an OC. I more or less introduce things without exposition, but it shouldn’t be hard to follow, and characters, motives, and plot points will become more fleshed out as the story(s) progress. I prefer stories where you’re not supposed to know everything right off the bat!

Summary: When Hiccup takes the twins invulnerability for granted, Tuff ends up seriously injured. Now he must deal with the wrath and broken trust of Ruff, while questioning his ability to lead as the rest of the gang try to find some middle ground and are forced to see both Hiccup and Ruffnut in a new light.

Rating: Teen I guess?

Warnings (which apply to the story as a whole, not individual chapters): swearing, violence, injury, mild gore

Part 2 - 1,438 words Part 1

@ashleybenlove !

“I don’t know, Sis,” Said Tuffnut, “I still think developing an immunity to Thor’s bane was a pretty good idea.”

“Yeah,” Said Ruffnut, “Like, we could have used it to poison our enemies without worrying about getting sick!”

“A game of wits! Tell the fiend only one cup of ail is poisoned, then have him choose which for each of us to drink. Little would they know they know…”

“The Dread Twins Thorston strike again!” Laughed Ruffnut.

The twins flew over the ocean, stomachs full of breakfast fish brains and their own brains not overly concerned with their task. Though Ruffnut’s eyes did dart towards the water below them frequently, it had nothing to do with nerves; though it had been years since she’d seen him, she always hoped she’d catch a glimpse of Scauldy. Yet the scauldron remained elusive as ever, and after a few hours their target came into view.

“Wow…that’s one big heap of yak dung.” Said Tuffnut.

They guided Barf and Belch forward, touching down on the rubble strewn beach. They didn’t have to walk long before they found a cave entrance. It wasn’t as dark as one might expect inside the mountain, and the light that filtered in from other other various entrances and holes in the rock gave the cave system a haunting ambiance. Dust fell from the ceiling at random, with one stream hitting Belch in the eye. Barf gurgled in amusement.

“I dunno,” Said Ruffnut, “With the right overhaul this place could be pretty cool.”

“You kidding?” Said Tuffnut, “It would be cheaper just to tear this place down and install a new mountain.”

“You think Halvar is really hiding all his Thor’s bane here?”

“I don’t know. For a guy as obsessed with purity as he is, this dump doesn’t seem like the kind of place he’d ever go. Then again, that could be part of his master plan.”

“Man, remember the bad guys we fought were stupid? The red Death, Dagur, Alvin, the entire elite guard of Burk and our parol officers…I miss those days.”

“Me too, Sis, me too.”

A low rumbling knocked a shower of grit from the ceiling.

“What was that?” Asked Tuffnut.

“No clue,” Said Ruffnut, “Want to check it out?” Tuffnut shrugged and they continued deeper into the cave.

They made no effort to keep track of the twists and turns they took, mostly because they were themselves, but also because there was a never a shortage of potential exists. It wasn’t long before Ruffnut clamped a hand over her nose.

“Argh, do you think whatever it is is making that smell?”

“Hmmm…interesting bouquet. Eggy…rottony…I’ve got it! Smells just like Astrid’s cooking.”

The rumbling came again, and this time the twins could see a dark mass moving towards them through the tunnel ahead and within an instant they were swarmed by a flock of panicking night terrors. The two scrambled to their dragon and somehow directed the zippleback towards the nearest source of sunlight, emerging onto the crumbling mountainside. Tuffnut opened his mouth to say something, but before he could get any words out a night terror raced out of the exit they’d just come from and collided with Barf’s face. The irritated dragon let loose a small cloud of gas into the night terrors face, which Belch dutifully sparked. The explosion would not have been enough to hurt the little dragon or anything else under normal circumstances. The natural gas seeping from every fissure with the mountain and leaking out of every exit, would change everything.

The blast was so loud Ruffnut screamed in shock, and Tuffnut looked up just in time so see half of the mountain, the half he was standing on, explode outwards. There was no time, no point, in trying to get their bearings. Tuff opened his mouth to scream or call out to his sister or dragons, he wasn’t sure, but it was immediately filled with dust and rock. Everything happened so quickly Ruffnut was only vaguely aware of rocks impacting her body, but couldn’t register the pain, at least not yet. She thought she saw a flash of green in the near black cloud that surrounded her, but she wasn’t sure. Despite the sudden nature of the explosion, it seemed to take forever to end. Even after she’d hit the ground the rubble kept raining down around her. It would have been deafening, had she been able to hear anything.

When it was finally over, she couldn’t do anything but lay were she had fallen, stunned, trying to process what had just happened. She knew that Barf hadn’t released nearly enough gas to cause an explosion like that, but when it came time to try and think of another explanation, her brain ceased to function. That’s impossible, she kept thinking to herself, That’s impossible, that’s impossible…

When she was finally able sit up she spent a few seconds rubbing the grit from her eyes before they would allow her to see, through the dust that clung to the air, the ruin that was half a mountain.

“.!” She said. She tried to cough out as much debris as she could before she tried again. “Tuff?!”

She slowly stood up, waiting for any sudden flash of pain. All she felt, however, was a dull ache in her arm. Looking down, she noticed her arm seemed to be covered in a reddish paste and when she cleared it away she realized she had a pretty nasty gash running the length of her forearm, stopping just as it hit the back of her hand. Nasty as it was, it wouldn’t kill her, and the dust mixed with her blood to form a sort of bandage. She scanned the area around her and called for her brother again. Her heart leapt with she heard a sudden sound, but it was Barf and Belch, not Tuff. She stumbled over to them and was happy to see they seemed fine.

“Guys, help me find Tuff…” She wheezed. The two heads immediately started scouting the area. After a minute of searching Belch began frantically nosing a pile of rocks. Ruffnut hurried over and saw that it wasn’t a pile of rocks he was nosing, it was one big rock, on top of one Tuffnut Thorston. While Belch tried to wake Tuffnut up, Barf aimed a headbutt at the rock that sent it flying. Ruff rolled her brother onto his back and tried not to panic. His arm was hanging at an odd angle, and while she was momently relieved to hear him breathe, the odd papery sound that accompanied each breath terrified her.

She tried to remember their first aid courses her memory wouldn’t cooperate. Instead she began to pick the smaller rocks off of her brother. She hadn’t been able to manage more than a whisper since the blast. That changed when she took hold of what she thought was a pebble only to find it was Tuffunt’s exposed collar bone. She shrieked.

“TUFF, WAKE UP, COME ON WE HAVE TO GET BACK TO THE EDGE!” She was starting to hyperventilate now, “Barf! Belch! Go get help!!! PLEASE!” Barf turned to face the sky, but Belch would not be budged from his position over Tuffnut. Ruffnut was torn between screaming at Belch and knowing there was no way she could leave him either.

“It’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok…it’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok…” She said to no one, “They’ll come look for us. They’ll find us. Everything’s going to be ok…”

Across miles and miles of sea, the rest of the gang was starting to regroup. No one had any luck.

“Think the twins have?” Asked Fishlegs. Astrid shrugged.

“Who knows,” She said, “Hey, Fishlegs, how long did it take you to get to and from the island they’re at?”

“It was pretty far out there,” Said Fishlegs, “We didn’t get back until after dark, remember? They won’t be back for hours.” The unease that had been lurking in the back of Astrid’s mind stirred, but she knew her friend was right.

“Ok,” She said, “We’ll give them until midnight, but they aren’t back by then we’re going after them.”

“Deal,” Said Hiccup, sensing her discomfort.

Back on the half destroyed island Ruffnut sat, Tuff’s head in her lap, watching the sun dip lower and lower, her brother’s rasping breath the only sound to fill the air.

They’ll be here any minute, she thought, Any minute now. She repeated these words in her mind as each passing hour brought a little more darkness to the sky.

#httyd #ruffnut #Tuffnut #hiccup #astrid #fishlegs #fanfic #aftershocks #snotlout

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gascon-en-exil · 6 years

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I Liked Fates Before It Was Cool!: Birthright Part 1

Prologue

Opening Chapters

Chapters 6-11, in which Hoshido’s military is extremely disorganized and only regroups because the mere idea of Ryoma is just that awesome.

Chapter 6

Not much to say here. Corrin tells Xander they’re siding with Hoshido against Garon and implores him to do the same, Xander accuses them of being brainwashed and, after repeated refusals, tries to kill Corrin. Following this is a chapter that will probably be finished during the first enemy phase unless Ryoma gets really unlucky. I suppose it makes sense that this is the shortest of the three versions of Chapter 6 as Corrin went to the border already with the Hoshidans. While it’s kind of neat that all the Hoshidan royals are playable on this map as a bit of a preview, note that this is the fourth of just seven chapters in which Ryoma has appeared as a unit prior to his formal recruitment. We get it already, the guy’s an OP powerhouse and a clear favorite of the writers.

This is also where I should probably bring up My Castle, but I don’t have much to say here as it was never a feature I particularly enjoyed. Other FEs have addressed the concept of a base for your army integrated into gameplay far better than this. Genealogy and the Tellius games and others may not let you perv on your units taking a bath or disgust them with your horrendous cooking, but what does that really add to the experience? I know, I know, a bunch of small and scattered stat boosts....

Chapter 7

Oh, silly banter in the middle of an attack while surrounded by wounded and dying soldiers. Never change, FE. But seriously, even if he’s just Cordelia with a dick whose semen produces more Cordelias let’s take the time to appreciate that Subaki is the series’s first playable male pegasus knight. Fates’s take on classes is actually very egalitarian, a fact that often gets lost in its sea of fanservice and subtle story-enforced misogyny and everything about <insert character whose gender/sexuality-related presentation offends you most>. Moving on.

I’m still not entirely clear what happens to the Hoshidan army between this chapter and the preceding one. They really appear to just break ranks and scatter: Corrin and co. go fool around in the astral plane with Lilith, Ryoma and Takumi lead some of their forces toward Izumo (why?), no one cares about Hinoka, and Sakura retreats here to Fort Jinya to tend to the wounded at a makeshift military hospital. It makes sense that the Hoshidan army wouldn’t have the strictest organization thanks to their years of protection under Mikoto’s barrier, but the problem is the game never tells us that and we’re left to infer these things based on the events of the next few chapters.

The Nohrians meanwhile are still on the offensive, but they screwed up by sending Silas’s unit to attack the fort. Silas has an unhealthy attachment to Corrin that frankly rivals Camilla’s, and his abrupt defection here because he wants to hang out with his partially amnesiac BFF undoubtedly bodes ill for anyone associated with him when news of it reaches Nohr. I guess it’s cute in my case that Silas’s obsession with Corrin knows no gender, but the guy probably steals underwear to sniff. Saizo is entirely justified in being suspicious of him.

Paralogue 1

Oh yeah, I forgot all about this chapter. Mozu’s just not as memorably meme-worthy as Donnel, and recruiting her is less frustrating since you’re not forced to make her poke things in her joining chapter. It does make the Faceless seem like more of a threat to Hoshido, although as a consequence playing through this paralogue in Conquest always feels a little weird. This plus the first Castle Invasion were mostly for EXP and support farming. For anyone wondering, I’m going to be keeping most of my characters in their default class sets since I don’t feel like grinding skills or anything elaborate like that. Also, I’m playing on Normal, so I’ve got a lot of latitude in how I play which is how I prefer FE anyway.

Chapter 8

Hinoka sums up my feelings on her and her retainers. Azama’s got some amusing lines and if I knew more about Buddhism his...interesting take on philosophy would probably be even funnier, but that’s about it. And yeah, Hinoka really just does pop onto the scene with no explanation except that she’s also trailing her brothers and I guess everyone really did forget about her. Sucks to be a late development addition.

Iago tosses the conflict ball to ensure the party’s trip to the Wind Tribe village is a rough one, though since Fuga was set on testing Corrin’s worth by sending a bunch of his tribesmen to get slaughtered by their army anyway I wonder why he even bothered. This is a rare case of a desert map that isn’t a frustrating pain in the ass, because it’s small and there are Dragon Veins to reduce the amount of sand. I also like how even on the lowest difficulty of the easiest route the game is already throwing a boss at you with some annoying skills. Fuga’s motivations may be silly, but at least he leaves us with the memory of a good chapter, some cryptic foreshadowing for the Yato, and a shota wind mage who unfortunately continues in the tradition of Ricken stepping away from their archetypical dynamic after Tellius made it just a little too close to explicitly gay.

Chapter 9

Izana, huh...Izana is...

Let’s talk about Zola!

Zola is one of the rare Fates villains who isn’t (always) exactly what he looks like. On first glance he’s just a typical simpering syncophant with a fitting talent for illusions, but he actually comes with a bit of a character arc in Birthright which I have to say I wasn’t expecting. It was almost as unexpected as Leo’s unexplained appearance at the end of this chapter to kick off said arc by leaving Zola exiled. One big problem I have with Fates is how characters have a tendency to teleport around off-screen as the plot demands it, distance between locations or basic geography be damned, but it’s marginally more forgivable here since Leo is shown later in this route to know how to perform literal teleportation.

I believe this is also one of the only times in Birthright where Hinoka gets to do something that affects the plot, so good on her for acting suspicious of fake!Izana. She’ll go right back to being overshadowed by her brothers - including being overshadowed at being overshadowed - soon enough.

Izumo’s role as the designated neutral nation is delved into more thoroughly in Conquest, weirdly enough. Here Corrin and co. get left only with a vague directive to head toward the Bottomless Canyon and some of Azura’s song lyrics. That’s kind of a good thing, because I’ve got nothing on Izana now. I get that he’s an amusing surprise the first time around, but...who wrote him like that?

Chapter 10

Allow me to divert for a moment from the Takumi angst to pick some very large nits with the geography of this game. In the previous chapter Corrin learned that Ryoma and Takumi had been pushed to the Bottomless Canyon, which is nowhere near their location - but hold onto that thought. The canyon is clearly northwest of Izumo, yet the party goes south to Mokushu allegedly in an effort to reach them there. Fates has a bad time in general with giving a good impression of where its events are taking place, partly because the scale of the map is odd and not helped by it being a topographic rather than a political map like in every other FE, partly because there are times like this where the information presented appears to be simply wrong. What’s worse, the major plot development surrounding Takumi’s possession in Birthright does not, at least so far as I recall, necessitate that he have been possessed by Anankos or anyone else connected to the Bottomless Canyon. I’ll certainly be revisiting this when the time comes.

But...whatever. In spite of everyone getting lost except Ryoma (because of course) this is actually a good chapter, with a cramped map filled with environmental hazards to add challenge. The treachery of Mokushu spans all three routes and is one of those set pieces that benefits from development in each of them. Kotaro’s connection to the, er, Christmas ninjas (and elsewhere, Shura) isn’t developed here unless you choose to have them engage him in combat, but that just saves stuff for the other routes.

Chapter 11

Pictured: easily one of the most forgettable playable characters in this game. It’s a shame too, because she’s the only default kinshi knight and her bits of dialogue and few supports offer hints of an interesting backstory that would speak to gender roles in Hoshido. Alas, she’s merely a Corrinsexual.

This chapter itself is filler, but mechanically it’s good filler. Your new OP archer royal gets plenty of targets for his bow, there are some promoted generics to spice things up, and the Dragon Veins can either help or hinder you depending on how you use them. I don’t care for the antagonist fake-out between the opening and closing cutscenes and the chapter proper - where did possessed!Sumeragi the mysterious swordsman go while you were fighting the fliers? - but that’s a minor quibble. Corrin already beat that guy.

A larger problem is with Takumi’s development, or rather lack thereof. As I said last time the events of the opening chapters explain his initial hostility to Corrin (and Azura) quite well, and Mikoto’s death only reinforces that feeling. Why then does that hostility vanish so quickly in Birthright? Just one chapter after recruitment and he’s already turned his characteristic prickliness onto Zola instead, and I don’t recall it appearing much again except in the context of possession. It’s only the route the ends with Takumi as the final boss that allows him space for his feelings to develop organically (albeit in a negative direction), possibly because Conquest is the only one in which he’s not beholden to love Corrin like all playable characters in Avatar-centered games.

Next time: Birthright Chapter 12 - 18

#Fire Emblem #Fire Emblem Fates #Fire Emblem Birthright #FE14

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jamesginortonblog · 6 years

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It's nearly unheard of that a television series inspires a nationwide law that targets international corruption, money laundering and organized crime.

But that's what happened in the UK as a result of the James Norton-fronted drama McMafia, an eight-part series currently airing in the U.S. on AMC after completing its British run in mid-February.

McMafia delves into the incredibly profitable underworld of criminal activity including sex trafficking, drug dealing and money laundering and how the tempting tentacles of corruption reach into the highest levels of finance and government through the machinations of global organized crime.

Norton plays the British-raised, Ivy League-educated Alex Godman, the scion of a connected Russian family who moved to England to legitimize themselves after some shady dealings in the old country. He runs a London-based hedge fund, is engaged to his girlfriend, played by Juliet Rylance, is a model son to his parents and a loving brother to a troubled sister. In other words, the perfect hero, until he gets drawn into a series of scary scenarios that see him evolve from proverbial choirboy to criminal.

McMafia's tales of intrigue kick into high gear with the murder of Godman's uncle Boris, who, unlike the rest of the family, is still actively involved in the Russian mob.

To avenge the killing, Godman teams up with a powerful Russian-born Israeli businessman and politician, Semiyon Kleiman (David Strathairn) to battle the crime boss behind the killing, a brutal kingpin known as Vadim. Kleiman and Godman, first introduced by Uncle Boris and after overcoming their initial suspicions of each other, develop a sort of father-son relationship and conspire to take territories, including ports in India and Croatia, where Vadim has a "free pass" to ply his illegal commerce—and thus, take him down.

Some have compared the character of Alex Godman to that of The Godfather's Michael Corleone, the once-legitimate businessman who becomes the powerful head of a massive criminal enterprise.

But unlike The Godfather films, which were based on Mario Puzo's best-selling novel, McMafia is inspired by investigative journalism. The series is based on the 2008 nonfiction book McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld by Misha Glenny, who also serves as an executive producer.

The crime drama was created by Hossein Amini and James Watkins and is a coproduction of the BBC, AMC and Cuba Pictures. The series premiered in the United Kingdom on January 1 and created a huge amount of buzz, including the aforementioned "McMafia Law," more formally known as the Unexplained Wealth Order.

It requires that rich people who come to Great Britain from elsewhere must prove the legitimacy of their wealth. If found to be acquired from illegal activity, their assets can be seized and liquidated, with the money going to law enforcement. Great Britain's National Crime Agency estimates that £90 billion a year (about $126.5 billion) is now being laundered in the UK, twice the amount of the nation's entire defense budget.

The problem is so severe that UK security minister Ben Wallace recently wrote an op-ed in The Sunnewspaper which stated, "McMafia has brought home to millions of viewers the nature of serious and organized crime in the 21st Century. Sharp suited people swan around the nation's capital while all along they head up networks that trade on the back of the misery and suffering of others. It is time the flashy McMafia mob felt the long arm of the law."

Already, two £11 million London mansions, believed to be bought with "dirty money," were seized by court order in February.

Norton's Godman is in almost every scene of McMafia, whose story unfolds in multiple picturesque international locations including Belize, Istanbul, Belgrade, London, Prague, Zagreb, Cairo, Qatar, Russia and Israel.

"Alex Godman is not necessarily always likeable, but James brought such a sense of humanity, especially in scenes with his family, that counterbalanced the coldness of the character," says Watkins, who directed all eight episodes.

"James was very brave in committing to such a withheld character. In creating the antiheroic Alex Godman, we wanted to maintain a deliberate ambiguity as to his motivations. Is he acting out of revenge or out of survival? Or, somewhere within him, seen in occasional glimpses, is there a will to power at work, a seduction by the dark side?

"James is a very attuned actor and worked forensically at finding those little micro-details. One of the wonderful things about James's performance is the very subtle way in which he lets emotion leak through the mask, especially in the last episodes as events spiral out of control."

The 32-year-old Norton is well-known in the UK after leading roles in numerous prestige productions including War & Peace, Grantchester and Happy Valley. He also co-starred in last year's reboot of the feature film Flatliners.

Norton will appear again on the big screen toplining director Agnieszka Holland's Gareth Jones as the title character, a Welsh journalist who exposed genocide in the Stalinist Soviet Union, secured access to Hitler and Goebbels and was murdered in 1935.

We caught up with Norton by phone on location for the film in Ukraine where he said he was shivering in -15°C (5°F ) weather. The conversation was anything but chilly as we explored facets of his career and the echoes of McMafia in real life.

Tell us about the evolution of your character Alex Godman on McMafia.

It was a most exciting part to play with. During 150 days, we shot out of sequence and it was a huge challenge. Most of the conversations about Alex revolved around where we were in his arc- from clean-living man and golden boy to his fiancé Rebecca, and then how he becomes a linchpin in shady deals with Mafias.

James [Watkins] and I would try to understand his motives. We wanted to leave a lot of it open, to leave muddy his motives. You can claim to understand them but there are a myriad of reasons.

We were clear about protecting his family and then making a choice as he began moving away from fortuitous, virtuous reasons to avarice. While the creators- and audiences- are realizing Alex was being sucked in, Alex didn't realize it soon enough. Suddenly he surprised himself, and he's loving it, and it's incredibly sexy and seductive.

It was a layered role. His headspace doesn't ever stop giving you revelations about his relationship with his father and fiancé, and the associated Russians with inherent criminality. But there were a lot of commentators quick to make the connection about him running away [from organized crime] and then being seduced. It was a joy to play, right until the end of the last hour.

Many of your scenes are with David Strathairn. Let's talk about his character's magnetism, and how you are drawn into his nefarious agenda and the plot to destroy Vadim.

David's a master, and the journey Alex is on is incredibly defined by his relationship with Semiyon. He becomes almost like Alex's moral compass, kind of like Rebecca. Semiyon sort of sets it up that if he wants to protect his family, he has to take on Vadim. He became a dark, sinister individual but also becomes a paternal figure. To have a relationship with Vadim—they're so different, and corrupt, but they have their allies, children, lovers and they're not stock villains.

David played it beautifully, a real character, a likeable one if not more sinister. He's a politician we all recognize, progressive and yet he's subversive and deals in human trafficking. He brought home how close these politicians are to corruption.

Off set, David was wonderful. We went walking and swimming along the Croatian coastline. He's a lover of life and I loved hanging out with him.

That sounds fun, but what are some of the most challenging and memorable scenes that you have shot in the series?

We shot in Croatia, Serbia and London in very glamorous locations but I didn't get to Mumbai. One location was a beautifully landscaped villa with a beautiful mosaic ceiling – just unbelievably extravagant in the South of France, yet nearby was extraordinary poverty. Some of the scenes, particularly with David, felt like mini pieces of theater. James gave us time to mine those scenes.

The scenes with the parents were wonderful to play, so subtle and with the human subject so rich. With Vadim, when we crossed paths in the airport lounge, it was like punctuation marks on our respective journeys. All the other storylines were leading to this. The scene's very charged, halfway through the shoot, crackling and informed.

It was wonderful, and the reason you do this, when the story and situation take on a life on their own and memories and experiences inform it. It's like a mini explosion.

With Rebecca, the first thing we shot was the apartment stuff between them in the first week. It was incredibly emotionally charged material, when she moves out after she confronts him about travel. It was a sad day, and it was harder because we didn't have the backstory. On Alex's journey, she represents where he comes from, and you suddenly remember where he was with her. The tragedy is he does set out to protect her and it's gone way too far.

The family elements are especially resonant within McMafia - and Alex is always right in the middle of everything.

The family element allows us to explore the man, seduced by the subversive and the dark side. The family is a way of seeing that component. He ends up as a gangster, but he's ultimately a family man, a good son and brother. In one of the most tragic, heartbreaking scenes he's asked to cut loose his dad, Dmitri – it's almost self-sacrifice. I have a close relationship with my own father, and that day Alex was willing to sabotage his family was difficult.

Faye Marsay, Aleksey Serebryakov, Mariya Shukshina-- we become a real family. There was a concentrated, really fun sense of unity. All of us were so invested in the warmth and affection both and off camera, and they are all such great actors. Aleksey came in with different versions, using the Stanislavski method. We Brits were far too polite.

Aleksey would come in and say, "No, we do it like this." When Dmitri says goodbye to his brother in the morgue, he paced around and genuinely threw up in the sink. It was extraordinary.

You have had key roles in a number of series including Grantchester, Happy Valley and War & Peace. What have you learned from these experiences? Is there a throughline amongst these characters?

You learn through every role, with different headspaces, time periods and genders, you get to learn and have an emotional connection. I would hate to be typecast. If there is a throughline, the characters are very switched on and inquisitive - kind of trying to work it all out or not take life for granted. They're on some quest to understand it. Maybe I am completely confused, but they're all thinking and in existential angst.

Can you tell us a little bit about your upcoming starring role in Gareth Jones with Agnieszka Holland?

Gareth knew his place, and he's on an incredible journey but also on a mission. It's a true story about a young journalist, one of the first to interview Hitler in 1932 just at the emergence of Nazi-ism. He describes being on a plane with Goebbels, and then back home to the UK where he tells the British government about the emergence of totalitarianism. They dismiss this and of course we know what happens later.

Then he takes on a mission to Stalin's USSR. He was beginning to have doubts about Communism. He decided to check out the numbers and how they're paying for planes, etc. He was on a tour, went rogue and discovered Stalin's extortion at the expense of millions of lives. At home, they accused him of lying, "fake news" and being inflammatory.

It's terrifying in 1933 when they had so much less access to communications. In Ukraine, Stalin was able to get away it and millions died [as a result of famine]. Now we are using the same language. It's a very relevant story, what is truth and what is agenda. We feel a responsibility to respect his story. It's exciting, and I'm really enjoying it.

As McMafia unfolds, what do you hope viewers take away from it?

You want the work to be entertaining as we're in the business of entertaining people. But with the last few years of Brexit, Trump and populist right-wing governments coming to power, and corporations being so powerful, corruption is no long self-contained. It's straddling everything, and we're in unknown territory.

I know in the UK they want to know what that corruption looks like. In the days of The Sopranos and The Godfather, organized crime contained an element of romanticism but did not really affect us. For a show to provide understanding of financial corruption is important, to see how a hedge fund manager facilitates a drug deal. Aside from the human-driven drama, it is also about corruption and transparency, and will hopefully bring some clarity.

With the UK McMafia Law, suddenly we are part of a much larger conversation, more pertinent and crucial. I hope for those people in the audience who are fully engaged and hungry for clarify that this is a perfect show.

#James Norton #McMafia #article #Interview

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the-truest-sentence-i-know · 4 years

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Chapter Two: Sherwood

Fandom: Disney’s Descendants

Summary: Quinn Little, raised in Auradon by Little John, finds out that her heritage is not what she thought it was. When Little John tells her that her real father was a villain, she must go on a journey of self-discovery that will bring her to all the forbidden places in the United States of Auradon. Pre-canon & canon compliant to the first Descendants film.

Word Count: 2.7k | Ch 2/23

ao3 ||| ff.net ||| wattpad ||| quotev

The week passed fairly quickly with Mark there. Quinn could take all the things that usually drove her nuts, including the books on the cruelty of villains and heroics of the heroes that Fairy Godmother not-so-subtly had her read because she could talk to him about it all. He understood her just like all the Sherwood kids did.

He told her of his adventures travelling through the lands behind the Great Wall and before Quinn knew it, it was Friday and she was waiting for the bus that would take her to Sherwood Forest. Quinn had done this trip so many times that she went on autopilot as she mulled over the Isle of the Lost again.

It seemed like a good idea at first, to have all the villains in one place, with no magic and no escape. But now most of them had kids, who had done nothing to be in such a terrible place. Surely, others must see the unfairness of their situation too.

Soon the train pulled into Locksley Station and Quinn saw Dad standing on the platform, towering over everyone else. She smiled and pulled out her earbuds before stepping off the train.

“How was the trip?” he asked.

Quinn hugged him. “It was good.”

“I brought Onyx for you,” he said as they approached the stable section of the parking lot.

“Onyx!” she exclaimed, rushing forward to stroke her velvety nose. “Hey, girl.”

Riding back, Quinn felt her chest get lighter as they got closer to the forest. While Mark had helped back at school, nothing was like coming home.

“How was your week?” asked Dad.

“It was alright,” Quinn said. “Did you know that Mark is back to help with archery at school?”

“I thought I’d heard Robin say something about that. How’s he doing?”

“Good. He really helped me handle everything this week.”

They were silent for a little while, as they entered the forest. Quinn breathed in deeply, filling her lungs with the earthy air.

Soon they reached the village, a cluster of houses built up in the trees, with ladders to go up and bridges between them, around a well and a large fire pit. While they did have electricity and internet and everything, the village still looked very much like it used to.

•••

After supper that night, Dad and Quinn sat on the back porch of the house.

“Is this the time when you tell me to try not to sound like a traitor at school?” Quinn asked after they had sat there in silence for a while.

She heard Dad take a deep breath and he stared up at the stars that peeked between the leaves. “You know I love you, right?” he asked quietly.

“Of course, I do, Dad,” Quinn said, realizing that this was serious. “And I love you, too.” Thinking she knew where this was going, Quinn sat forward in anticipation. She had always known this was coming; he was going to tell her about her mother, she was sure of it.

“Quinn... you’re… oh, how do I say this? You’re adopted.”

She blinked. This was not at all what she had been expecting. “What?”

“I love you like a daughter, Quinn, and I’ve raised you for most of your life, but.”

It was hard to fully understand what was happening. “So, who is my biological father? Was he one of the Merry Men?”

Dad shook his head. “His name was Starkey. I don’t know what his first name was. He was first mate to Captain Hook.”

Starkey. Captain Hook. “He was a villain?” Quinn’s eyes were wide as she stared at Dad. She did not know what to do with this new information. “Was?”

“He died in the final battle,” he said, and Quinn breathed in a slow breath. “I know this is a lot to take in,” he continued.

Quinn stared at Dad and then out at the village. In the clearing, there were some kids, running around the fire, as she used to when she was younger. All those years, not quite fitting in with people at school, her only friends being those from around here, raised slightly more in the morally grey area. She did not belong here, and that was why she never felt like she did. She was a Villain Kid, not a Hero Kid. She belonged on the Isle, with people like her, not here, pretending to fit in with royalty.

“I’m going for a walk,” she said, standing up abruptly.

“Quinn,” Dad said, getting up as well. “I know this is hard –”

“No, you don’t, Dad!” Quinn shouted, surprising herself with her anger. “You belong here. You’re a hero. I’ve never felt like I belonged, and now I know why!” She turned and headed into the forest.

“Quinn!” Dad called after her.

“I need some time alone!” Quinn ran deeper into the darkness of the trees. She knew the forest well, and the darkness did not frighten her. She ran and ran, using the faint light of the moon and stars to guide her.

Villain. Villain. Villain. The word echoed through her mind with every footfall.

Maybe a villain kid could live in Auradon. After all, she had made it this far. No one else knew, otherwise she would have never heard the end of it. As long as no one found out, she could go on pretending until she had fully figured this out.

Dad would get worried if she did not come home soon, and even though she did not want to talk about it, Quinn decided to head back.

“Quinn!” Dad exclaimed when she walked through the door. He was sitting at the table, a cup of tea in front of him. “I was beginning to think you were going to spend the night in the forest.”

She shook her head. “I just needed to clear my head.”

“And is it cleared?”

“A bit.”

“Do you have questions?”

“No, I’m good for now.” She started for the loft, then turned back. “Hey, Dad, can we hang out in the forest tomorrow?”

His expression brightened. “Of course, we can.”

Quinn smiled. “Goodnight, Dad.”

“Goodnight, Quinn.”

•••

The rest of the weekend went without a single mention of Quinn’s true heritage. On Saturday, she and Dad spent the day in the forest, climbing and moving unseen through the trees. Quinn was better at it than her dad now sometimes, although her experience was still lacking compared to him. On Sunday, Mark was back, so they spent the morning with his family.

After lunch, Mark and Quinn went out to shoot while Dad, Robin and Marian chatted. After a little while, Mark turned to her. “Alright, what’s up?”

She drew her bowstring. “What do you mean?”

“Something’s different.”

Loosing her arrow, she watched as it lodged in the target, close to the bull’s eye. “Not that I know of.”

“You may have gotten better at lying,” said Mark, stepping up to take a shot. “but I can still tell.”

Quinn looked at him. “I’ve gotten better at lying?”

He smiled at her worried expression. “Don’t change the subject.” Mark loosed his arrow and got a perfect bull’s eye. He grinned.

Rolling her eyes, Quinn stepped up again. “I don’t want to talk about it. Not here.” After loosing her arrow, she looked him right in the eye to make sure he knew she was serious. He nodded and did not mention it again.

After supper, Dad, Mark, and Quinn rode down to Locksley so she and Mark could catch the train to Auradon Prep. Dad hugged her longer than usual at the platform, but she did not mind. She needed it.

•••

The school week started again and Quinn told herself that she was not going to think about it. And yet, she found herself in the library researching him and paying extra attention whenever there was a mention of the Isle and its inhabitants.

It got worse as the week went on, Quinn started finding herself wanting to defend the inhabitants of the Isle whenever they were brought up. For if she was not born inherently evil – hopefully – how did they know the VKs were?

Even worse than her odd behaviour was her lack of findings in the library. There were hardly any mentions of Starkey anywhere. In Peter Pan’s biography, he was referred to as ‘Gentleman Starkey’ and the only thing said about him was that because he had once been an usher in a public school, he was still dainty in his ways of killing. It wasn’t exactly a comforting thing to hear about one’s biological father.

Quinn had always been good at pretending. She had to be, otherwise she probably would have been expelled long ago.

But now things were getting too much. Never before had she realized how black and white everything was to everyone. It had never bothered her this much before.

In Biology, when learning about genetics, it was suggested by a student that perhaps evilness and goodness could be passed on. The teacher merely said that it was unknown if it was a heritable trait. History painted the heroes as perfect people in flowing capes and immaculate hair. And for the first time, she began to question the narrative. Was everybody as perfect as they were in the history books? If they were wrong about inherent evilness, what else were they wrong about?

No one had yet mentioned Captain Hook or his men. Not until Chivalry on Friday morning.

Chivalry was known as an easy class. Everyone knew how to be polite and this class was just an extension of that.

“Today, we are going to talk about how chivalry and politeness can be used by those with malevolent intentions,” said Miss Dwerven. “Charm is a tool that villains often use to deceive.”

Quinn sighed and rested her head on her arms. This was the one class where she hoped there would be minimal mentions of villains.

“And no villain was as talented in deceptive politeness and charm than Captain Hook.”

Her head snapped up again and she saw Captain Hook’s mug shot on the smartboard. She had seen pictures of him before of course, but it was different now. This was a man who knew her father, who trusted him to be his first mate.

“…politeness hid a nefarious motive,” Miss Dwerven continued. “and it was not only the captain of this evil crew that used this tactic. His first mate, Mr. Starkey, is often characterized by his gentlemanly behaviour, even when committing evil acts.”

No mug shot appeared on the screen, just a grainy photo of captain Hook’s entire crew. Quinn squinted, trying to pick him out. Although she knew it was ridiculous, she felt like she would recognize him right away, even though she had no idea what he looked like. Before she could stop herself, she raised her hand.

“Miss Little?”

“Do we know anything else about this Mr. Starkey?”

“And why would you want to know that? The moral to be learned from men like him is that becoming a villain always ends badly.”

“I just thought that maybe there was something in his past that drove him on that path.”

“That is preposterous, Miss Little, some people are just born evil.”

There it was again, the idea of inherent evilness. “But if their villainy is innate, then how can we blame them for it?”

Miss Dwerven blinked. “I do not see the point behind these questions, Miss Little.”

“I was just thinking that if their villainy is a choice, then something must have driven them to make that choice. And learning about these circumstances could help in understanding them, or helping others to not take the same path.”

“There is no way for us to understand villains, as heroes.”

“But what is the truth? Are the villains born evil, or do they make their wrong choice?”

Whispers rippled over the class. The other students were staring, but Quinn did not care. For once, she wanted the truth. Miss Dwerven was still searching for an answer, so she continued.

“Because if it is a choice, then our focus should be on the children of the villains. They also have a choice, and on the Isle, they are only presented with one of the options.”

“Miss Little, I am surprised at you. What is this fascination you have with the villains’ children?”

There were a lot of whispers now.

“It is not a fascination, Miss Dwerven,” Quinn said, an edge of irritation in her voice. “I just want to know what I am supposed to believe. I want to know what our king’s position is on this subject since that is what we are to think.” She could not help the sarcasm that crept into her tone.

Miss Dwerven was visibly shocked. “Are you questioning our leader, Miss Little?”

“No, I am not,” she said. “But even if I was, are we, as citizens, not allowed to question and criticize our leaders?”

“King Adam has made this entire kingdom what it is today.”

“A place where one is not to question their leaders’ decisions,” Quinn snapped back. “Are we under an authoritarian leader now, Miss Dwerven? Because I think that Robin and his Merry Men would be interested to know that.” As soon as she finished that sentence, she realized that she had gone too far. She had gotten extremely close to suggesting a rebellion. Not knowing what else to do, she got up, grabbed her bag and walked out the door, ignoring the teacher’s protests behind her.

•••

Once again, Quinn found herself in the archery range.

She shot arrow after arrow into the targets, trying very hard to clear her head, when all it did was spin further. It had always been implied that villains were just evil, with no interest in why they did what they did. They were just evil. But she had never thought about how that somehow extended to their children.

And the nagging implication about what that meant for her.

Arrows whizzed through the air, each thud as they stuck in the target like a nail in her coffin. If they were right, then was she guaranteed to turn out badly? Was that why she never quite fit in in Auradon Prep? And perhaps, it was also why she liked Sherwood so much because the Merry Men used to technically be criminals as well.

She managed to split an arrow, an act that would normally have warranted a celebration, but now the sound just felt like a sign of sudden realization.

“I don’t belong here,” she whispered, sitting down on the bench. With the words out in the open like that, she felt a strange sense of relief, followed by utter panic as she stared straight ahead, the beginnings of tears prickling in her eyes.

“Quinn?” said a voice from behind her.

Quinn jumped and turned to see Mark standing by the door. She quickly tried to wipe any traces of tears from her face, but from his concerned expression, it was too late for that.

“Quinn, what’s wrong?” he asked, rushing forward.

So, she told him everything. Of course, she did; he was her best friend, and who else could she possibly talk to about this?

Mark was speechless for a few moments and Quinn could tell that he was trying to think of something supportive to say.

“Mm-hmm,” he said, staring blankly at a point slightly above her head. “So. what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to the Isle of the Lost,” she blurted out.

“You’re what?”

Something inside of her had snapped without her realizing it. The decision had been there in her mind the entire time. “I am going to the Isle of the Lost because that’s where I belong.”

“How do you know that you’ll belong there?”

“If I don’t belong here, then it makes sense that I’ll belong there.”

“Does your dad know about this plan?”

“No, of course not. He would never let me.” She paused. “And also, I literally just decided.”

He shook his head, a small smile slipping onto his face. “This is a terrible idea.”

Quinn knew that look. “So, you’re gonna help me?” she asked, surprised.

Sighing, he stood up. “If I don’t, you will get caught and get in even more trouble.” He headed towards the door. “Well, let’s go, we have a lot to do before you leave.”

#descendants #disney's descendants #descendants fanfic #descendants oc #vk #vk oc #hk #auradon #story: reckless paradise #my writing #amwriting #wattpad #wattpadlife #ao3 #ff.net

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starryoak · 7 years

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The Story Of The Time I Almost Got Shanked By A First Grader (+A Bonus Story About Being Chased With An Axe!)

I am not joking at all. It's a fun story. Some of y'all who are like, my best friends, may have heard this one before, but let's be honest, you can never hear a story this bizarrely macabre too many times.

I was reminded of this very fun fact by the very awesome @titleknown, who was kind enough to help me reformat this tale after I told it to him, into something actually legible by humans who aren’t me. So anyway, let’s have a round of applause before we gather around the fire to tell the story of ‘the time I got held up at knifepoint by a first grader’.

Before we begin, I have to preface this with the slight correction that it was a metal butterknife; not like a knife made for stabbing or anything, or a steak knife. But I'm on the 'Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves' side of the knife situation. Essentially I stand by the belief that any knife is a bad knife to be stabbed with including dull ones, because; 'It's dull you twit, it'll hurt more'

This was about the general look of the knife... does this look pleasant to be stabbed with? I didn't end up getting stabbed, but I'm making a point that it wasn't like 'Aww, the kid's using a cafeteria plastic knife' or something, but rather 'This kid smuggled a metal thing into school with the express purpose of holding somebody up with it'... though I would also argue that either way, a kid wanting to use a knife like that is not a good sign.

Now, I assume you have at least one huge question on your mind; why the hell would he want to do this?... Unfortunately, my answer isn't particularly able to explain it

Best I can tell, he wanted to hold me and my friends up at recess for reasons I don't know. Probably because we were the kind of kids who could get bullied by a first grader, but you know, still doesn't fully explain the point when 'actual real knives' came into the equation.

Essentially, the kid had a jump rope and a knife, and approached me and my fourth grader friends (I was in fifth grade), and since we decided that we would prefer not to be shanked by a tiny child, we instead sat there for the whole recess pretending to be tied up with the jump rope.

Part of what made it both more absurd and somehow even scarier was the fact that he was attempting to tie us up despite not knowing how to tie knots. So instead, we had to sort of let this child with the knife wrap us up with a jump rope and hold it ourselves.

We had to pretend we were completely unable to escape/unable to move because he made threats that implied if we escaped he would totally shank us (not the exacty words he used, but you know), Which was harder than it seems, when you're not sure how much longer you're going to have to hold onto a rope and stay in one place.

So we stayed the whole like, 30 minutes of that recess waiting for it to be over so we could go tell a teacher 'Holy shit this kid brought a fucking knife to school and tried to hold us up'. 30 minutes isn't that long in the scheme of things, but when you're being held up by a stab-happy child, it's an eternity.

To make it even better, he was waving it around and making threats, which sounds funny in concept, but really isn't. In theory; 'Tiny first grader tries to hold up someone with a knife' sounds like the setup for a joke or punchline or something. but it's not exactly as funny when you're being threatened with a knife, butter or not. And especially when you’re not willing to hurt a first grader because you're pretty sure 'but he had a knife' wouldn't have protected you from the consequences of beating up a little kid in self defense.

Now, I'm sure some of you are wondering, and something that people always ask me when I tell this story; Why we didn't beat him up? I have 5 answers as to why we did not, in fact, beat up the small child

1. As I have previously mentioned, we were giant weenies.

2. He had a knife

3. We were pretty sure it would be easier to wait it out

4. Did i mention he had a knife? And that being stabbed with a blunt knife did not sound like a fun time?

5. And anyway, we'd probably get in trouble for hurting the kid because he was a 1st grader and we were 4-5th graders. Even if the kid had a knife, people tend to frown upon punting small children.

I must stress that in any situation where someone else has any form of instrument that could be used to stab me, I would prefer complying rather than get stabbed, regardless of how blunt or sharp the knife is. I do not want to have 'shanked by a first grader' on my tombstone, thank you very much.

And i have to add as a thing, this kid is the kind of kid who 100% WOULD HAVE actually shanked us had we not complied. He wasn't making idle threats; he totally would have, and we weren’t just assuming that the child was telling the truth.

He had a history with being violent and also liked punching his 'friends' who he treated like lackeys; so basically the kid was a violent little shit with this obsession with being some kind of cowboy or highwayman/robber and he targeted us for a few days before, BAM, knife.

As an addition to this story/a motivation for the 'villain' of this piece, I did figure out a little bit what exactly might have been up with him. Later in the year during the DREADED 'talk' we were taken to the teachers' lounge for the whole.. Stuff. You know, the dreaded sex ed. Skipping that.

Lo and behold, on the fridge of the teachers lounge is, basically like a mixture of a wanted poster and warning sign, is Mr. Shanky McStabberson, as I'll refer to him from now on.. Apparently the kid had congenital analgesia.

Which would have been complete nonsense words to me had the sign not helpfully been very clear; "Warning: Student Shanky McStabberson is a problem student, keep in mind that hehas congenital analgesia which means he can't feel pain"... Look, I don't know what the exact format was, all I remember is thinking to myself 'oh fuck the kid doesn't know what pain is/feels like'. Which also made it more real that he wouldn't realize exactly how BAD shanking someone would be.

It was an interesting day.

What's especially strange here is that only a year ago I'd been chased with a woodchoppers axe by a girl I called a “friend,”... so I don't know why the butterknife kid scared me. But I guess the whole 'first grader out for blood' thing caught me way off guard. Nothing can really prepare you for that kind of thing, I suppose.

For the record though, in case anyone is under the impression I hang out with future axe murderers, I was not friends with the axe wielding girl because I wanted to be, it was because she used to bully me. and then one day wanted to be best friends... and she was terrifying enough that I was like 'being friends has to be less scary than being her victim'.

Long story short NO IT'S NOT.

It turned out that her idea of cops and robbers involves weapons (though to be fair we had a rule about like throwing distractions, like, picking up a rock and throwing it so it clinks and distracts the cop... we played a strange version of that game, but it never became a problem before this incident) and her idea of a weapon was stealing my neighbor's woodchopper's axe and... uh, it gets kinda fuzzy.

The memory of the whole game is actually pretty fuzzy up til the point of 'BEING CHASED WITH AN AXE', because that takes up a significant portion of my memory of the events, mainly because... well, being chased with an axe tends to make one focus on the axe. I went inside and decided the game was over because FUCK THAT NOISE.

Essentially 'It's all fun and games until someone pulls out AN AXE’

...you could say I've led a very interesting life for a suburban Californian white chick.

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